Thursday, October 12, 2006
How To Put It In Words...
Dear Diary,
This morning I woke up at 6 to give myself a little time to mill around before heading out for my run. My room was dark so that didn't help. After last week's hot spell, we are definitely approaching autumn temperatures. I had slept in my 'Who is Sebastian Blax?' tee so all I had to do was slip on some shorts, lace of the kicks and head out the door.
This whole process took me almost 40 minutes as I was just not in the mood.
I decided on 3 miles to see how everything felt. Boy! Talk about white people -- I couldn't get any rythm for the first half-mile! When I reached ODC I didn't even bother to stretch at the usual spot and, instead, headed in the direction of the mile mark. It wasn't a surprise that I was fresh (after some 5 days off) but I didn't have a hint of discomfort in my knees and this pleased me.
I passed under Campbell at 10:56 -- just under 7 min pace -- and decided to ease off. No reason to go crazy on a 3 miler. I thought about my recent interview with Cathy from SAR and how my answer to her question about my favorite place to run had been ODC (Aviation) parkway. One of the best things (for me anyways) about running where no one is around is that you can raise and drop your pace without getting stares.
I remember Train once wrote a piece about how he was doing a fartlek around his neighborhood and when he came off the hard portion and back to his jog, some bitch out watering her lawn made some comment like, "Slowing down now, huh?" -- As if he was just out there at 5:30 am to appease his conscience about his blood pressure so he could go back to doing the stupid shit that he had convinced his self was the height of the good life, and as if it's a fucking triumph for humanity that he can slow to a crawl of a jog just because he feels like it and it makes him happy.
I make scenes when people say shit like that me -- but this all isn't my point. My point is that, while I ever see anyone on ODC at all, I've never seen anyone running (unless they were boxing in the air while jogging) on it -- much less anyone I would recognize there. That is to say, I don't think Abdi spends as much time on ODC as I wish he did (given that I marked the 400s with spray paint just for him).
But today, as I continued out, I saw a runner in all red coming at me. Red shorts, red longsleeve shirt, red-black skin -- just cruising (as I felt I was). We were on opposite shoulders of the trail so I got to avoid that akwardness but as we got close and made I contact, I noticed the runner was wearing an Arizona Cross Country shirt.
It was none other than the one and only, Oved Mutanya (or it might have been Moses Mpanga -- I don't know, I've never met either one up close)!
It was definitely the highlight of my day.
I ended the run in 22 minutes and hope to head out this afternoon for a little more (or at least a bike ride).
This morning I woke up at 6 to give myself a little time to mill around before heading out for my run. My room was dark so that didn't help. After last week's hot spell, we are definitely approaching autumn temperatures. I had slept in my 'Who is Sebastian Blax?' tee so all I had to do was slip on some shorts, lace of the kicks and head out the door.
This whole process took me almost 40 minutes as I was just not in the mood.
I decided on 3 miles to see how everything felt. Boy! Talk about white people -- I couldn't get any rythm for the first half-mile! When I reached ODC I didn't even bother to stretch at the usual spot and, instead, headed in the direction of the mile mark. It wasn't a surprise that I was fresh (after some 5 days off) but I didn't have a hint of discomfort in my knees and this pleased me.
I passed under Campbell at 10:56 -- just under 7 min pace -- and decided to ease off. No reason to go crazy on a 3 miler. I thought about my recent interview with Cathy from SAR and how my answer to her question about my favorite place to run had been ODC (Aviation) parkway. One of the best things (for me anyways) about running where no one is around is that you can raise and drop your pace without getting stares.
I remember Train once wrote a piece about how he was doing a fartlek around his neighborhood and when he came off the hard portion and back to his jog, some bitch out watering her lawn made some comment like, "Slowing down now, huh?" -- As if he was just out there at 5:30 am to appease his conscience about his blood pressure so he could go back to doing the stupid shit that he had convinced his self was the height of the good life, and as if it's a fucking triumph for humanity that he can slow to a crawl of a jog just because he feels like it and it makes him happy.
I make scenes when people say shit like that me -- but this all isn't my point. My point is that, while I ever see anyone on ODC at all, I've never seen anyone running (unless they were boxing in the air while jogging) on it -- much less anyone I would recognize there. That is to say, I don't think Abdi spends as much time on ODC as I wish he did (given that I marked the 400s with spray paint just for him).
But today, as I continued out, I saw a runner in all red coming at me. Red shorts, red longsleeve shirt, red-black skin -- just cruising (as I felt I was). We were on opposite shoulders of the trail so I got to avoid that akwardness but as we got close and made I contact, I noticed the runner was wearing an Arizona Cross Country shirt.
It was none other than the one and only, Oved Mutanya (or it might have been Moses Mpanga -- I don't know, I've never met either one up close)!
It was definitely the highlight of my day.
I ended the run in 22 minutes and hope to head out this afternoon for a little more (or at least a bike ride).
