The wind was howling like a lone dog in heat. I hate the
wind. I sat down on the hearth listening to it with all its hissing and
moaning. I looked out the window and could see the willow tree in the field
thrashing to and fro. Wind is no excuse to withhold long distance mileage out
on the road. I could hear Kaedell’s voice in the back of my head,
“Mom, the wind makes us strong.”
No, I thought to myself, what the wind does, is, make me ornery. Running in the wind feels like I’m trying to push a dead cow
down the road and I don’t need any help feeling encumbered.
After I dressed I heard the next dismal sound, rain, hitting
the glass. My attitude began to grow increasingly testy. I questioned back and
forth in my head what to do. I had conversations with the man up stairs, who
governs it all, ran questions past Him as to what he had in mind for my ten
miles of agony.
As I made my way over to the kitchen sink, I stood for
sometime looking at the bottle of Ensure, and then vowed a sacred vow, “I am
not drinking this crap and going back to bed.”
As I stood pondering, I heard the rain stop. I walked to the
back door and stepped outside. I took my time looking over the situation,
enlisted all brainpower in trying to assess the cloud matter that was swirling
everywhere. It all looked threatening enough, but strangely somewhere inside my
frame, a little feeling of optimism began to grow and I decided I was going to
challenge it all.
I walked back in the house, noted Kaedell hadn’t called,
went over to the kitchen counter, grabbed the Ensure and choked down the entire
bottle. That’s it! I’m running! I plugged in my equipment; threw on my vest and
out the front door I went.
My Garmin finally came. I love Mother’s Day! Thank you
everyone! It felt good strapped on my wrist. When I stepped onto the road I
fired up the satellite. Technology is amazing. A little device on my wrist that
can tell me where I am, where I’m going, how to get home, how far I’ve been,
and a plethora of other information. Too bad the little amazing piece of
machinery can’t just run for me! Ha Ha Ha Ha
I hadn’t started down the road very far when I felt raindrops
on my face. I looked up at the sky and pleaded. “OH, come on! Please!!! I have
a long way to go!” I have to laugh
because I no more got that request out of my mouth and the wind began to blow
hard. I started laughing.
“I get it.” I
said,”
I knew right then and there, as bad as I hate wind, my
Heavenly Father was doing me a favor. He was blowing away the rain! That’s how
life is. That’s how prayers are answered, often times in ways we least expect
and don’t like! I think my Heavenly Father has a sense of humor. I chuckled,
expressed gratitude in the wind and continued down the road with a big smile
and firm dose of positive thinking.
“Today’s going to be a great day, no matter what.”
It wasn’t long and the wind calmed right down just after the
rain quit. I took it as a blessing for having accepted my plight with cheerfulness.
With no wind and no rain, I was now pleasantly content with the day’s events
and told my Heavenly Father thank you.
I was now nearly a half-mile down the road. The sky was
pitch black and looked more like mid-night than 5:15 in the morning. Where is
the light, I wondered? I had cranked my tunes up and my pace was deliberately
slow. That’s when it happened. Suddenly and without any warning, there was a
large animal running across the ends of my feet. It shot across me like a
thunderbolt and I let out a blood-curdling scream. The whole incident sent my
pace into high gear and I’ve never run so fast in my whole life. Suddenly I was
impressively sprinting.
At first I thought it was a skunk, but after it cleared my
feet, I saw the rings around its tail. It didn’t take the little varmint long
before he bolted into the weeds on the other side of the road. It all happened
so fast I thought my heart was going to fail to restart! I’m sure it stopped
beating for nearly a minute! The funny part is I knew I had scared him as much
as he had scared me.
After my 60-second sprint, my heart started beating again
and my lungs were able to suck in some much needed air. I started singing, boisterously
loud, “La, la la la la.” Went the chorus and I kept on singing down the road; I
was making sure the animal kingdom knew I too was awake and milling about the
universe. I also quickly moved my body to the center of the road. I decided to
take my chances with any cars verses being run over by a wild animal.
I soon met up with Kaedell (a welcome sight) and told her
the whole story. Now we were both a little cautious as to the company hiding in
the weeds as we made our way down the road. Once we neared more houses and fewer
weeds, we forgot about the animals and focused our attention on how warm the
morning was, even without light. I
pulled out my phone and realized our normal temperatures of 45 degrees had shot
up to 62. Wow, it was warm!
By the time we were nearing Kaedell’s house, she had decided
she was hot and she quickly dumped her extra layers at her house as we passed
by. We continued on our way.
The weekly tradition of running long mileage has now become ritualistic
in its patterns that are repeated from beginning to end. The morning begins the
same. The route is the same, the watering holes, our common stops, all fit into
the plan that is executed over and over again. The river bottoms greet us at
about the same hour and we make our way up over the small hill to the cemetery
just as the sun positions it’s self in about the same place in the sky.
I guess you could say the height of our ritual is reached
and celebrated as we make the half way mark, turn ourselves homeward bound. As
we do we always stop just as the birds cry to us and we pluck the life
sustaining liquid from the same spot we placed it in the night before, drinking
as we go. I have grown to love the ritual.
As Kaedell and I found ourselves pushing towards home, I
opened up my packet of Gu and proceeded to take some in. Suddenly a small glob
shot across me hitting Kaedell right in the hand. I started laughing. When I’m
running I have no extra air for laughing. Kadie tried to wipe it off her hand.
I tried to help. We both learned something very important about Gu! Do not
touch that stuff because Gu is not really Gu, it’s just an abbreviation for
GLUE!
Suddenly we were sticking to each other and sticking to
everything in sight. Luckily there was a puddle near by and we both went over
and tried to wash it off our hands and anything else we’d touched.
We continued all the way home laughing and talking about
some of the day’s events. As we rounded the corner nearing home, I felt
something. I was running but my pants were sticking to my leg. I looked down
and realized a glob of Gu had finally made its path all the way down my leg and
had reached the bottom of my pants, now firmly cementing them to my leg.
Kaedell took one look at my pants and flipped into a state
of hysteria! I must admit it was pretty funny. I looked like I had poured it on
me instead of ingesting it. We were almost home now and her laughter slowed her
right down. I was mumbling statements like,
“Oh good hell.” And
“I can’t even eat Gu out on the road. How am I going to ever
manage drinking orange juice on the run when we have to stop at the aid
stations.”
All my beefing and moaning with the sight of Gu dripping
down my black pant leg only served to heighten Kaedell’s jovial giggles.
All the laughing eased my aching joints and sore muscles as
Kaedell and I walked up the driveway. Today was a good day, a good run, and a
good memory.
When we got in the house, we drank our chocolate milk,
popped our Ibuprofen 800’s and I tried to wash some of the Gu off me.
After that I sat down on the floor to take my shoes off and
stretch. As I pulled my left shoe off I noticed it was dirty. I was angry at
the sight of dirt on my nice shinny white Newtons. It was my left shoe. I pulled it a little closer to see what
was on it. I wasn’t kidding when I said an animal ran across my feet. The muddy
little claw print was on my shoe, evidence of my morning scare.
My left shoe is sacred now! I don’t think I’ll ever wash it.
I want to show it to my grandkids when I’m 80.
“Yup, sonny! That’s where the little critter ran across your
grandma’s foot!”
Isn’t life amazing!
I love running!
(Mileage 5/18/2010 - 10 miles)
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