I write to you now from an undignified ball position on my bed, where I am alternating grading papers and falling dead asleep. This morning, I ran nine miles for Crohn's Half-Marathon Training (it was supposed to be 8.5 miles, but did not take into account my poor sense of direction). I had every intention of doing this at a noble strolling pace, but it turned out that if I wanted to keep on course, I had to keep the rest of the group in my line of sight. Good-bye, noble stroll. Hello, running interspersed with occasional Jane-Fondaesque speed-walking.
I sort of liked having to run as fast as I could to keep the group in sight, particularly with all the turns. It was sort of Bourne Identityish for a while there. There they were rounding the corner! Quick, get them before they melt into the oncoming crowd! There's a bomb under that car! A really hot French woman wants to make out with me! I'm sailing away from this building by convenient steel cable!
Toward the end, however, I was beginning to lose hold of the conceit that I was Jason Bourne in a CCFA running shirt, making my way through the Marina to cure Crohn's Disease, and began to just feel really, really tired instead.
"Just finish," I thought, which swiftly gave way to creepy out-loud exhortations of "Just finish," and then, "Come on, just finish," and then, "Just finish, just finish, just finish, you're finishing, you're doing it, you're finishing," and then, before I knew it, I had done it. I'd finished it. Nine miles. Running.
"It's so hard to be in The Bourne Identity!" I told the group. They smiled kindly, as nice people will smile at the slightly deranged.
Fast-forward about forty-five minutes to Fort Phil Collins, where after a shower and an egg, I slept for three hours straight. Then I woke up, drank some Emergen-C, ate half an avocado, and went back to sleep again. If allowed, I think I would sleep for hundreds of years. How do people run long distances and then lead regular lives? I think I just expended the amount of energy it takes me to conduct a normal week of business.
What I'd really like to do is crawl into a cave in the Arctic with several hundred pounds of seal and sleep out the winter, like a bear. But I'm not going to do that (at least not yet). Grading calls. So much grading. And you know what? I'm a roll here; I'm going to finish that too.
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Nice going! The idea of group long runs alternately terrifies and tantalizes me. I like the idea of company; I'm horrified at the thought of actually having to Keep Up. Considering it a form of action movie is an interesting idea.
I hear you on the post long-run exhaustion, by the way. I almost always need a long nap afterward, not to mention a giant bowl of cereal.
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