A bend in the form. . . . February and the Year of the Rabbit.

Less than two months until the Gator Trail 50k.  Forty Miles (and a mule) will get me to the finish, maybe, but my weekly total should be more like 60-70 miles and not 35-44. My endurance of mileage is making me nervous.

2.3.11 Lung Distance Logs & Pain Management: Brunswick Nature Park, ten miles. 

Blue Clay trails were closed again, making it the third time in two weeks, so a twenty minute drive had me pulling into the Brunswick Nature Park.  Originally a paper mill forest, this land was granted to Brunswick County to become the newest park to green-mark our coastal region map.  Situated in northern Brunswick County, the 911 acres display a magnificent variety of terrain everyone can enjoy, especially mountain bikers, day-hikers, or trail runners.  (Equestrian trails are in the works, and there are horseshoe prints on the road!)  My last visit was a year ago, Run for Ray 2010, so I drove around to get my bearings and see the recent work. First off: the land is beautiful.  Big improvements include: a. a sheltered picnic area, including a grill  b.  a permanent facility offers a shower and actual bathrooms, though they weren't open yet (meanwhile there are port-a-johns)  c. a new trail, running about 1.5 miles (thanks to SORBA and the volunteers), marked by a laminated sign which had been tacked up on a tree.  The new trail plus the existing system of fireroads, animal trails, and previously blazed trails makes it easily five miles of trail, interconnected to keep navigation slightly confusing, but making difficult any desperate disorientation.  

As the damp cold was leveling my motivation for the run, I grabbed a water bottle and headed down a gravel road towards the Town Creek, towards the new kayak launch where a trail crosses, allowing a left or right turn into the trail network. I made a left and ran through a picnic area overlooking the creek, where a few lazy sandwiches with Kyote and the Wife could be enjoyed.  The trail took a more serious breath as the first mile started burning the hips and abdomens, leaning into and out of turns and berms and trees-turned-pikes (careful y'all!!). . . x-slope reblistered both feet through jackrabbit turns, quick pitch shifts, root-knobs bulging obscurely through pine-straw and dead leaves, spear-ended spits pointing into the trail at every twist and turn (one damn near getting a nick on my neck on one of two falls). . . a massive pile of unidentifiable feces that, if I didn't know better, I'd call bear shit, distant choruses of angry dogs, sudden mud-slicks slinging legs multiple directions like a cartoon, and the sheer beauty of it all, running along the Town Creek river, her black surface full of resin and lazy drift. . . and while I ran slow and steady across the varied & unpredictable terrain, while I was pushing up root-riddled hills to sand-slides knotted by ropes and branches, the pleasure was erratic, intermittent, because, honestly, it was work.  Plain and simple work.. . keeping the legs milling and not crashing into the next pined corner, plain work avoiding the deep holes where trees were pulled up by their roots by unknown forces, plain work keeping eyes focused on the next ten feet of foot-falls. . . tunnel-vision trails. . . by mile six the wheels were coming off the wagon, felt like I got hacked down by a bushwhacker. . . thought to myself “holy shit” a few times. . . and my pace slowed until I was shuffling along, side-stepping the bear shit, thankful to stop and step aside for the four other mountain bikers out there, catch a breath, then resume into the sporadic lunges of pace along the new trail, bumpy and rooty, primitive and fun, over fallen trees with orange wood splintering, past with one heroic guy laying sand across stretches to “smooth it out for you”, and he was resting with a tin of pistachios during a lull, his empty wheelbarrow beside.  Another mile or so , a gulp of water and then to the car.  “So much depends upon a mountain bikers' wheelbarrow.”

2.4.11. Pain-management Run Number Two. . . Cold, wet slogging out at Poplar Grove. . . . four miles of wishing my wife could be running beside me, talking or not talking, just there. . . the weather was horrible, the run was rough, yesterday's run lingering, taxing the legs and knees. . . eyes cast down on the rivulets and trenches and puddles of rainwater, cast down blankly into footfalls, cast down on numb-hot legs. the highlight, a moment of pleasure for which I paused, was a wonderful blackbird cyclone spiraling onto long brown fields rolling towards unseen sea, their stark forms (individually, collectively) moving rhythmically onto the furrowed chunks of earth, searching for the worms emerging from the clay. . . . . rain dissolved the trees like an impressionist brush about a half-mile away, sfumati of the storm, the renaissance light of a winter rain in the woods, and rain pelted my jacket and legs and my legs burned red against rain and run, splashes of sand & cold on every step, sloshes of shoes and socks.  A pain management run, a weather-endurance  run. A run obsessed with the PCJ at the end, a medium tanzania (dark and bold, a slight roasted-nut note) and a delicious orange-cranberry muffin for the drive home, including some new song by the Decemberists before switching off to a late Beethoven piano sonata. 

Lung Distance Logs IV e Feliz Ano Nuevo 2011.

A 39 mile week ended 2010, and a wonderful week of running it was.  The sum of total miles for 2010 is lost somewhere in my journal, the thread of addition lost and never replaced, but ten months of running put the last count (in early November) at 1233 miles.  Six weeks of Spring/Early Summer were lost to patellafemoral pain and funk, but most of the year was healthy.  ~1450 miles is an honest estimate for the year's total, and a proud personal accomplishment.

Poverty, Richness and 2011.

The first day of 2011 passed across the pine-needled trails of Poplar Grove Nature Preserve, four miles of joyful smooth running.  After a slammed week of work, with late nights and complex schedules, the noise of holidays, rampant consumer binges, heightened stress and lowered rest, the trails brought spiritual nourishment, brought the freedom and quietude to a still synergy.  The lake was still, fracturing the reflections of winter trees with delicate touches on the surface.  The trail ran easy, my forefeet, ankles and knees, thighs and then the hips finding a good pace-play.  A few sprints peppered the legs and opened the faucets.  A family and a few couples hiked around, dogs lulling behind, and there were two runners talking as they passed.  But most of the run found me alone with my pace, my breath, the vast fields rolling towards the sand dune coast, and a prayer of Gratitude along the clay and grass.  Nothing otherwise to note, except how fully synched Marley’s “Hammer” seemed when I returned to the car.


Sunday the Second was my long run at 15 miles.  The alarm vibrated my pillow at 6h11am and my wife breathed deeply beside.  My legs were curled into my abdomen, a strange sleeping pose, the residual imagery of a dream falling away from my mind, and I lifted my body.  The total act of movement via hips, stomach, shoulders, was like a series of pulleys, with muscles counteracting, such as a crane's motion against a heavy wrecking ball.  Eventually I pulled up my weight.  The coffee was brewed, a cherry yogurt ingested, a Gatorade was mixed, and I pulled on shorts and a brand new singlet for the unseasonably warm morning, tightened my laces.  By 6h55am I was latching back my fence and humming Marley, trying to keep a mellow pace for distance, aiming to hit the sunrise somewhere near the water.

Darkness yielded to fog, which dominated the landscape as I approached the coast, about four miles into the run.  The sunrise was more of a gentle waking of the land, a radiance expanding across the fog and earth.  I turned up Wrightsville and crossed onto Airlie, the prettiest part of the journey with manicured gardens, open fields, red barns and ancient trees.  Airlie was sfumato, suffused by the heavy air, and neither the horses nor their meadows were visible.  Grand oaks reached like burnt bone over the narrow, empty road, their gnarled limbs powering majestic and stark into the fog. An easy drift of thought, a language-sketch of the terrain, continued until I turned the sharp corner into the ICW.  The misted light fell shallow on the glassed waterway, elevated boats caught flattened light on their sides; short piers jutted into the silver intracoastal like terse, poetic afterthoughts. It was a clean and fascinatingly new landscape.

Somewhere around this area was a group of runners, the Wilmington Road Runners, meeting for a group run. I never saw the mass collecting on the road and couldn't remember the address of the meeting, and my hopes of merging with them failed.  Also, I was wearing down, too self-conscious.  Some of the best talent of our area runs with the WRRC, and I am not an impressive runner on any level.  So I crossed the bridge, continuing into the quiet beach morning, and pushed down the bike track onto the coast.  My breath harmonized with the ocean, her choppy white froth, respiring wheezily into the fog.  No surfers, no other pedestrians were visible.  The beach was a milk-wash of fog.  My mind was operating independently of my body, homeostasis like a glide, giving a stream-of-consciousness prayer for the blessings of 2010.  At Johnny Mercer's Pier I pulled back into the loop towards home.  Soon came a mass of runners in three formations, curling off of a side road onto Eastwood, and it was the WRRC, heading the opposite direction and looking fresh as daisies.  Horses galloping.  For a moment I felt pride at sharing the Sunday morning road with these runners, and I kicked as best I could, avoiding narrowly a collision with a few of them who had their heads tucked. The fog was clearing to a strong warm sun, and I finished my run with an okay pace and a positive spirit.

Views of ICW from Airlie Road ~8am.

Blue Clay Mountain Bike Park, Ramones, French Roast.

it's a chilly week in wilmington which may explain the emptiness of the blue clay mountain bike park the past two days. i encountered one lady with her two dogs, and that was the whole of my human contact over two consecutive days while running the 6m loop. the coolness and the solitude suits me, makes for a perfect run. smooth, fast sections of packed earth twist through the wooded land, building into brief-but-ferocious intervals of sharp inclines/declines, then break down into bulging roots and partially-exposed stones. wooden planks form bouncy boardwalks and five-or-six bridges are engineered across creek cuts. x-slope works the strength of ankles on the hilly sections, and the many bike jumps and switchbacks keep the quads burning. the trails earn their "advanced" labels, especially for a runner, but this is still the coast so terrain determines the difficulty as opposed to the roughly 65' of elevation gains.

this trail is broken intervals of technical or speed, a sortof speed chess of legturn & mind, otherwise you’ll find yourself ground down face-first.  a moderate speed with frequent shifts of leg-gears, an involuntary fartlek run, suits my trail experience & aptitude.  (speed is not my talent.)  the scenery dissolves into a rapid foot-dance, with certain passages keeping your eyes glued to the next 10' of trail. sun-dappling and shade, pine needles and leaves, all serve to distort the perception of approaching terrain, the effect intensified by increased mileage/pace. nascent growth encloses the trail, a mixture of hardwood and evergreen- which includes young long-leaf pines.  squirrels scurrying across leaves in the quiet of the woods assume gigantic proportion-- robin birds sound like they might be thirty pounds when flittering out of a creek bank.  several of the seven dwarfs hang out on trees (trust me, this isn't another "creative visualization."). the loops range in distance from 1.6 m to 3m to 6m to any combination thereof, and are easily interchanged.

my first introduction was three years ago when i scouted the trails after registering for the first run for ray 10k. a week before the race, i followed my scribbled map to the blue clay trails, and immediately fell into the spirit of running in the woods.  blue clay was born of the efforts of a local mountain biking organization, Sir-Bikes-A-Lot and SORBA, who started (and still maintain) the trail while pushing for its endorsement as an official county park. the park is well-marked and well-groomed, with a map at the trail head.

while i enjoyed having the trail to myself, i imagine its an unusual luxury. if you head out to blue clay trails, be mindful of the space and others around. a runner can stop and step aside ten times easier than a biker, so remain alert and respectful. there is no water, but there is a chemical toilet and parking is plentiful (and free).

lung distance logs ii. georgia blue ridge.

november 29th 2010. clarkesville georgia. chattahoochee forest national park, panther creek trail.  lung distance logs ii. Knee is healthy and the mountains are in my window.

I barely had time to find the beastie boys cd and drink a half-cup of coffee on the nine minute drive to the trailhead of panther creek trail. the route was well-marked, making a trailhead in the middle of nat’l forest georgia easy to find. Three dollars for a parking permit, a stop at the rustic but private facilities, and across the highway, i began the run and pushed into the depth of forest which is the chattahoochee forest. just wonderful.

Panther creek trail is a ~7 mile out-and-back run on mostly packed red clay with plenty of ankle-grappling, foot-contorting rocks knotted with gnarled roots and varying x-slope, grinding the legs at every click. The trail follows the panther creek, making harsh cuts through the woods, climbing juts of stone and jaggedrock cliffs, crossing the water four times (twice on rock and twice on foot bridges) and then pushing up burley root-steps and limestone slopes to eventually bomb into a flat area at the base of the panther creek falls. The trail has some fast sections, but mostly it is technical and makes for a pleasurable pace to absorb the many smells, images, and the interesting landscapes.

across seven miles, my footfalls were flat a total of one mile, maybe, and the rest was rock-kicks, root-juts, contortionist ankles and leg tweaks. iron and wine was in my head (from great heights, the slow release) when I relaxed from focusing on the ten feet of trail before me. thick with autumn smells, the morning was a cool 41 degrees with spritely air in the nose. . . . occasional animal smells provoked a higher attentiveness, but never a visual on any animal, neither bear nor bobcat nor panther nor dogs. . . a few birds flitted along, and I remember thinking they seemed very small. The trail was entirely void of human beings, adding another dimension of appreciation for this trail. . .

December 2nd. Tallulah falls state park, ga. I quickly filed my paperwork for a backcountry permit at the state park offices, paid a five dollar parking fee, (parking is free at ga state parks on wednesdays, the one day I didn’t run) mixed a watery g2 mixture and started the stoneplace trail. The trail is a 10 mile out-and-back route that cuts through the mountains surrounding tallulah gorge & falls, emptying out into a lake at the bottom of a strange mountain cradle. The trail is entirely primitive, with softball-sized and larger rocks ALL across the trail. I mostly followed the narrow path in the middle of the trail, cut by the torrential rains of Wednesday, a single-track rough the heavy layers of leaves and exposing the rocks and roots.

At about mile two, I’d found a gravel road (via a wrong turn-- blaze markings are sparse on stoneplace trail), venturing into a strange community of stacked multiplexes. Sliding down the valley’s slopes like archaic condominiums were six or seven “residences” composed of trailers and wooden structures, a hunting cabin with a cooking shelter ten feet to the left, and one smoking chimney of an unknown structure– maybe a still. Truck campers were roughly balanced on wheel barrow boxes, and two old pop-top campers butted against rustic wooden shacks. Rebel flags hung high beside rusted drums, and one unseen dog barked. An old chevrolet, a 70's sedan, was stuffed with fake flowers across the front seat and the back seat, probably in the trunk too. I knew hunting lands bordered the trail, and while I was wearing orange and yellow attire, I didn’t want to risk totally losing the trail. So I backtracked and found a blaze and kicked it back up the red clay. (While I don’t want to sound like a stereotyping asshole, the film Deliverance was filmed here, and I was totally alone and a touch nervous for a minute. That is confessional and non-PC, so take it as you will.)
The beauty of stoneplace trail is well-preserved, is ungroomed and natural, but it is not postcard vistas. The smells are of red clay, decaying leaves (molasses and distant smoke), wisps of pine, wet stone, and fermenting cedar. It is rough mountain growth with massive trees decaying in the spot where they fell years ago. Steep descents allow a creek to babble up here and there, but there are few water features except at the turn-around point. There, a lake sleeps, tranquil and dark, fed by a few small creeks webbing in. An unpaved road snakes in from the west, blue-n-gray gravel, steep, gouged by sliding car tires. The lake is a recreational center I suppose, unremarkable but for the juxtapose of a lake cradled by mountains. The run back was acrobatic and fun, with fairly visible blazes on trees, and one open-face wooden shelter for camping. The trail strikes me as a very masculine energy, a powerful space to force one's self through.  Moments of joyful work accompanied me, and this was another wholly solo run.

December 3rd. Panther creek trail remix. Wednesday's massive rains eroded and resculpted much of the trail, also causing slippery crossings on limestone faces. But I was confident in my feet and legs, loose, if a bit tired initially, and had a a tight run. One terrifying image haunted the first mile, a strange tyler-durden-splice of a figure in wet black trenchcoat, an older male face, deep dark eyes, classic horror face staring down the trail as I ascended the ledge. I swallowed my heart, stopped (entirely baffled), breathed again and resumed the run through the apparition’s vapor. Strange. 

The bulk of the run, the middle section, was the same as before, but with a more heightened sense of terrain variations.  Nuanced dips where water pushed around rock and root brought concave spoons of mud, loose ropes of hemlock root grabbed for toeboxes, and at least two more fallen trees crossed the trail.  The smells were primal. The water was rushing and loud as water can be.  It was a wholesome experience. 

Towards the finish, I found some deep (but not huge) paw tracks, with claws, directly under the 441 bridge at around ½ mile point. I smelled nothing, but six miles into the run and nearly done, my pace was certainly boosted.

this trail is cleansing and focusing. pay the three dollar parking fee and run yr fucking heart out. The good work puts you in a state of glowing ecstacy. And its unpopulated status (on my two trips) makes a superior experience. It is not a long run, but it is aerobic and quick-footed as well as quick-minded, and leaves you energized and lucid, the reason for it all.

December 5th. mud and muck and miles. A cold wind seemed to face-off against me every step of a ten mile run, home again, Sunday, and thick in the post-vacation decompression. Weaving through the traffic of three major wilmington/ wb churches as they let out, I craved the mud and smells of the georgia foothills. Someone honked and yelled from a while tahoe. Mayfaire mobs collected at intersections like alligators waiting for a parade of chickens. I was back home. I bowed my head and kept running.

the naked and the raw-- running narratives continue.

I. The day’s frenzy. . . . snarls of time versus goals.  (into the delirium. . .
November 9th, Tuesday, a six mile loop at wrightsville beach, port city chop house through summer rest trail ‘round loop and back, a recovery run of moderate effort, with only six folks encountered along the way. The beach was serene and vast and easy.
II. November 11th, Thursday. . . I need a miracle everyday.

USS Gravely (i think) entering Cape Fear River by CB State Park

eight miles churned on mix of sand and compacted bike trail and unbusy road down at wrightsville beach. Much of the run focused on the troops humping afghanistan mountains with packs of leadweight and their endurance on fields of combat (internal, external), and just how little of my own potential I touch on. I am not military, nor have I ever been, and in fact rarely considered it as an option for myself, but somehow I have a deep compassion & admiration for those men and women who have done it, are doing it, and will do it. . . . brutal brave existence.

garcia was also in mind in long meditative stretches, I need a miracle everyday, and that sums up the wholesome truth of it all.

III.  Running narrative continues. . . . november 12 2010.

Ernest Shackleton: “We had reached the Naked Soul of Man.”

carolina beach state park for a run of around six miles, and then some photographs before pcj at myrtle grove, grabbing a blueberry bran muffin with medium organic coffee and headed back home to hang with my dog. Out in the park i followed campground trail from the welcome center to the main trail and after a mile or so climbed the “rare coastal mountain” called sugarloaf dune, then descended along the sandy-spine of root steps and steep slides down where I promptly lost the trail (which was detoured/ closed I would later learn upon encountering a utility horse and big orange detour sign at a trail intersection) and followed the shoreline of the cape fear mouth, thinking of madelbrot/madelbrot number sets as I admired the natural patterns of coastal grasses as melodic wave tracings, fallen trees decaying in interesting forms, amorphic and surreal, the crag oaks with pale green moss deforming contours like scales, the push of color of an isolated butterfly against the estuary fall-grays of the landscape. . . . the swift swoop of birds and the lap of wake against brack and branch. . . . smells of pine resin and salt-wet wood permeate. . . . uprooted trees lay with strange primal maps in their woven root structures, and birding decks overlook long fields where coarse grass taptap each other with dry percussive sweeps of a cold wind, and then finally back into thick sand (terribly inefficient footing, trudging, even in my salomon trail shoes) tightening into pine needled path and then the marina where I turned round to follow sugarloaf back to the car and grab a warm shirt (of organic cotton, purchased at take a hike gear store in black mountain with proceeds going to maintain the Appalachian Trail, a very cool gift from my wife), drop wet socks and shoes and get it down in language.  
 

Numbers=> 33m/ 53m/ 1133m

take the time to enjoy the thing; halloween to battleship half marathon-

November 1 2010 11h18am.   total for October was pushed out by a good long run y’day, halloween sunday, a twelve mile run of about 1h40mins. . . . ran from home through ogden park (and the hispanic soccer playoffs) to construction roads and trails and huge sand berms and lakes and large geese migrating just overhead, their strange languages of flight-form and squawking and laughing, I alone and enormous paw prints in wet sand keep me alert and somewhat wary and the run pushes up high-voltage trails, long straight swatches of ankle-twisting brashness and quick-touch toe-runs and eventually back into ogden park and home. the numbers are: 150 miles for October, 1081 miles for the year.
November 5, 1h29pm. Our other laptop, on which all of our documents/ photos/ music & general cross-referencing library of personal data is collapsing due to some hardware failure (error hex 50), so I am on a loaner. . . . updates are few and far between and the original documents are binary pulses, static, on a harddrive currently unusable. . . . so lets start from scratch.
this weekend is the battleship half marathon in downtown ilm. still uncertain of my participation, i know i can do better than last year, and that fact continues to intrigue me, to pull me in against the monetary resistance, almost as much as crossing the bridges in their strange, grate-teeth-on-soles splendor.
recent reading includes, still, dfw’s collection of short stories entitled “oblivion” as well as the short stories of chekhov, babel, and a bit of dostoevsky. The short story format revisited– the powerbars of literary feasts. . . . wonder why mccarthy doesnt put shorts out? should re-read some d. eggers. . .

November 6th. Eight miles of ramblin’ runnin’ at carolina beach state park, sand and pineneedled trails, wet and puddled leaf-mosaics bordered by black swamp swirling with pine oils; nasty currents of carbon and burnt steel cutting against yachts in icw, sugarloaf like the finest, white flour crunching beneath my salomons on sharp/quick ascents. A perfect midmorning run. Quiet and solitary, with only three other folks on the trails, and topping sugarloaf three times as i followed the trail which wraps the park while inter-weaving the run with various spontaneous trails. A good meditation, coastal brack and brine and cypress and luscious smells of autumn, good god-time in birdland and shed wet cold shirt for drywarm sweater and drove towards home, stopping for a blueberry bran muffin and hot columbian coffee. Work and work.
Saturday November 9th– i have registered for the half marathon, becoming the 1293rd person to do so with a cutoff of 1300. Destiny is mine.
November 8th.  the day after the 2010 Battleship Half Marathon.
Monday morning and my legs are tender with ropey tendons screaming the slightest movement, shoulders push against abdomen muscles like tired rowers in rough churn, mind reels the race-tape through as kyote chases a soccer ball and mahler’s third symphony belts out horns and string, heralding autumn’s first coastal frost. Now, recovery from the 2010 battleship half-marathon begins in earnest. the 13.1 miles y’day opened cold and collected, passing with a few strange (and by strange, I mean psychotic?) Moments, a homemade lunch of seered tuna and black bean tacos, then i worked my Sunday night shift to exhale, crashing into eight hours of royalty-worthy sleep. chasing kyote around the house will be my recovery run today. . . . but y’day’s half marathon was smooth and overall very good, with a coldcold morning tightening the veins in bare legs until the effort of the first incline heated and loosened and the legs began milling out the miles. . . . it all started behind the hilton of downtown wilmington, boarding the river taxi. My goal was around 1h40m, but the trip across the cape fear pushed a new goal. Some asshole harassed the first mate on the river ferry across from downtown to the battleship park (and yes, it was a rough ride and it did take four efforts to dock, but we were safe and ontime and the guy was just a dick. . . his brandnew minimalist nikes, his compression shorts and fuel belts and two garbage bags wrapped around more compression/ tech gear, garmin watches and heart monitors and this guy could've been a navy seal on a mission but besides that: my wife and twenty month old were cold and patient on the bench with a cape fear wind whipping the deck, so this guy was just an overtestosteroned chump who was marring my morning) and so my Mark was quickly exiting the river taxi with a haughty look to the first mate (who was holding the gate wide-eyed and embarrassed), and ky and kas and I got off and squared away and I was jogging to the start where the countdown was already underway. Hopping the dayglo orange tape, I found folks with attentive expressions and we began walk-trotting as an airhorn blew, pulling the runners out like a ribbon dance as the field expanded and a trot became a jog became a slalom became a run up the first bridge.

Ill skip the meat of the run but for a few choice cuts: at around mile 8 things got weird. The mind-voice began something like this:
“Ahh shit, a heavy, bonkey feeling in legs and chest. . . 13 miles. . . i'm done running, just done with it, i’ll never run again, this is ridiculous, 13 miles. . . every week I run this. . . runners drugs. . . need some music, a song in my head, fast and fast. . . easy skanking, easy skanking- skanking it slow. . . last year: gogol bordello; I felt good, lifting my head, felt strong and ran harder, arms in air, pumping. . . a burst. . . no ipod now, simplify and run. . . . enjoy the thing, the act of now. . . don’t bonk, could use some music. . . am i hitting a wall? Slow down, stomach breath. . . gatorade at next station, calories and electrolytes. . . what the hell are salt tabs?  compression man in sight, a belt full of hammer gels, drafting offa some cat. . . simplify to the run, no gum, no gels, breath. . . where did my pacifier go? (I chew my tongue for a second before realizing this is not a rational consideration.) Well that was abstract. maybe I’ll go to the comic store tomorrow.”  during this fugue i also projected several false recognitions on random faces.  i saw a friend mailyn walking on the path, and i saw a good running buddy jimmy coming the opposite direction, and, well, in short, these were false moments.   things chilled at an aide station and someone yelled “looking strong 1992" (my race number) and I felt better, felt human, and proceeded to pour a gatorade down my jaw and shirt and chased that with a water, shot a snot rocket, and pushed the final five miles. . . . (eventually compression man finished twenty meters before me.  for the record, i did pass him before my left shoe came untied.)

picked up some fresh tuna filet and seered it with black beans and fresh salsa and had lunch with kas and ky before a few restful minutes of football and then dressed for work.  good food and be-here-now runs are the Art recently.   that and a few sketches of punkass foot slogger. . . .
numbers=> 13m for the week/ 32m for the month/ 1113m for the year.