Kunga Yoga, Kunga Running. (still in edit, but whatever.)

As cosmic collaboration would have it, I found myself registered for a 220hr yoga teacher training program three days before the commencement of a three week immersion program.  New to the art and practice of yoga, my connection to the power, the medicine & synergy, the joyful work of disciplined movement, all was aligned sufficiently to alter life-rhythms (my own and many others) and embark upon the journey.  Welcome to Kunga Yoga Teacher training at Shell Island Resort in Wrightsville Beach, NC.

Kunga Yoga is a yogic belief-system central to Wilmington Yoga Center, the hosting studio of the ytt school.  At the philosophical core of Kunga Yoga is the belief that Yoga is a service, is an act and offering of compassion, and that practice is an opportunity to reconcile. Kunga yoga believes that everyone is a yogi, that yoga is accessible to every body.  In serving our bodies in asana and pranyama, we build a personal strength that can translate towards a communal power.
Kunga yoga brings a monthly theme to its classes, and that theme is introduced into each Kunga class, often connecting the category and flow of postures.
Kunga yoga classes donate a percentage of proceeds to a charity, annually chosen. The young girls of the Home for Hope in India are 2012's recipients, and there is a trip organized at the end of the year.


i.
Rather than write anecdotes and vignettes describing the three weeks of ten hour days of practice, posture work, reading, studying, refueling and resting (rich days my friends!), I persuade you to check out a class or a workshop (www.wilmingtonyogacenter.com for those in the area).  Yoga practice is a transformative, expansive, magical thing, and every yoga experience can be a gift to yourself and others. 

ii.
Yogic philosophy is a direct complement to kicking out distances.  Burying the mind in the solitude of miles makes yoga feel more elegant, more nuanced, more subtle.  Braiding in both, in yoga as in running, is the idea of space, openness, breath, heat, and, most importantly, a strong communion with the earth beneath you as well as the clay that composes you.   Clay and breath and light, light that emits various levels of heat.

iii.

I came to yoga from a spectrum of injuries.  Yoga was a gentle, a healing or nurturing meditation; a preventative, in-the-meantime deal. Soccer stretches.  I quickly learned that yoga can be equally physical, massively challenging to strength and mind and endurance. Forgotten areas of my body struggled with basic movement & patterns of movement. Tensions poured through muscle thicker than blood. Slowly, a new body, a waking body, merges into breath through posture, distills mind into focus, a calm, engaging meditation towards inner-stillness,.  It is a process, a gradual process.  A journey.

Yoga contains running and running contains yoga.

Moments in my trail running have a sacred lucidity.  Likewise, I have fallen deep into my body and inner-bodies during shavasana, exploredvast mad spaces during cycles of surya namaskar B... felt fires in core and legs while holding warrior 3... yoga and running are acts that open the body to new aptitudes, open the heart to new experiences, nurturing a healthier, happier person.  Both stabilize the body and mind.  Each is an action rooted in gratitude.

iv.
I think all creative actions can be an ascetic.  Drop labels and the cultural models, let fads fall away, minimize the noise of a thing, transcend to your own expression of an act and search out the ascetic root.  Find a mindful connection to the act.  Sculpture, masonry, cooking, writing koans, cleaning, story telling, sketching a rock, skipping a rock, reading, meditation .... in every creative act is an ascetic potential.  More to this later...

v.
Yoga, the physical elements (only two of the eight branches of Yoga), is a meditation that moves through postures and patterns of breath.   Asana and pranyama are powerful practices, but I would extend Yoga to include running, cycling, swimming, jumping rope, dancing, eating, having sex: anything can move towards a yoga-based practice.   Anyone can find some form of yogic practice and celebrate that immediate place. Start here and now by noting the here and now.  Breathe into the three spaces of your torso's cavity, filling the belly, expanding the ribs, lifting the heart, and then pouring that breath out mindfully from the belly. . . . yoga dirgha breath.  A mindful nodding of the head, a roll of the lower spine,  scorpion pose, walking to the mailbox, any mindful movement can capture the spirit of yoga.  Everyone is a yogi, and it does not require a mat to find your yoga.  to move consciously, to feel the weight of one's body on the support of an earth, to yoke the love and heat and strength of a challenging posture, to remember the steadiness of breath and the awareness of body and mind, and then to project that as an energy into our relationships and community, it is an offering. movement as prayer. an exalted, basic Act.

We do not learn yoga so much as we excavate the yogi within us.

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Interestingly, noted Yogini Sharon Gannon argues that asana does not mean posture, but translates as "seat."  Meaning a stable connection to the earth, to the processes of the earth, to the dynamics of a moment, to being still and conscious, reaching from within with compassion.

The history of surface. Approaching summer.

Got some New Seeds shaking around the seedbag. Ink on rice paper. Language charged fresh, muscle charged flesh. Sandalwood and ts eliot. Shostokovich, holy lands, projective verse & newspaper excerpts, transfer drawings and vast hee-hawings. . . monotypes, titles forgotten, brokenspine books, libraries empty in the rain, l.a. rose gardens, ecstasy in the vein in north decatur & the cold fear of speed versus the lax heat of dope, coastal miles and the whispering sand of lowtide runs, the push of body through heat and fatigue and doubt. . . . sexual tension or creative tension, an energy source, like the clangor of rachmoninoff, schoenberg, the terse verse of buk, a fullmoon thing, ebb and flow and oxbow.  

i am a freerange mind: Uncaptured, mostly. A trek covering some 38 years of wondering, wandering. Jesus. Je suis. Sex and creativity and running are all just a hunter's instinct. A freudian exertion.

Imagination and sovereignty. Let collapse the constructed mind and quit clasping the umbilical culture that binds. Burn into dance. Pour into intuitive existence and be enraptured by what waits. Amaze yourself. You ARE a phenomenon. Imagine, cultivate, ruminate, be sovereign. Desire something beyond yourself.

Dance your spinning world around, rumi, gibran, st. paul. . . whoever gases the grand ideal.

ii.

Palettes sit newly sealed in white, previous layers of colour covered in strange geography. (I get lost in the narrative of topography, the history of surface.) The dried puddles of once-pigment, ridges of brushes, weight of touch and drag, the valleys where mixtures were diluted, exhausted. Now white. Titanium white. The total of all light and its pigments. A historied topography absolved of specific struggles. Clean. Start new. Spin out of your dwelling, your rut, your denizen, your mindnumbness.

iii.

A coastal run of 14 miles, an unrushed&freelyworking form kicking sand through a earmix heavy on modest mouse and marley. Dehydrated launches of legs lose power, cramp, pull into stomach like a band weakening around a wrap of papers, like a scroll.  The muscle and mind and desire unravel to a lost momentum, the settling of blood in feet and swelling and discomfort and the final fallaway of mind from the work at hand. Meditation becomes something ugly and debased; the act works against the focus. No longer a positive, but a mind full of suffering, the escape of which was the reason for running in the first place. End of a cycle, pause of a process, like knowing that a drawing is complete. Hit the garmin and breathe.

iv.

Form that is not simple, but elegant and ancient. Ephemeral. But above all, Elegant. Miles' sketches of Spain, Stravinsky's rites of Spring, drums and the slap of feet. Ink on rice paper. Sole on dirt. The nimble seriousness of this life is best expressed not in contours, form, layers of language, but in the body. The calligraphy of the erotic, the powerful bending of the yogi's body, the armature of mind in synch with body in synch with trail that runs like rain down a mountain. The cadmium red-orange burn of quads. The dance of the original hunt. The gasp that is a hymn, an Om, a settling of chaos into rhythm. Illumination by way of the physical:  sometimes you must push the body to quieten the mind.  

Let the madness drive.

stretching canvas, stretching body, stretching mind. a big pile-up of words.

Massanutten running & a mashup of a May catch-up, mid-april, mountain running, a grand exodus of the familiar, injury and a heel defeated and a run de-footed.   a mention of the yoga gradually stretching into the routine to knead body of jangled knots.

i.

Massanutten is a mountain resort that lays outside Harrisonburg Va, butting up against skyline drive and george washington national park. The mountain looks like a muscular fin, a massive, scalloped jut of limestone and evergreen, anchoring april sky against that lush bucolic landscape of farm and town, quiltwork, dairy stacks, silos.

This area of the Virginia blue ridge is wrapped with miles of trail to include Kaylor's knob, the massanutten trail, the AT, and the many color-blazed trails that Massanutten Resort and the IMBA carve and maintain. Daily trail-play and one road 5k (with my wife on the occasion of the Boston Marathon!) brought a total of 50 miles in four days of running, with three days of running lost to travel. The heat was frying sweat on rocks, lifting finally a storm out of the afternoon scree wednesday, but the heat was detoxifying, energizing. despite my lack of a runner's world physique, it was refreshing to run shirtless in splits and minimal shoes in self-reliant solitude.  it was indian and pure and playful.  minimal intrusion and maximum output.  a judgement free zone of zoning out into a run.

its a minimalist act, a good run. . . . a gel, some food, two handhelds (strong Heed and cold h20), an occasional hoop-whoop chant to avoid startling a bear around a blind turn, and the burning of foot and leg and core and the fade-out of jabber and mind-clutter and false fears.  another body or no other body, music or silence, sky or ocean or mountain or earth, a run can be as simple and raw as one wants. . . . some good old-fashioned trail running across the rockpiled appalachians, where overlooks let vision hang like a hawk in the wind.

The thing, for me, in running a mountain with shallow lungs, with coastal lungs, with ex-smoker's lungs, is the difficulty of climbing. While it is a joyful and rewarding thing, I slow on the uphills, powerhiking, running only what I can. I try not to judge my run, my body, my efforts, or my abilities.  When I do run, it is a pace that  invigorates, focuses, challenges, while maintaining a pleasure in the run itself. To lose the run to the abstract credentials of a runner is the work of thieves. To see a mountain push out of a farm's fields while running a dozen miles is a gorgeous thing, and to work your way back up switchbacks and limestone vertebrae teething out of the spine of a mountain and to peer across vast american space with a turkey taking flight or a deer bounding across splashing leaf to disappear in wooded, dusted siennas. . . . to burn thighs and sole and breath-dried mouth down a mountain, it carries the lithe language of nature back into mind with the fragrances of  animal, evergreen, exertion, sex, spirit, sun-hot rock.  To run a mountain is a constant amazement, an ecstasy of movement coalescing through space.

Now is much resting, stretching, and massaging out the soles of my feet with a roller from where the limestone outcroppings of the mountain trail beat the shit out of them.  My body works into some yoga recently and the body appreciates, my breath, my serenity, appreciates it.  I can feel the openness of my chest, the lengthening of muscle and the engagement of core.  I run with a whole sense of connectivity, feeling the relationship of momentum in my right leg to my left shoulder and elbow and wrist.  I feel the drop of chest across knee during tired moments and I feel the flatness of chest against effort-driven gasp.  I feel a solid body, even with the mileage sinking beneath my hopes.  But ultimately, the numbers are just another layer of abstract credential, a false signifier of joy in an act.

ii.

Currently I feel good, healthy, optimistic.  No races, no expectations, just a mindfulness of the current Being I occupy.  A faith in a good orderly direction.  There is even a series of paintings starting in journals and mind-canvases.  There is language forming towards something, there is interest in various things, a passion underlying efforts, and there is a generous love that forms beneath my thoughts in quiet moments.  I am trying to be a good person.  Miles and pigments and language act as armatures of my faith.

iii.

To move towards and with something-- to flow with the movement of an energy and commit, that is the freeing key. That is the lesson and the point and the reward. Raw faith. The full-life confidence to be mindfully present, to be engaged, to be kind with a generous love. The kindness to be generous, the love to be kind.

Some days move towards a gradual requital, a denial or a refusal; it is a gradual and unconscious shift. These days are tiring, daunting, cumbersome. To breathe into the act, cycle the work as ocean and muscle and heat. to burn a thing anew. to keep at it and to stay in it, that is the work of the day.  be a movement that gasps into the earth, burning with something fully of a moment and yet ancient, ephemeral, a hymn or a howl. be the fire and blaze.

Gator Trail 40k (of 50k) 2012.

 

Flash back one year ago to the 2011 Gator Trail 50k. Held on the trails of Lake Waccamaw State Park, Grant Egley's event was my first ultra and, in terms of mileage, it also contained my first marathon. The 31 miles passed as a personal triumph and cornerstone in my running life, imparting a new philosophy regarding my body, my mind, my abilities. The people I met were as supportive as they were diverse, and they were enjoying their lives.  Amazed and proud, emboldened and sovereign, I felt I could gain speed and confidence in distance running. I was hooked. Fast forward through a MTC shirt run, Grandfather Mountain Marathon, Weymouth Woods 100k, Wrightsville Beach Marathon, 1800 miles and 370 days.

2012 Gator Trail unfurled a new set of issues but the biggest was my 3h30pm shift. A vicious list of reservations had already populated the seating chart and there was no getting out of the shift. So, Friday's shift clocked out around midnight and the 5h30am alarm sounded Saturday with the dripping of coffee and a boiling h20 pot for oatmeal, some gear loaded up and then the family and we were off. Slightly Stoopid and a sunrise and a reunion with some familiar faces, the line up and briefing, and Grant's easy countdown to begin the big kicks into the sand and roots and lake mists of this coastal salt lake.

This was a jaunt and taunt run with a grand sense of reunion attached.  Mark Long, Bill Wiemer, Donald Drees, Marie-Ange and Stephanie Carter were there and I had something invested in each of their successes.  My run was more of a social thing with some trail mileage sandwiched in.  I had not planned on running the full 50km and, this being a looped event, I had easy options to drop in increments of 10k. A DNF bothered me little, rather the DNF-factor alchemized towards a rare opportunity for a “disposable” race. My decision and strategy was to charge ahead until the chain slipped the gears- just see what my legs held. The result was a great deal of play and excitement and an actual lead on the first lap. I've never been in first before, so to try a front-runner position was a helluva lot of fun, even if a total flop. Alternating pours of rain cooled the legs and torso and kept me feeling like a wild wet wolf on a hunt, invigorated. But I also knew my limits were hanging after the 18 mile- 20 mile mark.  And when I fell into third while urinating behind a tree, I felt part of my wolf-fight yawn.

Around mile five, a female caught up to run in synch with a bit of conversation, saying that this was her first 50k with one prior marathon. Her name was Leaanne and she turned on some mad afterburners about mile seven and became a Trysports-jerseyed flash in the woods. The girl was killing it, running the sandy access roads like it was the loop at Wrightsville beach, running the technical sections like she was navigating a low tide beach. She ran with a grace in the work that few accomplish, and she powered through for an overall first place after leading for nearly a marathon's distance. Marie-Ange was nearing with her artful form, and I was reminded of the strength of the local female running community. (New Hanover county boasts many talented female runners, but I don't know if the Gator Trail has ever been bested by a female. . . Leanne put up a great set of miles to get to that line.)

From there it was a good progression of miles with alternating rain in the flat light of an overcast morning. The surface of the trail offered passages of churned black mud and faster sandy stanzas (packed and manageable from the rain), staccato roots biting into stride with an increasing aggression as the miles accumulated in the legs. Breathing went ragged in the warming of the day and a consequential humidity, and my pace began struggling towards 8m30sec on the third lap. My IT bands and quads were getting slowly microwaved and, with one more loop to finish but an eight hour shift ahead, I formally dropped at mile 23.99 and 3h 16mins. I thanked Grant for putting on another great race, and he thanked me for coming out and participating. This is a man who created the Mississippi 50 mile run several decades ago, and who remains so humble to us stumbling newbies, so his graciousness is a diamond kindess. His wife was awesome and warm, offering one of her famous sandwiches. I shoved my soggy self into the car to start the process from trail running shoes to Danskos. 

Sushi and coffee and a shower and the time clock and I am polishing silverware and taking drink orders on a 9-top. Work went well and finished well, excluding a setting fatigue and a voracious appetite for every plate of food I served.  Especially the grouper filets and pommes frites and chocolate mousse. 

Many lessons came across my body, including:

a.) the need to pick up some S-caps for the Southern running season (thanks Brett!).

b.) Extend the long runs-- if your body is only accustomed to 18 mile runs, then 31 miles holds too much unknown, too much unencountered muscle damage. Your long runs in training constitute the high-water mark for stamina in racing-- Adrenalin only forgives so much.

c.) I need to learn to run through the pain. I continue to enpower the difficult parts over the passages where I run well, and the difficult miles cost all benefits of earlier exertions.

Finally and d.) I've learned from the Weymouth Woods and from the Quintiles Marathon that the training is as much about the recovery as it is about the actual race. To prepare the body for the work and the damage, and to teach the body how to heal itself, is as important as learning the footwork to take roots on a trail.And I felt good after the race, a minimal discomfort.

I think these are universal obstacles, and tomorrow, I will get an easy ten miler on some trails to start kneading the legclay back to a workable shape.

Wrightsville Beach Marathon 2012.

The marathon distance is the ultimate racing distance.  Her 26.2 miles carry poetry, legacy, myth, denial, redemption. And while it is a race-able distance, a road marathon remains a deceptive and difficult thing. Its a destructive road.  The body, the ego, the mind, they become greedy and volatile against the abstract guts of a clock. 26.2 miles donates much time to lament and regret and doubt, to believe, much time to run hard the body and to relent. Here is the thrill of effort, the strength of the collective, the intervals of adrenalin-fueled kicking. There is a loneliness that swallows whole the harrier into the deepest void of his being. . .  the promise of a mt.olympus wall, a community of sound support and guidance across the best and worst miles of your day.   It is an internal and external event.

The Community.

The race director, the army of volunteers, the crowds of supporters, the mass assembly of good folks pointing the runners in the right directions and handing out water and gatorade and gels and smiling and applauding and commending us by name (the bibs actually had your first name printed beneath the number- a very cool detail!!), the student band playing by the golf courses of Landfall, the encouraging residents of Landfall who clapped and saluted in their front yards (a curious head-cocked dog by their side), the throngs of folks lining Military Cutoff and camping behind the finish lines, the massage therapists and the sponsors willing to place their bets on the success of this event. . . . it just gives a participant a real feeling of pride to be at the core of that love. The Wrightsville Beach Marathon was a very special event filled with special people.  And there were runners, of which I was one.

The Race.

This was my second marathon, my first being the Grandfather Mountain marathon of July 2011. I entered the Quintiles marathon 2012 with certain time goals, a fair training background, and a plan. I nurtured a newbie's fear and I carried that burden as a self-enclosed and solipsistic feeling. I had doubts and hopes. Saturday night by 10pm, I wrapped up my last table and my mind was stoic and meditating the run, and I breathed myself to sleep at home beneath a novel by 11pm.

March 18^th was a sunday of 5am alarms, dark coffee, a gear bag and a 6h40am starting line. A 3am thunderstorm had moshed through overnight and settled as puddles in the street, and it was now lifting into the air as fog. I was moving through the fogged darkness with wu-tang and doubts.

Arriving, the ribbon of runners already wrapped the blocks of Mayfair alongside the endless trolleys and buses serving to transport the participants to the Wrightsville beach park. The morning remained totally dark and the breeze was wet with chill. Runners sprinted the lawns and boarded the trolleys. The ride was a grumbling parade of engines and chatter. Banter crescendoed on the bus and entire running resumes were listed to no one in particular-- whole catalogs of running experience were thrown up like a loose leaf manuscript to fall across the ears of riders. It is a nervous fellowship before many races.
Arriving at the start area, the WB Park had settled into the pre-race routine of port-a-john lines and high-knee sprints and endless stretches and nerve settling. Track club jerseys amassed, pace groups shook hands, racers looked determined, and the warning bell sounded. A countdown ticked off to 6h40am and a pick up truck with a mounted camera led the opening files of runners along the loop by the Atlantic ocean, over the ICW on the metal-grate bridge and, by mile 3, I had lost sight of the lead runners for the remainder of the day.

The first few miles of my race were swift and strong. No less than fifty dogs and their humans stood and waved and barked and wished us well. The fog was thick and felt clammy on the skin. The puddles in the street were splashed and kicked, and I nailed early and full-footed a few puddles. I missed my first attempt at a water cup, around mile 4, knocking the entire cup of water against the neighboring volunteer. It was not a moment that generated optimism.

From there the race was a lot of straight burns down Military Cutoff by dancing red dragons and a dozen different tents and fans with various signs. In the crowd cheering was the race director, Tom Clifford, as well as Olympic trials marathoner Christa Iammarino. (Its a pretty cool thing to have a top-listed Ironman competitor/runner and an elite marathoner rooting for you.) Cutting into Landfall, one follows the major roads through the wonderful landscapes and architecture that define this destination neighborhood. Golf courses read like impressionist paintings in the lingering mist, and I asked myself on a few occasions why I had not chosen golf over long-distance running. But I had some 18 miles to go. A crowd of excited laughter offered free high fives, and the runners took them up on it. (The guy in front of my tried to slap-sting one happy spectators hand and I got a kick out of that.) Then it was a half-marathon down and one half-marathon ahead and I had pounded for 1h31min straight. I felt good for a minute. Gel, water, gatorade. Rocky's theme song. A song by Journey. Motley Crue. High School Band performing from a gazebo at the corner. Back down Military Cutoff where I see someone I know: “Jay? Jay!!” and I felt good for a moment. I shopped here Thursday morning.  I wonder if they have that new book on the Civil War.  Back into Landfall, around a bend following the well-marked route. Another Ironman pointing the way. “Hello Jim,” I said to the familiar face and I felt good for a minute. Miles collected like seaweed around my ankles and I hit mile 21 at 2h32 minutes. The wall settled on my quads and IT bands and shoulders and any hope of a comfortable, fast finish was shot.  I was running through an imaginary ocean. From here it was the work of trudging and the final wheezing howl of hope as the miles clicked off. With agony and lethargia, the mile-marker signs would show up around a corner. The out-and-back that wrapped up the final 10k was plodding and broken up into walk-run-jogs distances. (Note to self-- breaking a marathon up into two ten milers and one 10k is not a manageable distance.) Faye missiled by.  I felt good.  Tyler.  Ange.  It was nice to see someone familiar.  Abruptly, I got a cramp in my right hamstring that nearly brought me to the ground, and it persisted for two minutes before relenting. One woman grabbed her face and recoiled when she saw me limp into the cramp. It passed, she passed, the race continued. I saw a friend from life drawing, a fellow artist. She yelled my name is fond surprise.  I felt good for a minute.

The Finish.

The distance kept unfolding true to the prescribed mileage of a marathon. So the race director was not going to let us waste our time on a short marathon! I lolled myself about that. . . . “Go Jay!” they cheered and the Garmin hit 26.2 with another two blocks of folks waiting.  I had missed my goal by 7 minutes at that point but I was still sub 3h20m. The final stretch was an embarrassment because I was the only runner for the whole distance, my misery fully illustrated by my lagging gait and my slack jaw. But then I saw my wife smiling, my son yelling, and the white noise of my pain filled up with joy and pause and I stopped to give a high five to Kyote. He didn't respond, and I felt myself going, going, lurching forward, so I launched back into the final kicks where cheerleaders surrounded me with pom-poms and greetings. I was ecstatic to be done, and my fuel tank was absolutely bankrupt. My medal was given and I was proud to put it on.

Something of a Postscript, an Epilogue: A collection of effects.
 

Things got tricky here. Exertion and goals and adrenalin and whatever got me and following a Gatorade recovery drink, I headed back over to my wife and proceeded to bawl, to absolutely manically bawl into her neck. I had failed my BQ goal by 8 minutes, finishing in 3h18m06secs, and I was ashamed and angry and forlorn. I waddled over to wipe off my stench, to get a fresh shirt, and catch a moment away from the crowd. The crying kept gurgling up, and then subsided as we re-entered the expo area. I got a massage on my legs (courtesy miller-motte tech school), and roamed around for a cup of coffee. The race was done. A quart of orange juice, a plate full of gorgonzola chicken, and an advil was the prescription du jour.

Revisiting this, I learned something. My time fails the BQ of 3h10mins, but I am above A-Standard qualifying time for the JFK 50m by 22 minutes!!! And this is a wish list race, so the accomplishment is revitalizing. I will return to the Quintiles if the cosmos allows, and I will look at this running year with great amazement as I became a sub 3h20min marathoner. And please excuse my effusive tone here, I am not boasting or self-celebrating. Rather, these are acts that shock me, that shake me to my core with gratitude for the years of new life that I have outside of the bars. To have overcome the negatives of my history and to alchemize into something worthy of my body running well for 26.2 miles is nothing short of a miracle.

A huge thanks to all who brought this race together. A prayer for the race director's family who experienced a tragic miracle two days prior to the race. A prayer for the fallen runner (who has improved). A prayer for the staffer who was struck by a drunk driver, suffering a broken ankle and bruised ribs.

Much gratitude to those that support me in my life, and I hope is that I return the love in equal amounts.

.

march 13 koan-poem.

bradford pears in bloom, bach's fugue for string quartet, the body in movement is a fugue and three miles becomes eight and its almost spring. . . the run, the body, the stride, this muscled gasp of form like a fugue, a layered rhythm of intricate little intelligences, converging where the distance is no distance but a continuum, a hemingway sentence sweeping towards a kerouac paragraph. . . the yawning fire of the chest, the pleasure of movement, the anticipation of spring and fragrance and easy beaches and bright musics. . . . spring is a run, is the joyful howl into a quiet neck of the woods where sleep wolves and where swells the earth, viridian green and wet.

Run for Ray 2012 and a nocturne.

i. 13 miles among friends and family, kyote's third birthday, the woods.  The collective aspects.

Run for Ray Trail Race is an absolute hoot, a grand gallivant of a mud-romp, and it's continued growth is a testament to the fun of running through the woods. Three options of distance, 3m 6m and 13m, brought a total of around 280 folks, with all the familiar faces organizing and maintaining things, keeping a smooth flow in the mass, keeping the cause in mind, keeping the vibe respectful of it's roots of charity. Mo, Mincher, B. Brandon, the Underhill family, the volunteers, all were magnificent- many thanks to those who assisted the race's fourth annual success.

The 5k was fast, the 10k was fast, and the 13 miler kicked super-quick with Clifford, Hatchell, Hustrulid, MA Smith, and many other local talents tearing up the course. I passed much of the run solo, sometimes isolated, but I kept falling back in queue to see runners ahead and behind. It was a great race, and half of a great race is a great course. . . the grand ol' trail.

The trails at Brunswick Nature Park unravel by the sleepy marshes and the black tar of town creek. Into the woods the black and red clays cut, leaning into electric tower swaths of land and striding by waterlilied ponds, cat tails, mountain bike paths. The trails for the 13 miler are mostly narrow single track, interspersed with a few fast shoots of gravel road spineing the park. Some trail sections are older and smooth, deeply grooved into the earth, but most of the trails are new, engineered and labored by SORBA and Coastal Land Trust volunteers. Puddles were frequent and feet were wet. Sections twist and carve into sandhill with switchbacks and serpentine modulations across banks of longleaf pine, hardwood. After two laps on the more familiar singletrack, runners were flagged (or bodyblocked, but that's a different story) into a new section of trail composed mostly of spongy, freshly upturned soil/sand, a few mudslide berms, and a fine drift through new land. This section went on for about 1.5 miles before it cut back into the gravel road to the sidewinder trail to bring the mileage home. The top runners finished in the 1h30m range, and they were all salty smiles and easy postures and kind words as I came through the finish chute. A positive group populates this race and that's why it's my favorite local event.

ii.  the personal.

Run for Ray, the inaugural 2009 shot, was my first trail race.  It was a 10k across blue clay mtb trails, cold and all new and balling with a bit of blood and a lot of endorphins.  I was immediately addicted.  The R4R still serves as an annual benchmark, and I'm proud of my performances and progress as a runner, glad for my continued enjoyment in running the woods. My gratitude is deep to have found trail running to pull my body out of the destructive habits.
2012 has kept my knee runnable and the trail felt solid beneath my strongest efforts. Kyote turned three years old while throwing rocks into mud puddles and running alongside people that choose healthy forms of recreation. Time on trails, time with family, birthday pizza and jokes, then a good shift at work: it all adds up to a good day.
It's what trail running is all about, communion and community.  The burning of body as it passes along earth, invigorated and enthralled, searching a larger concept, a larger sense of boundary, a deeper confidence, an expansion of self and self-image.  Pursuit of a coordination, a synchronicity, an alignment with something higher than oneself.  A kindness that is accomplished by good, healthy work. I'm not preaching, but most trail runs feel like a Sunday morning to me.

Hope to see you out there next year.

iii. rest.

Nocturne on a surly, a dozen miles deep on a february night, thinblade moon slicing clouds in a starless blanket of silver fray, run for ray 13 miler still detoxing outta bones but a mellow sway of a bicycle is the right medicine for right now.  quiet wilmington night under the buzz of street lights and the gravelly roll of tires.

Meanwhile its a stomach stuffed with good foods but a mind stuffed with miscellaneous, with noise and clutter, fragmented idea, lost lyrics of song, family concerns, work stress, body aches. . . the norm. for now, fresh air and the quiet clicking of geared pedals, a rejuvenation, a pause; the simple slow cadence. in pursuit of a decrescendo of the cacophony.  the work to soothe before a few paragraphs of dos passos and sleep.  sometimes you just have to bow out for a moment, collect yourself, exhale the stale light.