preparations for weymouth woods 100k and a winter solstice.

Skatellites & ongoing preparations for a 62 mile run at Weymouth Woods

i haven't had much time to write because i've been running and cycling and doing a fair amount of what I should call “trail diving.” another apt description would be busting my ass.  i've tasted the earth several times, drawing blood and making the effort an actual experience.  miles are taking a toll on the accuracy of footfalls, perhaps. luckily i remain only bruised and battered, nothing serious. don't fret dear reader.

i have fired various guns of 9mm and .40 caliber, watching some 250 rounds separate into plumes of paper and metallic clinks of flying jackets landing around me.  i've spent hours with family and work and self.  i've started stretching two small square canvases, but i haven't finished the actual stretch.  but the canvas is draped across the frames, ready to be stapled and primed.  ideas, plans, as intact as any modern mind.

Meanwhile the tired sun begins a lame gallop across a foggy day. Balmy, wet air. stillness.  far from a winter solstice-type day.  but its a belly full of coffee, before your legs get going, a few fast songs to get the head anchored to movement, a pocket of gel (for fear of bonking) and you kick easy at first, warming the tension out of the muscle.  a jog jostles the muscle mass, pumping the hardened lobes laced against bone, and the muscles must soften because the earth will not and so the legs give and start working, softening to pliable. as the feet start feeling the run and find their dig on that packed earth trail, skirting a field of smokey pale light, watch the sun burn into that heavy drift of night's residual breath, wet and already working the lungs as inhales get deeper and exhales move from the shift of hips and you cut into the trail's obscure opening in a wall of pines as the sun begins to slice sharper across the sandhills on the northwest side of blue clay trails and the light carves roots and rocks out of the sloped earth and keeps the feet moving with some accuracy of foot placement and a skullcap absorbs new sweat into salty residual stiffness and a chest heaves easy into the pace, the speed feels right and perpetual, feels innate and unlabored, feels smooth like a body moving within its own free form and yeah you carry spare pounds (your wife remarked on your pouch just before you left the house) and yeah your temples carry some gray and you get your hair cut more frequently than you'd like because you work a job that you respect enough to compromise certain things but you gather something else as the skatellites pick up an allegro pulse that the legs fall easily against, metronome, milling, and time falls away but for the chirp of miles and the mechanical splash of a passing mountain bike and thirst pushes the body into a reserve of power and there is the stasis through which one eases as the fifteen miles burn through the annals of the mind and the force of muscle.   there is the start of a vicious process of enduring the mind when the body cannot endure the work.  it is a zen movement, a holy vacancy, a winter space with a spring sun.