Gone Runnin' 4/11/10

"The worst day running, is still better than the best day fishing," is my personal credo, and one I will invoke to describe today's ten-miler.

The weather was perfect, save for a few billion pollen bombs, and the racing flats were stomping around by the front door, begging to be set loose so that they could set the streets afire. What was needed was a vehicle capable of keeping up with them, of taking advantage of the cool temperature, sunny skies, and slack winds. But it was The Lumberjack, a.k.a. The Ice Wagon, The Train Wreck, and The Wheeze Box, who laced up the Adidas Adizeros on this spectacular Sunday.

My form was ungainly, the way a bear who has broken into the Jack Daniel's distillery is ungainly. My breathing was labored, even more so than that of a woman who is in labor. At least she would have someone "coaching" her on how to breathe. I seemed to have forgotten everything I'd learned on the subject of respiring while exercising. Inhaling and exhaling at the same time. Through the ears, and not the nose and mouth. I aspired to aspirate my PowerGel, choke-choke, cough-cough.

Ten miles is one of my favorite distances to run. It's longer than my average daily run, but not so far that I have to spend all afternoon hooked up to an IV drip and a ventilator recovering. It's also very easy to compute my per mile pace when dividing by ten. I ran so slowly today, however, that even after decimating the total time, I came up with a number that resembled the average number of clowns in a circus carpool.

But, still, I believe I was better off running today, than I would have been if I had stayed in bed. I burned some calories. I hawked up some righteous Technicolor loogies. And I entertained hundreds of motorists with my "marionette controlled by a drunken puppetmaster" routine. All in all, not a bad way to spend a couple hours. Sure beats fishing.

Thanks for humoring me.