Tag Archives: every day

Day 32: Sluggish

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I have a friend who has run lots of distance races. And he is serious about it. He sometimes wins and stuff. He trained for the Olympics. He has put in some work and some time. I asked him one time how he stays motivated. He said that he sometimes just gets out there, even if he doesn’t feel like it. Rain? Cold? Not enough sleep? Tough. Get out there and run anyway. It was over a decade ago he said this to me, but his words were sticky enough that I think about it on days like today. I was just plain old sluggish.

Someone asked me recently, “Are you a runner?” I used to think of myself as a runner, but my running has been so sporadic and so without accomplishment the past few years that I don’t think of myself the same way. I said something wishy washy like “I guess so,” and the conversation moved on. I guess I can say again that I am a runner, but I still feel like I should do more as a runner to call myself that. I should run far, or fast, or at least enter some events now and again. All I’m doing these days is poking down the road. Every day I’m shuffling.

I guess my accomplishment is 32 days of running in a row. That is something anyway, although it feels like a sideways way to accomplish something. It feels easier this way. I mean, I just go for a run, today and every day. I don’t worry about training plans or regimens or rules about when to run. I just go every day. I don’t go all that far, mind you, but the miles add up. Today I managed 5.6 miles. Not five and a half miles, since my house to the pond is 5.6. I’ll take the extra tenth. Like I said, it adds up.

I got plenty of sleep last night and even ate breakfast before I left, which I typically do not do. Still, I felt like a slug. I was dragging my feet. I was oozing down the road. I was pokey. It felt a little silly. I had to keep pushing myself forward and telling myself how ridiculous it was that I was going so slowly. I called myself some bad names. But I put in the miles and called it day 32. I thought of this friend of mine all those years ago and how he just got out there, whether he felt like it or not. The rest of what he said was this: “No matter what, I always feel better once I get out there; it is always worth it.”

On this point, he was right on the mark.

Day 30: Chased by Wolves, Plus Snow

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OK it wasn’t really yesterday I was chased by wolves, but the day before. Not literally, of course, but in the dream I had a couple nights ago, I was getting chased by a huge pack of these canine beasts, and they were not friendly. They were not out to eat me, mind you. They were the puppets of the evil master who was trying to take over the world. This nasty dude used the wolves, who he had somehow managed to convince to follow him, to subdue the populations of every place he wanted to rule. I was fuzzy on the details, but that is the way dreams are.

I saw the wolves coming from far off, being on the roof the huge Victorian house I had never seen in real life, but they were too fast to avoid. I warned everyone–and there were lots of people in this house–but we all were held captive once the wolves arrived with their bared teeth and threatening growls. The dictator who wanted to rule the world had wolves as minions. It made me think of Germany in the 1930’s and 1940’s, or Sudan in the 1990’s. This is what I thought about on day 29 of my running-ever- day experiment. I wondered what it would feel like to have your world turned over because one man is crazy for power. I was scared in the dream, but it was only a dream. I ran in the dark, early morning, before the sun got around to making the sky light, and thought about fear. It was a beautiful morning, but every run can’t be filled with wonderful thoughts.

Today I hit the 30-day mark. It felt good to do that. It snowed last night and snow crusted the ground in spots. It was slippery and I had to be careful. I thought about the snow. Then I ran into a friend and we ran together for a while. We had a conversation. We caught up. We didn’t talk about dictators or drooling carnivores. We talked about kids and running and weather. That was a little more like it. I plan to run again tomorrow morning. We made a plan to run together on purpose this time. Maybe we will talk about the dreams we had. Let’s hope the wolves don’t come back. Like I said, they were not friendly.