Sam Wansiru takes Gold for Kenya in record time, kicking into high gear and staying there, for the men's Olympic marathon. He is 5'4" and 112#, which is almost exactly my build! How wild is that? I'm sure he has a few more muscles and little less excess baggage than I do, proportionally, but I watched his rhythm and gait...he was so smooth and relaxed, I almost never saw him adjust his arms, head or legs, which just kept swinging through their arc of turn overs, and over and over.....without a sign of fatigue. To keep up what he did for 26.2 miles really is something super human. His face radiated calm, without distress. The entire time I saw him I kept thinking, this is what I aspire to.....calm, steady effort, fast enough to enjoy the ride, not so fast that I can't appreciate what surrounds me.
I seem a long ways away from all that....I exchanged the Brooks yesterday and got my Asics back, then took them to the park for a trial run. They are lovely and smooth (and very pink)....but I was still sore, and only did 3 loops. Of course it was midday and hot as hell! So I can appreciate the limitations. I still hung out long enough to push through a trail or two after, catch some silence, watch birds, before heading out. I needed to push the parents to the back of my brain. I needed to see green. My heart went out over the water and up through skies transparent with crystal blues. Every cloud took my breath away, like messengers, holding my prayers, my hopes, my fears on their gossamer wings.
Where will this all lead? There is freedom in acknowledging a lack of control. And yet, the primitive mind needs reassurances. I run to reassure myself that I am whole. That mind and body work as expected, for my benefit and pleasure. I run because I can. Working that hard helps underscore my every ability in every area of my life. It keeps telling me I can endure, I can maintain. And I've been listening, hard.
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