Daily Transformations

Sleeping through my alarm, I was out later than prudent on yesterday's long run, and suffered the consequences.   The build-up of heat came upon me as I began the long stretch west, keeping the sun at my back, and my brain was not yet talking to my body in the fog of fatigue I was shaking off.

The long run comes after my 6 days-with-clients stretch, and 2 days (usually) off running due to my schedule.   I am paying for this intensity:  it is difficult, like this weekend, to drag my butt out of bed to tackle my Sunday run, but I am sticking to my commitment.  So after my first pit-stop and chance to regroup, I took the cut north to catch 56th and my next big pull up to Griffin.  I walked a good bit of that last stretch;  the heat/humidity combo is an energy-sucker, and I have been determined to respect this more, and resist less...so walking becomes an easier option as soon as I feel I've stepped beyond my natural limits.  The last thing I need is a road-related heat emergency.

By the time I made it home and got on with my day I felt like a wet rag rung out to dry....This morning, I decided to take one more attempt out, at a more reasonable time, and this time began heading out and up the overpass to 29th.   This puts my Publix stop later in the loop, and it was a slog by the time I got close.  The miracle happened on the way back, as I hit the trailer park and found my rhythm at last, with the hitch in my hip quieting and all the tunes in my phone feeling like motivational voices keeping a beat and a lyric running through my feet.

The run begins like any day does, as we crawl out of our beds and begin the inner chatter that reflects our anxieties or hopes for the day.   The warm-up walk has always been my means of 'checking' what's going on inside, to link mind with body and to hope the sync is such that some grounding is achieved with the external world.   When everything goes well, I am high from the effort and feeling of harmony between so many parts acting in accord with one another.  The transformation of the day is begun.