So high, so low

On Sunday's long run, the Plan called for 12 miles ,  a bump back to obviously help consolidate gains and something I should be able to handle;  so my thoughts went as I watched the rain pour down before I finally made the dash outside.   Squally bands of rain, sometimes hard, usually a drizzle kept fanning over me as I headed up the overpass to begin the loop south then east along Arthur St.  I did not dress in rain gear,  instead trying a minimal approach-  a simple cut-down micro-tee and shorts with my phone-slash-music safely stowed in a plastic bag in my spi-belt.  My legs felt heavy, and so was my mood.  Before I warm up it's a chilly and surreal slog until I begin to unwind some miles east and hit my first pit-stop at John Williams. 

The wind was at my back to get there, and while I cruised up 66th to link with Stirling.  I began to feel the rhythm of my gait lull me into the pleasant trance of the movement, allowing my mind to surf the images and concerns of my inner landscape, until I faced east and the long stretch back.  The weather was on dial to fuel up and down the register...at moments the sun would break through and the heat/humidity would blast me.  Most of the time strong blustery winds blew right at me, slowing me to a walk until I picked the pace back on Emerald Hills, my short cut for the day.

I watched as I swung from confidence to deflation with every change....when I caught a good stretch I felt sure I could master any marathon...sign me up!  When I crawled to a walk, the senselessness of it all would strike me....why punish my body, pushing it so hard?  Would I benefit just as much from a modest running routine,  and keep my fitness and health?

I'm glad I had those ecstatic stretches;  I love feeling like anything is possible, even when Reality smacks me in the face.  When world and personal events feel as if they conspire to bring me low, I recognize that parallel paths are unfolding miraculous breakthroughs and the paradigm of possibility emerges stronger than ever.    And whether the wind is at my back - or blowing me off my feet, it is the same Wind after all.

Thanksgiving weekend calls for my first bigger distance, a 16 miler, and as I've been telling myself, this will help me decide if I have it in me to train any further for Miami.   Whatever the mind wants to interpret,  there is no getting around the footfalls, the rain, the silence on the empty, open roads which beckon with possibility....I run on.