Running on Empty

 

 

It’s a new day. We have moved back to Delaware. I’ve switched shifts at work from 2^nd to 1^st. I am on the same schedule as most people I know, most significantly my family. I get to see my wife and daughter every day and we even have dinner together. But before I can eat, I walk in and out of the front door a few times, assessing the weather. I dress appropriately and I lace up my Pumas.

            Silently, I glance at the wooden stairs going down to the sidewalk. I feel my muscles tighten and relax as I go through the three warm up stretches. The tightness nears pain as I bend completely over to touch my toes, something I could not have done a year ago. There’s no place for celebration though and pride leads to complacency and too many times, for me anyway, to laziness. There’s only one thing that works. I have to run.

            I drank enough water today. I had some fruit for breakfast and a decent, but not too heavy lunch. Still, I’m only a few weeks into this routine. I’m not completely sure I can run as far as I want to. I don’t know what I’ve got in the tank. I know it’s always a little more than I think though and that I have it in me, even when I’m running on empty.

            There are two runs and I try to alternate. The 1 mile is from our end to the opposite end of the street we live on and back. The 2 mile starts with a walk across the street and then 6 laps around the outskirts of the park. On the first route, as I run up the street, I feel the turns in the sidewalk that are cut to separate the parking lot for each building. These are all right turns. I have to slow and make the cuts. As I build stamina, I am able to do this with more finesse. It feels natural and familiar. It’s a short run, so I try to run with some pace. I love the soft evening breeze in my face and on my neck. I watch people watering their flowers and working on their cars. Neighbors meet each other at the edge of their yards.

            The second run is more monotonous. It is around and around the same slab of blacktop. But the park is alive; teenagers with cars pull up by the basketball courts; music blaring their sound, their normal. There are other runners who nod and smile, folks walking their dogs, a father and his young daughter playing tennis. Much like writing, running is a thing that leads me to see other things. I see life and I feel the richness of an otherly world; people and things that exist outside of me but truly are a part of me.

            I dig deep in my lungs and the world whispers “Go”.