Yesterday was a day for long-term storage

This Thursday morning's 7-miler (ugh, 5:30 a.m., and out late at the Celtics game the night before) came out delicious--cool, but not cold, a beautiful morning, and six of us gluttons for punishment present. Same route--started on Arlington and Newbury, though this time we trekked our way further before turning back, to make the necessary mileage. I am happy to say that this week so far has been a strong running week for me.

That said, I am not a runner in the sense that many marathoners are. The truth is that running is hard. The first few miles of every single run are an agony of stiff joints, awkward pace, and jumbled thoughts. In fact, I doubt that it will ever be easy. But there comes a point in each run where the details stop mattering, and you get down to the meat of the thing. Your joints quiet, your stride smooths and lengthens, and the mental jumble shifts and eases, and occasionally settles itself out with no conscious effort. It's the last of these three that gets me at the core. This, again, is where I start to find the angles of myself, when there is nowhere I need to be but here, no phone or music to distract, no task to complete outside of the one--Keep. Moving. Forward. Physically, metaphorically, mentally. Everything in the beautiful, hideous, glorious, idiotic, and completely random and frustrating world comes down to one essential, conscious choice--keep going, or stop.

I can't get out of my head the knowledge that there's a lot of road out there my feet haven't seen yet. There'll be no long drawn out thought process, no heavy ponderings of whether the possible joy of mile 6 is going to be worth the annoying discomfort of mile 2. Fuck it. Get out and run. And if it still hurts at 6, or 14, or however far you go, well... remember that you're moving, breathing, feeling, and aware that you are alive. And all the world's an oyster.