This one's for Eric.

Time of departure: 7:21am
Return: 9:03am

Temperature: 42F
Lake Temp: 36F-37F

Route: Mostly the usual.
Approx Distance: 5-ish miles
Running buddy: Matt. God bless his patient soul.
Clothing: Tights, shoes, wicker, breaker, socks, bad attitude, 2 kleenex, 2 cough drops, rain drops.

The Drive Activity: loud, crowded, & obnoxious.
People tally:
18 walkers
9 runners
31 bicyclists
3 dog-walkers
2 dog-tenders at beach

What did I eat pre-run? some water, 1/2 banana, 2 dates, some water
How did I feel? I felt like crap.
What do I like about running? I don't remember.

_______________________________________________

So, I could try to romanticize the whole thing. But that would be lying. Because truly, this run just sucked. Royally. Awfully. Painfully. Like at one point I just wanted to cry, and maybe I did cry, "I want my mommy..." Like how my mom would tell how it was when she was in Spain and they were staying in an unpleasant apartment where the shower would rain over everything...and she was a adult woman crying for her mom... Because it was brutal. And I felt sad.

First of all, I didn't want to wake up. So I started with a case of bad-running-buddy-guilt. Second, I was coughing like some sort of machine gun. Constant. Rapid. Out of control. Third, and this really isn't a big deal by itself, but it was raining. And the coughing combined with the rain just made me feel pathetic. Fourth, my legs had forgotten, in their infinite sickness, how to run. Fifth, I was coughing and hacking up parts of my lungs. Sixth, Matt WASN'T coughing. He got sick AFTER me. He was he NOT coughing. Was he NOT coughing just to spite me? It's possible. He does have the self-control. And he does do things just to spite me.

Matt's self-control. It's unbelievable. We had a no-coughing contest over the weekend. Of course he won. Of course. I would never bet against Matt if the thing being done had anything to do with will power, because I'm quite sure the guy is unbeatable. I've never met anyone else EVER in my entire life who could top Matt in this department.

Anyhow. I was able to get it together enough to string together a couple of miles with minimal coughing. It rained much of the time. The snow had melted. That was another thing that made me feel sad. Since my last run, everything had melted and drained away. The ground was still soft and a little muddy at times, but there were no more seas of goop and slurpee. The white of the snow? All gone. Replaced by yellow grass. So sad. I feel like I missed out on a critical transition from winter to spring. In my delirium of illness and disease winter gave way to spring and I missed it.

Not that I'm asking for another snowfall in order to allow me a second chance to capture this experience. I'm not that sad about it.

The Christmas tree pile is smelling mighty strong again. I'm sure there were lots of smells along the way to observe and take notice off. Lots of mud and rain to smell. But I was more focused on the inner environment of my body and so didn't observe such things. I didn't observe the people either. Matt was the sole keeper of the count (and do you see what high numbers!?). Mostly I meditated on not-coughing and we didn't do much conversing. When I would say something to Matt he'd say, "hold on, I'm updating my count...16 walkers...8 runners..." I'm glad he had the mental stimulation of juggling all those numbers.

And I have nothing left to say. This is short because it is just too sad.