Last night, I was searching for inspiration. Sunday was not a good day. I needed something to pull me up after a mean-spirited run that had me walking almost half of the last couple miles. My goal was a 16-miler, but I didn't have it in me. Instead, I went for 14 and didn't quite have enough for that either.
I felt beaten. It was the hardest run so far this year. Hard mentally more than anything.
Saturday was the very enjoyable trip to Blackout Island. The Whole Sick Crew went to a beer festival and tied a few on. We were given 40 tickets for three-ounce samples. I used all my tickets and several booths weren't collecting. We were sloshed.
The problem though, as it relates to running, is I was so drunk by 6 p.m. that I forgot to eat dinner and crashed out sometime around 9 p.m. When I woke Sunday morning, I felt rested and my innards were relatively stable. I tried to compensate for not eating the night before by eating more that morning, but it didn't work. The sun and lack of fuel took their toll.
I still cracked 500 hundred miles, but I felt demoralized.
I've been searching for a copy of Jim Fixx's Complete Book of Running, but for some reason it's a harder task than it should be. My father has been a runner since 1972 (oddly, we both started running at age 26), and I hoped that he had a copy of Fixx's book or something equally inspiring. I scanned his bookshelf last night and found a dusty copy of George Sheehan's Running & Being, a treatise on running and metaphysics. Hopefully, it does the trick.
Running is my quiet place, my place to think. Unless of course when I run with Martini. Sheehan began the book by saying he can't write without running and vice-versa. It's on the run where the ideas come. This struck an immediate chord.
This last run knocked me down, but I'm happy to get back up. And sometimes, it's nice to have someone or something pull me up when I just don't have it in me.
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