brightpenny, I hate to tell you, but I’m pretty sure there’s a line for what you’re wishing for. Forms to the right.
I did my first actual running race this summer.
It was a half marathon to the top of Pikes Peak (14,110 feet above sea level). Reading your post was great. You express exactly how I felt during many of my training runs.
There’s something great about the delerium you experience when running at high altitudes. You know you hurt… Or at least you think you shoould by now, but the hypoxia has kicked into full effect and little things take on great meaning and/or hilarity, such as your possum incident.
I was fortunate enough to not have fallen into a fermenting animal, but sometimes dealing with the throngs of tourists at the top of a mountain after you’ve run 13.32 miles to get there will leave you feeling the same sort of disgust.
Edward the Head
I’ll be sure and email you my number before the race.
Fairychatmom
[quote]
How long did you stay on?**
Sorry, I missed this question. I don’t know. Not long. I did not get a time because I was disqualified. The only hand that may be in contact with the bull is the one holding the rope. I knew this rule, but in extemis, I touched the bull in an attempt not to do an immediate faceplant out of the chute.
I would guess I was on the bull for less than two seconds.
Brightpenny and Scout
I don’t think you girls would want me after the bullride.
Earlier I said it all started with the bullride, but in fact it starts earlier than that. I started making radical decisions last March when circumstances conspired to leave me mentally constipated.
It turns out that my father who thought was just being a jerk had a biological cause for his behavior over the last ten years. He had brain surgery and confessed to me that the IRS was after him for failure to file and pay for more than ten years, and that he had failed to take care of his mother properly, and when she died he had abandoned the estate and the state had seized property for back taxes and the IRS was after him for that, too.
He didn’t trust himself and wanted me to take over everything fix it, and keep him out of jail and solvent if possible.
My daughter almost died, and I had a mysterious figure from my past that I never dealt with properly emerge and cause me disquiet.
I did not handle any of these things well at first.
To make a long story short, I was severely stressed, confused, and angst-ridden guy. So, I shaved my head, signed up for a bullride and a fifty mile run.
That doesn’t seem like a logical progression, but trust me, it made sense to me at the time.
Easter morning, 2005: I get up and go for a run. My plan is to run through a state park trail and intersect with the Appalachian trail and do maybe ten to twelve miles.
I get up early and drive. It is a fine chilly morning, and as I run I turn these various conundrums around in my mind for an hour or so. Then, I decide to turn around and run back. I shortly realize that in my self-absorbtion I have somehow never gotten on the Appalachian trail. In fact, I am not on any trail. It is foggy and cold in the woods and I am soaked with sweat. I pause to get my bearings and realize just how cold and wet I am. I am tired and my knee hurts.
At this moment in time I have an epiphany.
“You could die now.” That sounds dramatic and hyperbolous, but that wasn’t the way it felt. It felt matter of fact, and calm and was based on factual information.
-
You are eight miles deep into the woods and you have only the most general and possibly fallacious idea as to your bearings.
-
It is cold and wet and you are wearing shorts and a cotton shirt. Rangers refer to cotton shirts as “death cloth,” because they retain no heat when wet. The shirt is wet, you feel cold and it is probably between 40-50 degrees out here. If you stop running you will probably get hypothermia with astonishing rapidity.
-
Too foggy to see the sun.
-
You are tired distracted and careless.
-
All anybody knows is that you went out for a run. Nobody will look for you here for quite some time. If you are lost it will be many hours before your wife reports the incident. Hours later the car will be found. Hours later a search can commence. If you are lost it will only be by a great big stroke of luck that you do not have to spend the night in the woods, and if you do, you coud die of exposure.
But none of this has happened yet. Just then, I am running in the woods, looking to regain my bearings.
The other part of my mind reminds me that getting yourself killed these days usually involves a long chain of carelessness and stupidity, and I well down that path. While not in trouble just now, I was probably just one or two mistakes away from serious problems, and I had better get serious.
I decided to keep running in the direction I felt I had come from and see if the path reappeared.
So I ran some, and I toyed with the idea of what I would do if the path didn’t reappear. It would certainly be a dramatic time to die. And, I thought some more. I’ve gone hiking and running a lot in this area and studied maps of it looking for good routes. It is criscrossed with trails. Further, as long as I keep trending downhill, away from Big Flat and the Appalachian trail, I can’t fail to hit a road in about five miles.
So, on second thought, I’m not really in any danger.
Unless I just stop and lay down.
Do you ever wonder why hermits are generally considered mad? Have you ever spent time, even a few hours by yourself deep in the woods?
It’s strange how quickly things get weird. You don’t feel alone. How can you? You’re surrounded by life. It’s easy to feel creepy, like your being watched. Completely away from people or signs of any humanity but yourself, you lose your baseline almost immediately.
I do these runs and sometimes I’m convinced all my life has been a dream and there is nothing but woods and I am deluding myself to think that there is anything else. People do stupid things in the woods when they’re by themselves.
So, I laid down for just a minute to see what it would be like to be in trouble. I could fill my shirt with leaves to stay warm. I try that, and guess what? It works?
So, I get up and I run with a shirt full of leaves even though I’m not cold enough to need them yet. To keep the leaves in I tuck my shirt into my shorts.
Pretty soon I am cold and my shorts are full of leaves.
“Thank God for Bodyglide,” I think. Bodyglide is proof to me that the human race is worthwhile. Bodyglide is a product that actually works. It works better than advertised.
It is, in fact, magic.
Bodyglide is a magical invisible substance in the form of a white deodorant type stick. It contains oils and waxes and essences, the end result of which it is impossible to chafe wherever you apply it. It works forever (or until you shower and scrub it off with soap.) It is a long distance runner’s dream.
It is also a miracle for crotches.
If you run your crotch sweats and gets all stinky and sweaty and itchy and then it chafes and then it becomes raw and then things can get really ugly. Really really ugly. If you ever got junglerot from sweaty underwear you know whereof I speak just multiply it by ten for a long distance runner.
Bodyglide keeps you dry warm, odor and sweat-free, eliminates chafing, the whole nine yards. So, when I run I cover my entire crotch area with bodyglide.
This is why you never want to borrow somebody else’s Bodyglide, by the way.
I remove the leaves and am still remarkably comfortable and itch free, though I have tons of stems and detritus in my shorts.
And warm.
Y’know, if I had Bodyglide right now, if I carried it with me, I bet I could rub the stick over my whole body and it would have an insulating effect!
I keep running, since I don’t have my Bodyglide with me.
“Why do I run?”
I get asked this question from time to time. The pat answer is “I can eat whatever I want and it keeps me in shape.”
This is an eminently sensible answer and everyone is always satisfied with it. It just happens to be a lie. The truth is that I run because stripping the water bed to the plastic cover, getting naked, covering mself with baby oil and sliding back and forth on the waterbed just doesn’t help.
If you’ve ever tried that, or something similar to deal with worms-in-the-brain, I’d recommend running as an alternative.
Running beats oiling the water bed as a way for dealing with the stress and crap that we put ourselves through. It works better than alcoholism (though I haven’t tried that, I have it on athority.) It works better than being mean to other people and closing out and hurting the ones you love. It works better than despair. It works better than turning your soul off and being dead inside (I know this from personal experience.)
Funny. I felt like I hadn’t really been alive for a while. It took the birth of my daughter six years ago, to fill me to the point where I really wanted things, where I really cared, and it was good to be alive. Do we all just go dead and live our lives without feeling for periods of time, or is it just me? Conversely how many people just go through their lives, dead inside, or like animals… not really caring, not really happy, not really sad, just… not giving a shit.
Anyway, I felt alive and fulfilled again. The problem is all the angst that carries. Hence, the running. And, it worked too.
If it was working why I was running lost through the woods fantasizing about coating myself in Bodyglide with my underwear full of leaves?
What are these thoughts in my head?
Will I die in the woods, or will I find the path? I think of a line from Robert Frost “These woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep and miles to go before I sleep.”
As I’m thinking all these pseudo-deep and melodramatic thoughts I realize that I know exactly where I am. I’ve enjoyed my escapist little surreal self-indulgent pity run.
I go back to the car, and take the family on an Easter egg hunt.
All is well for about six months until I’m out on a run and Kooter, my imaginary childhood friend shows up on his motorcycle. But, that’s for another day.
I optimistically decided that I won’t need that much time so I’m leaving with the second group.
Mmmmmm. ponders all this for awhile
You know…I think there’s something to what you say about the urge to run when things become overwhelming. Flight is instinctual, given the circumstances. While I can pretty safely say I’ll never become a runner, I can agree that when I become boxed in by life’s options, when I feel like I’ve given everything 10,000% and still it’s not enough to fix stuff, and I hit the proverbial wall at long last…I have incredibly vivid dreams, day and night, of running. Me in my non-runner’s form just feeling my feet to the ground and the sense of the world passing alongside, impossibly fast. No technology, just me and the earth and the air. Both grounded and lifted at once.
You’re a good man for recognizing what the alternatives might do to you and the ones you love, and for doing something about it.
I am now seriously considering taking up long-distance running. If it works for Scylla –
But I doubt I’ll ever ride a bull.
Better that than the possum. Sides, some chicks dig scars and other signs of battle. Manys the time I’ve come home bruised and bloody from a game of street hockey that ended badly and it hasn’t scared Alias off yet.
I think we’ve found the new motto for the SDMB. 
Daaaaamn. That is some crazy shit, Scylla. Just goes to show you the human mind is a fragile thing indeed.
Harborwolf:
The ladies may indeed dig signs of battle, but you’re missing the point, after riding the bull, you’re in no shape to dig the ladies.
If you still don’t get understand, try this: Take two oranges and put them in a bag. Now slam the bag repeatedly against the ground several times. Now examine the oranges.
Are you beginning to understand?
Ouch! Mine hurt, and I don’t even have 'em… 
I’m running the Marine Corps Marathon this weekend as a… heh, “training run” for the Fity Miler with a buddy of mine.
With 30,000 people, the crowds, the shoulder to shoulder runners it’s quite a different gig than the early morning solo runs in the deep woods through darkness and dawn.
On one such run in September, I was planning on running 26 miles, 13 up and 13 back. I was on the rails for trails in the empty woods and farmland between Shippensburg and Newburg when a motorcycle pulled up silently beside me. I knew exactly who it was instantly because I only knew one person that had a Harley Davidson with a true stealth mode on it. The fact that that person didn’t exist hardly mattered since there he was. If you can run far enough, hard enough into those woods past Shippensburg, it seems you can also run past… or through… consensus reality.
“Hi Kooter,” I said. I hadn’t seen him in about 33 years, or so, but like with all true old friends nothing much had changed.
“Hey,” said Kooter from his stealth hog. Kooter was about my size, six feet. He had long flowing blond hair, and strong masculine features. He wore Keds, faded Levis, a white Tshirt, and a brown leather vest. He was tanned, lean and muscular.
The most startling feature about Kooter though, was his smile. It was the kindest smile you’d ever seen on a human being, warm and full of love. You would see that smile and instantly know that you were dealing with the gentlest, most sincerely good person you had ever met in your life. He gave me that smile, and it wasn’t at all incongruous with the fact that Kooter was also a real badass.
Being my imaginary childhood friend, Kooter and I didn’t need to say much to catch up. I ran down the path and he rode beside me, silently, grinning, and let me look at him. First though, I only had eyes for the bike. It was the archetypal Immaculately Maintained Machine, all black and gleaming chrome. a lot of the upgrades Kooter had done himself. Besides the stealth mode, it could also turn invisible, and, if I recalled correctly, it could also fly. It had been 33 years or so since I’d seen Kooter and might not have recalled whether he’d installed the flying upgrade or was still considering it.
I began to feel slightly uneasy as my eyes moved from the cycle to Kooter, and not just in the way you normally would when your imaginary friend comes calling. Kooter hadn’t aged a bit, but he had changed. Down the inside of his right arm was a long wicked wound about 6 inches long. On my arm, in that place, is a keloid scar that looks like a large worm or a small snake has burrowed under the skin. In fact, he was covered in minor, and not so minor wounds mirroring my own. His looked a bit fresher. I wondered about the ones you couldn’t see, like the knee and the rotator cuff.
He smiled affirmatively, reading my mind. Though it all looked like it happened yesterday, none of it seemed to bother him or detract from his charisma.
“You’re me,” I said, getting it. “You are like the… ummm… best that I could ever be! You’re me, as the expression of my ultimate!” I was pleased for having caught on, and, it might be a bit narcissistic, but Damn! He was a good looking charismatic fellow.
“Nope,” he said, bursting my bubble “just what you hoped and wanted to be.”
“Ahhhhh,” As my imaginary friend, Kooter rode around doing good deeds, helping people and having adventures. This was how I explained his lack of presence to everybody else. He had just left on an adventure, or was on his way.
It was all quite trite and banal and childish, but I didn’t mind him being here as I still had ten miles or so to go, and was tired and bored.
But I still didn’t get it.
“No. You didn’t make me up. I’m real,” he said.
And just like that I remembered. I didn’t remember in the way adults remember, but in the way it happened, as a child. We were at a lake. I was lost, but not yet scared. Maybe three, or four. Their was a dock with people on it, and I wasn’t far from where my parents were picinicking with their friends. I would find my way back in a moment, but I wanted to walk down the dock which had some shops on it, and boats. At some point there was a man, and in the way of many children I knew there was something wrong with this man and his nervous attention to me. I remember feeling the sensation of being scared, as he tried to make me go with him. I didn’t remember the man, or the actual events, but I remembered the feelings, the knowing that this man was the stranger I had been warned about when I was told not to talk with strangers or go anywhere with strangers. This is what they were afraid of. He was here. He was focussed on me and I was too scared to object.
There was a car. It had a red interior and the man was trying to get me to go into it. I wasn’t struggling or resisting… but still, magically, someone noticed, saw something wrong. “Hey!!” was shouted, the bad man left me and drove away quickly, and I was carried back to my parents by the “Hey!!” shouter. He had long hair, and was wearing Keds, faded jeans, and a Tshirt. As he carried me, all the anxiety was gone. I knew I was being carried by a good man. Just like that.
“You invented the leather vest,” Kooter added, “but I like it.”
“I don’t think that actually happened,” I said. “I think I just made that up right now. That’s just too cute. How would that guy know anything was wrong? Why would he do something about it? Most people just stand around in ambiguous situations. They don’t act for fear of looking stupid.”
“Most people,” agreed Kooter amicably. “Not everybody though. Besides, I knew who you were and I knew that guy wasn’t your father.”
“How did you know that?”
“Because I was at the picnic. I was your father’s friend from the Marines. We had all been looking for you, though you were only gone a minute.”
“So you’re saying that I based on you on a real person,” I asked?
"Well yeah, Kind of like a Lifetime movie. “Mother may I sleep with danger” or “Betrayal of Trust: The Kimberly Williams story.”
I grinned, and Kooter grinned back.
“Well, Kooter” I said. “It’s good to see you, again. I missed you, but I have to admit this is going on rather too long and is a bit more involved then the typical long distance running hallucination/fantasy. So what’s going on?”
Kooter grinned, like I was supposed to get it.
“Ok. You have returned because I had heat stroke and am passed out on the side of the trail, and you are going to give me instructions that will save my life.”
“That’s pretty cheesy,” said Kooter.
“You have some urgent message from my subconscious?”
“Nope.”
“Let me guess. I’m about to step into a road and get hit by a truck and your presence here is to guide me into the next life?”
“Ugggh,” said Kooter. “Have you thought that maybe I just wanted to say hi?”
“Nyaahhh, I know you. You have something to do or say.”
“So what is it?”
“You’re going to say something cryptic and prophetic, that will foreshadow some kind of event?”
“Now you’re just reaching, pal.”
“OK.” I ran in silence for a while.
“I got it. With all the stuff that’s been happening this year I’ve put myself on some kind of mystical quest, and I’m going to find my spirit animal and be visited by spirits. You’re like Marley’s ghost.”
Here Kooter grinned. “Actually, you did meet your spirit animal. Remember that dead possom you stepped on?”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Nope, and then you fell on your back and it got all over you…”
I was getting pissed. I ran a little faster and interrupted. “That sucks. My spirit animal is a deap possum? That just sucks. I can’t beleive this. Everybody in the movies gets some kind of noble beast and you’re telling me I get a dead possum?”
“He died for you. That’s pretty noble,” said Kooter defensively.
“The Possum died for me? What he’s supposed to be some kind of Christ figure?”
“You do have a thing for Christ figures. Look at me. I’m bearing all your wounds. It’s a common archetype.”
“But a possom is just a big ugly rat. Why can’t I have a cougar for a spirit animal?”
“You got a possum, and there’s no sense complaining about it,” replied Kooter. “In point of fact, most spirit animals are worthless. They don’t do anything but symbolize. This possom though (his name was “Fred” by the way,) was determined to help you out. He was very proud to be a spirit animal and very proud to be your spirit animals. Not many possums get to be spirit animals, you know?”
“I can’t imagine why not,” I replied sarcastically. “The Possum is ubiquitously known for it’s noble character and fighting spirit. That’s why they spend all their time dragging their hairless rat tails from garbage can to garbage can.”
“You’re being an ingrate. Fred was determined to make a great show of being your spirit animal and he died on that particular spot so that you would slip on him, view the dawn sky and have an epiphany about beauty that would serve you well for the rest of your days.”
“So you’re here to remind me of Fred the Possum’s epiphany.”
“No. But since you brought up spirit animals I thought I’d mention that you already got yours.”
“So why are you here,” I asked? “And don’t just grin.”
Kooter grinned.
I ran some more.
“You’re here for my kids!” “You’re going to watch out for my kids! You’re going to be their imaginary friend! That’s it, right?”
“NNNOOOOOO” Replied Kooter, “But just to clear the air, I do watch out for your kids, just as I’ve always watched out for you.”
“Well, I hope you a do a better job for them than for me, because you haven’t helped me or been around for like 30 years.”
“That’s not true,” said Kooter. “A man has a dream. In that dream he walks along a beach and he sees two sets of footprints trailing back over his life…”
“OH no! God. No. Please!” I cry.
Kooter continues on. “The man notices that at all the difficult points in his life there is only one set and asks why he was abandoned when he needed help the most.”
“And the other guy is Jesus, and Jesus says “Oh no my son. That’s when I carried you.” Oh come on Kooter! You’re not gonna give me that shit. You weren’t there. I did it myself. I remember. It was hard. I would have noticed if you were around or I was getting help through the bad parts.”
“Allright!” says, and I see he’s getting pissed. “Enough fooling around. You don’t appreciate your spirit. Fine. He was just a stupid fucking possum, even if he was trying to help. I, on the other hand, have been you’re noble Knight. Not for you, even though I’m your imaginary friend. You’re old enough to take care of yourself. But for your kids. Remember the movies last week when you were with the kids by yourself?”
“Yes.” I replied, feeling uneasy, like I knew where this was going.
“Who do you think gathered up your kids and dragged you to the bench when you passed out cold?”
“I didn’t pass out. I walked to the bench and made the kids sit with me until I felt better.”
“No. You passed out. I stood you up and walked you to the bench.”
“I don’t mean to offend you Kooter, and I appreciate any good feelings, but I don’t remember it that way. I made it to the bench.”
“No. You were done. I gave you the extra steps. That’s all I, or anybody can do. Give you a little bit extra once in a while. But that’s not why I came back, either. I really did just want to say “hi.” This seemed like a good time.”
“Why did I get light-headed and feel like I was gonna pass out?”
Kooter shrugged. “Low blood sugar, basal metabolism, psychosomatic, brain tumor, anuerysm, epilepsy, I dunno. Sometimes people just faint. Don’t read too much into it.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway,” said Kooter. “I gotta go.” And with that he took his motorcycle off of stealth mode, and it roared with that mettallic clatter of really cool old motorcycles.
“You’re going to get visited by ghosts and spirits and stuff,” he added and roared off in a sound not unlike rattling chains.
I finished my run, got in the car and drove home.
I’m so glad I bookmarked this thread, or I would have missed the Kooter post. Scylla, not to heap too much praise, but this is great stuff, I get a lot of motivation from your writing, and good luck in the ultra.
I’m glad you like it, Schuyler. I sense you might be alone and that my readership has dwindled. That’s ok though, I really write more for myself. I’m curious how it turns out.
Last week I ran the Marine Corps Marathon with a friend. My friend wasn’t particularly prepared and began to suffer at about mile 6. I stayed with him for a while and sensed I wasn’t doing him much good. He was holding me back and I was pushing him too hard.
There’s something unpleasant about watching somebody else suffer, particularly if it’s holding you back. Somewhere around ten miles he did what I call “going internal” which is when you just lose touch with everything else around you and enter some kind of trance mode. We ran the half in 2:02:00 and I received his blessing to go ahead.
I needed it. I needed to suffer. I needed to push myself hard and see what I had. So, I took off.
It was a strange experience, very unlike my training runs. The constant crowds, the people around me, the hard tarmac, it was all completely opposite of my solitary training runs on soft compacted gravel. I felt stuck in the here and now, and unable to really get inside myself so I ran harder. Somewhere around mile 22 or so, I got fatigued and tired enough, the effort was strong enough that I began to get into that running trance state. No hallucinations or daydreams came to me though, and at 3:51:00 I crossed the finish line.
It was a good marathon, but a revealing training run. I didn’t feel like I still had half my energy like I would need to run the full fifty miles. My legs were sore and I was very fatigued. In another ten miles I would suffer some serious problems.
My friend dropped out at mile twenty and we met up at Arlington Cemetary and headed over to the subway station where we saw a man who had a heart attack.
He was dressed as a runner and the station was cleared while they carried him out on a stretcher. I didn’t know what to make of this other than 30,000 people had run that day.
For the last several days after the marathon I’ve felt different. What drove me to sign up for the fifty mile run, are the same circumstances that last fall drove me to shave my head, and ride a bull. Since then, I’ve resolved some of those things. My father will not be going to jail and it appears that I’ll be able to negotiate a settlement with the IRS. I should know for sure by the end of this month. I’ve let my hair grow back to crewcut level. I know longer feel desperate and full of mad energy.
The fear is in me.
Part of the pleasure, the challenge of riding the bull was knowing how stupid and unreasonable it was, the meaningless but very real danger I would be facing, and I accomplished it without really being afraid of the consequences. In fact, I welcomed consequences. I wasn’t worried about breaking a bone or going to the hospital. Something like that would have been an additional challenge, another experience to feel and to add character. It would have been life, something to strive against.
Now though, I feel differently about this fifty mile run. What it boils down to is that fifty miles is really really far. I know I can make 35, and I know enough from my training runs and from this marathon that that’s really all I have physically to offer. At mile 35 or so, I will be completely spent. I will have two, three, or four hours to go where I’ve already used up everything I’ve had.
There is going to be some true suffering. If I finish, I will hurt for a long time afterwards.
Before, perhaps with 6 months before it happened, that seemed an oddly attractive prospect. Staring that deep into the abyss suddenly seems scary to me. I’m starting to feel balance and control in my life again, and I’m not sure I need this.
I think I’ll still do it, simply because I said I would, and because I’d wonder if I didn’t. I’m not looking forward to it, though.
There’s a couple of pictures available online from the marathon I ran. In them I think I look cocky, confident, arrogant and strong.
But mostly I feel lost and small and weak and stupid, hence the marathons and the display of arrogance, and the fifty miles. Prove something.
Then again, there is the big hallucination/fantasy, the ghost Kooter warned me about.
You (the hallucination fantasy) showed up about two weeks before the marathon or so, about the time I started this thread.
It was an unusually cold Saturday morning, and I was wearing my Underarmor tights on the trail to keep me warm. Underarmor is wonderful stuff, skin tight, jet black, it keeps you warm, and wisks moisture away (I had a learned a lesson from the Easter run). The downside is that I was wearing tights, but at least nobody could see me. So, dressed like Batman, I ran through the woods, and somewhere around 15 miles I saw you.
For a long time I just watched wondering if the hallucination/fantasy would crystallize or fade as you hovered in the air before me. Finally we spoke:
“I thought your name was Mercy,” I said.
“No, you thought my name was Lust,” came the reply.
“Your secret name is Christine,” I said.
“Your secret soul is Dust.” Came the reply.
I was running through a cloud of it at the moment, as far from anything as I could be.
I just reread this one, and it didn’t register the first time. I think you get what I’m talking about. Good for you that you can feel this in your dreams. It seems a lot better to understand this while cozy in your bed, than getting up early and sweating a lot.
In case you haven’t guessed it, I usually don’t run in my dreams. In my dreams I have cryptic conversations with old acquaintances and mysterious personages. I don’t run in my dreams, I get that feet-stuck-in-glue dream.
When I read about Kooter I was eager to post my appreciation right away, but I’ve noticed that when I do, responses about fangirls tend to follow. I didn’t want to pull attention away from your incredible writing.
I search for your threads regularly, and always look forward to reading more. Please continue to post your writing here.
But you do dream in your runs. 
The links to your photos result in this message: The MarathonFoto order pages are generated dynamically and do not work well if accessed from a bookmark. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Maybe you could post them on flickr.com so we can see them?
I’m kind of moronic about how to do that.
Fantastic (story? life?) so far. Keep it up.
Lemme get this straight…you have to pay money to run some ungodly distance…physically because you want too?*
The only way you could get me to do that is if I were covered in A1 steak sauce and there were a pack of rabid chihuahua’s after me and the promise of $5million in tax free cash, Liposuction/tummy tuck and Brad Pitt covered in chocolate at the finish line.
- in the words of my girl friends late father who would holler at the new fad of Jogging - this is the late 70’s, " If you have so much energy, paint my garage!"
I embrace his curmudgeonness.