Re-markable

I took Sunday off — Saturday had been the Maginnis-Loves wedding and reception, which entailed a lot of standing and sitting and conviviality and eating odd things at unusual times — so that when I woke Sunday morning somewhat achey in joints and head, I determined to give myself the day off from running my biweekly mile.

So imagine my surprise this morning when I reluctantly (did I ever mention that I dislike running intensely?) clambered out of bed, squeezed my feet into my trainers, skipped rope for a short warm-up, and then ran the mile in 10:10! Not only is that my best time ever, coming after a Sunday on which I didn’t keep up my practice of biweekly running, it’s a 10-second improvement over last Wednesday, which was itself a 10-second improvement over my prior best. A ten-minute mile is now in sight, which would have seemed unthinkable even two months ago.

Moreover, I pushed my not-break-stride mark to… well, the landmark won’t mean anything to you, but it’s the garage beyond the Rusty Bicycle, beyond the 20 kph warning sign, from which somebody occasionally sells second-hand furnishings. I’d have liked to push on the extra few steps to Leopold Street, but that was not in the cards. My legs felt good — I run with the constant recollection of years when ‘running’ meant just stretching out your legs, applying some energy to operating them, and zooming along for a hundred or so metres. Those days are long gone after decades of my not resisting academic couch-potatosity — but if I recall them now when I gasp and totter along my route, the hope that sometime I may be able to run the whole mile, and that someday I may recapture the limberness, the lung power, and the vitality to just give a joyful sprint for a short distance sometimes appears in my heart and gives me a wee booster shot of capacity.

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