Running Hard

Building the base back up, have gotten out running every day this week. Went for a longer run Wednesday of about 10- 12 miles. Followed that up Thursday with an easier 6 plus mile run, then ran harder on Friday. Took one of my usual loops thru some residential parts of Carolina Beach at an easier, steady pace... then picked up the tempo back on the Greenway, back down past Food Lion on Spencer Farlow Drive.

Kept it kicking pretty hard all the along the bike path that runs adjacent to the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway and under Snow's Cut Bridge. Then across the dead end street by the American Legion and on down the rest of the bike path to where the waterway spills into the Cape Fear River... kept it moving pretty hard by now the breaths coming more rapidly, short and choppy, the legs feeling the burn of the lactic acid building up, the mind signalling to the body to slow down (ignoring the mind here is paramount or simply thinking about somehting else like what i might eat for dessert later). Up thru the windy twisty paths that jut away from the water back into the state park then onto a short stretch of macadam roads in the park (telling myself two more stretches of trail then this madness will cease. Thinking about a JFK quote I once read where he said he thought he could tolerate any level of pain if he knew it was temporary and would end at some point).

Into the thick of the wilderness then just as fast as I had come out of it, woosh past old gnarled deciduous trees and pine brush palm scrubs me suddenly being in awe of the immense natural beauty that I am surrounded by... realizing too that it is going to be alright, in fact everything is alright and will always be alright, we are all saved we are all blessed... then back out of the woods across another street back into the woods... and the pain sears into my lungs/ legs it all suddenly hurts and now it takes intense concentration to not feel any of this and to will the body and the mind another half mile or so along this trail, counting each dip and turn every bend and every trail marker, one after the other soon soon i'll back out the deep dark deathbedded woods and back onto the main access road into the sunlight free free again and this pain will cease and sanity will return.... hang on and I do hang on after almost dry heaving near the end of the trail all the intense whriling motion begins to subside and my breathing slowly returns towards normal the heart and pulse rates which have been redlined begin to creep back down a bit again... I survived yet again.

Then a mile or so easy jog but not too easy back on thru the older residential section of the CB back across the main street and onto the boardwalk where catch site of the mightly vasy wondrous ocean which seemed like a lost vision from times forgotten ten or fifteen minutes ago when I was in the forrest.