RUUNNINN

 I want to run again. I haven’t run long in months.

I have a heel spur that is really preventing me from getting into the zone.  It used to be so easy, just to lace up shoes in the morning, and walk outdoors. My mind didn’t want to do it, but my body was craving the endorphins.

Now I have to be at work at 7, usually before the sun rises, and I don’t fancy getting up at 4 in the morning to get my workout in. Seeing as I have to drive to wherever it is that I’m going to run, because the major road that I live on is/was known famously for prostitution and drive-by shootings, I can’t manage the wake up, the drive, the run, the drive back, and the shower all before it’s time for me to leave at 6:38 in the morning.

But oh. Those runs. The runs where the sun is just coming up. Those runs where ice forms on the back of your ponytail. Those runs where your legs and lungs begin to believe you’re strolling through the park when, in reality, you’re cranking an 8 minute mile, on mile 9. Those runs where your ipod dies and you don’t give a fuck because you’re already at that mentality; the mentality where the slap of your feet sounds better than any song that could rustle through your shuffle. Those runs where all you see in front of you are the bobbing heads of others as they run. Those runs where you return to the club house to see nothing but smiling, happy, genuinely elated people. Those runs where your mind and body begin to operate on the exact same wavelength, each one working in harmony with the other with such concordance it's nearly unbelievable.  Those runs that are so long you begin mapping out the state in your mind to see which towns you could make it to in a single day. Hum… I could get to Newberry on foot in three hours. Hmmmm….halfway to Florence, SC in four hours, or all the way if I got two good days of running in. Those runs where you feel, literally, like you have not a care in world because you are RUUNNINN.

Oh, geez. Those runs. I want them back