“The best most of us can do is be a poet an hour a day.”

— dr. george sheehan

—

The thought occurred to me today at about the 58-minute mark.

What if an hour is all I have in me these days?

With temps in the upper 200s as the heat takes up its summer residency in the desert, I found myself in the last refuge of the desperate: the SCC indoor track. Eleven laps to a mile, turning the Garmin on and the brain off.

I managed a nudge under 16-minute miles for 4 miles, which is short of the Olympic qualifying standard but good enough for a podium finish at the 10 a.m. Geezer Dash. Although I suppose it doesn’t count as a race if nobody knows we’re racing but me.

The a-fib seems to be settling in for most of my strolls. It leaves me perpetually stuck in second gear, trudging along like a Vespa on an uphill. No, I’ve never ridden a Vespa on an uphill. You gotta work with me here.

Mo runs on a treadmill for an hour at the gym, so I’m pretty much locked in to that duration when we go together. But I’m always secretly relieved when I see her cooling down. Never once do I think, “My, that was easy. Let’s do it again!”

I have all these grand ambitions on the horizon, cruising effortlessly through endless miles, hour after hour after hour.

My imagination says yes. My heart seems to be saying an emphatic no.

It’s not like a stress fracture or an ITB flare-up. I can’t look down the road and say that it’s going to get better at some point. The beloved old Honda ran forever, until it didn’t. I wonder if NPR will tow me away when I eventually break down in the parking lot.

If your world revolves around running and you can’t run, then what? Maybe stop dreaming so big. Accept the limitations of living out the third act in slow motion and get in a few more matinees before the curtain call.

Life is short. Maybe my runs will be as well. And that’s OK.

Celebrate the hour, I suppose. “Every mile I run is my first,” Dr. Sheehan said. “Every hour on the roads a new beginning. Every day I put on my running clothes, I am born again.”

I love that feeling, standing at the starting line with a clean slate, a watch set at zero, a limitless horizon. THIS might be the perfect run.

And if not, there’s tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

“The answer to the big questions in running is the same as the answer to the big questions in life: Do the best with what you’ve got,” Dr. Sheehan said.

If an hour is all my heart has, then an hour is enough. Poetry doesn’t have to be long.

Crank up the ancient Vespa. Uphill battles are the best.