Another circle I can run around
Another dark corner I can get lost in
All fall down.

— amanda l. kravit

—

It’s so hot here. Actually, if it cooled off 20 degrees, it would be so hot. What it is here right now is something else. Like that hot sauce under the counter at Rosa’s that they won’t give you unless you ask for it. Hint: Don’t ask for it.

So you do what you have to do: 21 miles on the tiny indoor track at SCC. With 11 laps to a mile, it works out to 32,921,116.2 laps. Plus a pee break. Hint: When upstairs on the track, don’t pee over the railing. Although there is NO sign telling you otherwise.

It’s actually not that bad. The usuals are there. Fast Brooks Woman, Faster Adidas guy, Converse Man, the usual array of people you haven’t seen before. You surmise the downstairs people have moved upstairs because someone was peeing on them. You hope they don’t have security cameras.

A good day at the fitness center is when you go through a shift change at the front desk, a sign you’ve put in significant miles. Today there were three of them, a personal record. Sadly, Strava doesn’t mark such milestones. But you’ll know.

It’s the first day of the First Long Run Trifecta in the Fit PA Fancy Pants Training Plan and World’s Greatest Nutrition Tracker, The First To Acknowledge That Ice Cream Can Be Melted And Counted Under The Water Tracker©. You take an inventory of the body and predict the next two days will go fine as long as you die in your sleep tonight.

And then you wonder. Would it be better to just do the entire training block on the indoor track? After all, you don’t have to think. The weather is predictably cool. No dogs or e-bikes or the caregiver on the Smoocha Mucha Lucha Lasso loop who is always either coming on to you or trying to enroll you as a client. Just show up every day, turn off the brain, go around in circles. Miles is miles, yeah? Your legs are feeling it; must be working. Maybe this is the way.

And then you go home. You watch the moon come up. It’s going through some kind of eclipse, or maybe it’s behind a cloud, or possibly your glasses are smudged after running. But it’s beautiful. You remember that nature is a pretty great mother.

And isn’t that what this running stuff is supposed to be about? The sun, the wind, the grass, the flowers, the dirt and rocks and cacti, the ups and downs and uncertainty of what lies around the next corner? The joy? There is no joy on the track. Just a lot of turns. And a lot of grumpy-looking people who smell vaguely of urine.

You make a mental note to wake up early tomorrow. Not early enough to beat the heat, but maybe early enough not to be cooked like a monkey on a stick. Monkey on a stick should be saved for aid stations in big races.

Because otherwise, it’s just exercise. Which isn’t bad, but not at all what you signed up for all those years ago.

You go out again to look at the moon.

And you set your alarm.

You think maybe that Rosa’s hot sauce isn’t all that scary if you get used to it …

Another dream didn’t work out
So you found a way to let it out
All fall down