A little more leveled than some runs, but there were still enough ups and downs to give one emotionally sore ankles.
The first 13 kilometers were a mottle of beauty and challenge. Towering trees on both sides; sidewalks that should be having identity crises - yes they were utilitarian, but they were also an artist's conception of what a sidewalk COULD BE, spiraling around that tree and this, over the little Grimms' brook then back out roadside.
The challenges seemed to be four fold. Breath, muscle, stomach, feet. All wrapped, held, and dictated by mind.
Easy to deal with when there was just one. Out of breath - you slow down, concentrate on that problem statement, bring the pulse down and the breath follows. Legs burning from the hill but breath ok? Slow down, delve into the bag of tricks, zigzag up, or laterally run up. Stomach - not enough sugar - have some gel. Need a bathroom break - take it. Stomach upset - try and use the mind tricks to get around it. And feet. On the sidewalk, too pebbly - hit the road. Traffic comes, hit the sidewalk.
The problem is when you have more than one problem set to deal with -breath and muscle; foot and stomach. Puts you into a mind space of can't be done, hopelessness, can't meet the goal - ness. Then when you recover, back into ones problem at a time, you're a little weaker for it.
That would be the second most difficult part of the run. More than one problem PLUS - then recovered back into a non-whole, fragmented space.
The MOST difficult would not be to do with pain or the above. It would be the malaise, the can't do it it feeling - some of Dragonsloth's seed in there - but it's an undercurrent, a constant companion on the run, and sometimes even trying to radically accept it / surrender to it just makes it worse Which could indicated that I'm NOT actually accepting it.
It's the feeling of 'can't'. And the main thing, seemingly the only thing that gets me through it is to try and put the feeling into the side view mirror, not directly look at it, and just rely on dumb, strong willpower.
It's the feeling after the first 8 mins when the muscles are burning to warm up. Can't do 3 hours.
It's the feeling up the first hill - burn - can't do a long run.
Those are the short lived spikes, the longer ones are more like subtle body iron maidens, stretching me out and refusing to be resolved with a quick one-off anecdote.
That's when I'm into km 21, finding a pace, looking at the GPS and trudging on. Anesthetized by the Ipod, feeling I'm tired but over the latest hump and then BANG
I'm walking.
Check out David Darling's reference of the researcher that finds that a good deal of our 'conscious' actions seem to be put into play quite a few milliseconds before we are actually aware of 'consciously' deciding to act on them.
Like a predetermined run.
This is what I need to address in the next runs.
Run it slow, but keep running. Through the pain and the grit, and out of the self imposed predeterministic sheath.
Run Ferris run.
Showing posts with label barefoot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label barefoot. Show all posts
Monday, April 13, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Solid Lines of Broken Glass
The oval has its advantages and disadvantages
As long as it is runnable outside (and my broad definition of runnable is a ground without blatant snow or ice), it provides a labyrinth of sorting that removes much of the chafe and challenge of the road or sidewalk.
The first few laps are the blood vessels reacquainting themselves with what it feels like to truly open to the demands in front of them. A steady white ache in the legs that burns quickly, then transfers up into the airways; heart picking up speed, lungs quickening.
This is the gross of the gross, the top of the colander as the shakedown and sorting unfolds. It stays up top, fading a little, as the next levels drop
down
And we're into the world of breath and heart and muscles and time and mind. Not as in your face difficult as the first level for sure, but there are subtle demons that more or less pull out their deck chairs and settle in for the run. There is a stridency here, in spite of the laizzez fare attitude. Time is clearly the ring leader. Even when all else is settling into rhythmic trance, Time has but to raise the baton and everybody else is backseated to the push, pull or discomfort he decides to manifest.
This too, can be shaken down staying up top as the even finer level of the run settles down.
Will and Itent.
Two brothers, these: Will the stable and predictable; Intent, the well meaning but sometimes fragile of the two.
And below these
Is.
Follow the non-linear linear tangent, the laser line from the finest level of oval the the intuitive level outside of Oval.
This would be fine weather sidewalk barefooting; salted face and saline sheet pulled from the stars to skin surface level; portable shade slipping down the olfactory awning, sear and pull, sear and pull as steady as a commuter train as I roll on slightly downhill to the turaround point until
diamond in front of me; image sharpened by the dull of the shades, a shift out of harms way, followed by a decision tree.
To the left, intuition, IS, run without fear but without direction.
To the right, hierarchy and structure, linear thought, the steps that might deliver me safely from shredded feet.
Inevitably, the left wins. It HAS to win, if I have any hope of navigating these lines of broken glass. And the lines collect and disperse like water through a creekbed; swaths scattered by an invisible reclusive gem gardener. Each sparkle a part of the mandala that will be pushed and pulled by traffic and weather and feet and wheels and paws and dust and time. Each sparkle a little cutting machine.
So it's a chosen path to NOT think. To be, a little thanks with each step that no damage has been done, a little hope with each following step that no damage WILL be done. Each lift and pull of the nekkid foot a whirlpool of belief, faith, hope, and a little fear...
Mantra beyond mantra, just trying to be in the arms of the divine, knowing that karma and fate and will and luck and disregard are all playing a part, drifting like billowing silk over the melting tar and embedded ego-checkers, until I'm through.
IS as intuitive grappling
IS a place of No-Thought and being.
Still in the world of the dual, but inexorably bound to the non-dual.
Because 'Is' is the non-dual, another form appearing and dissolving in and off the oval.
namaste
As long as it is runnable outside (and my broad definition of runnable is a ground without blatant snow or ice), it provides a labyrinth of sorting that removes much of the chafe and challenge of the road or sidewalk.
The first few laps are the blood vessels reacquainting themselves with what it feels like to truly open to the demands in front of them. A steady white ache in the legs that burns quickly, then transfers up into the airways; heart picking up speed, lungs quickening.
This is the gross of the gross, the top of the colander as the shakedown and sorting unfolds. It stays up top, fading a little, as the next levels drop
down
And we're into the world of breath and heart and muscles and time and mind. Not as in your face difficult as the first level for sure, but there are subtle demons that more or less pull out their deck chairs and settle in for the run. There is a stridency here, in spite of the laizzez fare attitude. Time is clearly the ring leader. Even when all else is settling into rhythmic trance, Time has but to raise the baton and everybody else is backseated to the push, pull or discomfort he decides to manifest.
This too, can be shaken down staying up top as the even finer level of the run settles down.
Will and Itent.
Two brothers, these: Will the stable and predictable; Intent, the well meaning but sometimes fragile of the two.
And below these
Is.
Follow the non-linear linear tangent, the laser line from the finest level of oval the the intuitive level outside of Oval.
This would be fine weather sidewalk barefooting; salted face and saline sheet pulled from the stars to skin surface level; portable shade slipping down the olfactory awning, sear and pull, sear and pull as steady as a commuter train as I roll on slightly downhill to the turaround point until
diamond in front of me; image sharpened by the dull of the shades, a shift out of harms way, followed by a decision tree.
To the left, intuition, IS, run without fear but without direction.
To the right, hierarchy and structure, linear thought, the steps that might deliver me safely from shredded feet.
Inevitably, the left wins. It HAS to win, if I have any hope of navigating these lines of broken glass. And the lines collect and disperse like water through a creekbed; swaths scattered by an invisible reclusive gem gardener. Each sparkle a part of the mandala that will be pushed and pulled by traffic and weather and feet and wheels and paws and dust and time. Each sparkle a little cutting machine.
So it's a chosen path to NOT think. To be, a little thanks with each step that no damage has been done, a little hope with each following step that no damage WILL be done. Each lift and pull of the nekkid foot a whirlpool of belief, faith, hope, and a little fear...
Mantra beyond mantra, just trying to be in the arms of the divine, knowing that karma and fate and will and luck and disregard are all playing a part, drifting like billowing silk over the melting tar and embedded ego-checkers, until I'm through.
IS as intuitive grappling
IS a place of No-Thought and being.
Still in the world of the dual, but inexorably bound to the non-dual.
Because 'Is' is the non-dual, another form appearing and dissolving in and off the oval.
namaste
Monday, December 29, 2008
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