I’d been thinking about this run all day. I knew a run would help me focus, clear out some mental clutter, and shift gears away from all of the activity and emotions of the preceding week. I needed that release, particularly after the first day of being away from the constant company of family and friends, and without the girls.
But, I waited until that night to go out. I enjoy running during the night because it is usually much cooler than our summer days here, and the neighborhoods in which I run are less trafficked and quieter at that time. I find it relaxing to go out for miles uninterrupted by any cars at intersections, or the din of lawn mowers, or all of the other nuisances that comprise the suburban cacophony. You can only get that in the middle of the night, or in the early morning hours.
On this particular night, I left the house around midnight, and without any real design as to exactly where I was going to run; my only plan was to run long. The night was as quiet as I had hoped it would be, and I started at a very comfortable pace, thinking I needed to preserve my energy for the long haul, rather than burning it up for a better time. I promised myself I would not look at my GPS unit until I knew I had run several miles. I didn’t want to know my pace; knowing it would only distract me from what I really preferred to do on this run, and checking it would probably make me quicken my pace.
I wound my way through the neighboring housing additions during the first few miles, in temps I found nearly perfect for running. No one was out. It was just me, and the sounds of my breathing and my footfall, which I soon found hypnotic. Even my thoughts were absent.
Eventually my route through these neighborhoods made its way back to the local trail that leads past several schools, until it came to the end in downtown Waukee, and when I arrived there I had to make a choice about where I wanted to run next. I felt really good at this juncture, so I cut over one block to run through the downtown triangle, and caught a street that led me to another, longer trail that runs alongside the highway leading out of town.
I had it in mind to run this long, straight, flat trail until I reached a distance in my run where I could tell—either from the way it felt as I ran, or from other signals I sensed from my body—that I was about halfway of what I was capable of running that night. Given that I was running at a slower than usual pace, I wasn’t exactly sure where that mark would be this time, only where I had hoped it would be.
But, at some point along this trail I began to feel like I was operating on two levels. My body was enjoying the exertion and rhythmic movements of running, and my mind, as was usually the case, was entranced by the physical activity. However, at the same time, I became aware of a feeling that seemed both strange and uncomfortable. For some reason, I began to feel solitude on a level I am not sure I’ve felt often, if at all, in my life. I felt very alone.
Maybe it was the setting. There were no streetlights to light the way along the trail outside of town, and very few landmarks. The stretch on which I was running monotonously made its way west, bordered by the expanse of grass which separated it from the parallel highway on one side, and crop fields on the other side. There was a farmhouse every mile or two, but other than that, there was no other sign of life, with the highway absent of any traffic. The dark of the night seemed voluminous, and I really only knew the way of the path because it was illuminated by a full moon, and stood in stark contrast to its borders.
I’m not sure how to explain it or describe it, but after a few miles on this path I began to feel like the night air around me was so much larger than me, that I was so small compared to the immensity of the darkened sky around me. It wasn’t frightening, but it was certainly something I would describe as humbling.
I ran on, carried by the enjoyment I got from running, while still thinking about how I felt there in that somewhat overwhelming environ. The mixture of the two must have kept me fairly preoccupied, because before I knew it, I had run all the way from Waukee to the edge of Adel, the next town down the highway. I stopped there on the outskirts, not really wanting to continue on and into the lights of town, and I checked my GPS for the first time. I was a little over seven miles from home.
And as I turned to run back toward home, the distance I knew I had to cover to get home added to that feeling of being alone, and of being small. The run home seemed daunting.
In time, and with some effort, I eventually made it back to within the city limits of Waukee, and at about the twelve-and-a-half mile point in my run, I came to a spot along the trail where there is a water fountain and a couple of park benches. Even though the night was cool and I was not dehydrating under a hot sun, I was thirsty and knew I should drink something.
So I stopped for a drink. When I no longer had the cadence and muscle memory and motion that carried me and focused me as I ran, I was more aware of how my body felt, its wear and its pains. I took a long drink, and another, and then I sat on the bench for a bit. It was there that my will to run fell too low to overcome the fatigue, and the aches.
I sat there for a while longer and thought about my efforts, and limitations, and capabilities, and potential, and examples I had to set for people for whom my examples were important. I thought about loss, and about missed opportunities, and I thought about fundamental life changes. I thought about responsibilities. I thought about things many of us probably don’t contemplate until we are in the exact position where we are forced to consider them. And, when I really didn’t see the point of dwelling on it any longer and I became frustrated, I rose to go home.
I walked most of the remaining way home, disappointed in myself for not being capable of running longer. I tried to run briefly at times, but it didn’t feel right. The enjoyment was gone by that point. It was purely mechanical, and without much heart.
Eventually, I made it home, and the next morning I felt rested, and I didn’t feel any of the remnant pains I was certain I would feel from such a careless attempt to run way beyond my abilities. No real harm done.
I think, possibly, my desire to run long that night was a product of a week of emotions, some of them mixed up, and some of them pent up. It felt like a week of stopping and starting, and pausing and running. At times, I felt like I was thinking a great deal, and at other times I thought it was all I could do to feel without really thinking.
I said to myself that night before I began that I needed to go for a run to clear my head. But I never really anticipated that by dumping all my reasoning and thought through physical exhaustion, I would create a vacuum which would be filled by something, maybe the one thing, I never really took the time to consider during all of the previous week. Something I previously had only had to think of in the abstract.
© 2011 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.
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