6:45, the alarm blares and I'm up. Not quite in a flash, but I'm surprisingly conscious. Even more surprisingly, it's my day off. Two hits of the snooze later -- that's three less than it usually takes -- I'm on my feet. Half an hour and layers of sunscreen later, I'm out the door.
It's still too early for the umbrella-toting families or the silicon-enhanced sunners. This is the time when the beach belongs to the suits. The
wet suits. Sitting astride their boards in the distance, lined up on the waves, they could almost be a regiment of water soldiers in formation. Some are already done for the day, heading back to their cars, trailing wet jellybean-shaped footprints in the asphalt behind them.
I watch all this in slow motion. Literally. I'm no sprinter. No Olympic records are in danger of being shattered today. You know how fast your car moves during rush hour on the 405, with an accident eating up a left hand lane? Well, I'm running half that speed.
But we're running, which is all that matters. Slow motion, maybe, but it's constant motion. I know you want to go faster, but still, you're there with my every step. I wasn't built for speed, but you certainly were. You deserve a better running partner than me. Sometimes, this drives me to kick a little harder, hold the pace a little longer. Last week, somewhere between that $4 million cottage and the turnaround at the bay, you and I hit a big milestone -- that's the perfect term for it. I don't think I imagined we'd make it this far together. When we started, it was only the two of us, me huffing and puffing just to last a whole mile. There were times I couldn't stand the sight of you, intentionally ignored you. But you persisted. Gently reminded me of the simple elation earth and velocity can bring. And now, two half marathons and a slew of runs later, I'm kind of getting the hang of this breathing thing, and it's still you and me.
Thanks for the perpetual mileage.
Happy 200th mile, and counting...
Have you ever set out to reach a running or fitness milestone and completed it? How long did it take you?
ZT
Comments (7)
Congratulations! :D
I'm no runner... I can only do a 4K run most weekends. Haha. Hit a fitness milestone?? Umm... does crawling across a 10K finish line counts?
it's hard for myself to get motivated to run, but after I put down some miles in my asics I always feel accomplished afterward! that should count as a milestone right?
I mostly just do milestones for my weight loss, since I've had a long journey.. and am still on it. In 10 more pounds, I'll definitely be ecstatic for my "100 pounds lost" milestone.
congratulations, keep up the good work..
I usually go for walks, and sometimes I'll motivate myself to do little bouts of running. Eventually I'd like to take up running.
Yay for 200 miles! This is a really nice post.
For me it was always weight I counted. Everytime I tried to loose weight I got stuck at 268 then I'd gain it again. The next year I'd get to 268 then I'd gain it again.
This year I finally lost more and got below the all evil 268 and I'm trying to still go down.