With stops due to traffic snarls and or food and fuel, it was a 14 hour marathon drive today, a bit longer than GoogleMaps said at 4:30 this morning.
The highway hypnosis inherent in driving at speed on stretches of a road vanishing in the distance is compounded by the shifting sands of time, a double whammy that uncovers memories long lost. Emerging from the buried subconscious, such memories can be good, bad or neutral… but rarely indifferent.
The past plays tricks on the present, on the mind. And since I’ve made this drive to start a seven day race series tomorrow, the impact on mental focus will reverberate for days of marathons. At times of peak physical fitness, a loss of focus or drowning in a mental quick sand can make any race extremely trying; when nursing a lingering injury, it can make fatigue and physical maladies downright debilitating.
In an effort to minimize the thunderstorms forecast for late morning tomorrow, I’m taking the early start at 5 am. So I’ll know soon enough what I’m looking at.
I’ve often malapropriated the quote as “Fortune Favors The Dumb.” May tomorrow make it so.