I forgot to charge my Garmin watch last night so I knew at some point during today’s run it would fade into oblivion. I ran a route I know quite well, the mile marker points ingrained in my soul and the soles of my shoes. I knew I was slow and didn’t really need a gps watch to tell me.
A common question from folks when they find out how much I run is what do I think about whilst running. I’ve discussed this a few times on the ol’ blog but today I find myself haunted by ghosts and thinking of the past.
Some ghosts were of runs past. There’s a virtual partner feature on my Garmin that lets me put in a desired pace and it then tells me how much ahead or more often behind I am my virtual partner. Even without that feature operating today, I could tell I was far, far behind my ghost. I was much slower than usual or perhaps better phrased much slower than I would desire.
My foot is bothering me. The other one. The chronic ankle started tweaking a bit toward the end of the run but my left foot was bugging me from the word “go.” Felt like I had dropped a bowling ball on it. The top of the foot hurt. That’s a new hurt and so long as the pain is coming and going in different places I figure it’s ok. Still, I can’t recall dropping a bowling ball in my foot.
In addition, I found myself haunted not only by runs past but by life. Things I hadn’t thought of in years, knowledge of the proverbial turning right when I should have turned left, moments of mistakes in trust or business partners. There was that aura of mistakes in the air about me, like I was Charles Schulz’s PigPen, only instead of dirt particles constantly around me it was regret.
A weird day on the road. On the plus side, my quads are improving and may be recovered just in time for San Francisco on Sunday. The last time I ran the Bay City, I think I broke 3:30. That time may come back to haunt me.
See what I did there? Brought it full circle… Or at least partial circle.