My Favorite Day of the Week for Running

Ah, Monday morning. While most of the world has strong desires of pulling the
bedcovers back over its collective head until the day goes away, I eagerly
pop out of bed and embrace the day. Monday, you see, is my favorite day of
the week to run. All the hard efforts of the weekend are behind me, and
Monday is the day I bask in the weekend's accomplishments, and reward myself
with a run just for me. I leave my watch at home, and with it, the concerns
of anything but the pure joy of running. Monday is the day to smell the
roses, count the stars, hear the birds, and run simply because I can.

But then, there's Tuesday. And Tuesday is possibly my favorite day of the
week to run. My legs are fresh from the easy run the day before, and I look
forward to running a little bit faster, and capturing each split on my watch.
It's too dark to see my times as I pass each landmark, but I try to gauge my
pace by how I feel, and play a little game to see how close I can actually
come to the actual time once I'm back inside. Some days, I know myself really
well, and other days, I'm way off the mark. Tuesday is a day to see how well
I know myself, and to learn how well I am doing at that task.
Then, there is Wednesday. This is undoubtedly my favorite day of the week to
run. For starters, I sleep about an hour and a half later, because Wednesday
is my track workout, and it's the one day a week I run after work. The warm
fuzzies of the day actually start the night before, when I adjust my alarm
accordingly. The whole day has a different feel to it. It's the only day that
the run is ahead of me rather than behind me as I go through my work day, and
the anticipation of the run somewhat distracts me.

On Wednesday, I pack a bag so I can change right after work, and bring an
insulated jug that I fill with ice and water just before heading to the
track. Wednesday, I have a very specific task to do, right down to the
second, and the meter. I am acutely aware of my progress every minute of the
workout, and adjust accordingly if a little tweaking is needed. Wednesday is
a day to be an athlete, and to hopefully see gradual improvement from one
week to the next.

But Thursday is, in a funny kind of way, possibly my favorite day of the week
for running. The irony is that on Thursdays, I don't run at all. That's the
day I give myself the gift of recovery and the hope of longevity. It's a
second consecutive day that I sleep later, knowing that I am rewarding my
body for pulling me through the accomplishments of the past three days, and
giving it a break in preparation for the next three days. It's not that the
temptation isn't there to run. It is, but common sense says to rest. Thursday
is a day to be smart and logical. Even a runner can do that once a week.

On Friday, I wake up early, and hungry for running again. After starving
myself the day before, I am ready to feast. I think that this may very well
make Friday my favorite day of the week for running. But Friday is a day of
control, and I have to temper the hunger. I know that I have a tough weekend
ahead of me, and I need to be sure I go into it well rested and well
prepared. Friday is much like Monday in the nature of the run, but very
different in its purpose. Friday runs, in similar fashion to Monday runs, are
mindful, watchless runs, but my mind wanders in a different kind of way. It
looks to the immediate future, rather than the past. Friday runs wonder what
the next Monday retrospections are going to look like. Friday is a day of
hope and dreams of future accomplishments.

Saturdays don't require an alarm to get me moving. I am so eager for Saturday
to come that I sometimes hardly sleep the night before. Saturday must be my
favorite day of the week for running. As George Sheehan expressed it best,
Saturday is the lovemaking of running itself. Saturday, I race, and thus give
a deeper purpose for all the other days of the running week. Saturday is, at
the same time, the most serious work, and the most lighthearted play of the
week. Saturday is competition and communion; a day of trying to distance
myself from my best friends, in the most literal of ways, hoping to leave
them behind me only until the handshake once the race is over. Saturday is a
day of challenge and camaraderie. It is a day for being the fastest I can be,
and being the best I can be.

Sundays incorporate a change of venue, a change of scenery, and a change of
purpose. I love the modifications. They make Sunday my favorite day of the
week for running. I usually drive down to the dirt path by the river.
Sometimes, my wife comes with me and we run together. Other times, I meet
friends there. On Sundays, I almost never run alone. Sunday is not just about
running, but it's about visiting in a way that can only be done on a longer
slower run. Eight, or ten, or 12 miles go by in a flash, and when it's over,
whomever I'm running with always shares my amazement about what we've just
accomplished and how easily done it was. That goes for the conversation as
well as the run.

So there you have it. The cycle is completed, and then starts anew. Monday
rolls around again, and I'm ready for another loop of the course. Just like
almost every run I do, each week brings me back to where I started, only a
bit better off for having done it. And it brings me to a better understanding
of the fact that, in actuality, I don't have a favorite day for running. How
can I have a favorite, when, in fact, they all are?

"A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams"- John Barrymore

My Fountain of Youth Can Be Found in a Dream

Every article I write is inspired by something a little bit more than just a
deadline.  Most often, the inspiration comes from within myself, and it
almost exclusively roots and manifests during the course of the run.  I
rarely go into a run with a topic in mind that I want to write about. 
Instead, I run with an empty, but wide opened mind, and thoughts filter
through until I latch on to that diamond in the rough.  Then, I massage it in
my mind, and it is pretty much conceptually written by the time I sit down at
the keyboard.

Occasionally, however, I am inspired by life events going on within me and
around me.  My recent columns have revealed that I've been spending a lot of
time recently on the subject of growing older, and not necessarily wanting to
be a part of it.  I can't help it.  There are just too many things going on
around me that force me to reflect on it more often than ever before.  My
daughter has just graduated from high school and my wife's youngest daughter
will cross that same threshold two weeks from now.  It seems like such a
short time ago that they were in diapers.  Now, they're on the brink of
adulthood, and we're on the brink of becoming empty nesters.

From time to time, in my mind, I revisit the places of my youth.  When I do,
I always picture things exactly as they were all those years ago.  When I
imagine myself back at my old college campus, I still imagine everything
exactly like it was back then.  All the same professors are teaching all the
same classes, and the same pinball machines are still in the Student Union,
and there is still a line forming to play the new video game, Pong.  And as I
walk through the student union where I waste my youth, everyone I used to
know is still there, and nobody is a day older than they were almost 30 years
ago.  Their youth is well preserved, and the memory is frozen forever in time.

Every time I snap out of one of these classic reveries, I can't help but
wonder exactly how much things really have changed.  I don't care so much
about the pinball machines, and I imagine that they have replaced the Pong
game with something a little more sophisticated by now, but I do wonder about
the people.  They are all just like me, close to 30 years older than they
were back then.  The question I ruminate over and over is which ones have
allowed themselves to become older, and which ones have chosen to stay young.

If you were to ask most of my former classmates where they would guess I
might be today, their answer for the most part would only include the words
successful or even alive if it were preceded by not.  Certainly, none of them
would have imagined way back then in the days of open rebellion and
self-induced stupor that today, I would be a healthy runner with a good job
and a lovely family.  That was just not the way I was heading back then. And
I somewhat flaunted that fact. 

But so much can happen in 30 years, and it is largely determined by the
decisions we make, and the directions we chose to proceed.  At some corridor
in my life, very poor decisions were gradually replaced by some very good
ones, and one of the most monumental turning points transpired when I made
the determination to start running.  Before I started turning that corner, I
was already old, and ever since running become rigidly embedded in my
lifestyle, I have become younger and younger.

So here I am in my 20th year of running, and my 45th year of life. Although
I'm still young, I'm pushing youth's outer limits, and I'm not sure how much
more time I have on the young side of athletics.  I find myself searching for
the same thing that Ponce de Leon was looking for in the early 1500's.
Whereas he was searching for renewal in the magic waters of Florida, I'm
looking no further than an elementary school track, and a place deep within
myself. 

I am seeing the present time as possibly my last chance to run faster than I
ever have before, and am committing myself to this goal.  I had a similar
focus a few years ago, and soon became so injury plagued that I was thinking
for a while that I might never run again.  But in time, I healed, and now, I
am once again ready to flirt with time I haven't run in a long, long time. 
The first step is a sub 22 5K.  Then, I'll attempt to follow a plan to sub
21.  After that, it might all be in my dreams.

Can I run under 20 minutes again?  Well, I only did it once in my life, and
that was when I was still in my 20's.  It's a long shot, to be sure. But I
keep replaying the thought that a man is not old until regrets take the place
of dreams.  And so, I'll keep on dreaming, with no regrets, while mature
youth is still on my side.  After all, I would much rather attempt to live a
dream than to lament over what might have been, if only I dared dream to
begin with.

"There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask, "why?", I
dream of things that never were, and ask, "why not? -Robert Kennedy

Have a great month of running.  May your dreams only be an arm's length away.

Michael

Please feel free to forward this to anyone who loves running.  I would love
to hear from you.  Please send any comments to

theroadsscholar@aol.com