9/13/11

Tues
“when all it does is slow me down”
Today would be the fifth day since we last ran hard and that would be irritating. Instead of risking it, we do a workout at Walpole High School. It’s only a mile or two out of our way home from work, and Jen had been able to pop home earlier this evening to let the girls outside on a much deserved bathroom opportunity. Even though we haven’t found a track closer to home, the goal of the last two days, today we are able to accomplish the goal of today. Four sprints of about 55yards for Jen and 60yards for me with about four to five minutes rest in between. Each sprint is done from a flying start hit at pretty much top speed. We use a hurdle to mark out where the 25 yard hash mark on the Football field is and then run to the start of the two mile for Jen and myself to the start of the Mile. Its fun and not really different than our last few sprint workouts. There is, for me, a change, the uncomfortable company of another runner at the track.

I see them out of the corner of my eye. They never run towards me except when I am blistering down the track at full sprint. Not really able to take a good look, as they disappear in a streak if I take my eyes off the true focus of sprinting all out which is, for me, an imaginary dot just above eye level that is past the finish line. Sprinting, especially when moving at top speed as opposed to accelerating, is a sort of engaged effort where you have to use your peripherals’ in order to see things right in front of you and so I never get a good look at this pesky ambler.

At all other times this awkward pest manages to be doing something on the other side of the track. But I know who it is; it’s my own sort of “ghost of Christmas past” a “ghost of last couple of days”. The ghost is haunting me with the admitted and annoying fact that we still don’t know where to go for a closer to home workout. At best we have some local guesses and one Track at a High School a couple exits down 93, but we want something closer for a long term go to place and this ghost knows it, and so reminds me of it just by being around.

There is nothing I can do about this workout partner. I bring them with me by my knowledge that I don’t know of a Quincy track even after searching for two days. Today they are here, bringing up the workouts shifted and the time not lost, or even wasted because we learned more of the city getting turned around, but taken from us when we are in a time of busy work, moving and buying a car. But then with a tap on my shoulder it’s my good friend “ghost of running future”.

He says, “Don’t mind that other ghost, you guys love the track so much you will find your way back and make it work somehow.” He is a calming presence who sort of rewrites the pesky awkward “ghost of last couple of days” interactions over the last few minutes with a new vibe of shyness and anxiety. Seeing “ghost of last couple of days” in a new light, I remind myself that “ghost of future running” is also part “ghost of future self”.