Sunday Morning Coming Down

Every Sunday for several years now I have headed out the door at daybreak to join other bony self abusers for a "long run". I have the luxury of choosing the company I keep on most of these outings and switch between 3 or 4 little subsets of running troupes. Since all of these folks are the nicest and most driven and focused people you would ever meet, I enjoy the time I spend with each group.

I have an "old" group comprised of old dudes who are a little older than this old dude. A few of them were really good runners in their day. Just a few years ago we tore it up pretty good as a Sunday group. Now this group jogs and walks and jogs some more. They are regular working guys with families and worn out knees and we talk about sports and family life while we shuffle around...and shuffle is about the best we can do.

There is a college kid that I helped coach a few years back as a high school athlete who continues to train at a very high level. He calls me "coach" and I call him "kid" and when I was healthy enough to run with him we would talk about running as we ran.

There is the long lost friend that I knew through our local music scene when we both played in bands throughout the late 80's/early 90's that I got reacquainted with a few years back after I saw her name listed in the results of a half-marathon we had both participated in. I couldn't help but look her up in the phone book and call out of the blue and neither of us could believe that either of us had turned out to be runners. We share a common knowledge of a network of running and musical characters and we could talk about everything during our miles together.

Like good mailmen, we work in whatever weather that is presented to us without much complaint.

Within the last year I have found my body to be an unwilling accomplice in this Sunday ritual and I find myself too pained and slow to enjoy the company I used to keep. I miss being able to hold my own but not there is no point in denying that the jets (or sparklers, in my case) ain't what they used to be.

Enter...my new training partner...my wife. For years I would kiss my new training partner goodbye every Sunday at 5 or 6 am and return a few hours later to her care, swollen at the knees, numb in the ass, bleeding from the nipples, missing a toenail or 2, and dehydrated and still sweating long after the run was supposed to be in the books. She would ask me about my morning and I would make very general comments about the conversations and scenery, usually summing it up with "it was hot".

Last week she was talked into riding alongside me on her bike. And lo, she liked it. This morning we went together again! We met with a group but I found that I was happiest when it was just the two of us. I didn't feel like i was letting her down with my dirge pace and I didn't have to worry about her surge pace. She handed me flasks of sugary drinks along the way and we saw the same dead squirrels (2) and possum (1 very viscerated one within the first 1/4 mile) and heard the same explosion (either a tire or propane tank, we couldn't tell, but we were only 30 yards away and both nearly pooped our jodfers when it happened). We went for a leisurely breakfast afterward. A perfect morning.

I have been moping around in my mind for myself for weeks ( not very flattering) about what I think might be a closure in the chapter of my Sunday morning running. Now I'm looking forward more than ever to running next Sunday morning without feeling the need to worry about how fast or how far I can go.

This is the best I have felt about Sunday running in a long time.