|
Member
Join Date: Apr 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 14
|
5000
This is an old short story that id like to share, its a fairly personal account of a morning spent running. The time at the end, before anybody asks, is not real.
Its called "5000" as the topic name would suggest
The quick thumping pace of foot on ground and blood through veins is all I can hear over the steady, deep breathing that seems like its coming from another person. But its not, it’s coming from me, just like the 1000 meters I’ve already run and the 4000 meters I am going to run. That’s what I like about running; it’s all about me. I don’t think this makes me selfish, just self-sufficient. The dirt underfoot is wet with dew and trodden down into a hard packed slippery surface, like a carapace of the earth. I am running because that’s what i've been doing for as long as I can remember, and that’s just the last few steps. All I can remember is the last few strides, and all I can pre-empt is the next few. The gradual uphill slope I’ve been running along begins to flatten out, but its too late, I’m exhausted. At least that’s how I feel, but I know that my steady quick pace can be held for the next few kilometres. After all in half an hour ill be sitting at home looking out the window after a good shower. Contemplating the splendor of light and the confusion of trees and grasses. So thick one had to leave the boring, therefore comfortable boundaries of the house to appreciate, and understand just how dense they are. The trees and grasses here are a blur. A fleeting colorful mainly green every changing background.
The track underneath me is an old 4 Wheel Drive track, one too overgrown to use. The trees on each side of the track are old and sweet smelling. The sound of crickets and birds and wind would be deafening if I were walking. But I’m not. And because of that I cannot hear anything outside of myself. The track is long and winding, taking unnecessary detours and climbing up sickeningly steep slopes. Perfect for running. The rain has left a sweet earthy smell in my nose; this lingers with me and begins to mix with the smell of sweat as I pass the bend in the road that is the 2k mark. From this point on the land drops away sharply to my right, falling into a muddy, wide river. The river is brown with tannin from the trees that block my view of it. I remember swimming in the river yesterday, the icy arms of water winded me with their chill and held me up while I splashed franticly back too shore. I imagine the river has a personality, and that it’s watching me now. I may not have beaten it in its domain, but I can run faster than it now. Strange thoughts like this are common when one runs. It’s easy to get lost in the rhythm and endorphins. The track now begins to twist away from the river and up a long, steep incline. I avoid saplings growing in the middle of the road, my feet slipping on small round iron ore as they continue their unending pursuit of the ground in front of them. The dull familiar ache of lactic acid begins to set in. My breathing is more frantic now, deeper and more erratic. My stride begins to break. I can feel it, just slightly, but it has changed. Now the hill begins to flatten out. The tiredness remains. I lift my pace, knowing that I will recover soon.
The feel of soft earth underfoot is comforting. Just like the running itself. The subtle give in the ground and the breathless, sore legged, second half of a 5k run are both like old friends too me. We have a strange relationship. The earth, the running and I.
Thoughts come slowly now. In precise. Thinking takes more effort than I have left in me. The pace suddenly seems too fast. Might not make it. Won’t make it. Won’t give in. Will give in.
For a moment the sound of my heart, and the drumming of my feet on the ground align. The moment is fleeting, but the effect stays on. It seems everything else has lined up. My legs have stopped aching, and its feelings like i'm barely breathing at all. Just a puff of air every few strides in and out. I can no longer feel my legs moving under me, i'm not running anymore. Just moving through space, its like i'm falling forwards. This is the euphoria of running. And this euphoria has now passed. I am suddenly aware of the sounds around me, have they gotten louder? I don’t know. Many birds call out at once, creating an orgy of incoherent background noise. Maybe it seems so loud because of the absence of sound around it. I glance up. I don’t see any birds. Just big old Gum trees, more red than pink in the crisp morning light, their branches moving in no pattern at all with all the vigor of a new day. The trees here are large. It is the bottom west hand corner of Australia. A place of huge rugged coasts with unpredictable swells, vast rolling farmlands and forests of massive trees. The trees seem a hundred feet tall as I run beneath them, not even able to touch their lowest branches if I was to jump. These massive strangely ominous beings now seem to close in on me and I suddenly become self-conscious. I focus on my running technique. On kicking my feet out before me so I can eat up as much ground as possible with each stride. I think about making my legs kick back fast, then whipping around underneath me keeping them close together. The running seems easier now and I lift the pace. The trees begin to thin and the world around me turns a different shade of green as I leave forest and the track ventures out along rows of grapes. “Dingo Flats Vineyard” I read on the run, I have time since I can see the sign from 50 meters down the track. And my train of though is no longer broken into illogical segments. The driveway is orange with pea gravel and rutted with tire tracks.
I have been running for a long time now. At least I think so, when I find a good pace memories aren’t the same. They do not come in any order; they are all at the same time. So I could have been running for hours or minutes, it’s hard to tell. Its like I am waking where I don’t remember falling asleep, maybe a friend’s couch, or the back of a car. Nothing makes sense for a moment, and then all the memories come back in a jumble, all in the same instant, without any sequence.
I continue my tireless lope. I myself am not tireless, the lope is. When im moving through space the way that I am, I’m running. That is all. It’s a strange concept but it explains the sensation, enough for my mind at least. People who begin running but stop doing so because it hurts, are being themselves. I am not a person, I am just running. I, the engine for my legs, am tired and weary like the last few grapevines of this season getting ready to shrivel up and die in the winter’s cold oppressiveness. But my stride never stops; it must not, because then it will die. The road turns and doubles back on itself like some giant orange and red and black, earth and gravel snake chasing its own tail. This is the last few hundred. The realisation that there is only a few minutes left of pain left takes a while to understand. Like a bad joke that needs explaining. Having understood, I begin to lift as close to a sprint as I can.
Thoughts seise till the running does.
The rough unpainted wooden gates wait silently for me as I run towards them, then past them. 19:01 reads the digital watch that dictated my life during those 19 minutes and 1 second. Now my life is mine again. And because it wasn’t mine for 19 minutes and 1 second, it is a better life, slightly.
|
