The marching band was practicing as we ran by. The director was running them thru their routine over and over again, sometimes just playing the music, sometimes playing while marching.
On the other side of the high school, a team from Austin Fit was jogging around the track and doing core exercises on the far turn. When they saw us congregate, they moved their jogging to the outer lanes.
“Today we do 3200m time trials!” Jen told us with a gleam in her eye. “Run the first 1600 meters just below comfortably hard,” she said. “Then run the next 800 just beyond comfortably hard.” And that brought us to the last two laps. “And do that last 800 meters uncomfortably hard, and finish stooping over trying to catch your breath.”
Ok, I’m dubious. I’m not good at pushing beyond comfort. Still, this will probably be good for me, I’m thinking, trying unsuccessfully to convince myself. I have a hard time imagining that the end of 3200 meters will ever arrive. I’m picturing some kind of singularity, and I’m starting to psych myself out.
“On those last two laps, you’ll be hurting, but you can tell yourself, I can do anything for 800 meters.”
Um… no. I can pretty much guarantee that on the last two laps I won’t be telling myself that. But there’s no time to wallow in this kind of thinking, because in moments we’re all standing at the starting line. Go!
So we run. We run hard.
That fact that Greg passes me twice and the Level 2 runners also lap me doesn’t diminish from how hard I run. I’m not stooped over, but it takes a walk down and up the straightaway before rational though returns. And amazingly enough … here we are on the other side of that singularity.
As we jog back, my brain falls into some kind of reverie, some kind of la-la-land that I don’t come out of until after I pull into the driveway and clamber thru the front door and drop my stuff at the foot of our bed.
And now I lie here in the pitch black of past-midnight four hours later. The reverie is gone, but sleep won’t come.
Is this what Tuesday nights are going to be like?