...I was making my way from the bathroom. I was somewhat slightly disturbed by the looks the police officers had given me. I was trying to think what I could have done to cause them to look at me like that. I looked in the bathroom mirror and looked at my reflection. I could say that my hair was longer and that my beard was coming in, but at the same time I guess I was kinda derelict-ious, whatever that means. I wasn't sure. I wasn't use to people staring at me because of how I looked. Living in DC, I guess, kinda changed all of that. As I was walking out of the bathroom I noticed this women getting up and having a gun sticking out of the back of her pants. Oh let me replay that sentence again: THIS WOMEN HAD A GUN IN A CHICK-FIL-A...AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
There was a split second thought: tackle her to the ground and be the hero to all these individuals or stop and think. Well there were police officers here and there were a bunch of emergency vehicles in the parking lot. If I put two and two together well that equals...oh of course she's probably five-O as well. That was how I spent the first twenty minutes back in North Carolina.
Coming back is what it is. There is the standard response to questions, I'm half tempted to pull a "it was a great game, both teams play hard" routine to the same question over and over again. In a way it's been nice to be back home for a short while. I have been able to run. Well let's go further into that. You can't fake fitness. No matter how hard you try. Here I am standing on the line at Myers Park about to run a mile, and deep down knowing that this is really going to suck, and maybe just maybe I can fake it and run something special. After the first quarter and we split a seventy, that's when my advanced math kicks in, I'm on pace for a 4:40 and I feel like crap already. You take that as a sign that...is it worth it? Is this what I should be doing? I'm going to be limping in to a time that isn't that great. Well I would take that time any day. It's brutally hot. It's humid. The cheer up brigade comes in. It's the same track as it was the first time I ran this in 2005, but in a lot of ways it's changed. Eight dollars! (Hold on I need to yell at some kids to get off my lawn) The same people that use to run it are gone, the same people that run it are the same. It's just the sense that man I came back and wanted to run well and that totally didn't happen. Total bummer!
Well the ride to Charlotte wasn't that bad. If you include a stop for gas and lunch it was six and a half hours. I would take that anytime. There was some minor traffic in DC (tourist!) but after that well it wasn't half bad. I got home and watched some soccer. I was bored and went for a run after that. Welp it's hot. Not much more can be said about it. Can't spill the ink to wax poetically about it, but the air quality is something that can be written romantically about it. For me it's a wet blanket put over my head, suffocating me ever so slightly. It's a thin air, just like altitude, that comes and not much can be done about it. Mentally you have to adjust. Physically things can be looking fine, it's just that sometimes it' hard to run when you're breathing at seventy percent. That's something that takes time to get use to, and well time is relative.
I quickly rush from the track meet to have dinner. I meet mentors and former coaches. The phrase more mature is thrown about. Looking mature. Acting? Well that's another thing. The same jokes never get old (that's what I tell myself). It's not close to the time to grow up and think about your future. There's the off chance that I can still focus on what I want to do and do it in a manner where I don't have to compromise. That's the spirit. Whatever that is. Put on the ipod and run to songs that are at least a decade or two old. That will show them. Fight the man!
In the days that follow what will happen. What will occur. There is no script. There is no timetable. There is a freeness that enables me to go about and basically do what I need to do without that much care in the world. Responsibilities exist, but not in the way that causes me to bunker down...
Maybe, possibly, perhaps this will be a running series of the summer. Check in for more tails of what will shirley be a must read.
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