A Year of HYPERLIVING: Week 8, Day 8---More Running: "U know that I'm a little bit more than curious"

Forecast for the Future

"Every individual without exception bears a potential writer within himself. The reason is that everyone has trouble accepting the fact that he will disappear unheard of and unnoticed in an indifferent universe, and everyone wants to make himself into a universe of words before it's too late.

Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not that far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding."

- Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Monday, March 3, 2008

Week 8, Day 8---More Running: "U know that I'm a little bit more than curious"

I think I may have found the recipe for running success: a new partner.

I've been looking for a running partner ever since I quit cross-country in high school and stopped running with Tim Oakley and Mike Hiscox. I know that more than many people I thrive off the inspiration/motivation generated by running with others--basically I need the shame of potential failure to keep me moving--and one of the big reasons I've struggled so much in my feeble attempts at "starting to run again".

A post-run beer (this is the difficulty presented in living with men and running after work)

Unfortunately, none of the partners I have attempted to work with over the past few years have quite worked out. Maybe I don't know how to look, but it hasn't seemed easy finding someone who wants to run the same general speed, amount of distance, and times of day--let alone also living nearby where it works conveniently and reasonably (outside of certain organized sports, I'm not generally interested in the idea of traveling across town just to exercise--though, admittedly, i'm not really interested in the idea of general exercise either).

But really, I know that exercise won't start becoming better until I get myself someone to run with. I mentioned my dilemma to my friend Sooooooz today and she had a brilliant idea: "You should run with E-bad's dog,"

This is the one time I've ever seen him not running in circles

Admittedly, E-bad herself had suggested this to me already, but before I'd started running, and at the time I had thought that a) I could run on my own and b) I wasn't sure I could handle running with a dog. But sure enough, I went out there today with Weegee, Captain of Dog Pirates, and it was really great. It got a little dicey when we got too near McCarren Park and he decided that we needed to stop running and go to the dogpark, but after i'd dragged him enough blocks away we got back on pace and things went well from there. We'll see how it goes tomorrow but I think i might have found the right match.