Friday, May 27, 2016

evening.



she counted down the five seconds out loud, over the snuffling noses and dripping elbows, over the hum of another oncoming bus so incongruous in this inflated neighborhood with its pompous driveway furniture, over the screeches of nighttime birds, and off we went.

tim took the front immediately, as we all knew he would. then the kid showed up to give him a run for his money, and i wondered briefly how long i could hold on. by the end of the first turn, they were up the hill, and i was just settling into a pace i knew i would not be able to maintain. tim, bless his heart, is always convinced that i am faster than i am. this is pretty sweet, but also pretty disheartening as i've never given him good reason to believe so. i'm younger, balder, and have beaten him in end-of-practice-interval sprints, but that's it. he went under three hours in the marathon back when i completely blew up in november, and he hasn't looked back. now a runner after college days of smoking and other debauchery,  tim is a good-looking marathoner 100 lbs. lighter than his younger self who consistently runs 100k weeks. he's a role model, in more ways than one, and i'm learning from him.

as tim and the kid cruised over the hill and i tailed them just to see what pace they were running, it occurred to me that tim was leading, and he didn't even look like he was sweating. of course, he had already run to the workout, and would run home to round out a 21k second run of the day, but he was leading. when the kid came by because i was running too slowly and still too fast for his approval before my all-important marathon attempt number 2 for the month, i asked him casually if he was running ottawa this weekend too. you know, i gulped air just so that i could expel it in a full-sentence question complete with verbs and prepositions. he deciphered my mangled exhale, translated it, figured his response, translated it, and told me, 'no.' he ran on. i faded into third.

the first interval done, the rest period flew by, and we were back at it, the kid chasing tim, me chasing the kid, everyone else on my heels. i had no water. i had already lost pounds through sweat. we weren't yet halfway done. i loved it. we had shed our shirts after the first one, and were now dripping fire on searing laps through this closed-in, closed-off neighbourhood of stone. some couples walked. one property had a roofing crew, another, a reno. and everywhere was the faint pat-pat of dogged strides in the humid-quiet evening. the long downhill run-in to the finish inspired kick after kick, ending abruptly at the stop sign amid horks and gasps and frantic lip-licking in place of bottle-sucking. i walked it off as best i could, cursed my lack of a bottle, and watched the watch. the rest hurt more than the interval. i was thirstier at rest.

we ran the next two consistent. we kept the pace. we even picked it up a bit on the last hill. i played tricks on my mind, letting it get to the quitting point, citing dehydration and the heat and the humidity and headaches and the maladjusted derailleur on my brand-new mountain bike and the helmet replacement i would not get, and then i reeled it all in. i tucked in the elbows. i leaned the head forward. i took the hill faster than in any of the previous intervals. i finished with a sigh. tim was waiting for me. and the kid didn't tell me to man up. it was a beautiful run.

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