Ran Today: 3 miles Total miles run: 3 miles Miles remaining in challenge: 997!
OK, so I did it....I got out of bed and after several cups of tea (I was out of coffee and had to live with the tea which....well it is not coffee) went to the gym at school...the Dedman Center for Lifetime Sports....always found it ironic to have a gym named Dedman...but beggars can't be choosers and we accept largess where we find it...
It had decided to rain this morning and it was cold. My visions of a nice run on the Katy trail, or at least the outdoor track at SMU were supplanted by the reality of the run on the indoor track at Dedman. Six and a half times around the track for a mile...and for variety, you run a different direction each day...not much variety as the scenery does not change - you look down on four basketball courts, an indoor soccer court and a climbing wall the top of which is where someone always seems to like to leave an empty bottle...a tribute to our inherited desire to foul our own nests I guess.
Three miles equals 19 and a half times around the track. It took me about 35 minutes. Those of you who passed Algebra I can figure out my pace...I don't care. I just wanted to finish. I noticed that at 9 in the morning there were very few others who cared to use the indoor track. It was a diverse cast of characters. There were the slow, side by side, grey haired walkers...I call them Dedman Walking walkers....They took up the inside two lanes of the three lane track (in violation of the etiquette of fast on the inside and slow on the outside). Then there were a couple of jocks, bodies with no fat....the perfection of youth, spinning past me and the Dedman Walking duo as if we were standing still. There were a few sorority girls...the pretty ones in t-shirts advertising a big dance, the, how shall be say, others, wearing intramural sport t-shirts with Greek letters and underarm stains....at that time in the morning they were equally balanced in numbers. It was a slow morning....several other characters I have seen on other runs were not there. They await introduction to the blog if they appear again in future runs.
Down below, on one of the basketball courts a picture perfect personal trainer guy was running a couple of beautiful girls through their paces as they ran sideways crossing legs and following his barking orders....sadistic smile on his face as he hurried them along....On another court a young man who looked more fit than his trainer was running back and forth weaving among orange cones as he was being timed...Neither group merited much of my attention, but when you have to run 19 and a half laps and there is nothing else to do, you watch anyway like a repeat of a bad television show that happens to be on the TV when you are in the room. Guess I will have to break down and get an ipod - Chariots of Fire to spur me along.
I started thinking of two other runners I used to remember from my days as a young associate in Dallas at Hughes and Luce. I would run at the God awful hour of 5:30 a.m. with another associate, Ben, and the wife of another associate, Barbara. Barbara had a red lion's mane of hair and a contagious laugh. Ben was taller than me, legs that started where my ribs ended. They were training for the Cowtown Marathon and I was just looking for someone to run with so I would actually do it...show up at the crack of dawn....The good Catholic Boy in me knew if I told someone I would be there I would to avoid the guilt. Same boy now has his blog to flog him with guilt like a member of a secret religious society .... if he fails to run this 1000 miles.
We would usually meet at a parking lot on White Rock Lake we affectionately call "Sophomore Bitches" in honor of the green florescent graffiti someone had panted on the blacktop...."Sophomore Bitches"....still makes me laugh today, though I don't know why. I wonder who wrote it...the parking lot has long since been resurfaced...the graffiti gone. But to me it will always be Sophomore Bitches.
When we ran there were two people we always looked for. One we called Miss Bachman....she was beautiful, but more surprisingly, she was beautiful at 5:30 in the morning...blond hair in a ponytail and perfect makeup...she did not sweat. We called her Miss Bachman because the first time we saw her we had been running at Bachman Lake instead of White Rock Lake, though why I can't remember. When she passed us by Barbara remarked, "Was she really wearing makeup at this time in the morning?" Ben replied, "Yes she was, and very well, I might add." After that, we would also sometimes see her at White Rock Lake, perfect makeup...no sweat. Periodically she would turn a corner running the opposite direction. As we and as she passed each other, it was as if an angel had descended from heaven to grace our presence.
The other personage we called "Morning Morning" after the annoying call she screeched whenever she approached. She was everything Miss Bachman was not, an much more....Large, with hair in giant curlers covered by a scarf.....she presented a frightening sight. We joked that she arose from the algae and seaweed of the lake each morning to prey on poor unsuspecting joggers, like Medusa or the salt sucking creature from Star Trek (which unless you are of a "certain age" will mean nothing to you).
It was with much anticipation on those early morning runs that we awaited the arrival of one of these two opposites when we heard the sound of feet just around a bend. Sadly 9 times out of 10 the sound was followed by the screech "Morning, Morning". But then, there were the other times.....when the angel from Bachman Lake graced us with her presence. I was 25 at that time....it was 30 years ago...I wonder what I would discover if I ran into Miss Bachman today? Of the two, I suspect I would recognize Morning Morning first....all I would have to do would be listen for her call.....Morning Morning.... I hope I don't have bad dreams tonight!
Good News, Bad News, Who is to Say!
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