Dear reader, I have a funny feeling no one follows Tollipop as a running blog per se, but every once in awhile I glance at the cobweb-covered running category in the upper right hand corner of this page and wonder if I'm letting any Olympic hopefuls down.
I do still run, you know. In fact, against my better judgement I went for a run this evening in triple degree heat. I stepped outside into what felt like a sauna minus the humidity, which would be...what? A furnace? And it felt as if I was surrounded by thousands of high priests from an ancient civilization chanting in a cryptic tongue, so I whipped out my Indiana Jones decoder ring and made out the following: Burnt offering coming right up!
Then I realized it was just the cicadas.
In all honesty, I love cicadas. Why? Because they help me to pretend I'm in the south of France. Trust me, if you're a cicada in Provence, they treat you like a rock star.
But none of this really tells you anything about my penchant for running. It all started one day back when I was about fifteen years old. I was walking along the seemingly endless two-lane country highway near my house and thought: I could run this thing. So I did. And I never looked back.
I used to have a little tradition on my birthday of running as many kilometres as my new age, which was a fun challenge up until I turned twenty or so. Seeing as how this year would demand twice as much distance, plus everything in the United States is in miles, I am leaning more toward the dinner and a movie option.
The runs I did in Canada were amazing. They always filled my heart with awe for the splendor of this earth. I still see those horizons in my mind's eye and am grateful I never wasted a minute of loving my beautiful childhood home.
The runs I do in Las Vegas are also wonderful, just in a different way. If I am on a trail in the desert, the scenery is spectacular. The desert has this way of reducing you to a pillar of salt which I find oddly therapeutic. As in, if you are lucky enough to stagger out of there alive, you can't get over how good water tastes! How soft your pillow feels! How amazing it is you can push a button and a doorbell rings! It's all amazing! You hug your loved ones a bit tighter and leave some of your emotional baggage behind.
If I am running through the suburbs...well, that calls for a little more imagination. I free my mind and don't pay a whole lot of attention to my surroundings. Sometimes a truck full of guys will drive by and yell something out the window. Something like: Hey, mama!
That's it. Just mama.
It is never preceded by words like hot or sexy. Nor is there any kind of whistle or revving of engines. I know because I waited for it. All of which makes it tricky to parse a compliment from the gesture, but I'm sure their intentions were honorable nevertheless.
So that's it. Me and running. It feels like one of my oldest friends, something which is familiar, soothing, and links me back to that awkward girl loping down the highway who sometimes seems very much unknown to the people who are a part of my world today.
Except for the awkwardness. I don't think I'll ever fool anyone out of noticing that.
