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Tag Archives: surpassing goals

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You Try to Scream but Terror Takes the Sound Before you Make it

11 Wednesday Jul 2012

Tags

David Bowie, Hero, running, surpassing goals, weight loss

Music influenced me today–I’m not going to lie. I went “running”, which is weak to begin with. I am soooooo not a runner. I run about as well as an 82 year-old couch potato. Although, lately, something has changed. I have been craving The Run.

Granted, 40 lbs off the body makes it much easier to survive a mile jog. Just sayin’.

I have been slowly working up from a “ralk” (run and walk) to a creeping jog. Today, I must say, I had my Rocky moment. “Eye of the Tiger” metaphorically played through my oxygen-reduced brain. Despite seeing spotted elephants and apparently enormous white cranes (which I assure you were quite REAL last week), I hit quite the milestone today in my “running career”.

I walk the Stanford Dish several times a week. It’s about a 4 mile loop up and down, down and up. The terrain actually ranges from 25 feet to over 600 feet high. It varies throughout the loop, depending on either a clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation. I tend to go clockwise. What greets me right away is the Hill of Death. This is after the Hell Incline when I start the entire walk. It takes me about 10 minutes to level off so I can begin running. Well, today, when I started, I ran for 17 minutes. Impossible.

Today I understood the concept of “runners high’. I couldn’t stop. A guy behind me passed by in a full sprint but suddenly fell short. It was 93 today. It’s hot. Granted, the 93 here is nothing like the 93 in Vermont, but I couldn’t ignore the heat, nor could my competitor. But he stopped as if he hit a wall, and carefully, steadily like the tortoise, I won the race. I passed him and up the hill I went. In the three times I attempted this run, I had never gone this far in one motion.

The hill is no joke and I kid you not. As I hit it, David Bowie’s “We Can Be Heroes” thoughtfully came on. I love this song, for multiple reasons. I too knew I could be a hero. Bowie pushed me. The ELO and Elvis Costello before this pushed me as well. Music is an amazing motivator. I don’t care what people say.I wanted to hit the summit. I wanted it so badly, my dehydrated mouth filmed over.

I missed the top by 12 feet. I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t upset though. Once I walked to the top and recovered, I shook it all out in a happy dance. EIGHTEEN MINUTES. Even at my slow pathetic pace I ran more than a mile UP and Down those silly HILLS! Credit begged for–and credit granted.

Perhaps I am not the hero Bowie talks about. Maybe I am. I know I felt like it today. I got goosebumps despite the 90+ climate.

Last week, the first time I attempted to run at all in my three weeks of walking the Dish, I jogged up a decent-sized hill ironically just as the crane at the beginning of this post approached. This sucker was huge. If someone wanted to tell me that I had an obstacle in my running, they could have been less literal. It scared the bejesus out of me. I had to coax him out of the path. I have been charged by geese and swans before and they were all big birds–how was I to know which differences existed between them?

Eventually the Sooty Albatross or Blue Nosed Crane or Antirunningbecauseiamfinallyinthegroove Bird wandered away and I was free to continue.

Did I tell you that today I was a hero? Just like a successful Sisyphus?! Well, you know…

Hello runners! Here comes Ms. Mo. As Mr. Turner-Overdrive repeats (rather exhaustingly), I am “taking care of business”. Yes, yes I am. I broke through the ICANT barrier. Yesssss.

Waiting on an Angel–Ben Harper

Am I Blue–Billie Holiday

Thriller–Michael Jackson

Every Day I Write the Book–Elvis Costello

Don’t Stand so Close to Me–The Police

Takin’ Care of Business–Bachman Turner Overdrive

Posted by my words on a string | Filed under Life, Music

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