After a full day of work again. (See 2 July 2012) This time, though, the temp is about 85. I ran sluggishly with little excitement. I jogged into the High School athletic area and onto the track. I was pushing it a bit. I felt the eyes of a couple people because there was some kind of baseball game going on. It was a tournament game b/c there was a IHSAA sign at the gate. I told the ladies at the gate, in small breathy gasps, that I was just going to run around there and back out again. They smiled and let me pass. I wanted to look like I was really working out, which I was, to give credence to my story. Actually, I needn’t have worried about it b/c I was inside the fence for no more than three minutes.
I started the 1/4-mile sprint, running on my toes and picking up my knees. Going around the first turn, I thought, “I should have a goal of 80 seconds.” To tell the truth, this is quite a letdown, b/c when I started the 1/4-miles, my goal was 75 seconds; I thought I might be able to keep it up for four laps like my nephew. What a joke.
So anyway, I get to the halfway point and I look at my watch—40+ seconds. Almost exactly on pace for 80 seconds. (A bit less than 40 is what is needed, of course) I can’t read the hundredths b/c I’m not wearing my glasses, and the effort needed to concentrate and read the exact fraction would slow me down. I decide to push it a bit. I’m running, my legs are feeling heavy. I’m nearing the end and BEEP. I press the button on my watch. 80.09 seconds! I didn’t make it. 9 hundredths of a second! If I had run, not 1% faster, not .1% faster, not .01% faster, but .001% faster, I’d have made my goal. That’s like having 1000 pieces of paper that do not fit through the eye of a huge needle. ONE less piece of paper, and they would all fit through the needle.
From now on, I have an attainable goal...but it won't be easy. The psychological nature of running will now come into play. Now I have a realistic goal, but one that I know will take some real work. I will give the needed effort and probably succeed. It will probably be much like my sprinting at the end of runs in Panora. At the beginning, I wasn't sure if I could make 60 seconds. Now, I'm disappointed if I DON'T break one minute.
You will probably notice that I achieved my WORST time on the final sprint to my house. There is an explanation. About 1/2-mile before the beginning of my sprint, I began to feel the damage done by the extra water and lemonade I drank before the run. Years ago, my friend, Adrianne called this illness ‘fish bowl gut’. Such an illness is characterized by a sloshing feeling of the contents in your stomach. Nausea and vomiting feel certain. I suffered from a severe case of fish bowl gut. I stick it out and run to the start of my sprint. I walk for 10 steps and begin. My feet feel like they are stuck in concrete. I plod along to the finish. I look at my watch and see that it says 2:27.32. It's easy to lop off the 1:20 from the 1/4-mile and I quickly realize that my time is more than 7 seconds more than one minute! Oozhasno!
During this section, I’ve used the “historical present”. A linguistic technique during which story tellers talk about the past as if it was the present. Follow the link below to hear a couple of language geeks talk about its use on Slate. They explain that a Seinfeld character useed the historical present to describe taking a severed toe to the hospital on a bus. They also play an extensive clip of the show. Quite entertaining.
http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2012/07/lexicon_valley_the_historical_present_in_seinfeld_and_the_novels_of_charlotte_bronte.html
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