Minnesota

Words 328

           Ran today with/near/behind Ethan.  He and I ran together several years ago, before he was a top notch high school athlete; I finished with a sprint and beat him.  Not so, this time.  We ran together and chatted about a variety of running topics for some 30 minutes.  One of his statements, “I guess I would not chose to start running if my knees hurt,” showed his super-politeness. 

I had told him that soon after I began running, my neck pain, shoulder pain, ankle pain, knee pain, etc. all disappeared.  I hadn’t intended to imply causality.  I was able to clarify in that I had begun running because every time I run, my mood improved. I ran to feel better, and a side benefit was the fact that my physical problems went away.  I am writing about it because it was the first time that I logically thought out the progression of events.

            As we were running, I commented that he sounded like he was ‘clumping’ along—like he was not running freely, not running at his normal pace.  He calmly said, “Well, I guess if I were by myself, I might be going a bit faster.”

            My intention was to run 30 minutes out and 30 minutes back.  After about 13 minutes, I casually mentioned that I might want to run only 25 minutes out.  We turned around at 25 minutes and then I really felt like I was  holding him back.  I gave him ‘permission’ to run on. He did, and finished about 2 minutes sooner than I did.  I began listening to my Russian lessons which was a great way to finish. Ethan said he thinks we ran about 6 miles.  I ran between a couple mile posts in almost exactly 10 minutes.  One interesting part of this run was the fact that as I began, my right hamstring was hurting/tight/pulled or something.  By the time I was done, that pain had been worked through.