screaming neck

Date	Place of run	Duration (min)	Pushups	Pull-ups	Start time
28 Feb	To M. Theresa	39	25,25	17,17	7:57

Date	Place of run	Duration (min)	Pushups	Pull-ups	Long sprint downhill	4 flights	Start time
1 Mar	To M. Theresa	37	25,25	16+, 14+	58.94	21.08	7:03

            The last day of February—a Saturday.  No work on this day so I could run.  My body, however, still had lingering soreness from Wednesday’s Ultimate Frisbee session—still lingering from slamming my hip onto the pavement after flipping over the handlebars of my bike. (http://runner12345.blogspot.com/2015/02/soccer-ban.html#more) I just ran and did push- and pull-ups today.  No sprinting.  I was trying to heal myself.

            I began without too much pain, but enough that I chose not to perform the uphill sprint at the top of Rruga Kavaja.  I have been wondering over the last several days if I would EVER do sprints again.  Maybe this is the time when I enter the later stages of life and I delete this behavior from my repertoire.  These thoughts continued throughout the run.            Alternatively, I was running quickly, not sprinting, of course, but I could feel the wind crossing my ears, tickling the hairs on my legs, etc. (yes, I ran today without my plastic pants.  The temperature is far above freezing, and Maxim was asleep in the room with the pants—I didn’t want to disturb him). 

            My results under at the monkey bars/pull-up station were disappointing.  I did not raise myself high enough to touch my shoulder firmly to the cross bar on the fifteenth pull-up of the first set; therefore, I had to lift myself again.  Not a big problem.  BUT, as I did the sixteenth pull-up, I could feel my hands begin to lose their grip.  Was it psychological?  Maybe if I had it in my mind that I would do 19 pull-ups, my hands would not lose their grip.  Well, whatever the reason, I didn’t make the seventeenth.  My hands started slipping. 

            Then I ran to the steps of the university near Mother Theresa square and came back to the bars.  Since I was running quickly today, my muscles didn’t have much time to recover.  When I began the second set up pull-ups, already by the fifth repetition, I was feeling the need to rest.  Oh, what a tragedy!  Resting while hanging from the cross bars with your legs bend so they don’t touch the ground must be one of the least restful positions imaginable.  At any rate, whether psychological or physical, by the time I came to the 14^th pull-up, my grip was already waning. I didn’t complete the 15^th.

            As I came around back to Rruga Kavaja and my sprint area, I decided that I would give it a go.  I would indeed try sprinting again today.  I reasoned that even if I stress myself out, I would have nearly a solid week of practically no sprinting because I am working at WAT during the day and TOEFL Center at night—no time for sprinting except the Ultimate Frisbee game on Wednesday.   My body could recover. 

            The body was feeling good as I approached the sprint venue.  I had unplugged my earphones and stuffed the cord into my pocket, wrapped the earpiece around my neck, and held the iPhone in my hand.  There would be nothing flipping or flapping as I ran.  There would also be no noise in my ear—something that was a bit unsettling as I ran.  I heard my feet slapping the pavement at what seemed to be an alarmingly sloooooow pace.  During this ‘longest minute of the day,’ I considered looking at the watch at the bicycle-crossing halfway point, then de-considered it (for reasons I have discussed before).  I added effort to my legs, and to my arms.  I tried to imagine the facial expressions of the young guys walking the other way in the median.  Were they looking at me?  I think they were, but I did not meet their gaze.  Would it add factions of a second to my time?  Would they be smiling?  Would they be confused?  Would I be confused?  I have a policy NOT to meet people’s gazes when I’m sprinting.  When I’m simply jogging—NOT sprinting—I often look people in the eye.  The older men are the most enthusiastic; sometimes they even cheer me on.

            During last 10 meters of the sprint, I gave all my effort to my body.  As I mentioned, during my sprint, I had been hearing my steps that seemed to be coming at one step every year or so.  Even though I was on a slight downhill, I had the same feeling of feet in buckets of cement that usually came at the end of the sprints up the hill at our house in Panora.  I found the button on the watch and pressed it as I ran past the crosswalk sign.  I didn’t know my result.  I thought I might see 1:01, or 1:02, or even 1:03.  Of course, I hoped that I would make the goal of 60 seconds, but I wasn’t sure. 

            58.94   I had met the goal and beat it by 6 hundredths of a second.  Does that sound like a longer time than “a smidgen more than second”?  My legs were screaming with pain.  My arms weren’t feeling too bad, but after a minute or so, my neck started screaming.  I bent over with my hands on my knees for a second.  I didn’t want to stop and have my legs tense up, so I forced myself to continue.  After 3 minutes of blissful walking, I jogged the last bit to my apartment and sprinted up the four flights of stairs.  Now I’m ready for the rest of the day.

            

Stylistic question: Should I write ordinal numbers like this: fifteenth, or 15th, or  15^th?  I can hear some of you saying, "It doesn't matter as long as you are consistent."  Well which one is style is the most pleasing?  What do the style guidebooks say?