6 and 1/2 days on Earth

I used to live on Earth 6 and a half days of the week. The remaining half day was spent absorbed in the fuzzy haze that was race day. With a stare that could pierce a brick wall, I was transported to that floating otherworldly reality where burning competitiveness pumped through my veins. I could give off the impression that I was there talking with you, but you were really getting autopilot responses while I envisioned the crowd-muffling sensation of going race mode. I wasn't always this way.  One time I almost napped through the start of a high school track race. I wasn't serious yet, I knew the joy of running, but had not the need for speed ingrained into my bones, my very being.When I was younger my pre-race routine was somewhat less finicky; I avoided eating Cheese Nips, the one food I threw up during a race, which falls somewhat short of the transcendental trance I was apt to be found in on any given Saturday morning during college.

Some days now I'll daydream about racing during a training run. To the point that I'll catch myself making faces despite the fact that I'm doing 8 minute miles. I have to snap myself out of it so that I don't a) run into the front of the treadmill or b) get lost. Both of which have happened more than I like to admit. 

Now the cloud came not from a sense of nervousness or fear. Races were not life or death, make or break. But, like getting into a good book, I loved the feeling of being completely absorbed. The other 6.5 days of the week my brain is like an overexcited puppy with ADD stuck on a runaway freight train. Here, on race day, I knew exactly what I wanted, what I needed to do, and how I wanted to feel. The simplicity and clarity of it all is therapeutic. A chance for me to release all of the pent up fears, dreams, and frustrations in a channeled display of insanity. For in the end it came down to one thing, putting your everything on the line.  There aren't too many things that can make you, in the moment, know unequivocally that there is only one thing you want. The line. 

"The gun goes off and everything changes...the world changes...and nothing else really matters"

Captured in my natural habitat
(photo: M.Gouzie)

This post was inspired by my second time reading the book "Pain" by Dan Middleman. A good read if you're on the lookout for running novels.

~Robyn "race cadet" Runner