Run On

This past week was yet another week spent on break from football, without a game to prepare for or any practice to attend. This was the least eventful time I've spent over here in Germany, with my short visit to Bremen behind me and no real commitments whatsoever, so it was a bit frustrating at times to keep myself occupied. Even in this lull, however, I managed to find some major qualities of myself due for introspection, and feel a better formed person than I was before this week.

Without much structure beyond morning trips to the gym on some days, my discontent grew. If you knew me at Kenyon, you know how many activities I was involved with and how hectic and busy my schedule tended to become from day to day. Two sports, a job, and an ever-turning carousel of artistic and extracurricular scholarly pursuits kept me from ever sitting still for too long, and I grew to love the frantic pace my life took on. So here I am now a few months removed from jumping from one activity to the next, just sitting in the basement, without anything on my schedule or much of a means to get out and go anywhere or do anything. So, as I have for the entirety of my stay here, I read and wrote a great deal, finishing two books in the span of a few days (reading, of course). I found new music to listen to online and even bought an album on iTunes (Jay Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard's One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Music From Kerouac's Big Sur). I even began to think about what will come next for me when I return to the states, and did some work on my resume, sent a few e-mails, researched MFA programs and job postings along with literary journals and contests I might consider submitting short stories to. This sedentary life just is not for me. So I did something I never imagined myself doing: I got up and ran.

Mitch had told me earlier in the week about an easy route down our street that equated to roughly five kilometers, a bit of a magic number in terms of running events. It's not too far a distance to conceivably run without intense training, but not too short so that it presents no challenge to more serious runners. The distance has become ubiquitous within the casual running community as the go to length of charity events and community races. 3.1 miles isn't terribly daunting. For me, however, a sprinter and field event specialist in my track career, this wasn't the case. I said time and time again while watching the incredible Jenna Willett or Sam Lagasse run lap after lap on the track that no matter what the pace or track, distances beyond one lap (four hundred meters) were beyond me. I won't even begin to mention the issue of conceptualizing how fast my little sister Kelly runs such distances at the most elite levels. I had no interest in killing myself running, thanks very much. I'd find a different way to train. Even though this was my mindset, I should've known better after I was exhilarated after having to run the 1500m race to cap the decathlon and my final collegiate race, a 400m that came out of nowhere. But those highs came after competition, something that always brings out the best in me. No matter what sport, I have always been a "gamer," an athlete who performs better in the heat of a contest than in practice. Running by myself on the road struck me as boring, and in the one instance I attempted to run last summer at home I barely made it a mile down the road before I had to walk home, panting and near collapse. As Steve and Mitch have gone out on runs throughout the summer, I have said no, that's not for me.

I was wrong. I took my first run on Friday, and about halfway to the T in the road that marked the halfway point I realized it. Everything was right, from the weather to the music I played to the pace I ran at. The route took me from the suburban confines of our residential neighborhood through the farmlands nearby, past a bridge beneath which the Autobahn bustled and sped beneath me; I could feel the power of the traffic beneath my feet and the adrenaline borrowed from the reckless speed of the motorists pushed me along as the fields and little country roads welcomed me through their track when I left the more developed world behind. I took it all in, finding charm in the farms and fields that I had barely noticed while driving past them. When I reached the T, I decided to take the opportunity to walk some of the wooded trails on the other side of the road that Mitch had mentioned, to see what there was to see.

The T from the woods

I have always felt more than comfortable in wooded areas, having grown up playing in and around the woods of my grandparents' house, walking the trails and spending hours at a time beneath the cover of the trees that I thought must've been the biggest in the world as they reached up beyond the bounds of my young perspective. I feel at peace in places like this. At home. These woods I've found here in Osnabruck are no different. I took a walk through them and beyond, to the quarry that lies past the first line of trees. 

Woods and quarry.

    
This was an experience that not only provided me with a new place to explore in the future, but with a new perspective on what I enjoy and who I am. I am happy now, just running. I remember talking with someone close and envying the experience they described of running through a foreign landscape and experiencing the new and unfamiliar. Now I understand it. The next day, Saturday, was an even better experience. I decided to go out again, but this time as I prepared the sky grew black and the clouds rolled in fast, along with the thunder and wind of a quick hitting thunderstorm. I decided that a run through the rain was exactly what I wanted, and left my iPod behind. Not long after I passed out of sight of our house the storm started, and it was better than I could've hoped. I was pelted by a hard rain that soaked me through in no time at all, and thunder and lightning ushered me along the route that the cars of the Autobahn, now slowed or pulled to the side of the road because of the intensity of the rain, had the day before. I enjoyed myself more on this short run in the storm than I have in a long time. I'll share how I described it to someone immediately afterwards:

I went on another run today, in an absolute downpour. Lightning, thunder, rolling black clouds, the whole shebang. Cars were pulled off to the side the rain was so bad. But it was still absolutely exhilarating. In the middle of everything when the rain was hardest and my shoes were totally soaked I got this amazing feeling of centeredness. You'd love where I run, very rural with farms and cows and woods. It was just a really cool moment,... I really enjoyed that moment, and thought you would too. Even though the sky was dark and the rain was pelting me and my shoes are ruined and my breath was ragged, it made me think of the status you put up about tiny bits of sunshine. I know what you mean.

That's all there is to say about that. I'm around twenty minutes for the distance, time-wise. I think I'll try to drop that time, just to give myself something to compete with, since that's how I thrive.

Later on Saturday we had our first team event since the last game, a BBQ at the practice facility. It was a great time. It was nice to see my teammates and spend time with them outside of football, and to just get out of the house. Great food, drinks, company, and, a pleasant surprise, CCR. Later on some of us went out and had some adventures; I'll merely say that some extremely funny stories came out of that night.

Time progression

Since Saturday, it's been more of the same sitting around. I haven't done much more than what I mentioned at the post's start, so I'll say a little bit about what I read this week. I read two books: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and The Round House by Louise Erdrich. I read Slaughterhouse Five as a junior in high school, before I could quite understand it. I liked it before, but, because I was accustomed to having to take everything I read literally and upon the merit of plot, I didn't get it. This time around I have more understanding. It's amazing and devastating and a masterpiece. Reading it in Germany is particularly affecting, due to its subject matter, and it has made me think about a wide range of issues I hadn't had to tackle in my time here thus far. The Round House was nearly as powerful, the 2012 National Book Award Winner by my favorite contemporary author. I highly recommend them both, but with warning: they're both intense portraits of the atrocities people are capable of committing against each other and the ways that individuals cope with them afterwards. Weighty stuff.

Vonnegut. 

So it goes. Tonight, we finally practice again. I can't wait to get back on the field. The break is almost over. Time to get back to work.

*** 

Between the miles of open road,

I lost sight of what might matter the most.

I stumbled into the great unknown and found

that time won't slow down.

To take a breath and then take it in,

To the places I'll go I haven't been.