Ice Cold

The Saint Louis air was frigid and dry on Sunday morning. I exited my apartment just before dawn broke and I exhaled a visible plume. I quickly wrapped my arms around my torso and shivered.

The run was through Simpson park, my first run in the area. I noted a river glinting silver to one side of me. The desiccated and barren trees made it seem like something crucial in the park was missing.

I was on a group run but somehow still lost in thought. My mind traced back to a night terror I had several nights prior.

In the dream I was swimming in a mysterious river’s dark waters, against current. Storm clouds gathered suddenly and my stroke rate accelerated, eager to escape the river. Eventually I made it to some shore, where a group of parents stood vigilant.

“Where are the kids?” One of them asked me.

And suddenly in the dream I was a coach, and I was supposed to be leading a team upstream as part of a workout.

The rain pelted everything. Thunder roared. Shadows stretched. Panicked, I jumped back in the river in search of the athletes. One by one, I started to find them. I woke up wracked with guilt.

I don’t know what the dream meant, if anything, but I find it interesting that I’ve had several memorable dreams about rivers over the past few weeks.

I finished the group run feeling fresh, which was a surprise. The day before was the longest run I’d ever completed: 16.9 miles (27 km). The fresh feeling in my legs was a good signifier that I’m adapting to longer distances.

Looking ahead, I am signed up for a running event on Saturday, a 15k run. I have it in me to run faster than I ever have before if I choose to push myself, and that’s exciting; improvement usually is. I’m not sure, however, that it’s competition that engages me with running. I think I’m running because it has been some sort of act of self-healing. I’m feeling steadily more rejuvenated. Through the act of running I see potential longevity.

There is something about the imperfection of an outdoor run that makes it perfect. It’s always too hot, too cold, too windy, too rainy, or includes too many hills. I realize through outdoor endurance exercise how little control I have over the universe. My lack of control is somehow freeing. A surfer can’t catch anything good by fighting against the current, but rather has to take what is given, even if it’s almost nothing. Similarly I can’t have a good run by exerting beyond my limits, and I can only fight snow and ice so much. It’s a game of patience. There’s a brief period of time in the day for some runs, and then a whole lot of waiting between the gaps.

Life happens between those gaps.