run and repeat

there are the kinds of people who get up at 4am on a sunday to run 20 miles and do not require an application of bodyglide to the top of their thighs. who do not "round up", and talk about their time in terms of seconds. who have their own lexical set; "splits", "repeats", "recovery", that are just as obtuse to me as coming back from a quick bathroom break during an episode of "lost".

these are also the people who meet at a running track once a week to perfect their single digit minute miles-- my large intestine and pulmonary vein consistently cap my own pace at a firm 10 to 11. and so i was the misfit tourist on track night tuesday; checking out the ratio of "chicken drum sticks" to "chopstick" legs (about 1:15). this was only the beginning of a focus on mathematics. it became quickly evident why i was never promoted to advanced level maths class, when "lean" and "sinewy" began talking about 400's and 800's. running (in this fashion) is miserable enough, why the hell add multiplication? perhaps we could recite the periodic table at each turn just to make it even more convivial.

and so we all took a nice, 2 mile "warm up" "jog", over to the local neighborhood's north face for some "hill repeats": sprint to the summit, and enjoy an invigorating recovery walk back down-- as you empty the contents of your baked beans on toast all over the tarmac, fortunately unable to hear your own retching due to the pounding on your ear drums.

as everyone launched up the hill like a pack of comic book superheroes, it was just me and the 56 year old man with the beer gut, bringing up the rear. my heart rate monitor registered "cardiac arrest".

"beer gut" is my new bff.