The Reverse Avengers

This morning’s run was a little rough. I depended on observations of others for motivation and form advice. Sometimes I don’t look at anyone but this morning I scrutinized everyone for what they could offer me. The best moment came just as I was feeling warmed up past Montrose heading south. Coming towards me was a group of 4, upon whom I immediately bestowed the title The Reverse Avengers. From afar they looked majestic, bounding out from behind a bank of trees, confidently striding towards me with assurance.

As they got closer, I realized they were a hot mess. One huge smiley guy, one skinny snaggletoothed guy, one tiny woman with odd clothes and funny glasses and a super-tall gangly woman. I mean, they truly looked like the cast of Scooby Doo.

But more importantly they were 4 friends together and looked really happy at 6:30 in the morning. The minute I passed them I said out loud “I want to run with them.”

Then I passed a friendly older gentleman whom I used to see every morning last summer. I haven’t seen him since, probably, September. I wasn’t sure if he remembered me. I always assumed he was a retired surgeon.

You need your characters. At the gym I have names and imagined traits for everyone: Little Blonde Cubs, Baby Doe Eyes, Dreamboat Mickey, Straight-Edge Sam, Backpack Guy.

In other random news, I drank dirt in my Gatorade at last week’s race, inhaled a bug during my run on Tuesday and just took another bug in the eye this morning.

And my new mantra is ‘don’t cross the streams,’ in reference to my hands, which get lazy and start to cross into each other after 6 miles. Don’t let your hands touch. I try to think of my arms being locked into position like a robot, where they can only swing straight back and forth, like the cop-terminator in T2. What a scintillating blog this is.