When I go running, there’s a loop I do around the neighborhood. From the end of my driveway out the back of Winfield around the Rivershore “circle” and back comes to almost exactly a mile. If you want to add onto that, just tacking on the cul-de-sac on Chancey or coming back through Rivershore Estates and making a big circle can change it up.
This morning was the first time in a long time that I actually did the loop with no walking. Thanks to playing basketball several times a week at 10,000 feet, my legs were giving out far faster than my lungs, probably for the first time in my life.
I set out at a pretty good pace running and breathing in rhythm to David Crowder and paying attention to my breathing just a little bit more than all the obstacles “Winslow Acres” can throw at you (dogs, little girls on bicycles, dogs, oddly placed mailboxes, dogs). I knew when I left that I wouldn’t be able to keep running at the speed I started, and after years of Cross Country and running on my own, I know that that’s a bad way to run. But I wanted to see how far I’d actually get with about a week’s supply of extra red blood cells left.
Tons of things go through my mind when I run. Usually when it’s been this long since I’ve gone, one of them is a prayer that I don’t die. Today, that was replaced by one of the few facts I remember from either of my Ben-Stein-teaching-style Biology instructors. I’m trusting that someone will read this and tell me what the chemical is that builds up in your muscles, but the gist of it is that as your body uses the glucose (I think), it leaves this crap behind, which is what makes your muscles hurt.
About here, you’re probably thinking how ADD I am. It’ll come together.
I spent roughly 2½ months in Ecuador this summer and now I’m back home. I can run a lot harder and a lot longer than I could before because my body can soak up a lot more oxygen right now thanks to adapting to altitude. Is that all? I should hope not.
Right now I’m fresh off the experience and trying to be fruitful as I fun and fight and flight and try not to fit. And there are differences in me, some noticeable to me or to others and some not. Oxygen intake is one. How and where I spend my time is another. And even as much as I want to stop waking up and thinking I’m in Quito now that my trip on-field time is over, I want the experience to continue. (Look, I listened to Partnership orientations a lot).
Just like that stuff that builds up in my leg muscles when I run, there are some painful reminders of where I am/am not and who I am/am not. And maybe I’ll build up my endurance as I keep running at sea level every day, but those extra red blood cells from Quito will fade away, as hopefully will any sense of not having a place here. Ready for it or not, I’m Called to be in Elizabeth City right now, residual (and hopefully more of them lasting) effects of Quito Quest 2008 and all.
