running

My pace during this morning's run from Daniel's parents' home to their city hall was about 20 seconds faster than my usual, mainly because of a pack of high school senior boys who ran past the kids and me two afternoons ago. We were on our (slow, tortuously meandering) stroll to the city park after being cooped up at home hiding from the rain, and as I waited for the kids to negotiate between themselves who get to carry the giant tree branch that got felled by the storm, four figures--lithe, flawlessly smooth skins shiny with sweat--cruised by, each wearing no shirt and a typical cross country running shorts.

My mind went back to a conversation with Daniel right after we saw the US women's soccer team score its fifth goal against the Japan team; somehow we had ended up defending our respective high school sports (me: cross country, Daniel: soccer). Daniel had goaded me by saying that cross country was for aspiring soccer players who've been cut from the team, and I retorted with the fact that cross country guys were quirkier and hence cooler than soccer guys, who tend to be cocky know-it-alls who don't have the endurance to run distance. If Daniel were with us that day (he was researching at UI), I rest my case on the basis of those fleet-footed golden boys. I'm not sure if it's compliments to my sense of fidelity or a conviction of a massive self-centeredness that I really really really desired...to be one of those runners. I know the predictable response according to my description is that I might have lusted after their Adonis physique, but I guess right now my focus is I would really like to admire my own body/athletic ability as much as I admired theirs on an aesthetic level.

In the end, I had to walk a little bit around the 6K mark before jogging the rest of the way home because my pace was currently too fast for me. Envy can only get me so far. As I jogged, another memory surfaced: when the other varsity girls and I would warm up with a slow stumbling jog before a meet, and trace a little bit of the course together, how we had matched strides and chatted about trivial things as we shambled in a tight physical group together. I conjured up our leader, Natalie, then the irascible (but also by turns very sweet) Lauren, steady and self-confident Beth, quiet and classic Catherine. A few of us had gotten in a car together in the dark and watched the sunrise as we travelled together along Highway 101 to run the Race for the Cure as just a fun thing to do together. It's a one-time Saturday morning event that just gets more memorable with time, as is the nature of good memories. I wish I had lived more in the now when I was in high school, instead of having treated it as a prelude to "when my life will really begin" aka college.