In Which She Begins To Record Her Experiences Whilst “On The Run”:

I have started an eight week training program, goal being to run a 5K event in mid-September. This, however, will not become the space for a log of minutes, intervals, calories, or paces.

This is more of an “along the way” style of journaling. The act of walking/running is taking me places where I have not been before or, at least, with differing perspective. I have always loved exploring, and this is just another way of going about it although requiring a touch more effort…

I don’t walk or run with an iPod. I love music, and I can feel where a pulsating beat might be a
great mover … but I like being aware of what is going on around me at the same time. I don’t want to get lost in my own thoughts or in a play list which I picked out myself anyway. Instead, I want to soak it all in and stay as rooted in the actual places and moments as possible, with less external mediation. I think this way will also help me to remain aware of how my body feels (eg. that gnaw in my right shin bone. I am not yet in shape, kids).

That, and I want to try more of this mindfulness idea in spite of my monkey brain.

SO, as part of my personal motivation plan, I am going to make a point of recording some sights and sounds while winding through suburbia in Toronto’s Little Russia. Maybe I’ll get writing more again too:

— I hear the metronome first, and then the awkward attempt at a drum beat. I think it is coming from this one house (chalky white brick), but I am wrong — it is from a house directly opposite it but way down the street. The whole road, the column of house walls, carries the echo. And so, this neighbourhood has got rhythm (yuk yuk). Kind of.

I watch an older neighbour step out on the stoop in his housecoat, peering over, tsk tsking without saying anything. My assumption is that the person practicing in their den is a kid, and that he (she)? is not very good yet. I don’t know how the metronome is so loud on its own.

— There are cardboard signs, ridiculous in duct tape, all along the way. Michael had wanted me to check it out. The signs say “Content Sale” … what does that mean? Is this a mistranslation, meaning to say “garage sale”? Because that is what it is: the place somewhere is called Tallis Circle (it is not a circle), and an old man in a beige hooded coat is pacing inside of a garage with bright zig-zags of colour painted on the inside of it. There is no one else, and so I don’t approach. Rainy days don’t draw the garage sale people out much.

— When did I become nutty enough to walk/run out in the rain again?

— Some men look silly carrying a great big umbrella, running along as though the rain is hydrocholoric acid, when there is hardly any rain at all coming down.

That is good to start.