A lady at church hounds me to write. Not this blog, just in general. “A sentence?” she asks. “A grocery list? Anything?” Nothing, I tell her. “One must always put pen to paper when one is a writer. You are a writer. Writer’s must write.” A Londoner, she has that glorious British way of speaking. A friend of my mother’s for 50 years, she’s of course known me my entire life. She thinks I’m a writer. Just recently she asked, “still working for the newspaper?” That was nearly a decade ago. I used to could write. I used to could want to write. Now. Nothing.
Should I even bother with the running? 64 and 63 miles the last two weeks, I’ve never felt more tired, to-the-bone tired. Oh well, push through. Ten mile MGP run yesterday. (“What are you training for?” “Nothing.”) Three minutes slower than the same run at the same time last year. This year was effort, last year was energizing. Chalk it up to the heat? The lack of inspiration? Fourteen on the trail Saturday, from 10:30 a.m. to noon, stopped every 2 miles for water. Barton Springs never felt better. Never. Better. Anything else? Mile repeats last Tuesday, shock to the system. Running hard is hard. The mental battle is the toughest part, so used to easy, slow, solo runs. Battling through the urge to stop must be re-learned.
Talking recently with someone about running, I said, “I only run when I’m running.”
Is the library depressing? All those unread books, untold hours of toil and sweat by the authors, gathering dust and losing meaning. I imagine the author’s excitement as their baby was accepted by an publisher, as their words went to press, now just yellowed pages on the bottom shelf, thirty years old, irrelevant. Like this blog.
I’m going to run home.