Last run in Kansas

I'd hoped to write this yesterday, but there was too much else that had to be done.   Now that we've jettisoned the responsibilities of a house, and moving out of a house, I can sit down and type about what turned out to be a rather uneventful run.  It wasn't the heart-wrenching farewell run I'd hoped for at first.

It was just three miles.  We'd gone out on Tuesday evening so that I could hear the band Trampled Underfoot play live.  My husband is a fan and had gone to hear them twice before, but my (past!) work schedule prevented me from accompanying him.  They are really good, a sister-brother-brother blues team.  The venue has really good food but no cider, and so I got a Mike's Hard Lemonade or so, and then I started to feel that feeling.   The food was fine, but the liquid was not.  The label said "Malt Beverage".  What?!  Shouldn't it be vodka?  Not in the States!  Their vodka mixes are actually malt beverages.  (Glutard info: malt = barley or wheat = fatigue/colitis/joint pain/etc). 

That pretty much nixed the 8-mile loop, but absence makes the heart grow fonder, and memories are distilled into greater potency and so forth and so on, how convenient!  I vividly remember the brilliant red bush at the top.   The brightest and richest red I'd ever seen in Kansas. No way those leaves are intact, and so going up again would dilute the experience.

We ran the three mile loop.  It was sunny, about 5C, and a bit breezy.  I was tired and my shins were a bit tender (I first noticed that they hurt Wednesday morning, just a dull ache), and my lungs felt gritty and pinched because the air wasn't the best, but I fell into a good form and found efficiency and some degree of comfort, particularly on the hills.

This year, running has taken a backseat, shoved into the trunk by about six weeks of mostly 37+C weather and many other too-hot days besides, dust, allergies, fatigue from squatting so much at work, shifting shifts, studies, etc, and for the longest time I struggled against disappointment as my goals dropped and waned, and were discarded.   I never got used to the hills.  I got stronger, but never strong enough to run outside every day like I could do everywhere else I've lived as a runner.

However, I have gotten stronger, or at least more efficient, in a certain fashion: I now find some uphills comfortable.   It's true.  The slant lets me shift to a relatively fresh set of muscles, and into a more suitable forward lean, and the impact is kinder.  I've gotten to the point where, on some uphills, I forget that uphill is supposed to be hard and even that I am going uphill.  I settle into an as of yet indescribable stance wherein my legs seem to swing forward without much effort.  And on this run, my fatigue forced me to find that best form; I can't say I coasted or jogged, but I ran a commonplace run of sorts.  Not too hard, not too easy.  Devoid of moments of extreme pain or bliss, and the intricate architecture largely unnoticed, and the greater discomfort of previous runs forgotten.  That was most likely the easiest that route had ever felt, but I didn't realize that at first because it still didn't feel 'easy'.

Thus, my last run in Kansas was rendered unremarkable.  I was tired and my breathing started to get pushed on the very first hill, but it was manageable and I got over all the other hills without really thinking about them, and it wasn't until I was a minute or two along the long mostly downward slope home that I realized that I wasn't going uphill anymore, and there was very little uphill left in the run. It had been uneventful, but just on the surface.  There had been a lot going on that I hadn't realized at first.  Which is like Kansas in general.