Category: 2006 Cleveland Marathon

I think 12 miles is the longest dis­tance I’ve ever run. I man­aged to do it in three min­utes under two hours today, which is three min­utes faster than pace. About 5 miles in I start­ed singing “Venus in Furs” to myself, which is a very bad idea. “I am tired/I am weary/I could sleep for a thou­sand years…” So I tried to get Accel­er­a­tion by Machines of Lov­ing Grace stuck in my head instead. “White light inside of me/acceleration all around/till it don’t seem/like I’m run­ning at all/till it don’t seem/like I’m run­ning at all” That did­n’t help, but I did set­tle on Veru­ca Salt’s Vol­cano Girls, which has a bit about run­ning in it, although it isn’t much bet­ter than Venus in Furs. “A mil­lion miles of run­ning and/I hit the wall,/I bounce back and I run some more.”

I hit the wall about mile ten and beat on it for the rest of the run. It was one of those times when you know if you stop to walk you’re done done and won’t start run­ning again. The wind was absolute­ly hor­ri­ble and my low­er lip was total­ly numb by the end of the run, and my beard fur was all bris­tled up to keep my face warm. I tried to let a home­less dude know I was pass­ing him, but only man­aged to make blub-blub sounds, which still served the pur­pose, I sup­pose. Brr! but done! I’m pleased. If you’ve got rec­om­men­da­tions for good run­ning songs, that I’ve not men­tioned [I just thought of Pink Floy­d’s Run Like Hell] please let me know. I think I’ll make a com­pi­la­tion.