Three Questions on Distance Running

1.     Is there always pain?

Yes, but I can sense that pain is something that you have forgotten you rightfully own.  I would like you to fling your body. Un-tether yourself, and those inhibitions. Sprawl bare-chested on some sound (a type of wave) of your choosing. Warble and juxtapose. Go salt, salt, salt. As in sweat, tears, torn evenings, or jet fuel margarita. Do you see the hot coals of doing? The way time sizzles or wilts…eat those coals. You won't be the first one. What I mean to say is that pain is many things, but one thing certainly not: suffering.

2.     Is there another way to get high?

Drugs, particularly opiates. Downhill skiing, especially Black Diamonds (drop away, tuck). Sometimes during sex, if slow and sustained, which is pretty unusual. I know this one girl and all we did was kiss, for hours. That's all, for months of a relationship. Our lips would swell and bruise. Very odd. And, sometimes in our kissing (I mean we were like kissing artists by this time) we went to some very deep and strange places, into caves and labyrinths of the mind. For a while there I thought we lived as actual energy, dull pulsing waves; and I knew immediately we couldn't sustain this type of relationship. Wine, if light and dry, and if you have not eaten in days. Or if very dehydrated while drinking the wine. Hooking a big fish deep, when the line is singing. Right there, when the filament is about to snap, the humming thrum—the copper of adrenaline in the mouth. Possibly while dancing, back years ago when I lost myself in spin and flux, but then I was always intoxicated while dancing, or on some potent drug. Lastly, I once caught a runner's high when at about 10,000 feet in the Rockies above Denver, as I peered over a ridge, into a deep valley, where a bull elk was fighting another for control of a harem of cows. This back-dropped by brilliant white snow. The clashing and running and bugling elk. This rumpled massive mountain. Surreal, but then very real. And I couldn't figure out if I was seeing, or in a dream/drug wash, or even alive. I was floating. And floating, drifting all and away, well, that's how you know you're high.

3.   What do you need to get started?

To Lean. Lean forward. A desire to fall.