speedwork

J and I drove to the local high school track this evening for our first round of speed work. It was an easy enough 6X400, with walk breaks in between.

Nothing I do lately seems to run at a fast clip. Diss writing is slow like honey, and I get a decent page out per day if I’m lucky. Getting the house ready to sell is, again, excruciatingly slow. Grading this stack of lit reviews from my advanced research class* is taking for damn ever.

But today, even though the track was still 3/4 covered in snow (so we ran 100 meter repeats), I was fast. Fast enough for my thighs to numb up like they do when I push a little. Fast enough for my lungs to burn and my windpipe to rattle. Fast enough for the pounding of my feet re-set the rhythm of my breath, for my eyes to water, for my mind to be utterly, inescapably present.

I left the track wishing we could have gone longer, faster. But it was getting dark, and the stack of lit reviews needed grading, and kids needed rides to various places.

*This advanced research class, in which I am essentially teaching methods + scholarship-in-action, is, I think, my favoritist class I’ve ever taught.