Dawn spread across the Eastern Shore like a layer of I Can’t Believe Its Not Butter spread across the cornfields and rows of soybeans. While cutting through the blanket of fog was difficult, I was grateful not to suffer from intense blinding sun for a 14 mile trek. Having forgone coffee in the hopes of giving some extra sleep to my hosts, I was counting on the strength of a newly downloaded Grateful Dead show to pull me through the haze. This show was loaded onto my phone rather than the ipod so that I could test that technological marvel’s ability to drive my stride.
Less than 3 miles into the ride, the hapless piece of telephony crapped out while struggling to find a signal. The number of cells in Kent County appears to be in inverse porportion to the number of corn stalks. On I pushed. No sound, no caffine, and with legs that had been cramped into the car for the better part of two days. And for some reason, the landscape was not the flat runners paradise I had been lead to believe it would be.
One dim vista blended into the next. As I spied a tree line, I hoped it would signal my next turn. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t. Trucks and tractors passed. The old boys on the porch of the general store in Still Pond said, “Oh hell, no.” I did not disagree. This was a dumb thing to do, which may have been better done at a later time. But there I was, doing it.
And when I was done, a stillness descended upon me as it often does in the wake of a long run. There is, of course, a physical exhaustion, but there is also a mental and emotional calm that comes after one of these long runs. I also felt, as I often do, a connection to the place I am in for having spent significant amount of time in the midst of that place. Putting my boots on the ground and feeling at home.