the loneliness of the long distance runner

A long distance runner has always been a special breed of person. A person who almost relishes in solitude, since running is one of the only truly solo sports out there. A long distance also has an imagination greater than that of a small child's--they have to, in order to survive 3, 4, 5 hour runs with a pace as constant as that of a beating drum. The imagination has to be wild when every tree looks the same, every step is like the last, and there are still hundreds of trees and thousands of steps left to go. A long distance runner has an insane threshold for pain, and a mental toughness that is rivalled by none.

Long distance runners are often--not always--defyingly thin and lanky, but can out-eat a linebacker who was starved for days. They defy logic, they defy pain, and they defy all levels of comfort.

They're the kings of the pack. They sail by the usual joggers with ease, but also appropriate respect for the variation of their beloved sport...only jogging and running is about as much alike as a housecat and a lion. Theoretically, same family. Practically--worlds apart.

The usual joggers are always the same. The slightly hefty woman in a loose t-shirt with a ruddy, sweating face who's huffing and puffing makes you contemplate whether you should keep up a 5.33 pace or throw off your rhythm to administer CPR. The jock, thick with inflated, unnecessary muscle who starts off at a mad sprint, thinking running is the easiest sport in the world. As the long distance runner keeps up a steady pace, they can see the jock gradually slow down. In 50 feet, the mad sprint becomes a fast gait. In another 50 feet, the fast gait becomes a slow jog. By the time the long distance runner passes, the jock is bent at the waist, hands on the knees, sucking air. It's been 150 feet.

The sprinters are a fun specimen to observe, too. One burst of explosive power is over in a maximum of ten seconds, leaving the athlete hunched over and almost sick. Sprinters are usually nervous people, filled with an anxiety that permeates those around them. They skitter about in all directions before one common voice tells them to line up. They busily buster into place where they're forced to remain still for a few seconds, until a gun goes off and they explode in start as if fired from a cannon. It's all over in 10 seconds, and after a short period of repose, they are back to their usual jittery, nervously energetic selves, waiting for the next gunshot.


Medium-distance runners are lazy. They do not have the energy required to be a sprinter, nor do they have the tolerance (almost love) for pain, endurance, or the courage to be a long distance runner. Instead they toil in mediocrity for their entire running lives, never pushing the limits to either get their distance done in record-timing, or double their distance to enjoy the agony of being a long distancer.

Middle-distance runners procrastinate. They often have sagging shoulders less than halfway through their runs, put off workouts for another day, and fall behind in their mileage for the week. They are the reluctant runner, knowing that they'd miss the daily drudgery of running but also wishing there was a way to make it more enjoyable.

The long distance runner is an animal. One that defies all logical research about healthy exercise. If a muscle is sore and partially torn from a gruelling 20km run the day before, then another run will surely loosen it up and get it to come around. The long distance runner knows no boundaries. A marathon the day before is no excuse to take a day off the next day. A long distance runner considers a "day off" a day in which an easy 10km run is acceptable instead of a usually, gruelling uphill +20km battle.

Long distance runners can tune out pain that would kill most people. Muscle fatigue and lactic acid build up are obstacles to overcome, not barriers that will stop your run. Lack of toenails, knee surgeries and muscle tears become a part of the routine, an accepted sacrifice for a sport that they couldn't live without.

The mental toughness and focus of a long distance has no comparison. The first kilometre is always easy, with a light kick and a good feeling. The second kilometre is tough. The third one is tougher. The fourth kilometre, and you hit that dreaded wall. You snap back from your high and realize that your knee hurts. Your pace has started to slack. Your sock is digging into your toe and causing a blister, your back aches, and your shoulder have started to pinch. It's hot. You're sweating, your throat is dry and your mind starts to tell you that you should stop. Running like this is not good for your body.

The long distance runner will keep going. Keep going even though their muscles, their minds, and every fiber of their being is screaming uncle and begging them to stop. Their high will come back near the sixth kilometre, and they will tune out.

Until the tenth kilometre, where they hit the other wall. Their brain is now encouraging them to keep going, but their muscles no longer burn. They are numb. The pace becomes almost impossible to keep up with. Nothing hurts, nothing aches, but everything just....stops. Their legs want to stop. Channelling every ounce of their energy, they fool their body into thinking it's in a state of rest. Despite the steady pace they have kept up for ten kilometres, their heart inexplicably slows down. It starts to beat slowly, as if they were standing completely still. In the middle of a long, arduous run--the long distance runner is in a state of rest. The second wind.

Long distance runners are often withdrawn, self-reflective people. Never saying much, but always observing their entire surroundings. They often look as if they're not in the same realm, standing idle with a dazed, day-dreaming look on their face. Their entire lives are consumed with running. When they are not running, they want to be. When they are running, they never want to stop. Seeing a runner go by while they are completing daily tasks such as going to school or doing groceries is mental torture for the long distance runner. They crave the high, the burn, the muscle pain that their sport brings. The long distance runner cannot take a day off. It does not make sense. Graduation, wedding day, or vacation, the long distance runner will be out there at some point during the day, getting their mileage in. The long distance runner is beyond the point of running to lose weight or to be healthy. The long distance runner knows that people who run for these reasons are disrespectful and traitors to the sport.

The long distance runner balks at health concerns that govern most people. The long distance runner knows no boundaries, feels no pain, and can think of nothing else except their beloved sport.

i awoke only to find my lungs empty

2009 has been a strange year so far.

On the very first day of it, my handwritten journal was laced with thoughts that something really big was going to happen this year. It's a feeling I've only gotten a few times in my life, but it has always been bang on.

Lots of big things have happened to me so far, things I've worked really long and hard for. Getting the chance to work with the Montreal Canadiens was amazing. It was big. It's a career opportunity that will hopefully develop even more when I graduate, but for now I can only keep my fingers crossed real tight.

Finding a boy that I thought could keep up with me was big, too. I turned out to be wrong, but he had me fooled pretty good for awhile and it was nice to feel as if maybe there was someone out there who knew what I was about and get me to come around. He turned out kind of lame, but I enjoyed the turmoil of emotions and drama while it lasted. That was big.

Despite that overwhelming feeling in January, over the past few months I seem to have completely lost track of it and that excitement over what it would mean.

Fate is something that I grapple with a lot. I find a comfort in knowing that there's a force bigger than me out there, that ultimately decides what happens. It's soothing for me to believe that everything happens for a reason, and all the pieces will fall exactly where they need to be.

Other times, I get impatient with fate. I think it's not moving fast enough, or that it's going about it all wrong. Things are happening but they're not happening the way I want them too. Shit is getting mixed up, messed up, and maybe everything won't fall into place because it's confused. Sometimes I think I should hop in there and give it a helping hand, push it along. I'll try and put myself in the right place at the right time and force it, which completely defeats the purpose of believing in fate to begin with.

For a few months I think I've been trying to hard to make all the pieces fall the way I want them too, and it's not working. Someitmes things don't work out exactly the way I want them to because they can't, but that doesn't mean the way they will eventually work out will be any less amazing.

Spitting coffee out on an NHL player I idolize was definitely not how I envisioned our first meeting. But I interrupted a conversation he was having in the hallway with a mutual friend, he started to giggle at something the friend said as I took a sip of my coffee. I tried, with every fiber of my being, to swallow the coffee. But the sight and sound of a big, burly tough hockey player giggling in a high-pitched manner like a schoolgirl was too much for me and before I knew it, I snorted and the coffee previously in my mouth was now all over the front of his shirt.

Not as planned. But I wouldn't change it for the world.

I need to let go of my burning desire to control the outcome of situations in a dire attempt to get exactly what I want. I need to let it be, and maybe then I'll realize I'm getting everything I want. Maybe I'll realize that I sure don't want what I'm getting.

Either way, I'll learn.

mirror mirror on the wall...

"There are two things every girl must be: classy & fabulous."

Coco Chanel's slogan really irks me. I hate how there's so much emphasis that in order for a woman to be beautiful, she has to have a closet full of ridiculously uncomfortable shoes, the right words always on the tip of her tongue, and a way of manoeuvring through life smooth as butter.

I admire the girls that can walk in 4 inch stilettos, I do. And I respect a woman that can pull of a dress that looks like it's missing 3/4 of it's material on the hanger. I almost envy a woman who is elegant, classy, and perfectly put together.

At the same time, though, I think there's something ridiculously endearing about a girl who can trip over her own two bare feet, and probably take you down with her. There's something charming about a girl who doesn't always need to wear make up, and who is completely comfortable leaving her house in a sweatshirt and messy ponytail. There's something alluring about a girl in flip flops who sometimes chokes on her words or speaks in gibberish and finds it hilarious when you get that confused look on your face.

I've never been a classy or elegant girl. You can dress me up, but you can't take me anywhere. I'll trip, flail, tumble, and I'll think it's so hilarious that I'll sit on the floor loudly guffawing at the spectacle of myself. I don't always wear make up. I don't like make up. My hair is never perfectly in place--it's a wild pouf of messy curls that I can just barely manage on a daily basis. Give me a sweatshirt instead of a classy dress and I'll show you a good time. I love jumping in pools fully clothed, sometimes I snort when I laugh really heartily, and chinese food is best eaten right out of the containers.

I don't have the gorgeous, buttery gold skin and perfect legs. My legs are strong from years of running and my shoulders are usually slightly burnt or peeling from the long hours spent outside.

I've never been classy or fabulous. I've never even been elegant. And not so long ago, I'd look at the girls that were and I'd envy them. Now...now, I think there's something equally as beautiful and charming about a girl that is none of those things, but everything else.

forgetting why, remembering how

Coming back from vacation has to be one of the hardest things in the world to do. Spending a week in Carribbean paradise only to come crashing back to a world of summer classes, part-time jobs and boys who mess with your head is so unpleasant. At this time last week, I was sipping rum from a giant coconut and I had my toes digging in the sand.

Reality check.

Maybe the thing that makes vacations so sweet is the fact that they're so elusive.

When I came back on Saturday, I felt the burning desire to change something quite drastically. Travelling has always had a weird effect on me, I love it so much. Home is always a foreign concept because to me, home is wherever I am. I can make my home out of a few tree branches nd a lake and be happy as a clam. I'm at my best when travelling with no return date in mind--just a backpack of essentials, and endless possibilities.
Things had been a bit amuck before I left, between applying for internships that I desperately want to studying for midterms at the end of May (yuck) to a stupid guy who probably isn't worth half the amount of time I spend being angry at kind of liking him. I had forgotten about all of that while frolicking in the ocean, and when I came back I felt like I had my priorities pretty messed up before I left.
Something needed to change, I needed to feel different. So I did a classic thing that most girls do--I changed my hair.

My hair has alaways been my trademark, everyone knows me for my boisterous, obnoxious head of brown curls that can take over the stratosphere. While my curls are still in tact (they'll never change, I love them), I got bangs. I haven't had bangs since I was 8. And just that simple move of cutting a few inches off of a select group of hairs was enough to change my entire look and satisfy my need for something different.






Next up on the menu of change is a 14-hour road trip out to Nova Scotia with my best friend, in two weeks. Why? Because I've always wanted to see the Maritimes.