I love that burst of adrenaline one gets while they're keeping up a good pace. Not quite running, but not taking sweet time, either. Yesterday, even though the path was dirt and stones with the occasional danger-root peeking out, I could feel myself longing to go! Just run! I burst out a sprint once. Just to get it out of my system. Because there was no way, after 2 or 3 months of sedentary Everybody Loves Raymond reruns, that I was going to be able to have the endurance to get in a good, solid dash.
Instead of hitting a pocket of adrenaline today. . .I hit a brick wall. Sure, I'm tired. My shin splints are screaming at me. Plus, my poor injured toe has still not reached maximum healing power. But I didn't think I'd be such a wuss. And so quickly. I was fine.
At the bottom of the hill.
About 1/3 of the way up, I realize it feels loads better to take little jogging steps rather than slap my feet on the pavement, sending shards of pain up my shinbones.
Bad idea.
Just before half-way up this death mound, I can not breathe. I'm literally sucking the air like a fish. I must have looked ridiculous. I'm practically breathing out the same air I'm breathing in, without any of it making it to the necessary areas. I am just not synthesizing that oxygen. All I can hear is the blood racing through my ears. Every breath sounds like it's from inside my head. I'm underwater.
It's a beautiful sunny day. But it's still 43 degrees. And it's as if I've just downed 2 bags of menthol cough drops. My throat turns into a wasteland, completely uninhabited by any precious saliva while my tongue feels like a wad of cotton. And for some odd reason, I'm finding the communication between my brain and my leg muscles has been temporarily cut off. I'm wading through molasses. Mmm. Molasses cookies.
The worst thing about this trail is that, when you hit the corner at the top of the hill, you realize. . .
. . .t's not the top of the hill.
There's not much more to go before you do reach the top, but my goodness, if that doesn't just feel like a full-on slap to the face.
My favorite part of this walk is the shortcut portion that we normally take when we just go to have a talk-walk, not an exercise-walk. On your right for almost the entire trek you have beautiful vistas of the Puget Sound and Mt. Ranier (if it's a clear day.)
On the left?
Well. . .even on a busy work-a-day, this place can be a bit scarily industrial for my taste but, especially on a Sunday, it feels abandoned. Imagine the creepiest night-of-the-living-dead video game or movie you've ever seen and subtract the idea that I'll be wearing anything less than well-fitting pants and a modest t-shirt and jacket.
Small scampering animals in piles of dried leaves. Steam vents. The wind rustling through hanging shredded plastic. Wide-open shipping containers, dredged in dirt and muck, encasing a few odd pieces of furniture and, the worst thing ever, a mirror. And the crows! I swear. These crows need quoth never more.
It also doesn't help that the forest portion of the walk looks like an ethereal primordial forest out of which I expect a velociraptor to come roaring in order to slice open my belly.
Man, I wish that raptor had taken me down on the hill.
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