Training Days 52 & 53 of 71: Running 22 Miles is Not Very Fun

This morning I ran 22 miles. I'm using the word "ran" very liberally here. I think stumbled would actually be more accurate. I can honestly say that the entire run was unpleasant. I woke up at 5AM and made a cup of coffee in the dark. Got dressed in the usual neon lemon/lime outfit I wear for long runs. Got out the door by 5:45 and started out down Orange Street, then left on Crescent Heights. Usually the first mile or so is sort of crunchy, then I catch my first wind and start to really enjoy myself. But as I turned onto Hollywood Blvd about 2.5 miles later, I still felt icky. No particular reason, my body just didn't feel lithe and energetic the way it often does. As I trudged past my old apartment building I lived in when I was 20 I couldn't help but be haunted by the old emotions of fear and desire and desperation to be somebody in the world that used to dominate my days. And as I saw numerous couches rejected curbside with the cushions removed, I was plagued by agitation that people would come along and take the cushions and leave the couch - making it unusable to anyone else.

Pretty soon I'd made it to the "Walk of Fame" on Hollywood Blvd where all the stars are along the sidewalk. It was still very early and only a few people were milling by as opposed to the usual glut of tourists and aspiring actors dressed up as super-heros. Tried to entertain myself by reading the names of the stars... "Paula Abdul... Jeff Bridges... Cherlize Theron... Herbie Hancock... Stephen Spielberg... Bugs Bunny!" This really disturbed me. How are we supposed to take the stars seriously if they are going to put fictional characters on them? How can the actors/singers/directors who have been honored with immortality there on Hollywood Blvd ever believe it if there's a fictional name right beside them? Obviously getting a Hollywood Blvd star isn't like getting a Nobel Prize or anything but they could at least take it a bit more seriously than adding cartoon characters!

Then I turned up Highland which was really starting to get zippy with morning traffic. I forked onto Cahuenga which runs beside the freeway and crunched along on broken glass to the roar of the morning commuters. Let me tell you, Cahuenga Blvd=Big Mistake. The sidewalk ran out and there was practically no shoulder ant then a tall curb and a guard rail. I started to imagine my own death. Like if a garbage truck barreled by and a pebble spat up from it's tire and went straight into my eye socket and pierced my brain. That would be so lame. And all because I chose to run on Cahuenga. For a little while I had to teeter along on the curb lest I get flattened. Finally made it to where Barham crosses over the freeway. I snuck into a little parking lot there to relieve myself behind a dumpster (sorry for the explicit details, I just want you to understand the fullness of how unpleasant the whole thing was), then I swallowed a tri-berry gu and had some water. Then headed over the bridge onto a long incline up Barham Blvd toward Burbank.

As I made my way up the hill I started brainstorming the title for this blog. These were some of the ideas I came up with: "Running 22 Miles is Really Unpleasant", "Running 22 Miles Isn't Much Fun", "Running 22 Miles is Way Less Fun Than You Think"... and I'd only run about 8 miles so far. I crested the hill and passed by the ever-depressing Oakwood Apartments where college students in film programs around the country are housed during their senior internships in Hollywood. Just driving by there made me so sad for all the unfulfilled ambition out there. Not that I think ambition is healthy. But it still makes me sad when it isn't achieved.

I turned right onto Forest Lawn and ran on a big dusty shoulder the back of the WB lot and the Forest Lawn Cemetery for what seemed like centuries. Ran by their giant main mortuary place that looked like a Southern plantation mansion. Oy vey. Death. Funerals. The marketing of funerals. I wouldn't want a funeral there. I decided to take the sandy side of the road instead of running on the actual road. My knees were starting to feel stiff and I thought the sand might feel better. As I shuffled through the sand and pine needles I looked for used condoms. Seemed like the kind of thing someone might find there.

Finally I got to turn onto Zoo Drive which would take me around Griffith Park. Past the train museum. I imagined if I had a little boy he would like to hang out there. I thought about baby-sitting and how endlessly dreary it is to sit around and watch someone else's child for hours. Children often disappoint me. I expect them to be these enlightened beings - so why are they so demanding? Not many people on Zoo Drive. That was good. But I was still having an exceptionally unpleasant time. A guy drove by that had a cage strapped to his roof. Then I ran by him after he'd pulled over. He seemed to be trying to free some sort of animal he had trapped. That's nice. At least he didn't kill it. But I was creeped out so I didn't wait around to see what it was. Instead I went into the park area and refilled my water bottles with heavily chlorinated LA park water fountain water.

After a while I passed by the zoo. Giant stadium seating. Where are the animals? I don't care. I barely passed an old lady speed-walking with her arm in a cast. Then made it onto Griffith Park Drive. Who knew it would be so swooping?! So many uphills! There were some big construction vehicles and I thought about how when we were kids we used to play on those kind of things when construction workers had left for the day. Then I wondered why people are so bad. Why they hurt each other. I started thinking about Matthew Shepard and those awful boys who murdered him. I wondered if the parents of murderers regret ever having their child after knowing they've taken someone else's life. I thought about all the kids that are born that nobody cares about. What a bummer. I was just over halfway through my run at this point.

Eventually I turned onto Los Feliz Blvd and was greeted with a long sloping uphill. I knew from remembering the map that I would be on Los Feliz for a long time but I still hoped by some miracle it would suddenly be over. Not so. Trudge trudge trudge.

Finally left onto Western. At this point I felt like my knees were stuck at one particular angle and having to run downhill was especially uncomfortable. My knees didn't want to extend at all. I slumped into a Duane Reed to use the restroom and get a Gatorade. Damn. The only "G2" (low cal Gatorade) they had was red. I so wanted it to be yellow. Whatever. In the parking lot I dumped the rest of the LA park water and transfered the Gatorade into my fuel belt water bottles. When I got back on the sidewalk and tried to run it was less fun than ever. Then came the only kind of nice thing that happened in my whole run. A really tall guy who sounded like he was from Africa smiled at me and said "good job". It made me feel good for a couple seconds. Then I wondered if people cheering along the marathon course would make it less unpleasant.

I crossed the freeway and turned right onto Lexington. At this point it was very warm outside. Hot, high sun. Thick air. Lots of chain link and plastic Mother Mary's on Lexington. It took about ten years to get to Highland where I turned left. I stayed in the shadows of the buildings on Highland to try to keep cooler. I had planned to switch over to a residential street but I was worried it would be too sunny. So I took Highland all the way to 6th Street. Besides thinking about how unpleasant my run was, I also thought about my fave yoga teacher Kate Duyn Cariati - how she's starting a new class in a pink Hari Krishna church in Venice but it's during the time that I teach so I can't go. I guess I was just thinking about how I hope it's a success because her spirit makes me so happy and I want as many people as possible to get to experience her sparkle so they can feel happy too. She really brought the joy back into yoga for me when I lost it for a while last summer.

Right on W 4th. Almost home. About 2 miles. Left on Cochran. One mile. There was an orange cone way in the distance. Me and my sister have many ongoing jokes about construction cones. I just kept my eye on the cone. Keep moving toward the cone. Finally rounded the corner onto Fairfax, past the 99 cent store, and hit mile 22. Walked the last block and a half home. Took off my shoes. Got in the bath. Put on pajamas. Laid in bed. What an exceptionally unpleasant run.