alone

i'm at a bus stop a mile into my run with tears rolling down my face. the humidity makes it especially dramatic and disgusting and the plethora of cars speeding by add a sense of shame, almost; i cannot possibly be the strangest thing they see on their commute today.

i sit with my head down, looking at my running shoes as i type on my phone. there's an older man pacing behind me exhaling his cigarette smoke in just the perfect direction for the wind to blow it my way. my cloudy thoughts find his smoke and marinate themselves in a haze of choking reality. 

how did I get here? 

running was my salvation. the thing that allowed me to want to get up, want to move and conquer. the distance always itching to go longer and longer. yet i sit on this bus stop a mile away from home with no idea why i cannot go further. 

before embarking on this heart rate training, i could count on one hand the amount of times i had ever set out for a solo run. i either had a training group run on the weekends or a weekday practice. the group mentality always made me show up, and the rest just kind of took care of itself.
yet here i am, alone on a cement bench with no desire to keep going another step. every possible dark and twisted thought filling my head and multiplying enough times to give me a headache.

i miss the joy and cleansing from long runs with friends. i miss the mindless morning drives to wherever to run towards a sunrise and away from the norm. yet i am stubbornly tied into seeing this through the end and reaping its results. so until then, i'll sit here alone fighting between my deep desire towards where i want to go, and the smoky maze that's the path to get there.

long runs with these three drain the negativity and fill my heart with love

myself, jim, and angie on one of my absolute favorite days.