Day 23 - Long Creek to Hampstead

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Total Mileage: 25.22 Miles Hot and Heavy

I was thinking about Dan Harris' book "10% Happier" which essentially boils down to this... whether it's a conscious effort, meditation or some other technique, you really have to practice being in the moment...being in the now.  We are such a rapid fire society that we don't appreciate where we are right now.  (I actually think Yoda said this in Empire Strikes Back, but it's still true). We over-anticipate the future.  This is in the same spirit context of what Charlie E. told me taking this thing step by step, one foot forward....that is very much being in the moment. This is what I think of when I'm running, being conscious of where I am (particularly conscious of cars coming at me) but also appreciating everything I pass by.  My world is blissfully reduced to this:

I hope I can retain this sense of immediacy and being present with where I am, and whom I'm with, when I return to my family and all the loving chaos that entails. I hope I'm more accepting of the things I can't control and appreciative of the individual steps that I can.

Today was hot and it's getting hotter. I won't belabor the obvious, but that is going to be challenging and I don't think I'll look nearly as happy as I do in the shot below, after finishing today's suffer fest in 5 1/2 hours.  I'm actually really happy in this photo because I figured out how to make a beer koozie out of my Mario Lopez neoprene slimming belt. Why I have a Mario Lopez slimming belt is another entire story, but the koozie worked:

Observations Day 23-23
- A Dave Bautista look-alike with huge tattooed arms walking in Moore's Creek Park with his son, a gangly teenager in a cross country t-shirt with a small white poodle.

 -As I was running over Black Creek, there were two older country gents the fishing from the bridge on the other side. They glanced over in a friendly way and I blurted out, for no reason at all, "I'm running across North Carolina!!". They look at me and smile and say "yeah we heard of you".  And immediately go back to fishing. 

Only running today did it occur to me... "whew...tough crowd".

 -Horses early morning in the field, jostling for a patch of dappled sunlight, steam coming off their bodies.  Sun breaking through the mist.

- How did we develop a language of honking? Why do we know that three short blasts is a friendly honk and one long blast is not? I get many of both.

- The north fork of the Cape Fear River, deep and silent and ancient, moving through the landscape with a certainty that it will be here long after we are not.

-Quarters are worth picking up, anything else not so much. My roadside change fund is up to $1.06

-Monty left today and he will be sorely missed. The tribe evolves and I miss every single iteration and am  humbled by the love and generosity and will be forever impacted by this.

Godspeed, 

R.

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