Snake in the Hills

[photo by:@cdharrison]

I don't know if you want to consider it a sport (marathons are olympic events), but to me, it's hard not to think of running as more of a game. It's fun to play, and you don't necessarily have to be athletic to run, you just sorta need to start moving your feet faster than you can walk with determination; eventually, you start racking up miles like heart containers in The Legend of Zelda, and every time you pick up the controller, ready to play again, you wonder how will this one go? 

Look at Kelly Gneiting, a 400 pound sumo wrestler who finished the L.A. Marathon nearly 15 minutes shy of 10 hours. He was quoted as saying "I honestly think I'm one of the best athletes in the world". Who am I to argue? Running a marathon is personal. You set your own goals, then go out and be whatever type of all-star you want out on that road. 

To avoid growing tired of the same old routines I modified my hometown running course recently, or essentially, changed the level I was playing on in order to keep it exciting. The newest addition to the running repertoire is a 6.3 mile course, coiled like a King cobra in a snake charmer's basket, that I've front loaded with five heavy hills within the first 3 miles, then a relatively flat, if not downhill, middle 2 miles, and lastly a hybrid overlapping final mile with two more major hills that sit like venomous fangs inside the reptilian mouth of an old familiar friendly bit of road ready to strike my spindly legs as I coast into the homestretch. I affectionately refer to this run as snake in the hills, with its course length weaving back and forth through streets in side neighborhoods like a game of chutes (AKA, snakes) & ladders.

Since I haven't started training for any upcoming races yet (though something big might be on the horizon), my approach to runs recently has consisted of how far I feel like going at any given time. Sometimes, I'll stick to a familiar course like wet angel hair to the kitchen wall and omnisciently know exactly how far I have to go & how long it will take to get it done. Other times, I'll just head out the door & Google map my trail after I get back to where I once belonged. Since Apple never responded to my emails, I'm back to running Zen again, effectively putting my gameplay statistics on pause, with only the sounds of nature to keep me company along the way. It's how I started as a runner, and it's what I've returned to once again. No big deal.

I'm not really much of a gamer, but I spent a fair amount of time as a youth mashing buttons on my NES controllers (when I wasn't out skateboarding). Mapping out courses on Google maps makes me giddy at times, mainly because it comes with a kick of nostalgia, reminding me of what it was like to play Excitbike as a kid on Nintendo; specifically the part where you build your own course to race through. Ah, the halcyon rainy afternoons of childhood...