Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Heaven is an Oval

The full version of the title goes like this: "Heaven is Having a Track Oval All to Myself on a Rainy Afternoon."

Work reared its ugly head yet again and kept me off the road the past couple of days. Today was different. I worked from home and made sure to free up a couple of hours in the afternoon to do that which I love. The weather was perfect. I felt the gentle chill as light rain fell from the sky. The elements demanded that I head out for a run. Other days like this would typically find me in the sack, hypnotized by the sound of the rain. Not today.

On this rainy afternoon, I turned to an old friend for company. From the deepest recesses of my shoe closet came my old adidas Supernova Sequence, fairly worn but still highly reliable on days like today. After months of hibernation, it was finally time for the aged warriors to get reacquainted with the surface of the nearby oval.

The 1.3 Kilometer jog from my place to the Ultra complex is always a treat, but today, it was more than that. It was glorious. Amazing what a little rain can do. It was enough to convince me to do 15 Kilometers, five longer than the planned 10. The equation was very simple: 1.3 Kilometers out plus 12.4 Kilometers on the oval plus 1.3 Kilometers back equals an afternoon well-spent.

The cliché that goes "It's worth the price of admission" is a nice way of saying that one got one's money's worth. Whoever made up that line must have been thinking of an afternoon like today's. Thirty-five bucks to get in and run on an old and beaten oval. Fair enough. Only this time, my thirty-five bucks bought me a whole lot more. For on this afternoon, I was the solitary soul that did laps on the tartan track under the pouring rain. For all of one hour, 55 minutes, and 10 seconds, I was the master of my universe

At around 6:30, the loud rugby folks took the field. The silence was no more. The afternoon was nearly spent. As dusk bled into night, I made my last lap around the oval that was made resplendently scarlet by the rain.

On a day like today, it was good to be a runner.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like a splendid run man. Hope all is well with you. Yes, I love digging out the older shoes sometimes and giving them a go. Have a Good One Man. Kenley (at work, will not let me sign in. lol)

    ReplyDelete
  2. hahaha! that was solid 31 laps around the oval. you are really an ultrarunner. only ultrarunners have the attitude to run such number of laps on an oval track. so far, my record was 50 laps that i had to reverse my direction of run for 4 times. did you run along the inner or outer lane? nice post!

    ReplyDelete
  3. @ Kenley - Good to hear from you again, man! Hibernation over? Finish that next marathon and then bring your ass over here for BDM next year! lolo

    @ BR - I always run at the outermost lane. Less than 31 laps because the distance included the 2.6 kilometers to and from my place. I do 21k runs at the Ultra oval once in a while. That's about 47 laps there, so malayo pa rin po sa record niyo, sir hahaha. :)

    ReplyDelete