Thanks, Chunk

249 run/801 to go

I'm running. I'm Wonderwoman and Superman all rolled in one, I'm fast and strong and you can't catch me, but right now I'm also looking at a muscled ball of untethered threat, inarticulate fury. This fucker has my attention.

I run alone. I mostly turn down invitations to run with others; don't belong to a running club anymore. I had a partner and he was the best, but he lives on another continent now. Finding a good running partner is tricky business. A good partner knows when it is ok to talk and when it is most definitely not. A sublime partner knows how to put their hand on your back, direct you wordlessly with the slightest pressure in his fingertips, left or right. I came to trust my friend Neil, his sense of direction and sense of limits, when we were approaching ours or had the reserves to keep going. When I left Belgium, he seemed unmatchable; it was easier to run solo.

Which is mostly just fine, until a dog, half crazed with wet eyes and greasy looking fur jumps at you with almost shocking speed and venom and there is no one next to you to share the terror.

I'd been lulled by the convenience of my treadmill for a couple of months. A quick few miles the morning before the kids woke up and bam, workout done and ready to start my day - that felt great. A few weeks ago though, a friend was walking through my house for the first time and saw my treadmill tucked into a cozy corner.

"Ah, ok. Now I know what you are looking at when you run. A wall."

The next day I look at my treadmill with new, disgusted eyes. Running into a wall, even figuratively is bad news. I ditch the shorts and tank top, pull on long running tights and a Gore-Tex jacket I'm off for one of my six mile routes outside. The wind is bracing, I am breathing in the damp chill, dodging puddles, watching for cars; there is more at play here than legs in motion on a perpetual belt. There is alchemy in breath and vision and muscle. I push into wind, look forward to feeling it at my back later but mostly I know I am moving toward an actual turn around point and the forward motion feels revolutionary. How on earth had I run so much on a treadmill?

I cross at a light, lulled into the rhythm of my stride when, with violent surprise, a dog is in front of me, barking, growling, and baring teeth.

Dogs do not intimidate me. My dad had a string of dogs that would bark furiously at visitors. I knew what gentle dingbats they really were, but I listened to their barks with new ears when people stopped by and I realized how terrifying they sounded. I have a huge dog now. When he barks, it rumbles from down deep and his rare growl is dark and slow, rumbling and thick with threat. He is so large that when I walk with him through crowds, I hear people asking, "Is that a DOG?" Like my dad's loudmouth mutts, he is scary to the uninitiated.

I try to run through what is hopefully only bluster in this new dog. He stays with me, jumping in front of me, circling. I sway to the side, onto grass and he follows. I feel the sting of this choice to go it alone.

I manage to ditch the dog somehow, but he's left me rattled. I run through a neighborhood, along the main street of downtown small-town. I pass the Mexican bakery, the tiny movie theatre, used bookstore, and cross a busy bridge, a wide deep river flowing beneath. I hit my turnaround point and find, as always, my stride about a half hour into the run.The second half of a six mile run is my favorite, and in this time I forget that damn dog. Forget the surprise, forget that I was knocked off course.

I cross back over the bridge, pass my landmarks and start to dream a little about the hot shower and cold wine that await. A mile from home, I am running along the loose, narrow, pebbly edge of a road with my feet trying to keep purchase as the slope of the road threatens to topple me into the shallow ditch that runs alongside. A car pulls to the side of the road ahead of me, near where that damn frothy mutt was. I run closer to the car. As I approach, the car pulls away from my path a bit, leaving me a tiny aisle between it and the ditch I run along. The passenger side window rolls down, I curse my luck and flash again to Neil.

He was famously, unapologetically cold when it came to people asking directions as we ran. Drivers, walkers, would make some sort of eye contact with him, with a look of hopeful relief on their faces begin to ask directions and Neil would hold up a hand, look away and with unmistakable curtness simply say "désolé!" Marcel, our third partner and I were left to run through the air still hanging with Neil's quick French apology as the stunned direction-asker regrouped and probably wondered if that guy was really for real.

I've never been able to channel Neil's brusqueness, his focus is admirable, but it smacks of a rudeness I cannot summon. I approach the beat up old car pulled to the side of the road, I lower the volume in my headphones, but don't go so far as to turn the music off. I glance into the beat up car, a chubby preteen boy who looks just like that kid "Chunk" in the Goonies ("I'm not all alone in the dark. I like the dark. I love the dark." he says while running alone in the dark, clearly not loving the dark) says something, his grandma nods. I take an earphone out "Pardon?" I breathe out, my stride is screwed, I'm knocked off course yet goddamn again.

"We want to tell you to be careful, we saw a dog back there, you'll run past him. Just be careful, he's running loose, watch out for him."

I am stunned by their consideration. They saw me up ahead, they saw the danger I was running toward, they figured I could use a heads up. My tiny little surprise team. I thank them profusely, they pull back onto the road and drive away.

Neil, Marcel and I used to race the last half mile of every run. When I left them in Belgium, I still sprinted that last half mile. I imagined them next to me, pictured their determination and summoned my will to beat them in absentia.

Chunk and his helpful grandma drive away, I keep my eyes peeled for the dog, prepared now for any fury that awaits, and fully outrun the ghosts whose pace no longer matches my own.