Rest

I don't like wearing hats in either the literal or figurative sense.

My hair looks stupid in the former scenario and I find that the rest of me looks stupid in the latter.

Still, labels are things, like them or not, and I am, I suppose, the guy who runs, if not outright, by my own admission, "a runner". I prefer to think of myself as someone with more than a passing interest in commas; and also, an abnormal degree of affection for semicolons. But there is not so large a social presence for those sorts, so runner is what I am, I guess, since the barista hat is collecting dust in the corner of my room.

But being that I run a lot and talk about running and write about it here and even, sometimes, wear t-shirts that promote races I have completed, people cannot be blamed for assuming that I am indeed a runner. This is not so bad, since "runner" is a thing we have decided to value, more than other things one could be; and given my appearance, there are precious few others that come to mind: anorexic; drug addict; or perhaps even a cyclist - although my leg hair to tights ratio is way off for that designation.

Really, though, I think of myself as an endorphin chaser, an exercise dork with an overactive dopamine system that feasts on the metabolites of sustained effort. It is running because running is relatively inexpensive and the ideal of "natural movement", fantasy though it largely is, appeals to me on a very basic level. In short, fancy bikes are expensive and the seats hurt my ass and I prefer to stand. And I basically hate swimming, even if my physical dimensions probably are better suited to it than running.

So it's running, except when it's not, because I stepped on a fucking rock after 5 miles, and I kind of have to try to run fast tomorrow, so I stopped after that, then whisked myself to the gym, and spun two hours away on an elliptical, smiling for all of the boredom a normal and sane person would experience.

But normal and sane are not labels that have ever been bestowed upon me.

This was a "rest day" (7 planned miles) but rest is not so much a priority when you're only creating the person you want to be tomorrow and more importantly the person you are in that moment because really, have you ever lived a moment in tomorrow?