Runner's Ghosts

When I run I see ghosts. Most of my routes I've run many times. I don't run with headphones on so my mind wanders where it wants to go. Running the parking garage at Sugar Land Town Square, as I puff up the inclines at 5:15 a.m., I remember the ghosts of past hill runs. I remember getting to the top of the garage and running to the wall to touch it before I start down. It was winter time, almost Christmas, and my breath puffed clouds as I looked down on the street decorated with trees, lights and cheery red and green ornaments, swinging in the pre-dawn darkness, waiting for someone to notice. Or it was early fall as I touched the wall nearest the Southwest Freeway and I could see the cars speeding their drivers to work and home, hear the trucks speed breaking on the downward side of the overpass and glimpse the tops of buildings, stores and restaurants just awakening to the day. If I was at home in bed, asleep, this would still be happening, away from my sight and hearing. But I was at the parking garage, both here in the now and there in the past. I round the corner on the last leg into the parking garage from the street and smell putrid odors from the garbage cans at the back of the restaurants, see the early morning wait staff arriving in their white starched uniforms, say "hi" as I run past. In the now and in the past, runner's ghosts.

When I drive around the city, I see runner's ghosts from past runs, we've criss-crossed the city. I've seen almost every corner in the light of the street lamps accompanied by the beep of the timing watch, the breaths of the runners past me, their bodies in rhythm with their footfalls, the smell of wet grass and dewy leaves. Groups of ghosts gathered around the traffic signal pole, waiting for the light to change before we cross Highway 6 at Lexington, Williams Trace at Lexington, Settler's Way and Lexington. So many cars during the day breaking the spell of quietness that had enveloped me that morning at as we had waited, stretching, grabbing a goo, drinking some water, "how many miles to go?", "wait, our turn will come", "cross at the light, with the light". I want to tell my wife and children what it's like to run through the city in the early morning, explain the feeling of freedom and accomplishment, of pain "damnit, my knee hurts" "my foot is blistering" "shit I'm tired", of breathing in and out, of talking about stupid stuff, important things, hopes and dreams we somehow tell a friend but not a loved one. It seems important then but not now. How to put my experiences and feelings into words? I do it now and in the past but the feeble attempts at communication seem not enough and yet too much. Running is simple, why make it hard? Runner's ghosts.

My first full marathon, January 2011. Many tell me that when they cross the finish line they cried tears of joy. In my imagination I see future runner's ghosts, crossing the finish line, falling to the ground, crying elated tears of pain and accomplishment. But in the actual past I wanted to cry at mile 14 "why did I do this?" "if I had stayed with the half marathon, I'd be done by now" "it hurts!" And yet I kept trotting on with my running partners, up the Westpark overpass, pumping my arms but barely inching along, down under the freeway, eating goos and throwing the empty packets on the ground, littering (does a ghost litter?), around the feeder street and onto Richmond then Post Oak Blvd, past Rice Epicurean and down San Felipe, through neighborhoods I'd never seen, a few people still out watching stragglers like me. Or were they watching runner's ghosts?

Being a running ghost, gliding along a sidewalk sweat dripping from my body and glancing ahead to see a wall of fog flowing over the wooden fence onto the street in front of me. Runners emerge from the fog "runners up!" "good morning" "Fort Bend Fit" "Who Ya!". The fog shifts and cools, flows then stops, marks the edge of night and morning, no camera to record it but in my mind I see fog and runner's ghosts.