Thursday, April 2, 2009

The ultramarathon in my mind

St. Jude pointed out in a comment on yesterday's post that imaginary exercise is almost as good for your brain as actual exercise, and I am going to go with that, because I have been on a long and hilly mental ultramarathon and I would like to have something to show for it.

I met a really cool woman last year who runs ultramarathons, a sporting event I find unfathomable. In the particular one we discussed, she ran for 24 hours without stopping (apart from one tumble down a scrub-brush slope at the side of the trail when the light on her forehead failed in the middle of the night and she had to wait for some other runner to light the way for her to scramble back up) through woods. Woods with bears in them. You can just think about all the factors that go into such a run while I go on with my post, 'kay?

I've been working for nearly 3 months now on a project that draws on everything I'm good at and quite a few things I'm not. I started out with all kinds of enthusiasm and energy and now, if I tumbled down a scrub-brush slope, I would just curl up contentedly and go to sleep. Except that I'm very, very close the finish line. And when I cross it, I'm gonna write fiction. Or do my taxes.

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