The last run of the year recapitulated the state of my and local running these days

The beauty of cognitive bias is that it propels the gleaning of the profound from the mundane, when there is no meaningful difference

Today I ran for a little over an hour, unguided and easing into myself until it was time to leave my mobile cocoon for the world again. That was pretty much the story of 2022, a part of it I relished in the doing and value even more in the retelling.

I did the first fifteen or so minutes with Rosie—one circuit of the 1.5-mile neighborhood loop she seems to believe forms the boundary of our property while boasting a suspicious number of other buildings, people, and dogs. On a day with temps near freezing and snow and ice underfoot, one of these patrols is all the running she needs, especially approaching her ninth birthday.

For me this was a warm-up and typical of my winter pattern, when I usually run “only” once a day. Running once and including Rosie means either picking her up for a loop at the end or including it (or one like it) at the beginning, as I did today.

Two recent snow dumps combined with unusually cold temperatures shortly before Christmas have left the local streets unsafe, but the city does a good job of clearing the recreation paths. So I stuck mostly to those for the solo portion of today’s respiro-locomotive therapy session.

Right after I passed through a tunnel under the Foothills Parkway, I saw four runners coming my way, all in the same long-sleeve T-shirts (aren’t most shirts T-shaped?) and all sporting Camelbaks or some other brand of hydration pack. I smiled, figuring the end of the year was as good a time as any to start, and not one of the four no much as twitched a risorius muscle.

This episode reinforced a positive stereotype I’ve internalized over the years, which is that hydration packs and smiles are never found contemporaneously on the same runner. And when I thought of this a few moments after this grumpy encounter, I laughed. And this in turn reminded me that it’s not unusual for me to laugh out loud while running, although usually Rosie or some other creature is around when this happens.

This usually arises from a randomly provoked memory, not something I’ve just seen. And it’s instructive, not so much because of the obvious (non-psychotic laughter is always good) but because laughing isn’t something anyone ever does when struggling for any reason on a run, either because the pace or the grade is too hot or it’s just one of those fucking days. I sometimes even feel like I’m rolling along at something close to tempo pace, whatever that might be, when I lapse into one of these short chucklefests, suggesting I can’t be running at any harder than 83 percent of max heart rate no matter how few integrated circuits my forebrain still retains.

So, laughing and riding the struggle-bus are as mutually exclusive in runners as grins and fluid-filled shoulder-packs. I think that very long runs in unfavorable weather in the non-competitive ranks represent psychotherapy for certain individuals who somehow feel undeserving of the entire exploration and restorative experience. I’m out there on cold days for the same reason the few others I see on such days are, but I try to segregate my ample pain-seeking from my perambulation.

This is a view looking northwest from a spot about three-quarters of a mile into today’s run, a typical everyday run. One reason this is a typical run is that when Rosie is with me, she leads me this way because the Foothills Path is one almost unbroken chain of prairie-dog colonies, now suffering the effects of an avalanche. And she covets. And covets.

The buildings are part of the University of Colorado’s East Campus, devoted to the graduate natural (and mostly physical [and primarily atmospheric {think outer space}]) sciences. The outdoor track is just beyond them, and I see C.U. runners jogging along at 6:30 pace on this path all the time.

I didn’t want to wander too far from home despite feeling good, because I was monitoring some lower-back pain that fades most into the background when I’m running, however gingerly I may be lame-stepping in trying to accommodate treacherous footing. After the most recent snowfall, I wrenched my back shoveling the driveway, not in hefting a load (and I would have quit ten minutes into this anyway, because this was soaking-wet, New England-caliber snow for once) but slipping on some ice and pulling something when my cerebellum automatically tried to maintain my center of balance, heedless of the aging levers it was yanking in the process. It’s healing, I believe.

The nature of this injury reminded me of how limited my vision can be when anticipating specific risks. When I become concerned with falling during a run owing to winter-specific conditions, I’m worry almost exclusively about some sort of contusion—what might result from a part of me striking the ground. This blithely ignores that you can hurt yourself slipping suddenly even if the fall itself is harmless.

This manifests in me being pretty adventurous, sometimes reckless. when it comes to descending grassy surfaces slick with mud or snow, because I imagine the worst outcome being a dirtier or wetter me. But when a limb or other body part is suddenly displaced by rotational forces, it’s typical to strain a muscle in that part from the acceleration alone.

So next year, no more having fun tumbling down slippery hills with Rosie off in the open space. Someone over fifty could get hurt doing things like that.

My back was feeling good enough so that I was confident I could get the fifty or so solo minutes I wanted by not repeating any territory. That decision took me to the Boulder Creek Path, shown below looking east.

This spot, a little over two miles east of downtown, is just north of Boulder Community Hospital, and had I taken this at midday in August, the path would be strewn with medical types, mostly hot nurses, enjoying a lunchtime amble. That’s another reason Rosie tends to head in this general direction. But the path was devoid of pedestrian traffic this afternoon.

Soon after I took this and started running again, a male runner approached from the west with a dog attached to a belt. As the two drew near, I decided I’d try smiling… again. But the guy not only didn’t smile, he closed his mouth and tried to look like an agent from Men in Black. He also seemed to be attempting a tempo run, the surface inanity of which choice in no way ruled it out as the most likely diagnosis. And to make matters worse, he had one of those flappy-arm styles that suggests elbows that are ball-and-socket joints instead of hinge joints. People who run like this are fun to watch, especially when they’re fast and super-especially when they only think they are.

Smiling is, if you must know, my normal, conditioned response to seeing another runner. If it’s nice out, it’s a simple “Yeah.” If it’s shitty, it’s a knowing “Hey, at least we’re out here.” But I’m slowly being led to the understanding that these represent elements of an outdated tradition, at least in Boulderland.

When I was done, I decided that the run had captured almost everything about my running and other runners on the paths and streets I most often travel. I was playing it smart and dumb at the same time with a potential injury. Other runners again proved unlikely to react to facial expressions, positively or otherwise. I caught myself enjoying the day as well as my own incoherence when it comes to running hard.

But the reality is that I could have sculpted selective memories of this run to suit any anticipated post. Were this not December 31, I wouldn’t be trying to divine special meaning from another hour-plus or trotting. Just like anyone else, I can create a movie from the impressions of any run that mesh perfectly with any required conclusions, mood states, or judgments of the citizenry.

But there is value in this illusion-crafting, too. If any everyday run can be upgraded into a chucklefest or a profound learning experience or something to appreciate merely because it provided material to ponder or ramble about, then every everyday run can. You just have to continually pretend the next day is a national holiday.

I spend a lot of my time being amused and somewhat nihilistic at the same time. This is not crushing most of the time, but it’s violently antithetical to goal setting. And for me, the biggest obstacle to being a forward-looking person in 2022 was me. I can point to all manner of undeniable civilizational degradations without pretending I’m not made of the kind of stuff that can continue forging a path ahead instead of wandering in lazy circles.

We all made it through the year. For some of you it’s 2023 as I type this, while many won’t see it until it’s 2023 or even 2024 everywhere. But we all made it, and were I typing this stuff into an unresponsive void, I wouldn’t be feeling nearly as satisfied to have done so. That’s a “thanks” to every reader.

Well. Bring it on.