And Also You're Drunk

River/Davis 17.3mi
1/26/06 10:00 am

"Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? And he's carrying a beautiful rose in his beak, and also he's carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet. And also, you're drunk" -- Jack Handy

I like to do my long runs during the week because the neighborhood streets are virtually deserted in the daytime, and I can run down the middle of the road, keeping an ear out for traffic coming from behind. The road’s camber is always more noticeable along its outside edges, and although it doesn’t play much of a role on my shorter training runs, it can take its toll on a run of more than twenty miles. I know because I proved it to myself today.
On an unseasonably warm Sunday morning, I start out running south along the river’s eastern bank with a twenty-three mile route in mind. Today’s forecast calls for temperatures as high as eighty-four degrees, and I’m well equipped with Gatorade mix, sunscreen, and a vague idea of the water fountains and convenient stores along the way. The first six or seven miles pass in relative comfort, and I make my way onto Davis Islands and south along the eastern shore as the temperature starts to rise.
Near the Marjorie Park Yacht Basin I see two young girls stop their bicycles to investigate something in their path. Sunlight glitters off of the surface of the road, and as I get closer I can see the outline of a large possum with the broken shards of a beer bottle scattered around its head. The scene has all the elements necessary for a great and ridiculous painting: two innocent girls bathed in the Florida morning sun peer over their tassled handlebars at the glittering mandorla of a deceased marsupial while the palm trees sway in the breeze.
As I pass, one of the girls is lifted from her reverie to give me an expression that is at once puzzled, sad, and slightly amused. I’m the only adult around and she looks at me as if to say “How could this have happened?” I don’t have the time, the energy, or even the ability to explain the complexities of this question to her. I simply shrug my shoulders and give her my best non-vocal “beats me” expression. As I continue to the south, the image of her face stays with me, but it begins to fade as the pain in my knee starts to make itself known.
Nearing the airport, the trees start to thin out and soon it’s just the sun, the heat, and my knee. The weekend traffic has forced me to the far edge of the road where I weave in and out of the double-parked BMWs that clog the streets for today’s NFL playoff parties. My knee is simply not having it. It’s hot and I’m pissed. I’m trying to think of positive mantras to get myself through, but the only thing I can come up with is one that I heard fifteen years ago at a protest against the first of the Gulf Wars. A group of middle-aged mothers and their young children were marching through the frigid January streets of Washington DC chanting “We’re tired! We’re cranky! And we don’t like the government!” Strangely enough, it seems to be working. I am! I am! And I Don’t! I need to get off of this island.
Eventually I make my way back across the bridge and up North Boulevard to the river’s western bank. At Blake High School I realize that I’ve never run this route from the south, and the hole in the chain-link fence that I usually squeeze through is like a one-way valve pointing in the other direction. I’ve been swimming upstream for the last three hours, and now, as I try to force myself through the opening, the analogy is complete. I’m a salmon caught in a gill net. I writhe around on my stomach as the barbs dig into my back and catch on my fanny pack. I try my best to ignore the pontoon boat full of Sunday smolts, but they have stopped their saltwater migration to gawk at my struggle on the shore.
Finally free of this mess, I hobble north towards Rick’s On The River. I’m still almost six miles short of my goal, but my knee is screaming and I remember the cell phone in my bag.
“Hey Mike, it’s Devon. Yeah. How’d you like to meet me for a beer?”