Half Way: 50 Miles Done, 50 To Go

This is one of the hardest things I've done. Running 100 miles in 10 days with no days of rest. Just some time to recoup some strength overnight letting the muscles repair only slightly. Having completed half of this mission, the changes in my style of running are easily recognizable. Being that it's only day five, the lions share is ahead of me.
I love looking steady and controlled. I saw some college girls running today and that's great! you know, but their ponytails were swishing back and forth like a horse's tail on hot, dusty, especially buggy summer afternoon. Or, if you can imagine it for the brunette, it looked like she had a helicopter blade on the back of her head just flying around crazily like it may eventually be released by her scalp and come whizzing across the street, striking me and knocking me to the ground. I was relieved once we passed each other.
Such long shadows at 9 and 10 am. THe sun so low in the sky. 40-ish degrees is perfect running weather for tights and a long sleeve with a short sleeve over top and pink mittens and my pink doo rag to absorb the perspiration.
My left leg (which I'm in love with) is compensating for the misbehavior and "acting like a queen" attitude displayed by my R achilles tendon. OK ALREADY, I want to holler, YOU'VE MADE YOUR POINT. I can't do shit without these little lengths of material in my body being in good moods. It must be that time of the month for my achilles. OOPS, my bad, since there is no longer a diagnosis called tendonitis, we now have tendonosis and I'm getting yelled at by a Czech sports med guy over on the Running page on Facebook that I am rolling the dangerous dice with this injury.
I insist that I will run till I drop to my knees, losing the battle with this injury, testing my resolve and how long I can delude myself with this false sense of security or tolerate it or be bigger than it and braver than I've ever been or even slightly more stupid than letting go of the plane while every bit of instinct told me that I should do precisely the opposite from that or my hill opens and I can slide my fucked up tendon into a ski boot for a month or two and let it be.
I didn't want to let go of the plane. Even having a door open at 15,000 feet above the ground felt so wrong, so counter intuitive to anything I've known about me, the earth, the sky, having the heart of a bird but reconciling that daily with the inarguable tenacity of gravity and mass and a universe that embraces me each day but only for my overall lack of a carbon footprint.
For all intents and purposes, I flew that day. I had a brief argument with the tips of my fingers which were locked in a death grip above my head on the last bit of the plane's interior, that last bit was all that was keeping me from falling fast and hard toward earth.
The argument was brief and my fingers lost because there are times in your life where you just BREATHE in a big way and you just say FUCK IT and giving yourself fully to nothing familiar is the result ... goodbye plane. ANd there isn't anything as scary as that. It's a complete loss of control. It's totally graceful, romantic and merciless and I will never do it again so long as I live.
As we left the plane, the instructor guided our bodies upward so I could look into the sun falling backward to earth. I saw the plane above my head. The sensation was sickening. The plane vanished from above me like a magic trick. You know the kind. Where you think you know how they did that but it was a good magic trick so you don't really know and they'll never tell you because it's a keeper. He rolled me over now facing the direction of our fall and I saw the end of our flight (that would be earth) and I had to reorient myself while he drew my arms out straight, grasping my hands and holding them in front of me like I could have been super girl (with the cape and the sexy boots and that belt that, in my case, would double as a survival kit carrying dark chocolate, pink 452 lipstick, a clip for my hair and a Phish show with Giant Country Horns from 1989). With arms stretched, the speed was insane! He wrapped his legs around my legs and pulled them so I would stretch out long and lean like in an epic dive. I thought I was going to die and I said aloud but quietly, "Elijah Needs me". I could have died and I wouldn't have been surprised.
He then brought my arms back to my sides, keeping one arm around my waist he readied me into a feet first drop and in the next frame the chute was noisily unravelling with the pull of the release and our bodies went from about 120 mph to 10 mph, the straps around our chest and groin absorbing the throwing on of the brakes. Then everything went quiet.
"You OK?"
he asked. Indeed I was and this easy coasting to the ground is my reward for the insanity and depravity of the free fall.
I knew I was going be a better mother.
The ground came up to my feet not a moment other than what I was hoping for. It was awkward syncing up the steps with the instructor and we stumbled slightly but managed the ground. It almost felt like relearning. It didn't take long for me to realize I had forgotten a lot about what I thought I knew in those minutes. My most favorite philosopher taught me that traveling decenters a person opening up to allow for a spirit of new, an acceptance of otherness and a respect for difference. I should say that traveling through air does the same.
Day 6 tomorrow.
love,
Sarah