Glimpses/Visions

Any person who tells you they don't enjoy the sensation of going fast is a lying sack of shit.This post has been a long time coming. I've had three really strange moments recently in running and life that I felt like I needed to get off my chest. I been writing this for a couple of weeks now and have been back and forth on whether I should post this, mainly because I don't understand exactly what my mind is trying to tell me and to be perfectly honest, it feels rather embarrassing. I'll go in reverse chronological order and fair warning: it only gets weirder from here on out...1. A week ago I was having trouble sleeping. I used to be plagued by nightmares but I've had a good long stretch of sleep, good dreams, general good times. At any rate, this one really shook me so I felt like it needed to come out. I remember was I was in a old style car, maybe a Crown Vic or possibly even older Cadillac (I can specifically remember the big bench seats) and I was seated in the back center with my brothers on either side of me. My dad was in the passenger seat and my deceased uncle Art (Tudy) was driving. And typical, he was drinking a beer and also already quite drunk. I remember seeing his eyes as being very glassy and bloodshot. I was pretty calm but the car was swerving very erratically. My dad kept asking my uncle "where are you taking us?" and his reply was always "you don't need to know." He looked right at me when he said that. I awoke before anything actually happened but was definitely in a weird mood the whole day.Side note: The other two incidents involve running: I often obsess over workouts and paces but these two below we're not that. These were very physically real feelings that I couldn't shake and just left me feeling odd and empty. I've been physically spent before and I'm 100% sure that played into it but this felt a little different. The best description I can give is a sense of smallness or non-existence, if that makes any sense at all.2. 10 Mile Run - This was pretty straightforward. The week prior I had completed a peak week of 70 miles and I was tapering down to 60 for this week. This was the exact same run as last Wednesday and as is fairly typical for a taper week, I was bringing overall volume down but pacing was ramping up more towards race effort. So for the last 4 miles of this run I would push pace faster to finish out. In my mind and according to splits I was able to complete the task but afterwards I was just afflicted with a type of general malaise. It's hard to pinpoint because I wasn't immediately "tired or sore." I just felt really off for the remainder of the day. I remember getting in the car that evening for a routine trip to the grocery store and being completely on autopilot. I went in to Albertsons and purchased something then I got in the car and drove. According to my credit card statements I was at a Starbucks that night but I don't remember going there and I don't remember ordering or drinking coffee. I just felt completely invisible and unaware of anything and everything.3. 9 Mile Run - This was one of those weird hallucinatory runs. I've had a few and for the most part they are good. Definitely weird, but overall a good feeling from them - a weird byproduct of runners high. This run was not that. I was doing the normal Truxtun Ave 9 mile loop and towards the end I wound up running way faster than I wanted to. It was entirely because I could feel and see the ground disappearing behind me. Every step I took was immediately replaced with black nothingness. I had run down Brundage Ln. countless times but now it was disappearing as I ran past. I started to think to myself "you're a fucking idiot, this isn't really happening. There will be no consequence if you slow down." After saying that, I did briefly slow down (at least I think I did, my mile splits continued to increase) but I was wrong. The blackness did catch up and envelope me right at Brundage and H St. It was strange and slightly scary but I never stopped running and made it home. My own analysis of this event after the fact convinces me that I was probably just out of fuel and just running on whatever was available to me and that my mind was playing tricks on me. I consider it a breakthrough, not in terms of pace but in terms of mental toughness because I didn't stop running and completed the workout. I came out of it as I was turning the corner at Ming Avenue and making the short loop back home. Like I said, it's all pretty embarrassing. I don't why it all happened, I don't know why I'm interpreting it the way I am, and I don't know why I'm writing about it now other than to have it all come out of me. Since these events I've made considerable gains in pace and endurance and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I feel like it's important to know where your coming from and to a certain extent I do know that....as in I know I have an addictive personality (case in point: I'm 6 beers in right now) and I don't anticipate this being solved now or even in the immediate future but you should question these things. You should question those milestones and motivations and try to make sense of them. Even if you fail, you're making some type of progress, right?