Mornings

When my alarm went off, I didn’t recognize the sound I was hearing. The ubiquitously familiar yet somehow still alien chirping of a new device marked my transition from the warm, blissful dark of sleep to the cold, bracing dark of wakefulness at 6 am in October.

My relationship with mornings are complicated. I like sleep. I like my high thread-count sheets. I like getting up in my own sweet time.

I don’t like alarms. I don’t like being pulled out of pleasant dreams. I don’t like the dark mornings autumn and winter bring.

But I need these mornings. I need to be up before the day starts to start my day. I need the dark and quiet that can only be found before the sun rises and while most people are still in their beds.

I’m a runner.

I’m not a professional runner. I’ve only ever run one “race” and it was a charity event, but running a marathon is my dream. It’s what I train for.

Waking up early to physically exert yourself for extended periods of time, often to your perceived limits, with the goal of exerting yourself for, what can justifiably be called a ludicrous amount of time, was until recently, an equally ludicrous idea to me.

In graduate school a friend wrote a comic strip where all our peers received “unlikely scholarships.” Let’s just say “sports” and I don’t have a long history. This isn’t even my first foray into running.

In high school I secretly took it up in my own backwards fashion, without a plan, without direction, and without a destination. So quite naturally, I went nowhere.

But not today.

Today, after the initial regret of rolling out of bed has worn off, I greet the morning like an old friend.

My mind is still fuzzy as I dress and stretch and fumble with the settings on my watch, but when my foot first hits pavement everything changes.

The cold is immediately more present; seeping into my limbs, driving out the drowsiness. The world is a different place at this time of day. It’s a time of silent potential; of dreams still in full-flight before the light of cynical reason can drive them away.

This is my time. So I run into the dark.

Beneath the shadows of still sleeping trees I feel my body come to life. With each step my muscles ignite, driving me forward away from under the burdens I carry. For now at least, it’s only me and the road.