When the Drips Return....

So this weekend I had a long run in St. George, Utah. Some would question the sanity of the whole thing. But, when the run beckons all with shoes, socks, and adequate water must answer the bell.
Thursday night I was wondering which way I would go for 16 miles. I thought that I would just run up to Cedar City and back but that was too far. So I looked at www.mapmyrun.com and plotted my destiny.
The run began at my in-Laws home in St. George - and went out Sunset - then through Santa Clara, then past all of the old Pioneer homes, Jacob Hamblin (who I might add should have bartered harder with the Indians) and then it went up this hill, past Ivins, and then continued on for another three miles into the desert.
I think that the drips returned sometime between mile 5 and 8. And then they continued till the very drawn out, up hill battle to the finish line.
I think the drips, which originated in my head - and then traveled out my visor, and then splatted on me, the concrete, or sand were my past fat visiting me. You see every time you eat something that your body really craves - like a jelly doughnut. It is stored as fat. Which is then lurking there, clinging to your bones, waiting to clog your heart. The only way to get rid of this is through the sometimes painful dripping process.
Some drips get pried off with a crowbar, and others fight to the bitter end. At mile 12 I think I shed a doughnut that had been lurking in my posterior for several years. Something like that gum I ate in 3rd grade. I will call the doughnut Doug. Doug and I have been friends for some time. But now Doug had to go. He was not needed anymore. The fat man needed Doug. But this time it was for the furnace of affliction that happens sometime between death and dripping to death. Doug was sacrificed to the furnace. Doug was my friend. Doug will not be missed.

Two Drips on The Visor of Life

I was out running on Saturday. Earlier would have been better. Sans Dog because where I was going would not have worked for the four-legged friends. Something about city ordinances and the fact that nobody likes an outdoor peeing mammal.
I decided to go up the canyon. I needed 14 miles to get my limit of the "Airborne Shuffle" for the day. Going up the canyon is a bit tricky for fat men. Some of the skinny runners I know just plow up and over the hills and up and over into some far off nirvana that only skinny people know of.
The Fat Man does not know such nirvana. I hearken back to the quote from Gladiator "If you find yourself riding in green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled because you are in Elysium and you are already dead!" I have figured out step by step that things don't kill you.
When I played high school football I figured out that I was not going to die out there on the practice field. I may have wanted to after doing several dozen wind sprints. But I was not going to die. Humid, 98%, with 100 degree heat. Does not kill you. So 14 miles in the 80-100 degree range would not kill you either.
So back to my two drips. About 3/4 of the way up the canyon I had sweat through my little visor and it began to drip on me. First the left side, then the right side, or both at the same time. I got all the way up to where the Sidewalk Ends (omage to Shel Silverstien) and discovered that I was beyond where normal runners go. Normal runners run past the same garden gnomes that they always go past. This was an Undiscovered Country (not as bad as the same movie by Star Trek) and I was about to go beyond it. Rattlesnakes, bears, moose, and something else that was unsavory waited beyond.
Drip Drip I went up the trail and into the unknown. Across a few bridges and then my watch told me to turn around. It was a long way back home from there. Drip, Drip, Drip Drip Drip.
I don't know if the drips had names - for they came unbidden from the deep dark wells of fat and moisture. Maybe the fat cells screamed out "OH NO THERE GOES BETTY!" as they were dragged into the furnace of my affliction. Betty Deserved it.