I just ran 5,000 meters for the first time in a year.
Last year in August I got up to 5K on a looping course through the streets near here, with a small hill and then another small hill. I ran it a few times a week, feeling strong, and then on September 20 Zeke started his long and terminal decline.
That was on a Thursday. That Saturday I set out running and could not run the whole way. I didn’t see the point. I stopped at around three kilometers and walked the rest of the way, dully.
That weekend I pleaded with the nonpersonified, stochastic universe for more time. I got it: a gift from Zeke.
It was all about extending lifespan in those days. I hiked for communion with the world, yes, but I hiked hard for the feeling of blood pounding in my chest and raw lungs, and the incremental increases in strength with each week, the notion that if I kept it up I might just live past twice my age, and then suddenly my focus shifted. I was still working on extending lifespans, just not my own. From at least ten miles weekly the hikes fell off to a short walk every other week, generally when Kat or Matthew would remind me to go.I didn’t hike at all in November, three short ones in December, and on January 28, less than a week before Zeke died, I got halfway up Diablo almost on momentum when I realized I could be spending time with my dog, and I turned around and went back down.
My running fell off too. I don’t keep records of the runs the way I do of the hikes. They don’t require as much preparation and travel time: just a half hour to an hour from leaving to getting back home. After that last unsuccessful attempt at 5,000 meters, in which a sense of futility overwhelmed me and my own living past the New Year seemed pointless, I stuck to my regular “2.5K” route (really more like 2,350 meters) and did that less often anyway. I hiked all of 25 miles in December, a third of normal for the year. In January, that fell to 12 miles.
My exercise in those days consisted of walking Zeke. Four-fifths of a mile from the house to the park and back, the last fifth with him in my arms, twice a day. Then once a day. Then every other day. He grew weaker and less enthusiastic. On the first of February I realized that he wasn’t likely ever to walk with me again: it had been a few days, and he was weak, turning down my leash offers.
I broke down. I pleaded with the nonpersonified, stochastic universe for one more walk with him. Zeke granted that request too. We walked two and a half blocks, me near-hysterical with gratitude, letting him go where he wanted, sidewalk or street, because if I had to stop traffic for ten minutes to let him meander where he would, then that’s what I was going to do and to hell with anyone complaining. He made it two blocks and collapsed, looked at me.
I carried him home.
I remember walking up to the Heart Place with Becky on the 4th, the day after he died. My hiking records claim two hikes that month, which I dimly remember. I don’t remember if I ran in February, or if for that matter I ate in February. A few hikes in March, three in April, and yet as I began to climb out of the shock I realized that there was something missing besides Zeke. I no longer cared. Activity might lengthen my life, I knew, and yet for what? Why not extend a root canal or a bout of stomach flu?
And after April I knew what was waiting for me in the hills: a pale, tan shade, toothy grin, staying just out of my peripheral vision, appearing whenever my keys would jangle in my pocket or when another dog would bound up the trail. I thought to write about that, but there were disincentives.
On May 6 I hiked on Diablo, not climbing to the top. I have walked in other places, the Darlingtonia bogs of the Klamaths and the shores of Mono Lake, but I have stayed out of the hills of the East Bay since then.
Until yesterday, and I climbed through the hills tan as he was, felt his loss not from the corners of my eyes but plain there in front of me. He loved the green wet of winter, loved to stick his nose into the banks to sniff at the moist and decomposing earth, loved to find cool running water among tall forest trees so that he could lower himself down into it. But Zeke’s life was spent walking the brown summer grasses of California.
I think I will hike again in a week.
And I have been running more, all last month and adding distance slowly.
Life changes. I have some enthusiasms that have not died. I have some new resolve in writing. There are exquisite facets of my life that were not there when Zeke was alive, beloved friends I only met because he died. But I would hesitate to call it recovery. There is no feeling of emerging. The sadness is as dense as ever. Sometimes running prolongs my life in increments of an hour or two.
Sometimes I just feel like running.
Posted by: Chris Clarke
Categories:
Hiking
Send to Del.icio.us; Digg; Ma.gnolia; Reddit; Spurl; Newsvine; StumbleUpon
Login or Register to save this post as a favorite or email it to a friend.
