The Easy Loop

The Easy Loop is my little lie. Three or four mornings a week I get up, slide on a pair of running shorts, tug on a t-shirt, pull on socks, lash my running shoes to my feet and walk out the door. Most mornings I run the same loop, the Easy Loop. I’ve got increasing time constraints. I’m often on the Easy Loop before sunrise but can already feel the coming days pressures mounting. Or the unfinished business from the day before chasing me. The Easy Loop gets me out of bed when it is raining, when I’ve stayed up too late, when I’ve too much to do or just plain old don’t feel like running. The Easy Loop is my first cup of coffee. The Easy Loop is a little lie I tell myself. Not unlike those who set their clock 15 minutes fast so they can be sure to get out of the house on time. Do they not remember that they set the clock ahead? Is the Easy Loop ever easy?

We split out our minds in various story lines. We build homes with many rooms in our head and fill them full with clutter. I’ve a friend who has every upstairs clock in their home set 15 minutes fast. The downstairs clocks are set 10 minutes fast. I’ve tried to understand the logic but I can’t. Instead I call their stairway the Wormhole for its capacity to warp time and space. I never know when to arrive; upstairs time, downstairs time, or on time. But when I enter or exit their home I grab the door jams and shoot myself thorough to the other side. The entire house is a vortex, a time travel machine.

I have another friend, a wanna-be chef, who calibrates his oven down 25 degrees so it is never set too high. It is a slippery slope. I’ve cooked with him on several occasions and am never sure when he says “sauté over high heat” or “beat until firm”, exactly what he means. Which high? Which firm? I’ve told him that the whole mind game with the oven makes him slight untrustworthy in the kitchen. There is a precision in our language and our math and our sciences and our lives. Then we get involved with our personal games and our trickery. And all this would be fine so long as we kept these things to ourselves. But we don’t and we find ourselves time shifting and eating under-cooked meat. It’s a mess!

My fastest time for the Easy Loop is 17 minutes and 45 seconds. This wasn’t easy. My slowest time for the Easy Loop is 26 minutes and 53 seconds. This wasn’t easy. This is a huge range for a set run and distance. I can still run really fast and I can still also run really slow. The Easy Loop is the run I do regardless how I’m feeling, what shape I’m in, or what else is going on. Admittedly, about 25% of the time I don’t wear a watch. I’m sure I’ve never gone faster than 17:45 without a watch and I’m very sure I’ve gone slower than 26:53. Timed or not I’ve always got time for the Easy Loop, and I named it that for that specific reason. Most days I trot, shuffle or gallop around the loop in about 20-23 minutes. If I’m in that window of time, breathing moderately, and not feeling any odd aches or pains I figure I’m doing well.

The Easy Loop starts in front of my house. It heads up through the tree lined college terrace streets. I always run in the street and not on the sidewalk. At the top of college terrace it intersects with a bike path at the base of steep short hill. The bike path crosses Peter Coutts road and winds up along an elementary school. It crests another short hill and turns left along a row of Eucalyptus on one side and suburban backyards on the other. The bike path ends at a dirt path where you start a series of right turns. The path is quiet and protected by shrubs, trees and 12 foot high concrete barriers. The barriers end and to your left you can see the Stanford dish and the Santa Cruz mountains. The path turns right and right again intersecting back at the Eucalyptus trees and the bike path. From there you reverse your steps home detouring near the end to climb a shallow knoll for a views east, north and south of the bay, Mt. Hamilton, Moffet Field, San Jose, the bridges, San Francisco and the yawning pressure of the sunrise.

The Easy Loop isn’t long or demanding. But it isn’t really easy either. It is never easy. Running is hard. It is enjoyable but it is hard. I’ve been doing it my whole life, so I relax doing it. Stress fades away, my mind clears, and then sometimes I even think clearly. The big home and all its rooms and clutter clears away. The easy loop is what I do to my mind, the little lie I tell myself to get out the door.

All good things,
Wig