Friday, December 03, 2004
Power Source
Jay, our office clerk, noticed it too - our iPod batteries seemed to be running down faster. It’s not that we were doing anything different with them – they just didn’t last as long these days. I think Jay said his dad noticed it as well. And that seemed weird to us both.
Then, I went out with the ‘pod for a run around the neighborhood. I have two standard routes for my exercise run: a less challenging route through the park, and one through the Presidio that’s a bit shorter but much more challenging, with lots of hills, trails, and change-ups. It’s a blast but it’s hard work so, as a runner, I had to build up to it. I had to feel particularly strong to take on the Presidio route, and I had to be sure to have good music in my earbuds. If the wrong song came on as I approached cardiac hill*, I’d just tank, run too slowly, tire out, get a cramp and probably drown. Anyway you get the picture, I’d have to skip forward to the next available appropriate song and my strength would return and I’d pound up that hill with a steady inexorable pace, cresting at Lincoln with a burst of energy as I turned toward the woods and the golf course.... The music really contributed to my overall efforts, so much that it seemed to be able to make up for my inherent deficiencies or sap me of my own energy, depending on the circumstances.
* genuine SFU ROTC nickname
Except this particular day, I hit the street and put in the earbuds and tried to make a minor adjustment to the volume - but instead, I was greeted with a message on my iPod’s screen:OOBPPCTPS.** I was tuneless - but I was limber, appropriately garbed, and otherwise in readiness. So I just went for it - tunelessly. And of course, I’d been aiming to go back to the Presidio. I’d been running there a lot lately, feeling very at home on the singletrack and the big hill and generally enjoying the route. But I hadn’t planned to try it without music. I’d gone tuneless many times on the Park route, but that was basically just broad flat walkways, posing no endurance challenges. This time I was hitting the Presidio, I reminded myself on my way to a destination I hadn’t even seriously considered changing.
**Out of battery power - please connect to power source
Those first blocks are easy; the hill starts at Lake Street and crests, as I mentioned, at Lincoln. From there it’s substantially downhill home, with a few notable exceptions. As I ran I drilled every stride equally into the center of the earth. My knees rose and fell as if of their own volition, making subtle adjustments to grade and surface, my back in line and lifting, the road just falling away behind me as the next stretch ahead drew closer. At Lincoln I shook out my arms as momentum carried me over and down along the piney trail. My head bobbed, not to music, but to the running itself, and I felt stronger than I knew myself to be.
Up around the back 9 and through the little clutch of cottages, accelerating up the smaller hill as I usually can do only on my bicycle; then through the singletrack with perfect focus and maximum efficiency as it curved and twisted among the brambles and through the forest; then out to the clubhouse and down the long straight grade between the mansions and the woods; then through the little park and past the duckpond and then back home alongside the greenbelt - the entire way, the whole route from end to end, I ran hard and I ran strong.
I have no idea if I ran fast, as I’d left my watch behind. But I felt fast. I had performed at a higher level than I’d reached in months. Panting, soaked in sweat by the time I’d walked myself around to cool off for a few minutes, I sensed I’d tapped a reservoir of some sort - an energy reservoir, one that I used to need music in my ears to reach, but that was now within grasp of my naked hands. I’m not sure I’m ever going to access that kind of strength again, but if I do, I think I figured out where some of that missing iPod battery power went.
