Gray Running

I woke up to a crisp but sunny autumn day. A runner’s paradise. But I was more in the mood for gray running. Those mornings that one look out the window makes you draw the comforter higher over your head. The thought of going out into the elements draws a growl from your throat. Gray running means chill winds that dig claws deep into bone marrow. Mist throws daggers in a perpetual game of chicken with your eyelids. Each breath is a punishment. But sometimes it fits my mood more appropriately. I tried to put my finger on the feeling, first wondering if it was a feeling of gratitude that the universe was throwing a pity-party in my honor. But that didn’t sit right. A pity-party is an emotional surrender to your circumstances, a self-imposed powerlessness that whimpers impotently as the enemy plunders all joy, all peace, all hope. My reaction to the gray atmospheric depression is more akin to Dexter’s toothy, passionless grin that never bodes well for his latest victim pleading innocence. I woke up to a world screaming triumphantly, This is a sh***y, f***ed up world! I quietly lace my Asics, respond emotionlessly and slightly sociopathically, Yes, yes it is. Then I run straight into it, feet and face first.