Junk Smiles

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Rippled sand on Santos beach



12 km

1:05:31 / 5.27 pace 

 Night beach run, 22C. Tired. 




Felt fine tonight, but understandably tired after recent exertions and two days of revising a 200-page thesis. My task was to revise the English, as it had been written for a doctorate by a non-native speaker of the language. Given that I understood nothing of the subject, I simply had to ignore my lack of comprehension and focus on the language itself. The overall impact was very tiring and very strange, reading page after page of stuff that made no sense to me but making sure it was in good English. I felt like a robot and I suppose if I had the time and inclination that experience would be an interesting basis for a comment on whether or not Artificial Intelligence will ever achieve consciousness. Luckily for you I don't and won't. 

 This was slow but there was a sweet moment in the middle when I felt I could just run all night, and that running was in fact the best way for me to move around the planet - by which I mean running felt natural and in no way forced. 

 I am not sure when that near-hallucinatory experience was replaced by feeling shattered but it wasn't long afterwards. I then decided that the run had become an example of what is known as 'junk miles.' I could well argue that there are no such things as junk miles but I can't be bothered now. The thing is I was running with no real purpose and I was aware of a heightened risk of injury. I could feel the tiredness in my legs and I was also taking a risk running in poorly lit conditions on sand that in places has had shelves cut into it by recent stormy tides. 

 I made an effort to pick up the speed for the last two kilometers and was almost as happy when I finished as during that superman natural-runner spike. It might well have been junk but I had fun. 

   




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