the deepest end

some lives go off 

the deepest end 

what if they did not sell the soul

it got absconded

 #katyamills

tbh #3

 to be honest the laboratory 

curiosity has filled 

with experiments will

be trashed the day subject

becomes object

#katyamills

my marathon month - aka - a super special mindfuck

This has become my marathon month and despite all my other obligations i have to say it's been a joy to have been mostly devoted to running for the last six months. in 3 weeks i plan to run the Cali International, and last week's twenty mile 'Run The Parkway' race gave me a sweet shot of confidence. it was my first ever real live race, and 10 minute 39 second miles was my best pace ever, 20 miles my longest distance ever. i met some cool new friends on the run who i hope to see at the CIM. the morning was simply beautiful as we followed the American River up then downstream, and got a good dose of singing birds, rising sun, cheering fans and morning mist.

#246. post-race with medal

this was an inaugural race which is selling itself as the official CIM training run and will in fact be getting in bed with the marathon for a package deal savings for 2017. my boyfriend has a bum knee but already decided he's gonna try and also 'get in bed' with me so we can run the parkway next year together. (we'll just have to see how that goes - wink wink) anyway, my brother was a sweetheart and just bought me my first pair of maximum cushion Hoka One One Bondi 4's. thanks bro!

my super max comfort runners

 i broke them in a little with recovery runs - 14 miles - on the streets and the american river the last couple of days and so far they feel spectacular. the 'rocker' effect really helps setup a rhythm and yes, they offer good pushback with every stride, creating a forward momentum for you. dam, i felt the road so hard in the race last week. around mile fifteen my Nike Pegasus 33's could not save my legs from the pavement and it's a solid shoe but i guess i am used to more trail running. i was able to run the border of the parkway on the dirt for several miles though, so it may have been more to do with my decision to keep unusual pace. for the first half marathon i was runnin ten minute miles versus my usual eleven. quite a leap of faith in myself and mostly adrenaline i suppose. also i met some people i enjoyed talking to and was trying to keep up with them, too. a real friendly crowd overall, just over a thousand strong. anyway, the life of shoes log about 4-600 miles and mine are close to dead. and what with the dead legs feeling i had by mile 18, i decided i wanted to try for a pair with max cushion so i don't have to feel the road. in the future (if i race) i plan to go for trail race events like the AR50 (American River 50 mile ultra). that full day hike up to Auburn really makes my mouth water!

cool metallic bling!

what i love about running and training are all the factors at play and how it becomes a genuine laboratory experiment on yourself with so many variables: shoes, posture, nutrition, energy, pace, weather, distance, surface, time of day, hydration, pre-workout rituals, yoga, sleep, stretching, comradery, audio, mantra, visualization, adrenaline, topography, comradery, location, gels, s-caps (salt pills), amino acids, recovery rituals, ice baths, epsom salt, protein shakes, shedules, titrating, tapering, comradery, consistency, constancy, technique, anti-blister, anti-chafing, injury prevention, pre-race ritual, wildlife sightings, sprints, hills, post-race ritual, education,  (did i say?) comradery, effort, breath, rhythm... honestly i think Einstein would be scratching his head!

the American River

during the race i overheard someone say how they told a friend, who then asked them how much they're getting paid to run? people do look at us crazy when we tell them we actually pay entrance fees for these killer events. you probably need to be running 6 minute miles to get sponsored, idk. all i think you need to understand, though, is how you get a better you out of this deal. truly! a bioaffective-psychosocial-spiritual new you. that's my take. i am in the greatest shape of my life (bio). i am quicker to calm, if not emotionally sound (affective). my psychology is a real mindfuck (in the best sense of the word), as i am exceeding the limits of what i thought i was capable of. this part is particularly super special because it means i'm breakin on through and out! i am shattering formerly solid personal belief walls and opening up a new world where what i may have thought improbable is suddenly alive. in process. someone once said 'dare to fail' and it's true. i wouldn't now be busting my ass for Folsom on december 4th, if i felt i had to finish. it's exactly knowing that i never have but maybe could run 26.2 that has me surging and thrilled to try. and that, my friends, is the what and why.

marathoner?!

LOVE POTION #K

love potion no. K

I was in the laboratory, minding my own business and yours, when all of a sudden that eureka moment came hurtling from space to earth, half-burning up in its double wide flavor, five-lane atmosphere pressure pull. I pounced immediately upon it, before it could scurry away into the recesses of some famous French cave, whose drawings of stick figure animals shall be preserved to the end of human time only. I cupped my mind around it like a cat claw trap upon a squeakmouse.

A large question mark took form in a gasping vexation of breath out my pores. My entire organism shook. This created just enough room for the object, not yet become subject (or subjected to my personal universe of great darkness and fragmented light), to slide into a crack, in the unwaxed and unpolished (and rather rough from wear) mahogany floor, which had suffered the weight of me for one too many months in this place, my self-described laboratory. All I felt (other than insatiably unanswered in pursuit of my less than scientific inquiry) was an increase in space beneath my mental tendrils, which were left groping about like a suddenly blind sea anemona in atrophic waters, abandoned for good by an ungrateful school of single file clown fish with genetically mutated pioneering tendencies.

My object, my dear sweet eureka, escaped my grasp! No! I cried, reducing my own equation to expletive tears.I dropped to my knees, then fell to the floor and my whole body collapsed like a dying star.

Then, after a few horrendous moments of breathless wonder, something magnificent happened! That which I had been pulling and pushing and groping and gnashing my teeth to capture and consume, with the bully gravitas of a desperate Putin in Ukraine, suddenly unfolded itself to my surrendered spirit, like the most beautiful of flowers set free in the sun! Love potion no. two thousand, seven hundred, sixty two (dot) infinity.

the girl whose temples -iv)

Irregardless of age, race, creed, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability, disability, awake, asleep, dreaming, fantasizing. Life was almost unbearable for her now. Irregardless of age, time, potential, history, or conscious presence. Irregardless of proprioceptive superstandard socialscapes and escapes.

Suck the colors out and it’s a fact. Thank god she could see it for what it was, almost unbearable but not. Or don’t thank god or anyone. Whenever she came to the crux of a decision to live or die, the choice was easy. Live. Experiment. Play with options. Do it differently, with no expectations. Except to suffer still. To love a lot. To feel a lot. To have a hamster in a wheel in her head who never stopped running. What an experiment! She put on her labcoat and stockings and sexy swag fitted label eyewear, her rose-colored lenses, and found her thirst for life. Yes, another day would come to pass of misinterpretation of her. Accepting it, sidelining all that crap, going back to the lab, had to be her undeniable satisfaction.

In a world that could offer little solace through bloodlines.
In a town that courted all its layman judges.
Citizens arrest. Unwelcomeness.
On a path that led to no known end.

The silence and her favorite drink, the feelings she did or did not feel, the strange form she took getting bigger herself every day as they tried to make her small by cruelties they inflicted or unkind words they would say, those around her... what influence had they? Maybe some. Maybe alot. But she tried to appreciate the ongoing evolution of her self. In trying she was almost able. And she tried to appreciate her only known given life almost as much as she could... and almost, she could.

 In subsidiary was the account of the days of her youth... through a precipitation of all things heretoformentioned and avowed... through the fallen rain of colored locks of hair... through which all ugly jaundiced countenances saw to the unconditional freeze of her powerful icy stare...in this antiquated world of salons and sociopolitical theatrics of penelopes and patricks...of bulbs bare and loud enough to make the head ache...until a dull scream fell out of some poor child’s mother’s spleen. Or so somebody said. Fell out and fell down on the ground with a thud. Like an ice cream cone scoop of dark semisweet chocolate. Insensate.

 She would not rub her temples then. Postmortem.
 She would have.
She could not rub her temples then.
She would have if she could have.
She did not rub her temples because someone else.
Someone else knew.
Someone else knew what she would not do.
Someone else knew that she could not do but would have if she could have.

 Someone else rubbed our friends temples with a fullness. A fullness that cannot come of judgment or jaundice or class action. A full indescribable spontaneous burst of parenthetically deserted straight up true natural overflowing...some semisweet one got her back.