Archive for January 17th, 2009

I’m not a religious person at all, although when Nick told his friend recently that running is my religion, I had to agree that it is the closest I’ve ever come to having one.  Even so, without a deity in my belief system, I still admit wholeheartedly to believing in miracles.

This week’s Airbus landing in the Hudson River with no fatalities was so jaw-droppingly unbelievable, it most certainly qualified as miraculous.  I kept tearing up when I saw the thing on TV, especially yesterday a passenger being interviewed said something to the effect of, “You know how they tell you to put your head between your legs?  We didn’t.  Most of us looked straight ahead so we could see exactly how we were going to die.”  Jeez, if that doesn’t rip the heart right out of you, nothing will.

I had a miracle yesterday.  Nothing in the comparable realm of serious or life-affirming events, but definitely an unexpected occurrence that seemed to defy the laws of science and nature.

While searching for something in my desk drawer, I noticed my long-dead Ipod Shuffle.  Nick got it for me soon after I started running, in 2007.  That summer I sweated so much, it killed the thing.

A couple days after it died, still deep in denial, I tried one of the “fixes” I’d found online.  Immerse it in a glass of water to let the salt deposits dissolve.  Of course, you’re supposed to do this immediately after it dies before the innards crust over and this was days after, so it didn’t work.  I did have a moment of hope though, when my vegetative iPod’s light turned on, but it was just a tease, the thing was indeed broken.

Soon after, I bought myself a different clip-on mp3 player by Creative, which is still working great, despite an even sweatier summer.  It has annoyances though: playlists aren’t as easy as the Shuffle, if you want to hear the songs in a particular order, you have to use a program that renames the songs on the actual device and also, there’s a tiny wheel for fastforwarding that ends up doing other functions if you inadvertently press it, which you can’t help but do since the wheel’s so miniscule.

So I’m looking at the Shuffle in my drawer, and the fact that it’s even in my drawer and not in some landfill is Miracle #1.  I’m not a hoarder, I prefer living with the least possible crap, and if it hadn’t been for Nick’s inscription on the thing, I would have thrown it out the moment it died. But there it was, looking up at me in all it’s cuteness.

On my desk, recently purchased, is a bottle of electrical contact cleaner.  It’s great for twitchy headphone jacks and noisy pots (knobs) on mixing boards, etc.  So without even a Hail Mary, I squirt contact cleaner into my little blue Shuffle, connect the USB dock and PRAISE BE! as easy as that…I had lift-off!  The Shuffle came back to life.  It’s a miracle, I tell you.

I only wish we’d had such luck with our beloved Canon Powershot camera last month.  The lens suddenly stopped retracting and the pervading advice on the internet was “throw it down or bang it against something…really, it works!”  Unfortunately, heeding this advice, we broke it completely.  We now own a newer model Powershot.

Enough miracle gadget talk though, yesterday’s run was incredible.  Coldest so far, windchill averaging 8 degrees.  Getting dressed was amusing, after all, it’s hard to gauge your first time for a new temp and while I could have used a neck gaiter for my chin, all in all, I dressed well.

The Schuylkill River (how I’d love, just once, not have to look up the spelling of the river I run on every damn day) was frozen in large swaths, with small islands of water surrounded by ice.  I’d never seen it like that before so it was pretty special.  I’d planned on 7 but it was so sunny and lovely, I went 8, averaging 8:40.

Today I’m going out for 8 and then tomorrow (day 14 of my mini-streak) I’m set for 12.  This’ll put me at my highest mileage week to date: 59.25 miles.  Depending on how I feel on Monday, I might keep going with the streak, I don’t have a real reason to end it – nothing hurts and I’m not tired, but that may change after Sunday’s run, so we shall see.

Have a wonderful weekend and (however tiny or goofy) may you find a miraculous happening of your own.