Running Thoughts Rolling

Again, I ran. Two weekend days in a row to make me feeling accomplished on a cellular level.

Passing by Hot Doug's, quite a popular hot dog joint in Chicago, usually only open two hours a day, long lines withstanding, there was indeed a long line. I've yet to go. Of course being out for a run I didn't have my wallet on me. I thought about proposing a "creative begging" to the last person in line. If I run up to Irving Park (Hot Doug's being just a couple of blocks north of Belmont) and back (just shy of 2 miles) before you get to the door, you buy me a hot dog, deal? But I chickened out, which is probably the more appropriate behavior here in how to follow through on such an idea.

I saw many others running, most listening to iPods through ear buds. I wondered if I'd feel more motivated while running if I were listening to adrenaline boosting music, I probably would, would probably last longer with pick ups. Though, if I were to look at running as a more therapeutic activity, which is a big part of why I'm running, I do appreciate letting my ears out in the open, to immerse in the airwaves of city sounds and the wisps of nature between voids of concrete. I get enough motivation from the echoing in my mind of my old cross country coach, Dan Campbell, saying "Come on Phillips!" I hear this and it helps me run faster. For you Campbell, balls to the walls! He was the inspiration for my "Coach" character in my novel Votary Nerves.

While running across the Belmont bridge over the river, I heard a sudden sound wave, like amplifiers being cranked by quick twist of the knob at a street festival. Coming from Western up by Mariano's and Lane Tech, where there was a carnival last weekend. I wondered if the carnival stuck around and what if a sound wave could be so amped that it'd knock a man down, a man running on a bridge, a man  who couldn't react quick enough when the force bent his hip over the railing.

City sounds can move a man.