Perhaps you missed it, but there was a Super, Blue, Blood, Lunar Eclipse a few weeks back. Here in the Bay Area the whole thing was over by 6:30 am, which is one reason folks may have missed it. There other might lie in the fact that here in 2018 everything is drowned in the rich gravy of superlatives. Super, Blue, Blood, Total Lunar Eclipses are nice, but did the moon even explode or anything? It honestly wasn't all that capturable by my iPhone, so I'm not even sure it happened.
But it did happen, I swear, and one of the reasons I know it happened is because I was able to log my 200th mile for January, which is 20% of all the running I did in 2017. And that sounds neat, but then I look at January 2017 and am reminded that I ran 250 miles that month. I would go on to run 115 in February, 40 in March, and 15 in April. Sometimes we start strong full of vigor and intention.
I have a tattoo of a cheetah on my right calf. Cheetahs are my favorite animal. Many assume that they're my favorite animal because they are known for their running, and I am known for my running. I certainly brag about it enough. I like cheetahs because they look neat. That's the reason they became my favorite animal. Seriously, they're just really awesome to look at. But I wanted something more meaningful to tell people, so I thought about it a little harder.
The reason I love cheetahs, why I have stuck with them as my favorite animal, is because I get their existential problem. They are by far the fastest land animal. In fact, they accelerate faster than a model S Tesla, and I hear those things are very fast. However, if they use this acceleration and do not get their meal -- because the impala got away or some jerkface lion comes and steals it away -- well, they pretty much die. They don't get a lot of second chances. They have a great gift, but they need to be patient and smart in how they use it.
I get that. As the saying goes, I've got two speeds, on and off. I've signed up for more races than I have completed, I've crashed out of events and hit pain walls that were entirely of my building by being far too aggressive early. My Javelina Jundred attempt and failure, was a compound fracture of going far too aggressive on the fourth loop, and not having the mental strength to push through when that pain wall arrived at 75 miles and a marathon to go. The pain wall at mile 22 of a marathon is scalable, the finish line is just four miles away.
This is also a story of how love grows and evolves. The cheetah stole my heart because they're cool looking, they remain in my heart because I see something more about them that is meaningful to me. That Superlative moon brought me out to the headlans the other morning, but my pup, the birds and flowers, and changing landscapes I see on a regular basis keep me coming back.