"... all through the town."

This is not a post about painting.  This is a post about running.

You know when you get a song stuck in your head and it drives you absolutely bonkers?  That happens to me a lot when I run, but I'm not fortunate enough to get the whole song.  I just get one line.  Over and over and over.  "Devil with a blue dress, blue dress, blue dress, devil with a blue dress on."  Try that on for size.  A couple months ago I had a line from a Supremes song, but luckily now I can't remember what it was.  Whenever I give myself a mental pep talk and mention that every step I take puts me one step closer to home, Sting is right there with me.  When a friend posted pictures of a sailboat on facebook, that day I had, "Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me."  But the worst?  Wheels on the Bus.  If you do not know this song, consider yourself lucky.  During my run on Monday, just to shake things up a bit, after the wipers on the bus went swish, swish, swish, I had the driver on the bus say shut your mouth.  Oh the things we do to amuse ourselves.

I also play a lot of mental games when I run.  I don't pay any attention to what my feet are doing; I'm not a heel-striker so I just let my feet do their thing.  When I get tired, I do the old, "just run to the next telephone pole" routine, or I count fence posts as I run by a field.  (You should see what I do when I'm on a treadmill.)  I know I'm about at my limit when I get all fidgety.  The other day, at the end of an 8-miler, I pretty much looked like a catcher giving elaborate signals to a pitcher.  When that hapens I think about what my arms are doing, since they are the ones driving this train.  I pretend there is a handle attached to each of my hands, and the handle is attached to a wheel, and I am turning the wheels.  I don't pick my feet up much when I run, so sometimes I pretend there are flames shooting out of my heels - that's my power output - and I concentrate on lifting my feet a bit more on the back end of each foot strike.  And sometimes I pretend it's my legs that are wheels, and that keeps me focused on my form.  I was thinking this the other day and suddenly realized that all the voices in my head were singing again.  You guessed it.  "... all through the town."