The alarm broke the dark silence just five hours into this brand new year, and I left a beautiful woman and a perfectly warm bed and immediately wondered if whatever would make me do such a thing was diagnosable. Regardless, I put on my running shoes, grabbed my car keys, and drove an hour in the early morning darkness to Pasadena. The temperature was an uncharacteristic thirty-six degrees when I arrived, but thankfully, my silliness is impervious to weather. Running the Rose Parade route on parade day had been on my bucket list since I first noticed the joggers preceding the grand event and today would be my day hypothermia be damned. I reluctantly took off my warmup pants, stretched, donned my running beanie and gloves, and hit the road before the sun had even introduced itself to Pasadena in 2015. A short jaunt down Altadena led to Sierra Madre where I first connected with the frozen campers-spectators who lined both sides of the road. They were not entirely awake or happy just yet, but they were there, bundled up, blowing the occasional plastic horn, invested in the parade version of tailgating. I swung on to Colorado Boulevard, where the parade famously makes its way across Pasadena, and settled into my pace. It was now dawn, but the sun had not yet eclipsed the urban landscape, and I was fully able to take in the sights and sounds of the pre-parade. I ran on asphalt that bore the colorful evidence of intense silly string warfare that had occurred overnight. I passed multiple vendors selling everything from parade programs to Spongebob Squarepants. I wondered in particular how much business the man in the hooded sweatshirt selling cotton candy got at seven o’clock in the morning. I also noticed that I was particularly happy. I introduced myself to every runner I met with a hearty Good Morning! We runners are an interesting congregation consisting of young and old, short and tall, fast and slow. We come from all stations in life, and for some reason, we are drawn to this parade route this fine morning. But I ran alone today in that massive crowd. It was glorious. The Jesus nuts were out in large numbers carrying signs that declared that JESUS DIED FOR YOUR SINS, piercing the morning air with screams of salvation through megaphones. There was a small group of Native Americans rhythmically chanting and swaying to a haunting drum beat. There was a guy with a handlebar mustache riding a penny-farthing bike (look it up: I did). The streets were filled with bundled-up tourists snapping pictures, tossing footballs, drinking coffee, and passing time. The Good Year Blimp held court overhead. It was about four miles into my run when I made it as close to the parade starting line that law enforcement officers allowed. The crowd was thick in the middle of the street anyway and I couldn’t really run at all, so I turned around, darted back and forth through the crowd, and began the run back. On cue, the sun emerged over the Pasadena skyline. People often wonder why I run. I sometimes wonder that, too. But on mornings like this, without a well-formed reason, I am sure that I am winning and do not care if it makes sense even to me. Howard Thurman once said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Among other things, I know that I am alive when I run. I made it back to the car parked on a quiet residential side street, smugly realizing that I had checked off a bucket list item before eight o’clock in the morning on the first day of the year. It still was sub-forty degrees, and as I stretched I noticed there were goose bumps on my bare legs in spite of an eight-mile run. I drove home on the 101. Brother Marley was on the radio singing about three little birds singing sweet songs by his doorstep. The sun was shining brightly, and the sky was an electric blue. The San Gabriel Mountains were majestic. I may be wrong, but at that moment I was convinced: It is going to be a great year.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 19:33:58 +0000
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