12/10/2022: 4.01 Miles
It’s not really that amazing of a place on the surface; just another paragraph in the broader manuscript of America’s urban sprawl problem. Streets lined with fast food and cheap grocery stores, another town largely filled to the brim by older white folk. By that description, I could be talking about any eastern American town based in a rural area.
But of course it’s become more than that to me, or else I wouldn’t be writing about it right now. I wouldn’t be telling you about the gas station that we ran past today where I filled up on gas for my own car for the first time, or the road my captain led me down during my freshman year before losing me entirely, or the way that the humid, cold air felt on my skin. Little memories like that chased around the back of my mind this whole weekend, popping in every chair I sat in, every locked and shut office I walked past, every inch of the school’s indoor track.
I guess that’s neither here or there anymore, though; I’m not a student here anymore, and everything is already changing constantly and drastically in this town, in ways both small and large. At last I shook myself from my nostalgic stupor and focused on my hungover friends running right in front of me. I turned to the people running astride me, and I asked them what they’re doing next.
As for me, Tim’s still running.