Nowhere to Run

The sun is at its highest in the sky; a summer day in mid July. I slip on my favorite pair of deep blue athletic shorts, a pair with a reliable waistband that wont succumb to repetitive friction or an excess of sweat, only to slide down my waist mid-exercise. I pick up a plain white t-shirt out of a pile of fifteen or so identical garments. My running shoes slide on without resistance, but once they are securely tied I am comfortable in their ability to remain on my feet without slippage. Lastly, my iPhone is tucked into the waistband of my athletic shorts and my white headphones hang with just the right amount of tension between my ears and the listening device at my waist. The iPhone can hold over two-thousand songs, but in this moment I only desire one. I am suited up and ready to go, all of the pieces are in place as they should be; soon I will be free. I exit my room, hop down the flight of stairs that lead to the back door of my house and stand on the back stoop, inhaling the warm summer air. I look forward to the sun beating down on me and embrace the relentless temperature on this atypically hot day. I have actually waited until the middle of the afternoon, when the temperature is greatest and the sun is most fierce. Something about beginning with a soft white t-shirt against my skin and finishing with a damp piece of cloth, translucent with the saturation of my sweat makes me feel inarticulably liberated and alive. To me, running feels so primal and unrefined; wired into our brains, it is the most basic of flight or fight responses. I slip the iPhone out of my waistband, open the stop watch application that I use to time my runs and keep my pace and press the play button on the iTunes app. In one amalgamated instant, my song begins, the milliseconds on the stop watch race higher and higher and an electrified impulse shoots directly through my ears into my brain, then back down through the core of my chest and into my feet. In a single stride, I hop in the air over all of the steps on my back stoop, connect with the ground, and I begin. Once again, I am free. I am free from anything that pins me down, anything that traps me and refuses to let go. 
Every time I run I listen to the same song: Reba, by the jam band Phish. When it is played live, It is a fifteen to thirty minute long composition. Phish is best known for their extensive and intricate live improvisational performances. The version I listen to when I run is a recording from July 6th, 1994. It runs around twenty minutes, roughly the length of the circular course I run on a path near my house. The song’s organization happens to align perfectly with the different parts of my run. It begins with a five to eight minute compositional segment which is played with a commendable accuracy each time it is played live. Although the band may augment or accentuate certain parts of this first segment, it is usually performed quite accurately when compared to the original transcribed composition and its corresponding studio recording. Many of the band’s songs have astringent, meticulously composed beginnings. The result is an osmosis-like effect, whereby the personalities and stories engraved in these more rigid segments leaks into the subsequent instrumental jam portion of the piece. This makes each rendition of a certain song entirely unique, a snapshot of the band members’ battles, beliefs and aspirations at a point in time. As a listener, each time I listen to a piece of music, this photographic effect may mark a specific experience I had at that point in time so that each subsequent time I listen I may glimpse into the past. The first segment of the Reba concludes just as I complete the warm-up phase of my run. At this point, I make a left turn onto a main road which comprises the remaining majority of my course’s distance. Almost flawlessly, the improvised segment of the song, usually called ‘the jam’, commences; as if the band was hired to film score my life. In order stay in synch with the song, however, I am often forced to speed up. An uninformed bystander who is not familiar with Phish would likely not know that this section is improvised, due to its deep complexity and astonishing coordination. As I continue into the most difficult phase of the run, the song churns on and motivates me to keep going. It taps into many emotionally charged parts of my brain and triggers memories of past runs while concurrently releasing endorphins due to the pleasure that Reba’s specific arrangement of notes evokes in me. Like a soft, brand-new pair of socks, the song envelops me; it perfectly conforms to who I am and how I feel in a given moment. These endorphins mix with the chemicals that one’s body releases during strenuous exercise and have the beneficial effect of enhancing my mood to a state that I will confidently label as euphoric. These effects simultaneously give me the drive to push forward through the pain and exhaustion of the run. Finally, I make another left turn and find myself about three-quarters of a mile down the road from my house. To complete the loop and return home, I must simply run in a straight line up this final stretch of pavement. However, this road is on an extremely steep incline. The cruel slope, combined with my exhaustion from the first phase of the exercise, makes this a painful and daunting task. However, Reba is still playing in the foreground. In an almost meditative technique, I am able to block out the unpleasant feelings of muscle fatigue and cardio pulmonary exhaustion by focusing on the instrumental jam that is still taking place.