The empty park...

Yesterday we went on daylight savings time in Mexico, so those of us who are usually out at five-thirty or six in the morning were, today, really out at four-thirty or five. This may explain the vast emptiness of the running path. Oh, there were a few hardy souls and even a couple of people walking dogs, but in general it was peculiarly quiet. Okay, Hal, this is a new paragraph. For those of you who never saw "A Space Odyssey", Hal was the psychotic computer that decided to eject a crew member off the space ship. He is alive and well and on Blogspot, ejecting paragraphs from the space ship. As I trotted along, I noticed that new things hurt, and old things seemed fine (no, I don't mean myself with that remark about "old things", applicable though it may be). My teeth are no longer sore, but I noticed during the walking stage of my daily torture that my toes seemed like they were going to separate from the main body of my feet. My scalp hurt for a while, but that wore off--not the scalp itself, but the soreness. I could understand aching toes, but my only explanation for a sore scalp was that the blows from my feet that had been transferred somehow to my teeth had now come to roost in my scalp; could it cause hair loss? Or maybe even hair growth! My mind wandered as I struggled along--it's always best to think of something other than what you are doing-- until I suddenly heard a terrible, rasping breathing. There was no doubt it was breathing, but it sounded ghastly, like someone in extreme difficulty. Could it be me??? I tried to hold my breath to find out, but I couldn't hold it long enough. Eventually a woman passed me (as usual--passing me is sort of the jogging path landmark for knowing you still have vital signs). How in the world could anyone gasping with such agony be out there running?? Who knows, but once she caught up with me, she began breathing normally, and I can only assume that she was pulling out all the stops in order not to be the only person in the park who couldn't pass that little old lady in the Asics running shoes...