It’s the middle of the term and there is a lot that is due from each of my four classes. Months ago, before I was a student I registered to run the Detroit 1/2 marathon. I already knew I hadn’t trained enough to run the full 26.2 miles of a marathon. But a half is “only” (inside joke) 13.1. I spent the big bucks on the entry fee, and convinced a friend to share a room in Detroit the night before. I was already into this thing for dollars, not to mention hours of training.

So, regardless of the amount of homework still undone, I had to go to Detroit Saturday afternoon, and even worse, run 13.1 miles! In the cold and wind, but thankfully not the rain. The night before the marathon as I tossed and turned in the hotel bed I dreamed. A normal pre-marathon dream would include panic as I looked for lost shoes, or searched for the starting line as the gun was going off. Or collapsed along the course and couldn’t tell anyone who I was.

But this night, the night before a 13.1 mile run which I had not trained well for, amid the concerns about the weather and the distance and my ability I dreamed about a mid-term. The dream was in color, I was writing in a green notebook. There were four questions to answer and I felt good about 3 of them. I had written them in amongst my lecture notes, on bits of notebook paper in between lecture entries. One was written on the top of one page, another answer was scrawled at the bottom of another page in a different part of the worn and tattered notebook. I couldn’t figure out an answer to question 4, and time was running out. I didn’t even understand the question. So I decided to go back and tear out the pages with my first three answers and hope I gained inspiration from them.

But I couldn’t find the first three answers that I knew I had written! I flipped the pages back and forth in increasing anxiety. I looked in my bookbag. Repeatedly. I was ripping out pages indiscriminatly. I noticed that everyone else was calmly finishing up their fourth question and I couldn’t even figure out what I had done with the first three answers! And I hadn’t started question 4! The grad assistant was collecting the tests and I didn’t have anything to turn it!

I woke up grateful that all I had to do that day was get up and run. So I wasn’t prepared. So it wasn’t important. So there were no grades. I didn’t even have to finish it! What a relief. But on the night before a big race, when normally my mind would be consumed with socks and shoes and jackets and shirts, band aids, motrin, bananas and granola bars, my mind was instead consumed with essays and grades, tests and notebooks.

It was obvious to me where my brain and heart were. I couldn’t get home soon enough to get back to that schoolwork. The race was run but it’s good to get back to work.