Running Commentary

...down to a precious few. Clear skies, bare trees. Cool mornings, short evenings. Back in the 1970s and 1980s I was a big Carole King fan. I had some rocky, emotional times back then, and found one way I could throw off a bit of the gloom was to force the lyrics of one particular song into my groggy brain before I even threw off the covers. "You've got to get up every morning / With a smile on your face / And show the world / All the love in your he-ea-art...." Do I need to say this was not one of her bigger hits? But it was very catchy, and served as a reminder that the gift of living is one to be cherished, even by the grumpy. Also in those days I was immersed in a mad and passionate affair with photography, going so far as to return to school and put myself through that dubious adventure, graduate school in art. It almost ruined my love affair for good--I became so critical! So-o-o-o postmodern. I deconstructed everything I came in contact with and learned to talk lik...

There's been a lot of morning fog around here lately, a weather condition not anticipated around this time of year. But thank heavens for small favors--it's not been raining at least. There's been a lot of morning dark around here too. That could have been anticipated, but, as they say, de-nial is more than a river in Egypt. Nevertheless, I'm chagrined to be encountering increasing amounts of darkness in the a.m. Since my fall on June 7, precipitated by stumbling over a garbage can lid in the pre-dawn hours, I've tried to stick to running when I can see. Novel concept, no? But lately I've been hedging. Running up streets that are lit, watching my feet carefully, as if they were nervous ferrets that might startle and dart off from under me (do ferrets dart?). I've developed a hitherto unspoken guideline: If the sun will come up within 30 minutes of my leaving the house, I can go. Works OK now, when the sun is rising slightly before 7:00. But I can see it ain...

Veterans Day, or, as we used to call it, Memorial Day. I read in the paper that to date more than 1.3 million troops have served in either Afghanistan or Iraq. It boggles my mind. Leafing through the new issue of Runner's World I see there's an article on running in Baghdad (and you thought this wasn't a post about running). It seems that fitness is such a key ingredient in surviving over there that running as a common activity is a given. I haven't read the article yet. I am a blue-stater, both by locale and by personal inclination. But never let it be said I don't respect and support our troops. May they run long and thrive. And may they come home sooner than we might have hoped at this time last week. In my area, that blue-state hotbed, the rains arrived last night. (Can blues be hot? Yeah, baby. Just ask Nancy Pelosi.) It was nippy outside--40 this morning--but not unholy. There was no real deluge, more of a shower that wasn't scattered. I put off my run unt...