Running Commentary

I think I saw my Christmas tree this morning! I was running along my usual path when I realized that with every chuff I took I was inhaling the wonderful scent of pine. The sun was almost up, so I could see there was fresh mulch lining the trail--very likely made from recycled holiday greenery. It looked as if the sunrise might be spectacular (many puffy clouds on the eastern horizon) when suddenly, from nowhere, fog that glittered all the way down to the ground appeared, luminous and ghostlike. It was thick enough to dampen sight and sound, leaving me with no sensory input except my muffled footfalls hitting the damp, chip-covered ground. Eerie. Going on a run is a bit like going to a Major League Baseball game: you just never know what you're going to see. Not too long ago I saw a couple walking their dog and their cat. Together (that is, the dog and the cat were together--and the couple too, for that matter). Then this morning, this very treespotting morning, I saw a big, fat ra...

Nice hunk of rock, no? I'm editing a guidebook to climbing Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, and this is one of the illustrations. Half Dome is the most-climbed feature in the park, scaled early and often not only by seasoned rock climbers but by ordinary folks too. I'm liking Half Dome as metaphor, feeling as I often do like a scrambling ant on the monolith of my life. Some places offer good footholds, others are steep and sheer and slippery. But the only alternative to up is down. Anyway, all this makes a great excuse to use this photo on my blog. In January the last two years I've started running well and have felt poised to make great strides in my training (pun intended). And both years I've targeted the Avenue of the Giants marathon (in May) as my objective. In 2005 I'm not sure what happened--my log just shows that I petered out toward the end of the month and never really came back strong enough to do marathon-level training. I do recall that I was still ...