Running Commentary

This image is symptomatic of this week in that it was all I could find when I was searching my image archives for a photo relevant to my present running life. I was looking for a tree I photographed Sunday, and instead found a picture of an apple (me) that hasn't, when all's said and done, fallen too far from the tree (my dad). That's us, in 1966. All I can think when I look at it now is, wow, did I really wear those shoes back then without my back hurting? And then I think, dig that hair. And it was my natural color, too. Thanks to my favorite nephew for scanning and archiving all the family photos. Anyway. It's jitters week because the marathon is Sunday. Looking at the countdown clock on the website would give any prospective participant the heebie-jeebies. I'm suffering from all the predictable last-minute neuroses: I'm undertrained, I'm overtrained, my feet hurt, my shoulders are frozen, my shoes are wrong, my new water bottle sucks, I know I won't...

Running, that's where. Looking up into the deep springtime sky. Saturday, April 5: Ran about 23 miles on the Contra Costa Ygnacio Canal Trail and the Contra Costa Canal Trail. The first part of my journey, a 7-plus-mile loop on the Ygnacio Canal trail, was lovely, featuring gentle hills and lush vegetation. The final 16 miles of the big run consisted of running north from Heather Farm Park to the end of the Canal Trail and then back. The scenery held my attention--parkland mixed with urban landscape--but I began to wilt before it was all over. By the end I didn't give a fig for the view. It was hot, and water stops were hard to find. I made it out and back, but was toast by the end. That was my last really long run before the marathon, too, so I had hoped for better. Tuesday, April 8, and Wednesday, April 9: Went north under the BART tracks for two days--uh--running. Headed out the door at around 6:15 am and just kept going until I reached Solano Ave., where I turned around an...

Would you believe the main point, i.e., the main subject of this blog, is running--in particular, my running. So. I was in Reno Saturday and Sunday (the above was taken around noon Saturday at the rest area on Donner Summit--love the little skunk stripes of snow on the trees' slender trunks). The weather in Reno was cool but mostly sunny. By the time I left (Sunday around 3 pm), it was also quite windy. It is spring there, all right, even if a less advanced version than what we're having in the Bay Area. A beautiful feature of the Reno spring, one that I'd forgotten, is forsythia. It's everywhere there, its showy lemon-hued branches garnering all the attention of the winter-weary. I rode my bike around the old 'hood Saturday afternoon, and then ran early Sunday morning (6:30 am). Down the hill on Keystone Ave., dog-legging west along the river, then over the bridge to Idlewild Park and the Crooked Mile, the path where my parents walked daily for a number of years a...