Child at Play

First, the injury report. My knee still hurts--not much less, but not more. I'm going to buy some long-overdue new shoes and see whether that helps. If not, it's off to the medical community for help. I'd rather avoid that, of course, but I'd also like my knee back.

Second, the title of this post. I did a nice, frisky 8-miler this morning. It is Sunday, a day for which I have a few plans, but really a day when I can afford to relax a bit. I realized as I ran that I seldom run in the spirit of relaxation--usually I go out to up my mileage or to test my knee or to keep from getting fat or, or--you get the idea. So this morning I decided to play a bit, to stop glancing at my watch and (gasp) enjoy myself. The first good laugh I got was when I attempted to pull myself up on the above bar. Ha ha, indeed. I have great lower body strength. The upper, she's not so much.

In the photo maybe you can sense what kind of a morning it was--soft and gray, a typical Bay Area foggy Sunday morning. The air was mild and kissed my bare arms gently with its moisture.
After I turned around at what I believe was about the 4-mile mark (a little past Schmidt Lane), I made it a point to stop and do some push-ups from a bar positioned about 2 feet above the ground, and to walk along the short balance beam near the BART station. I smiled and waved at every runner, walker, bicyclist, and dog walker I saw, trying consciously to be playful, to be happy, which I think is the unstated goal of most anything I do. I was quite happy to stop at the community garden at Hopkins and Peralta streets and visit with the coal-black duck who live there. Black ducks! A new one to me. I took the above photo to prove I haven't gone quackers.

I have become conscious of a duck motif in my life lately. Not long ago in the Eckhart Tolle best-seller A New Earth I was pleased to read a little story about how ducks fight vociferously for a short time over some trivial issue (food, a space in the water), but then after a while they shake their feathers and fly off together. I loved the image of wrestling with someone or something and then eventually shaking it off like, well, like water off a duck's back. Letting it go. One day not long after I read the story I saw a lovely V of ducks flying overhead as I ran. Not too may days after that I saw some swimming at Aquatic Park in Berkeley (I think I posted their photo somewhere on this blog--??). Then, last weekend I went to Reno, and there on the pond at Idlewild Park (where I like to run the Crooked Mile) were more ducks (see above). I think I love them all.

Also at Idlewild I tried to work out a bit on these wonderful blue bars. It would have seemed just wrong to walk right by them. They were so enticing. So geometric. So sturdy. So blue.

The run I had that morning was less than thrilling--the altitude (or something) always seems to slow me down when I visit my home town. The above photos were taken last Sunday. The day before that I had driven from Berkeley to Auburn and had stayed the night there, just for fun. Who says I don't play much?

Anyway, I have run in Auburn before and usually have had a little trouble carving out a long enough route. This time I hit pay dirt! Or pay rubber track, I should say. I found the high school and its lovely oval, where I was able to put in a couple of miles in the course of my 4-miler. I have to admit I heaved a sigh when I saw that the stadium containing the track boasted a big sign billing the school as the "Home of the Hillmen." I somehow doubt the school is for boys only, but maybe it is, since surely now, in the year two thousand and oh-eight, if the school was co-educational someone would by now have raised an objection to retaining a mascot name that ignores what is probably 50 percent of the school's population.
Just to show you I am capable of shaking my feathers on the issue of the unfortunate mascot name, here's a final photo that can only be construed as sunny. Cheerful. Happy. As I hope you are today!