Running Commentary

...but it was 15 years ago today, when two runners went out to play, so they raced around Lake Merritt, like rabbits after a carrot, and after that were together to stay! Which is my way of saying, my sweetie-for-life, Z, and I are now celebrating 15 years of togetherness. Our lives changed that day in 1996, thanks to the LMJS Fourth Sunday Run . Yay LMJS! Yay love!

Last weekend, I struggled up out of my running funk and put in some miles just for the fun of it. I was feeling like the little slug to the right, whose portrait I took while trying a post-run stretch on a neighborhood stone wall after a slogging jog. Even now I think I still may have a slight cold, and also, my hip still aches, and my knee's a little wonky, and, and, and--blah, blah, blah. So, I said to myself Saturday morning, just run. And I did! That day, I ran around Lake Merritt before meeting the LMJS Beginning Running class , where I'm acting as the volunteer encourager this spring. What fun it was, first to run the lake and then to meet with the fabulous Karen, teacher of all good running habits, and the group of just-starting-out and wanting-to-get-back-to-it runners. They showed up on this breezy day, all of them dressed in activewear and running shoes and committed to joining the dance of the old left-right. It was all a feel-good, smashing success. Then Sunday, a...

Well, one fish, so far anyway--a fish more red fish than blue fish. After writing recently about my year as a vegan wannabe , I spent a week being inexplicably fatigued and depressed. I knew enough time had elapsed since my exhausting marathon experience that I needed to return to running. I knew I had to be present for friends in need of solace in the aftermath of losing loved ones. I knew I had to show up for work in fighting form rather than in flighting form. All these imperatives, the kind that I'm used to rising up and meeting, felt overwhelming to me. Eating a fish seemed like a reasonable remedial action to take, so I took it. My body, which for the most part has done well during my year-long adventures in foodland, last week seemed ready to glare at the whole living actively thing and just mail it in and return to bed. I felt as if it was telling my inner hunter-gatherer to go find some protein. (Side note: I stopped eating meat in 1988 but continued to eat seafood. This a...

Today was the first really normal-feeling run I've had since the marathon, which was two weeks ago tomorrow. I skipped the club fun run in order to head out on my favorite Berkeley streets and paths, knowing on some deep level that to shake any lingering post-event depression I needed to get back to the familiar. The sun peeked over the hill, painting the swing set with light just as I ran through the playground behind Live Oak school. This run was no big deal--I decided to do a little hill running and then some fartlek on the flats. So I ran from the house, leaving just after 6 am, and down to the Ohlone Greenway. I cut east and ran up Peralta to Sonoma, from Sonoma on Tulare and over to Marin, up to Colusa, then over to Solano and back to the Greenway, where I did some fast-slow playing around, stopped for some high push-ups (that creaking sound you heard all the way over at your house was my arms attempting to lift my body up!) and a few crunches. Toward the end I ran into Kate ...

...of the rest of your life. I remember when I first heard the saying "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." (Chances are, that was before you were born, kiddo.) It's a hoary cliche now, but at the time it gave me pause. Well, it's still the first day, as is every day, and your next lunch is also the first lunch of the rest of your life. Meaning that every meal could be (should be) an embarcation upon a mindful and healthy course. Lunch today: herbed potatoes; chard with garlic, onions, and red pepper flakes; soy-cotash (edamame, not lima beans); spinach salad with green apple chunks and honey mustard dressing; carrot and green pepper sticks; half a whole-wheat mini-bagel. Credit Trader Joe's for most of this medley of leftovers. I wish I could say I eat this well every day, but I'm trying to cut down on the lying thing. Note: I always regard a food-related blog post as a de facto running-related post, in the same way as I feel a post about an inj...