Running Commentary

So I did run this morning. I'm still interspersing some 1-minute walk breaks in between 3- or 4-minute stretches of running, but the overall effect is that I'm in constant motion--a good thing. I left the house around 6:20 am--purposely late enough that the sky would be light early on in the run. I headed east up the (gradual) hill and made a left at Milvia, heading north. It occurred to me that I could check out the Occupy Berkeley encampment, so I went left on Allston Way, and there it was. Not a lively bunch at that time of day. I find the Occupy movement a complicated subject, a subject I can't express my feelings about in a sound-bite-length sentence. I am in favor of what Thoreau described as civil disobedience. In his essay of the same name he wrote, "The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual." It seems to me that respect from this country's establ...

Surprised today to note that it's been well over a month since I was injured. At any rate, I'm happy to report that I'm definitely on the mend. I've been feeling a lot better in the last two weeks but have kept fairly quiet about it--don't want to awaken the running gods and have them notice that I'm on my way back. In the course of this injury I've 1) missed more than two full weeks of running, 2) spent 5 days immobilized with either food poisoning or the flu, 3) learned to "swog" (swim-jog), 4) spent way too much time on the stationery bike that I set up in my kitchen, 5) rowed thousands of meters on Concept Rower river, the tributary to nowhere, and 6) ridden my bike on nearby streets and trails a lot more than I would ever let on to my excellent and earnest MD. The ingenious stationery bike stand, holding my trusty Univega in the "ready" position. Note the telephone and the TV remote also at the ready. I read recent...

...well, you know what it is. Sitting at my desk wondering why I feel so bad right now. I do a body scan. Lump seems to have settled in my chest. I feel some nasty cortisol making its way through my very bones. Hmmm. Just what has got my fight-or-flight hormones in such an uproar? Of course. I'm going to the track after work tonight for the first time since way before I got injured. I'm nervous to go to the track even when I'm feeling at the top of my game. And now? Even though I have been cross-training (see photo, above, of the tennis club where my friend B. met me early Saturday and generously instructed me on how to water-jog), I feel I'm still weak as a kitten compared to a real runner. Well, hello, kitty. What can you learn from this fear-ball you've swallowed? I was reading through old blog entries yesterday and was chagrined to note that since the time of my first posts--early 2006, that would be--I've lost close to a minute per mile in my training runs...