Gritty

I picture myself deep in the forest, just me, alone with the path, the overarching trees, and maybe a nearby crystal-clear body of water of some kind (the fantasy isn’t always super specific).

Some days, like this past Sunday, I can sustain that illusion for a little while. On that day, which was given over to an 11-miler, even the bench I did crunches on was in the wild—note the exotic jungle cat exiting the frame.

But today—not so bucolic. I needed a little hill work, so I headed for the mean streets of Albany. (All right, this one’s a bit of a fantasy, too. Albany is a web of streets, but few of them are especially mean.)

I made my way up Marin Ave. to the Alameda, then north to the top of Solano Ave., where the asphalt stretched endlessly down the hill before me in the early Labor Day light, and I might have been the last runner left on the planet. The scene called for a theme song -- maybe something Rocky-esque? -- but alas, my inner radio was silent.

I did find an urban bench in a schoolyard to do my crunches on. Gritty, huh.