Running Commentary

Today's post is short because I need to go to sleep, and simple because my brain is incapable of complex thought right now. The latter seems like a positive for a writer trying to live in the here and now for 21 days straight. Well, the here is that I'm home after a day on the road to visit longtime friends, and the now is bedtime. I was, in fact, pretty much absorbed in what was going on. Seeing friends that I've known for as long as I've known these three was something rare and precious to dive into and to savor. I try to collect reasons to be happy that I'm getting old, and having known and grown to love these three extraordinary people over multiple decades is certainly one large and joyous reason. First I drove (in the rain) to Foster City to have breakfast with my old Reno buddy L.; then it was down through the Santa Cruz Mountains (in the rain) to visit my former college roommates M. and S. The sun shone while we walked along the cliffs in Santa Cruz. Wh

Day 12! It's not very here-and-now of me, but I've come far enough in this daily posting enterprise that I'm beginning to wonder what happens after this, after my 21 consecutive days. Namaste, self--meaning, chill. Seeing what will happen in the future is akin to seeing in the dark. When I run in the mornings these days it is dark most of the way. But I can see some things--cars, trees, animals, bikes--and from the incomplete information my eyes gather, my mind constructs a reality. Common sense tells me what later light reveals, that is, that I shouldn't believe everything my mind is telling me when it's an hour before sunrise. Seeing incompletely is not unpleasant, by the way. The pre-dawn world has a softness to it that feels very accepting of my early morning presence. As is evident from at least the three or four past years of this blog, I always carry my camera phone. So, during the darker months the temptation to try to capture what I see in a photograph is t

The more long-suffering among readers of this blog may remember that at one point in the not-so-distant past I was eating vegan. (Or, if I ate that way but never actually wrote about it, you may not remember it. No biggie.) Two years ago, that is, on April 1, 2010, I began my year of eating vegan. Since 1988, although I've had fish and dairy, I haven't eaten meat. This meant that going completely animal-free was a change but not a huge leap. I made my decision after reading Eating Animals , which pushed me over that animal-free cliff whose edge I'd been teetering on for years. I decided to go vegan for a full year because I felt like in a week or a month I wouldn't adequately experience what the vegan life really felt like. In the time that followed, I think I did come to a clearer understanding of what living an animal-product-free existence could be like. I tried to be as true to the principles of veganism as I could. I didn't buy leather goods, although I had t

Wouldn't you know that the day after I brag about being good at keeping commitments that I wouldn't get to this blog until I've reached the end of a long day and am perilous close to a vegetative state. Whew. One reason for my fatigue is that I was up pretty late (for me) last night going to the annual meeting of an Oakland A's season ticket group I belong to. A large-ish group of us (all men except lucky me) get together and divide up six full-season tickets across 80 games. The seats are good, the bidding is courteous, and it's a fine tradition. It takes a while, though. And last night the pouring rain never let up, which made the drive both to and from the host's house a bit of an adventure. All worth it--baseball is back and isn't going anywhere until late October. I do love it so. Re. the task at hand: The commitment I'm testing is my agreement with myself to stay in the now, to stay positive, and to record my day-to-day experiences as I try to stay

I'm finding that blogging every day is becoming more difficult as I progress. It's starting to feel rather precious and self-involved. Rather contrived. I mean, who cares about the details of my days? It feels like Facebook only with endless space. Oops, the above was the bad. Maybe I should have started with the good. And there is good. For one thing, it has me writing every day, something I've intended to do approximately forever. I am good at honoring my commitments, and I have committed to 21 days, so that's what I'll do. It's up to you whether you want to stick with me while I do it. The "whatever" part is the subject matter. I think a lot about potential subjects, but really, once I'm here I just skim whatever's floating on the surface of my brain and deposit it in this space. Some days that gray-matter skin is more interesting than others. Running! Wow, it's taken me three paragraphs to get to the ongoing theme of this blog. Lucky fo

Who is this elderly woman who wants to run like a 20-year-old? All I know is I'm the same "me" that I've always felt myself to be. When I think of being outdoors and of being in motion, my thoughts are as ancient and as familiar to me as my own face in the mirror. I remember being out in our big front yard, playing with my sisters. Climbing trees. Playing hide and seek. I remember going to Pyramid Lake; at seven years old I was allowed to walk (and run!) as far down the beach as I wanted, and I wanted to go far. (There was no one else there but us.) The world was a mystery to me, a miraculous mystery of sun and shadow and green and brown--of mountain and lake and desert. Always desert, growing up in Nevada. One beautiful thing about being really young is that it takes no effort to be in the now. When you're the age I was when this picture was taken, the now is all you know. Take a look at this little girl. That's where I'm from. My grandmother said to me o

I've always known intuitively that running is for me the most reliable method I have of dwelling in the here and now. Paradoxically, sometimes being most solidly in the present happens when I'm running and my mind is wandering about in the past and/or the future. Not sure how that works, but it may have to do with allowing my thoughts to be real, that is, to be unstructured and non-purposeful, to come and go as they will. But up until today it hadn't occurred to me that witnessing running could also be a means of being wonderfully present. This morning Z and I went on down to West Oakland to spend some time as course marshals at the Oakland Running Festival . (As illustrated by Z's pose here, we had a few moments before the race started to scan the empty streets and wonder "are the runners coming??" And then, they did.) I believe I've mentioned before that I was registered to run the Half Marathon and to pace a training group for it but had to give up on a

I said to Z, it's not going to rain for 48 hours straight--I don't care what weather.com says. And I still believe it, even though at this point the weather has made a credible start on doing just that. Tomorrow is the Oakland Running Festival, which I've been involved in for many weeks through my running club, first as a pacer for trainees and then as an injured volunteer helping supply aid along the various training courses, which have gotten longer and longer as the runners got stronger and stronger. I'm excited for the marathon and in particular for the half marathon, which is the race the people I was pacing are signed up for. I'll be out on the course as a volunteer, as will Z (!), which should be great fun. Today, pre-race day, has been a wet one. I was determined to get in my "long" run this morning, so out I went, around 5:30, in the drizzle. I made it 6.25 miles, my longest post-injury run to date. I was jogging 9 minutes, walking 1 minute most o

How did I get up here, so far from terra firma? And with no branches to help me climb back down. Wait a minute. I was born a bird, which means--I have wings!

Being busy isn't necessarily reason to drop the ball in the openness game, especially when it's only day four out of twenty-one days dedicated to developing the habit of Being Here Now. But dang, I was busy all day. Too busy. Happily, the first bit of busyness was a 4.25-mile predawn run. It went well. I feel I'm on the mend. My hip / IT band / knee / fill-in-the-body-part may never function perfectly again, but hey, I can still get out there. I had some trouble looking for light at 5:30 am, mostly because it was dark for the duration of my run. But by 8:15 I was at the BART station, ready to head for SF, and there was light in abundance. Along with blossoms fragrant enough to die for. Bring on the world. My flower-addled springtime self can deal.

Yes, today I'd like to give away my outrage. I've already had a couple of servings of righteous indignation, and it's not even noon yet. I guess I need to repeat yesterday's insight--"things are"--ten times a day until it sinks in a little better. Fear not, readers, this is still a running log. Here I share how, in addition to getting physically healthier from running, I receive gifts from it that delight and sustain my emotions and intellect. Today, feeling outrage rise in me over imagined injustices at work sent me in search of some of the inner peace I sometimes access while running. I found some clues in my folder of recent running photos. How I love living in Berkeley, despite (or perhaps because) it is 50% populated by wackos. (I'm not telling you whether I'm inside or outside of that portion of its citizens.) This van earned its keep yesterday when on my run I snapped its picture. It's now in the archives, forever a reminder in purple prose

I've remarked in this space before that it's a wonder what I can see on a run if I just open my eyes. My two recent runs in Tempe, Arizona, were lovely in that regard. For that matter, my run this morning in my neighborhood of 30-plus years was pretty darn good too! I saw one set of tiles... I saw two... I saw three... I saw four... When I was a kid I took four as my lucky number. My two sisters told me no one could have the number one (that was God's), and they took numbers two and three for themselves, so I ended up with four. Fine by me! I awoke this morning and realized I was trying to decide for this day how things in general were for me. I said, "Is it 'things are good,' or is it 'things are bad'?" Then I realized that maybe it's just "things are." Knowing this has been my assignment for Day 2.

What I want to tell you is that I had a miserable weekend. Despite providing the aid station for the final LMJS Oakland Running Festival training group on Saturday and then on Sunday having my best post-injury run since January (5 miles of more-run-than-walk!), I spent way too many of my 48 hours being anxious, crabby, depressed, and sad. I tell you this because I woke up this morning, Monday, and said to myself, NO MORE. There's only one person who can help me not wallow in these feelings, and there she is in the mirror. So I decided to take the example of one of my favorite bloggers and try something new. She says, and I've read it other places, that learning a new habit takes three weeks. So what if I made a conscious effort for 21 consecutive days to practice opening my heart and being grateful for my place in the universe? I could do this by being open to others, being open to nature, and being accepting of the what-is rather than pining for the what's-not. Here's

Finally made it out the door this morning, after not running much in the past week. I've been laid low by a chest cold. Ugh. I did run/walk last Sunday, but it didn't feel like much of anything except torture. Today was better. Crystal-clear dawn, some blossoms, some birds. And a park building mural decorated by small hands. After a mild winter, spring seems to be here. I am grateful for it, and grateful to be out under my own left-right steam. Lord, I am slow, though. One day at a time, I know--one step at a time works, really.