Running Commentary

That's how I feel, scattered. My attention is fragmented. I hop like a flea. Internet! Kindle! A sandwich! CNN! Camera phone! Cats! The LA Times ! Clutter busting! MLB channel! Dog!  It's taken me a while, since Monday actually, to recognize that my frenetic behavior signifies that I am dipping in and out of thinking about the bombs on that day in Boston and just can't do any more than dip. I want to know the details, except I really don't want to know the details.  Lurid newspaper photos of a fertilizer plant explosion in Texas merge in my mind with images of a bloodied Copley Square. The look of my grandson's perfect little body and the sound of his joyous, innocent laugh are mixed in there too, as are snapshots of shattered limbs.  Life is a hard business. We are all in it together; even the perpetrators of evil acts (Boston) or careless acts (Texas) are our siblings, bound to us in this human family by the universal cycle of birth, life, and death. I

Well, one can only hope that the direction is forward. For now it seems to be. Last time I posted I indicated I'd talk later about my annual A's Spring Training trip to Phoenix and the running I did there. How can that trip already be so far in the past? At any rate, here is the signature photo from that trip. A rain-washed morning trip to the Salt River and its iconic pedestrian bridge. Heavenly! At that point I was running fairly well and still anticipating the Oakland half with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. From Phoenix I flew back to LA; then a week later it was off to the East Coast for my mother-in-law's 90th birthday. All the while I was running--in the cold, in the rain, in the sun. And past a pond in Westbrook, CT.  From Westbrook it was back to Berkeley, with only three days to go before the half. To summarize re. the half--the ORF Half Marathon --I finished, number 2538 out of 3748, and seventh in my division (there were fifteen of us