Going Soft

Maybe that's what's been happening since I left LA last March. I was mostly living here between September 2012 and March 2013, and during that time I got might fond of my urban runs. I run sorta kinda urban in Berkeley, but the Berkeley streets are bush league compared to the gritty LA thoroughfares. Santa Monica Boulevard. Wilshire. Sepulveda. Even Veteran and Sawtelle have their share of noir shadows.

I'm here for a brief holiday visit, which I couldn't take to mean that I should skip my 8-miler this morning. Not much to tell about it, really, except that because the baby woke me at 4:30, I staggered out the door about 5:20--which meant there was still a lot of dark out there.

My running continues to go reasonably well, but today I felt a cranky right hamstring and a grumpy left plantar fascia, so I took it slow. South down Overland to Pico, west on Pico across Sepulveda and under the freeway (ignoring any spooky movements caught out of the corner of my eye--didn't need to see rats or drunks so early in the morning), then back north up Corinth with a jog over to Sawtelle and up through the grounds of the VA center. When I hit Wilshire I made a right, then cruised (cruised? well, jogged or even shuffled, maybe) up to the UCLA campus. The track was closed "for team practice"; even though no team was in sight, I still couldn't get in. So I gave it up and ran down Westwood to Wellworth to Selby and on back home. 


 The only photo I could muster was of the morning sun illuminating the clouds above the distant spire of the Mormon temple, presenting a peaceful tableau at the end of my dark-time adventure.

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