Wednesday, August 15, 2007

First There is a Sidewalk

then there is no sidewalk, then there is...

Don't ask me why Donovan's "Mountain" was stuck in my head this morning over the Stevie Wonder on the iPod, but it was. Perhaps because I now live on a road where the sidewalks are there and then gone and then there again - thus first there is a sidewalk then there is not sidewalk then there is ... but no snails upon my garden or a Juanita to call her name.

It was the first time I've run in a month because my life was consumed with pack, move, unpack, repeat until the other day. The good thing about being able to move in early was that I could bring over things, settle them and then go to the old place and do it again until the day the big men with a truck showed up to cart over everything else.

Unfortunately, it also gives a somewhat false sense of feeling done when there's still much, much more to do. Add a pair of in-laws with an RV pulling into your driveway as you're finishing cleaning the old place and unpacking big stacks of boxes and it was a fun time for all.

The other thing with moves is odd things go missing... like your left running shoes. There are the right ones sitting there in the closet waiting for their mates who are hiding in a box labeled "kitchen" down in the kitchen.

I now need to find new routes. Since I'm at the bottom of a big hill, this means hill work is now part of my regular routine and no longer just for days I need a challenge or to feel as if I've accomplished anything.

Since it's been a month, I promised myself that if I got up and went for a run, I could just run up to the end of the street and back, which would be just over a mile. Two steps into my run I breathed a sigh of relief like I was home. A minute into my run I realized this wasn't going to be as hard as I thought.

Don't get me wrong - ascending 90 feet in less than 3/4's of a mile and back down again isn't a walk in the park, but it wasn't the dreaded killer I feared it would be either.

In the end I ran 1.37 miles (according to map my run) in under 16 minutes for an 11:37 pace. I can easily live with that. Better yet, I have the feeling it is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

1 comment:

Nini said...

w00t!

Good job getting back out there :)