So somehow I am registered for the 10 mile Crim run and the Brooksie Way half marathon.  The Crim is the 30th of August, the half marathon is Oct 5.  I’m now officially in training, and I have to say it’s the weirdest sensation. Again.  At night when I wake up before a scheduled running day I’m all excited.  Today I was scheduled to get out there and keep moving forward for 30 minutes.  I’ve been doing 1/1’s and 2/1’s mostly, a minute of running, a minute of walking, or two minutes of running to a minute of walking.  Last night at 1 a.m. I really thought that I could just run the first mile like I used to.  I was fairly confident, and in fact, excited to get going.  This morning I was a reluctant riser and as usual it took me over an hour to get out the door.  Moving slowly and accessing how I was feeling, I recognized that I had a tight hamstring, two sore knees, and a kink in one ankle.  Great.  All my aspirations of running freely in the morning sunshine evaporated, but that’s about all that evaporated in the heavy damp air.

I walked the first three minutes but the rest of the time it was mostly 2/1’s with some 3/1’s thrown in.  At one point I was checking my watch, hoping it was time to walk, when I noticed below me a bloody messy dirty something or other.  Some recent road kill.  The old running days kicked in and I stayed in the air with a sudden outstretch of leg, striding over the..well..whatever it was…and never looked back.  Today, not having a specific number of miles to do, I ran wherever there was shade, which meant uphill more than my normal distance marked, but sun filled route.  It was a nice change.

Coming home I figured that when I got back to my street I’d walk the last three minutes, sort of to balance the beginning of my trip.  But as I crested the muddy hill and turned onto the pavement of my subdivision our neighborhood black fly attacked and chased me all the way home.  I ended up in my driveway with six seconds to spare on my 30 minute goal.  Not bad.  Guess I should thank the black fly.  But I won’t.

Just another day in the life of a middle aged athlete in training.