Misty Morning

Ran mid-day in the fog down to the Breakers. Forgot to mark start time, but it took 37 minutes to make the return run. About six miles.
Met Louise about half way back. :)

Ghostly Boats

It was a mythic morning. About seven thirty the fishing boats head out full of tourists all hoping the fog will lift.

The first real run

Ran to Spring Lake gates and back in a little less than an hour. Beautiful day. Had a good run. I figure it's about five miles.

Fletcher's Lake (walk)

This morning walked North to Fletcher's Lake. 1 hour 15 minutes. Cloudy, very little sun. NO running.

First Steps

Avon-by-the-Sea to the end of the Belmar boardwalk. One hour walked and ran. Very foggy with just a sprinkle of rain.
Rained all day. Got soaking wet on a walk to the drugstore. 45minutes.

What I did this Summer.

Sometime around Memorial Day I decided to start running again. It has been a long time since I stopped running, almost ten years, and I haven't a clue why I stopped. I have been running since I was twelve years old. Back then I ran around Valley Street Park's Dirt Road. That capitalization is correct, it's official neighborhood name was, and is now for all I know, the Dirt Road. I've been running on and off then for the past forty six years.
There are two things are true about my running: one, I am no good at it and two, I love doing it. By 'I am no good at it' I mean I have never been the fastest or even the semi-fastest, I am a plodder, a shuffler, I run like those old Asian men you see in old newsfilms -not moving quickly but making progress, gaining ground, but hardly ever passing anyone else on the road or path. I have become, or maybe I always was - in the words of a great coach I once had who included himself in the group - one of the turkeys who make the speedy ones look good.

Of course, I had to start over. Ten years is a long time once you pass fifty and in the past ten years I had had foot problems. Everyone in New York City has foot problems. Everyone's feet are pounded every day, beaten on the cement, tripped on the curbings, whacked, swacked or stepped on on the subway or the bus. There are as many podiatrists in the city as pizza parlors. Signs and ads for 'Foot Pain' are everywhere. So, two things happened, I bought a pair of sneakers that fit and my feet didn't hurt and I got the invitation to my fortieth high school reunion. Oh HO, so that's it. Can't face the old, really old in some cases, crowd being the pudgy boy, right? Well, yes. There's nothing like an honest answer to puncture a ribbing.

First, I started walking, getting ready for the days in late June when I would be on the boardwalk in Avon, when I would start running again. I walked to distant subway stations, West 4th Street or Columbus Circle, or I played 'walk fast until the bus passes you' on 23rd Street anyone can be a champion at that game. Or I walked down to the Frying Pan on the Hudson to meet friends and then walked up the river park to 79th Street, anything to get a few minutes of distance.

So here I go. Going.

Shake Shack night rained out.

Moving on. Frank, Kicky et al missed nothing by not coming down to the Shack last evening. I stepped out of the store at about 5:45pm and looked West and knew I'd seen that kind of cloud before, the greeny-black roiling kind, heading towards your unprotected position in a hurry. The last time I saw a sky like that there was about twenty five miles of Oklahoma wheatfields between me, my bicycle and the towers of lightning. This time they were just about overhead. The sky opened. No. The sky was rent from stem to stern, from end to end, from pillar to post, from A to Z, from ridiculous to sublime, from a point essentially equal to the position of my right foot to a point roughly akin to that of infinity. The wind sought out any passersby who foolishly thought they could dodge the deluge by darting into the shelter of doorways. I don't believe I've ever had the experience of West AND East winds at the same time, but there they were, butting up against each other while the drenching, pounding, pouring rain soaked the large and the small, the umbrella-ed and the exposed, those holding eight-hundred dollar briefcases over the heads and those with a plastic shopping bag tied on like a babushka. A group of us, soaked to the skin with a slight hint of wet dog aroma, clambered onto the 23 bus and watched as a gray curtain of water held every vehicle on the street in place and stopped the world. The bus crawled foot by foot towards Eighth Ave where I was going to make my break for the E train and just as we passed Seventh there was a gasp from the woman standing next to me. "Look," she said to her girlfriend,"We should have waited." I looked West where she was pointing. There was the sun. Going about her business, getting ready to do her best Frying Pan sunset dive, tying a few of the little clouds around her into ribbons for her hair. Rain? Where? When? I sighed a New York commuter sigh and squished my way down the steps of the subway and headed uptown. Joe(okay, next week)Nation