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.