It's Official: Entry #106357 Has Been Confirmed

4:45 AM
The early morning light is charcoal gray flannel. It must be the snow, the little bit of it that we have finally gotten, that makes it look and almost feel as if you could wrap yourself in the blanket of dense air. Of course, at a quarter to five in the morning, I should be wrapping myself in a bit of sheet and a couple coats of comforter, but instead I am on my way to the Merchant's Gate of Central Park to start my NY York City Marathon training.

Yes, 'tis true. Entry #106357 has been duly filled out, zapped across the Internet and been has been graciously received and approved for a confirmed spot in the 2007 ING NYC Marathon. November 4th at about this same time I will making my way to the New York City Library where about ten thousand of us runners will be loaded onto buses for the hour long trip to Staten Island and the West end of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

It seems like a very long way off, and it seems to be zooming at me like a rocket. When I started running on that week long July Fourth Holiday two years ago, it seemed like there was an immense amount of time to get ready. Now I have to start running in earnest.


Or do I? Running for me now is just fun. I really love doing it. I am still as awful at it as I ever was but I have such a good time chugging along that I can't imagine ever not running.

The cold weather has kept me inside for the past three weeks. I tried jogging on the treadmills at the gym and I can hammer out three miles in thirty minutes or less but I don't have the same feeling for it as I do when I am just trotting along the path at Central Park.

Sunday, I got up early and headed down there determined to run even if it was freezing cold. It was freezing cold but I headed over the hills and down past the Boathouse and up Cat Hill and around the reservoir. I was in heaven except for the part where the dirt road by the police station was all chunky icy, that was tricky. I kept wondering if I was going to fall and break something on my first day out in a month.

Wind chill this morning was minus three F, I got off the train and stood on the street corner for about three minutes before deciding to taxi over to the gym for more treadmill.

I love running. I just am not stupid about it.