"Running Commentary"

After Thanksgiving

    December? Already?
Feels more like May or June. N’est ce pas?
    How is your day going? Good, bad, indifferent?
    I’m having a really good day. Not great, not so so. Slightly better than good.
    Anytime I ask my brother Jim out in Portland how he’s doing, he gives the same stock answer: B+. Better than a B, but not quite soaking up the rarified air of A- … and if he were, he probably wouldn’t admit it.  
Jeez, in high school if I got a B+ in ANY class, including gym, it was worthy of a first page headline in the local newspaper: “Local Boy Shocks Academic World. Might Graduate After All.”
    If Jim called and asked how I was doing, I wouldn’t hesitate: A-.  Just so I could beat him at something. The competitive genes we inherited from our mother live on.
    Most of my mornings are predictable, and that’s because I have two rabid boys who always wake me up around 5:15 a.m. Do dogs have internal clocks? Mine do. They awaken with two urgent needs … the need to pee and the need to eat.
By 5:18 a.m., they will have done both.
    It’s like a household tsunami when I open the door where they sleep and let them out. When you gotta go, you gotta go – and every morning they gotta go really, really BAD. Followed by what can euphemistically be called “breakfast.”
    Boulder and Rocky don’t really eat breakfast. They inhale it. Big bowls of rock hard meaty nuggets are consumed in little more than 60 seconds. True! I’ve timed them. And there you have the highlight of Boulder and Rocky’s day – it’s all downhill after breakfast.
    What makes my day a really good day? Easy! It’s when the day starts with my morning workout. Nothing in my morning brings me greater satisfaction than knowing I went for my run. No matter how crappy the rest of the day might be, I have that workout in the bank, as it were.  
In winter, I’m content with runs averaging around 2-3 miles at a casual, easy pace. I usually go to the track and run laps on the forgiving, rubbery surface which is easier on my old wheels.
    If you drive past the track around 5:30 a.m. and see someone running laps in near darkness in a red coat? C’est moi! I’m the only one crazy enough to do that in sub-freezing weather. By 6:30 a.m. I’m finished and jog back home, feeling flush and happy that I did something good for my old body.
    It can be a little spooky that early out at the stadium. Nocturnal rabbits often jump out in front of me as I approach them in darkness. The sudden scurrying movement scares me to death. I run as slow as a tortoise, but none of the hares have challenged me to a race.
They know what I know – I’d win.
    So anyway – we all survived Thanksgiving, right? Some of us with belts a little tighter. And now, with barely enough time to catch our breath, we shift to Christmas – a mere three weeks away. You can’t avoid it – bright colored lights surround us everywhere we look. Christmas carols are ubiquitous. Christmas is crammed down our throats whether we’re ready or not. Happy humbug!
    Am I the only one who think it all goes down so quickly? I’m never ready for Christmas. It’s upon us too quickly. But then, I wasn’t ready for Thanksgiving either, but I survived that gastronomic catastrophe. I’ll make it through the Christmas as well.
    Meanwhile, how about this weather?
    It’s amazing how weather this time of year can spin around like a gyro careening off its axis. Freezing one day, hot the next. It was really cold for a stretch of Sundays, and now? Perfect! Couldn’t be nicer. Crisp and cool early in the morning, with a warming sun in the afternoon. This 70 degree weather doesn’t bother me one bit.
    It reminds me of growing up in California, where warm weather was an every day, every season occurrence. As a kid, I couldn’t relate to the snowy, Currier and Ives greeting cards, with children all bundled-up in down-filled jackets. It was a rare day in winter when ice formed over a puddle overnight. I loved stepping in those puddles and watching the ice crack and shatter like a pane of glass.
    Unfortunately, the warm weather we’re having isn’t going to last. We may as well relax and enjoy global warming. Nothing in life should be taken for granted, and that’s certainly true of weather. It’s also true of the planet we live on.
    Today I took advantage of the warmth and rocked to and fro in my hammock in the backyard. Nearby, two eager-beaver boys wanting to share in the fun.
“Down, Rocky!” “Get DOWN, Boulder.”
“Geez friggin’ Louise!”
My hammock isn’t dog friendly. It’s made of ropes tied together, so there’s lots of gaping holes for small, rambunctious “children” to fall through. It’s Chaos City when the dogs try to jump up and join me. As often as not, I’m flipped over and dumped like a sack of smelly garbage that missed the trash can. SPLAT!
The dogs think it’s hilarious. And honestly, I do too. When you're lying on the ground and your face is licked until you feel like you’re drowning?
Friends, that’s true love.

Michael welcomes reader comments. Rmykl@yahoo.com