This morning, I struggled through three windy miles on the Lakefront Trail in Chicago, hard on the bank of Lake Michigan. We're here for the week to celebrate the Fourth of July, to see Jude's college friends, and for a vacation during the baseball dead period.
Struggled is what I did, as it's been that kind of year for me running, at least recently. Tuesday morning, I broke off a hot and humid three mile morning run after a little more than two miles and walked the rest of the way home. Sunday evening, I stopped after running two miles with Joe, rather than continuing with another mile or two on my own as I normally do when I run with him.
What started out as a promising running year for me - with an intention to focus on long runs that ended after I ran 8 + miles (Murphy Road and Charlotte Avenue) - has turned into a year of inconsistency. I haven't run anywhere near 20 miles per week with any regularity. Truth be told, I've not been running 15 miles most weeks, at least not lately.
The rational part of my brain reminds me that as I get older, I have a harder time transitioning to running in the extreme heat and humidity. That's been true the last several years and it's true this year. It's hard for me to get in the habit of running in the morning, before work, because it's virtually impossible for me to cool down sufficiently before I put on a coat and tie. Yes, that's an excuse, and I've got a lot of them or so it seems. I've been staying later at work than I would like and that's only going to get worse because Andrea, the associate attorney with whom I work the most closely, is leaving our office.
So many nights, I get home from work late and it's just easier, a lot easier, to unwind with a bourbon and dinner with the family than with a run. It just is.
What's really concerned me, though, is that I haven't felt good, lately, when I'm running. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe, though, it's that I'll be turning 58 in a few days and I'm just old. Depressing though, that one.
I run to stay younger, not to feel older. I mean, damn.
I'm more than a little jealous, to be sure, on mornings like this morning, when JP takes off to run six miles in the middle of a regimented summer of running and I struggle through three miles. There was a time when I would have been able to run with JP and his cross country teammates - six, seven or eight miles - at 7:30 per mile, or faster, as a training pace. Those days are long since gone, as is so much else in my life.
Especially my youth.
Gone like a bottom of gin, to quote John Hiatt, whom I met, again, and talked with at Josh Sanger's wedding in Knoxville earlier this year.
I'd like to get back just a little of it - my youth - as a runner at some point this year. Can I? Time will tell.
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