Good morning, Hal

How are you today, Hal, you miserable software jihadist? This morning I got up thinking I was already late for everything and what was the point of it all? Bob mentioned in a comment from yesterday that a path beats a machine every time--which is quite true, to the degree that my treadmill is a dead letter in my book. Oh well, I thought, off to the park, anything but the blasted treadmill where I could at least suffer in private; I was sure that today was going to be a disaster. Are you there, Hal? New paragraph. Well, I said hello to my trainer and started off on today's trot, thinking about Rodrigo who said that on any run, the first two kilometers were hard but after that it gets easy--this from someone who runs half marathons and occasionally dashes from his house to mine, a mere 11.3 K. I laughed hollowly to myself as I struggled along, although a red-letter moment came when I actually passed someone--okay, so what if she was strolling along? It still keeps me out of the finishing-last-as-usual category. All these thoughts ran through my mind as I plowed ahead. Also, it seemed wild to me that I felt pretty good for only having had a cup of coffee and water before hitting the park. By the time I finished, I had run 3.5 K, up from near zero last week. Thank God tomorrow is a rest day, because a whole new world of hurt is going to open up after today's run, and body parts I don't even have any longer are going to ache, wherever they may be. No matter, I rewarded myself with macadamia nut and whole wheat pancakes with blackberries and real maple syrup. Now, for a dose of Advil...