Running again

I'll never make it as a blogger. The impulse to write simply doesn't come regularly enough. And writing and blogging, like running, only really gets off the ground with a lot of consistent effort. Oh well.
I went to Washington DC and Philadelphia to watch my ex-girlfriend Sarah run her first marathon. Three miles used to be nearly impossible for her. Now she has run further than I ever have in my life. Its an odd reversal. I also saw two of my cousins while in DC. I can count the number of times I have seen them on one hand, and yet every time I see them we pick up right where we left off. Family is a wonderful thing. AJ, who is the eldest and closest to my age, suggested I move out there. Funny thing is, he was only half joking. I must say, as much as I miss the Northwest, I am tempted. Arlington seemed nice, and DC, for all the flaws I keep hearing about, is practically the center of activism in this country. Not that I'm interested in activism, but it does make for a vibrant undertone among the young adults there. Its almost like New York City, but fresher, and a little more institutionalized, what with all the towering monuments and such.
The next weekend my sister came to visit me and my brother for Thanksgiving. A rather low key visit, since as we get older my siblings and I seem to be relatively content to simply hang out; watch TV together, drive around to wherever we're going, with my brother maybe play a computer game or talk technology (which is funny to say because we're both a lot less geeky than we used to be)...point being, we don't do much. Family is family. I'm guessing it will mean more as we grow older, and the intervals between seeing each other become longer and longer.
The weekend after that, this past weekend, I went on a long-needed trip to see my grandparents in Kansas City. My aunt and uncle and cousins are also there, and I went to see them as well, but it was mostly to see Grandma Mickey and Grandpa Nic. Grandpa is now 87 years old, and while he seems to have hardly changed since when I was little, 87 is nothing to sneeze at. And Grandma has blown out a knee, and now swoops to one side when she walks, with a brace hiding under her clothes, and a cane by her side, even in the house. So far, I have been lucky as far as death goes, with only a very few distant relatives dying, and even those were ones I barely knew if at all, either because of distance or how young I was when they died. It is a strange thing to contemplate the death of my grandparents, especially since it is one of the many things in life I will not be able to comprehend at all until it happens. Its like looking through a one way mirror almost, but I'm on the wrong side. So I do what I can. My brother is planning on going up soon, and probably would have gone with me if I had let him know I was going sooner. I'll try to tag along with him when he goes.
If you're still reading, I'm impressed.
On to running. It has been something like two months since I have run seriously. Some sort of tightness that isn't exactly pain in my right hip always stops me. Some sort of residual effect of the plantar fasciitis in my right foot. In any case, Sarah asked me (or did I volunteer?) to run part of the last third of the marathon with her. I ended up running for more than an hour, and about six miles, albeit at about ten-minute pace. But I didn't stop, and I didn't hurt. In fact, my achilles bothered me much more than my hip or my foot. For various reasons, I haven't run since. But I gave it another whirl two nights ago. Forty minutes and about six miles at something like seven minute pace, with some tightness in my right hamstring, but nothing in my hip and little in my foot. And my foot hasn't felt any worse the last two days.

So maybe, just maybe, I'm back on the path of running.

I should be more excited.

Maybe I just need more sleep. What else is new?