Training, week of May 15 through May 21

58 panache-free miles, no more or no less of an embarrassment than last week from the standpoint of the 100,000 or so steps a week I refer to inappropriately as "training." We had some genuinely wintry weather on Thursday and Friday that included some decent-sized hailstones in my 'hood, but by Saturday afternoon it was in the 70s.

A seemingly disproportionate number of my friends and associates have been struggling lately. Some of them brought it entirely on themselves and deserve no better than what they are getting; others are blameless, the victims of unreliable bodies and less-than-ideal life circumstances
As dismissive as I am of my running nowadays, I have always been prone to unnecessarily trivializing anything I see as mundane, at least in myself. I don't like writing about everyday things, and running is, on the surface, no more a noteworthy event in my life than flushing a toilet, and on some days equates to more or less the same thing. But it's a major reason I am not struggling with anything serious at the moment, and that's important because it makes me available to the people in my life and better at the unremarkable but necessary tasks I face every day. It's trite as hell, but "the little things" are not so little; the ability to routinely laugh at myself, or at anything, is something I couldn't count on for quite a long time.

Today happens to be a special day for two distinct and unrelated reasons and I'll leave it at that. What I really love is that I start these posts lately in the belief they are nothing but an obligation and finish them realizing how much I'm looking forward the week to come.