It's raining.
The good kind of raining where I make a fire, move my laptop to a table by the dining room window so I can watch the storm, and bundle up in cozy clothing. I went to bed adamant that my distance runners would have morning practice, rain or shine. But when I got up at five and saw the dark and wet, that felt a little obsessive. We can make up the miles some other time. I sent out a text canceling the workout and got back into bed, pulled up the comforter, and slept until eight.
Saturday night at the Great Park. America's biggest cross country meet raced under the lights. Arrived at 1 pm and stayed until almost midnight. Usually, the Woodbridge Invitational competes late to avoid mid-September heat. This year, the weather was cool and damp enough that I put on a sweatshirt at 3 and kept it on until the bitter end. As those who know me will attest, I will find any excuse to wear a sweatshirt.
Yesterday was the day. There's a moment once a year when the sunlight shifts from hard direct brightness to a cool orange pastel. You have to know it when you see it. But from that instant forward the seasons begins turning from summer to fall. This year, the first sense of that shift came yesterday morning, down in Trabuco Canyon. My runners were making their way up Holy Jim Canyon on the fire road, a cluster of blue and white shorts and t-shirts.
[Royalty] is something I think about more than you can imagine…. I have spent enough time with peripheral historical figures to know when Victoria lived and died, that George VI smoked too much, and the wonderful historical trivia that the reign of Elizabeth II coincided with a British subject becoming the first man to set foot atop Mount Everest — and that an intrepid reporter named James Morris — later Jan, after a midlife sex-change — was the first individual to race off the mountain and flash the news back to London in time for the coronation.
Every couple weeks, Boston Marathon champion Des Linden sends me my training plan for this year's marathon. She is a generous coach, quick to respond to texts and extremely encouraging. There are wrinkles in the training I did not foresee, but those secrets are hers and not for me to share. Suffice to say there's variety in the work.
