I just got back from a solo run. It was not as bad as the solo runs of my first two weeks. In fact for much of the run – the maybe 40% when I was not singing this particular verse of Christmas Carol by the Nields – I was thinking about how quickly things have gotten better. It has been less than four weeks, but I’m no longer breathless after five minutes. I no longer feel like vomiting after twenty. I no longer feel, when my forty-five minutes is up, that I could not possibly run any farther. I currently feel that if I really, really had to – if someone was very slowly chasing me, say – I could probably run for an hour and a half without dying.

Among other signs of progress is my disappearing stomach. I made it to twenty five with one of those eat-everything-in-site-with-no-consequences metabolisms, but for the past few years my waistline responds directly to my diet. And diet I don’t. I also can’t say I particularly care, aside from the sudden unwearability of some clothes I used to like. But! The first day I went running I was specifically unfond of my stomach. It shook and gurgled and felt unpleasantly heavy and off-balance. It felt like an unwanted passenger around my middle, and running, frankly, is bad enough as it is.

Today, however, I realized that this passenger is substantially smaller. I didn’t come to notice this before because I tend to wear my pants and skirts somewhere around my hips. In any case the smaller stomach – which I’m attributing directly to the running – is, in turn, making the running much more pleasant. Three cheers for positive feedback loops.

I still don’t like solo running as much as running with Ty, who tells me about the cornfields and hickory trees of central Pennsylvania, and who wears a watch so I don’t have to think about how much longer we have to go. But I ran today in a big loop that crossed two bridges over the Willamette as the sun was going down, and I smiled at other runners, and - though I still think it would have been more fun to be playing soccer or lacrosse – I am home now, and I feel pretty good.