Yesterday morning at 7:30 my truck was covered in ice. Since I’ve recently been reading the running blogs of people in such places as New York and Michigan, I realize this is hardly cause for much sympathy. But it’s just not what we expect here, as evidenced by the fact that I had to scrape this ice away using a plastic cd case.

It had warmed a bit by the time we started our seven miles. Back in college my crew teammates and I would cluster around Isabel during our training runs, because Isabel grew up in New York City and was in good enough shape to spend entire runs effortlessly recounting her Manhattan sex-and-drugs teenage years. This captivated our seventeen-year-old new-to-New-York attentions and made the runs fly by. My TnT motivational equivalent is Emilee. Emilee isn’t like Isabel – because, for example, she grew up in Iowa – but she has Isabel’s extroverted energy and contagious fitness and unflagging spirit. Emilee talks about her family and friends and job, all things she loves, and the miles tick away.

I was able to keep up for the first half of the run, until the just-for-fun four laps around Hayward Field, at which point I fell behind and began serenading myself with Friends in Low Places. This morphed into Two Pina Coladas, which got me all the way back with only brief intervals of general discomfort and ill-will. And I felt tired, and my legs were a little achy, but I could have gone farther. And I remember that on my first run, not so very long ago, I ran only three miles and couldn’t stand up with ease for three days. Oh the body is a miraculous thing.

And also, fuck! I ran seven miles!