A humbler, January, and, humble.
The fog gets bright enough sometimes, my eyes hurt, then the fog is strengthened, or weakened, into more of a drizzle than a mist, but by 3:30, we are in the sunset hour of another sunless day.
The day began three hours before the 7:55 sunrise, early enough for a couple of cups of coffee and an hour around the house before going out for a 10-mile run among tall trees gray in the fog up from Lake Washington.
Back home during the middle of the sunrise hour, forehead wet with sweat and mist, long sleeves rolled back out after they’d been rolled up during the run after I’d warmed up a bit.
Thirty-two laps around the track with no one seen the whole time. A soccer ball was on the artificial turf field so I took ten penalty kicks, attempting to place the kicks as I had decades ago, as I had run with the technique I’ve had the last 15 years, instead of a round of golf, reliving the dramas of boyhood, struggling to compensate with technique for the loss of power I might once have had.
After today, two more Sundays of long-distance training runs before a 25K on the 31st. The strategy is the same as usual: no competition, no attempt at a specific result. The older runner is mature enough to enjoy the experience of running a little slower a little longer, becoming a more perfect runner, running in a style that exemplifies the athlete and person he has become and is now for this moment.
Next January, God willing, might include these same training runs, these same reflections on the last holiday season with a child still not aware of the season’s weighty expectations, the same hope for another Seahawks Super Bowl win.
The debt I now face will have been managed, and might be smaller than what I’ll have accumulated then.
The health I have now might be compromised by illness, injury.
The time I have for a few things, I might not have for anything.
Silent, head down, back to work.
What will the year bring?
Fog.