These three running pictures sit on a bookshelf in my office. The images
on the left and the right are of me running in races and the one in the
middle is of Jill running in a race.
On the left you see me approaching the finish line of the Vestal 20 --
a very hilly 20 kilometer race (in Vestal, NY) where the finish line is
part way around the high school track. (20K = about twelve and a half miles
-- 12.427 to be more exact.)
That photograph was taken almost 25 years ago, June 18, 1988. Yes, I was
feeling as tired as I looked in that picture. I was 45 years old, had taken
up running a few years earlier, and this was the second time I ran the
Vestal 20.
The other two pictures were taken this past September, at the CVS 5K in
Providence. (Five kilometers is 3.1069 miles -- one thing that running
will do is to give you a real gut feeling for metric distances.) I may
look equally tired in both pictures -- which is explained by the fact that
although the 1988 race was four times as long as the 2012 race, I was two
dozen years older.
And there's Jill in the middle picture, charging toward the finish (which
is uphill).
Most years, our first race of the year would be coming up in just a week
-- the March Hare Hop down in Mystic, CT., but I have not yet run a single
step this year. On this coming Wednesday morning I will have my next post
op checkup with my podiatrist and am hoping to get approval from him for
running -- but obviously I am not going to be able to run a three mile
race just four days later. I believe Jill has signed up for the race and,
if so, I will go along to cheer her on, but I couldn't run it and I have
not done much walking (given the weather these past few weeks).
I guess my first race this year will be the South County Hospital 5K on
April 27th -- just two days before my birthday -- so it would be my last
race before I become a septuagenarian. (I think the following day would
be the James Joyce Ramble -- a nice 10K -- but I know I would not be ready
for a 10K by then.)
In the meanwhile, the day before the March Hare Hop will be the Project Sweet Pea Polar Plunge, a fund-raising event supporting families with premature
infants. (Yes, Jeremy and his friends jumped in the ocean the first year and last year I joined them -- and I was sure I had posted
pictures from last year but I guess I was wrong.) So, Jill is going to plunge into the cold ocean on March 2nd (believe me, having it a couple of weeks later than
previous years is not going to make
that ocean any warmer!) and if anyone is interested in making
a donation, go to the Project Sweet Pea Polar
Plunge website, click Plungers and scroll down -- Jill is in the fifth row of plungers -- Gillian Dreier-Lawrence.
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