Penance for Having Clean Ankles

"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been four days since my last run. Since then I have let the start of school, business, piles of laundry from being on vacation, and tutoring take precedence. I could have set my alarm thirty minutes earlier, but I chose sleep."

"You are forgiven, my child. For your penance, go run three miles."

Right-y-o! I have new shoes and limited time. A three miler is perfect. Plus I already scheduled eight miles on trails with my buddy ole' pal on Saturday. Work is semi-caught up. I'm outta' here!

My thoughts while running:

1) My six year old has more cash than I do. It seems the tooth fairy pays better than the construction business.

2) Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth are doing battle in my belly. Apparently pancakes are not a good pre-run meal, even on a short run.

3) My shoes feel.... not sure, verdict still out.

4) A lot of running books are lame. I'm jealous that Chris McDougall beat me by writing a great one, "Born to Run." Not sure if my book will be fiction or non fiction. I've been working on this idea about this runner who gets abducted by a creepy hermit.

5) My tutoring student is taking the GED today. I'm grateful for the experience to meet her and help her. I'm positive she'll pass and can't wait for the good news!

6) My shoes feel okay. My right foot is doing a weird flop. Good thing my ipod battery died so I can obsess on the sound of my right foot.

7) I hear a rattle snake. No, that is some strange angry bird that lives in a bush. It is too cool for rattlers.

8) It is good to be running again.

9) I feel like blogging again. This good, I am not permanently burnt out. I guess I couldn't write about running when I wasn't running and had a bunch of other priorities. Epiphany - running inspires me to write about running, but I can't write about running unless I'm running. Contrarily, I can read other people's writing about running and sometimes get inspired to run. And do you know why? Because God and Holden Caulfield hate phonies!

Well, the run is over and a blog is written. Time to get back to my other looming responsibilities. I am feeling super proud of myself right now. Not for running, but for making this list 9 items instead of 10. I fought the compulsion to add something to make a round number and I won the battle! HA!