Something about running around the northern edge of Highland Park overlooking the Allegheny River reminds me of my runs in Nashville during the summer and autumn of 2006 when I was training for my first marathon with the Cumberland River serving as the aquatic backdrop through the Shelby Bottoms Greenway where I'd usually run. Boy, did I love living there, though I could've trained more diligently. The problem, like here, is that I was spending too much time living life and not enough time hitting the pavement. My training regimen for my second marathon in 2008 was far more successful, but the difference was that I was living in Maine, had a grand total of two friends in the state, neither of whom monopolized too much of my time. I also (to my knowledge) had zero children. Running nine miles nearly every day was not a problem for me. I'm not really sorry that I haven't made training my top priority these past few months. My days are busy enough, and by the time I'm free to run I don't really want to be out for longer than an hour, and not because my muscles, joints, and energy level protest, but my desire to spend time with Rob. I don't know how some couples do it, barely able to snatch a few moments over coffee in the mornings, and that isn't for me. I was spoiled for the first year of our marriage getting to spend all of my time away from work with him, so it's been more difficult with him working normal hours now (though good for him, career-wise, and I'm happy for and proud of him for doing what he loves to do).
Another thing I was considering on my run this evening was the incorporation of music with the running. I've rarely used a portable music-listening device while running, and really only employed one in 2008 and 2009 (playing a very limited mix of R.E.M., Deer Tick, and Blitzen Trapper tunes that will forever remind me of my regular 9-mile course through the back roads of Pembroke, Maine along Cobscook Bay during the winter of '09). Though I love music and it's always played a major role in my life, I have less of a taste for it while I'm running. Strange, especially given the fact that most people I know or see who are running or working out in some capacity have the ubiquitous earbuds and tendrils of wires connecting to their iPods that are no doubt pumping out high energy aerobic jams to motivate them to keep moving. Me, though, I liked to run to whatever music I normally listened to, regardless of tempo. To combat the boredom of treadmill running - what little bit of it I did this winter - I found a cheap little mp3 player that I still haven't used on my runs. I don't know if it's because I have such difficulty getting those pesky little nodules to stay in my ears or what (I don't think I have ear hole openings shaped much differently than most people, so why is it that I see countless people bounding along like gazelles with ear buds firmly in place while I can't make it from the couch to the kitchen without having to cram them further down my ear canal? Giving up, I've found that I really savor the time I have to simply think and take in my surroundings - a sort of moving meditation. Music can be distracting, and as chaotic as my days can be, a little time spent taking in smaller details is really appreciated.
I am constantly reminded that (and I can say this with confidence after having lived here for almost eight months) Highland Park is the best neighborhood in Pittsburgh, in my opinion.
Fruit trees have amazing shapes. They're bent, craggy, twisted, perfect in their imperfection, and they bear fruit. And who doesn't love that?
When I run up around the reservoir and reach the top of the flight of stone steps, I'm humbled by the stillness of the water, reminded of how water, when still, is perfectly level. Being in Pittsburgh with all of its many hills makes me that much more aware of a patch of perfectly flat, and it's wonderfully settling.
The sunset this evening - that there was a sun to see at all, with the way the day started! - was inspiring, and I wish that you could see it. The sun, passing down through the not-yet-leafy trees, was topped by a flourish of some of the wispiest, most expressive clouds I've seen in a long time. It was as if the contents of the sky had been tossed into a blender and had been set into frenzied motion, the funnel of it suspended in time. I just think I might have missed appreciating these things if my mind was focused on the lyrics of an R.E.M. tune playing in my ears.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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