Posted by Jim at May 15th, 2004

I’m sort of back to running again.

I say “sort of” because it can get really hard to actually run some days. When I was going to grad school for my masters in sociology it was pretty easy. Kristen and I had no children. I didn’t have to be at work until 9 am and even then I didn’t work for a full day.

I could get out of bed at 6 or 7am, get on the road and be back to the house with enough time to shower, eat and get dressed.

At present, I get up between 6 and 7am (with Kristen), try to feed, clothe and make lunches for children and then make it to work around 9am even though I wanted to be there earlier.

Running after work is theoretically possible, but not always practically possible. Staying late at work is likely if there’s some kind of problem or deadline. Owing to the fact that I make supper, I can’t start running too late or Kristen will be stuck alone with children for an hour and we won’t eat till 7 or 8pm to boot.

Kristen has managed to do a lot of running, but she’s training for the Chicago Marathon at the moment. She has no choice.

Lucky her. I like long runs.

I do some of my better thinking while running. There’s nothing but me and the movement of my legs. My mind drifts away and I get to think about the novel I’ve been working on, a programming problem, or possibly the backstory to a role playing game I’d like to run.

It is a moment of peace, perhaps meditation, but a form of meditation that is punctuated by avoiding curbs, cars, bikes, and dogs. Strange to think that it is peaceful at all.