Lost Time

I'm feeling time crunched, to the point of where writing a leisurely long blog entry seems an extravagant luxury. This feeling is made all the more acute with the loss of a perfectly good hour this weekend in the dubious name of Daylight Saving.

There is not a whole lot going on with my running anyway, but that is the best time to write about it.

Yesterday was a beautiful day to run. Did a hard 11 (76:52), including 3.5 miles at marathon pace, up to Strawberry Mansion Bridge and through Fairmount Park. Then today it was back to leaving in the dark, all the while I'm thinking where is this daylight we're supposedly saving?! I cut our usual Acme loop way short to get in an easy 4. Deirdre and Erin were in solidarity with my taper and cut it off early as well, although they did go on through West Philly after I turned home. Call it 4 miles, 33:42.

Not much more to do now to prep for the marathon but fret over all kinds of things and take it easy. I can't get out of my head that I am stale, that that week I missed in mid-March basically led to an extended taper. I fight that, as I've been racing consistently to a predicted 2:40 (my goal time) and have got the training in. I should do well, but I have less confidence in this than I did for Philly. Need to visualize a good race. My head says I've got a good day in me; I just need to keep convincing myself of this.

I'm also, a bit late, starting to read up on things Paris. Should have started doing this weeks ago. One interesting piece I read was the French's difficult relationship with their history. I suppose all countries have such a relationship, but the French even more so given that their history is quite a bit longer than that of the US. The author basically wrote on the comparative virtues (and pitfalls) of remembering vs. forgetting history. I never thought of it in that way before. After I read this I did Sundays run, in which I went past Lex St., where they are busy now building what looks like affordable housing over the site of the "massacre" I've wrote about here several times earlier, without a trace of its past. Same question. . . do you remember something like the killings that happened 5 years ago or do you just keep going like they never happened? If the former, how? If the latter, is it even possible to just forget?

Lots of thoughts here, something I'd go on about if I had more time.

But I'm going to Columbus tonight and tomorrow, and am stealing minutes from getting my stuff together for this trip. So I'll check in again, probably on Wednesday.