Some New Blog Thoughts

Starbucks [47°44'04.2"N 122°38'10.7"W]

It has been a month since my surgery, and I am itching to get back to running full time and for longer distances. Yes, I have a horrible problem with focus and I chase squirrels all day long. Writing in a journal and note taking help me keep focused on tasks at hand, but I still leave a little in the morning which cut planned runs short. It was time to change that.

I will start by changing the focus of this blog, continuing to draft it on a typewriter, or on an AlphaSmart Neo which does the same thing. These tools are distraction free and force me to write in a stream with minimal editing. I make plenty of mistakes, but Those get cleaned up in the editing process. They also force me to concentrate on the task at hand because I can’t just jump into YouTube (my worst distracter) or e-mail. Fortunately my social media participation is not extensive. No Facebook, Instagram, etcetera. I keep a Twitter account and take part on Strava, but that’s it. If you want to contact me, you can find me on those accounts, or better yet, write me a letter. If you write, I will reply, and please use a pen or typewriter.

Okay, here we go. Yesterday I decided that it was time to get back in the running groove. Walking has been my pastime for the past month, but the itch has been getting hard to ignore and I needed to scratch it. Spring is here and the morning temperatures are warming, so I replaced my tights with running shorts. I was still chilled, but knew that it would motivate me to run so I could warm up and kick the chill.

Still able to move with ease and pain free, I kept my effort and pace gentle. No point to ruining a good thing. To make the experience better, I left my phone and podcasts behind. This was about the run, so my focus was on what I was doing, and I soon fell into a meditative state which led to the idea for the new blog theme. A title change with a new banner will be forthcoming and I hope to present prose with more interesting content. We’ll see how it goes, one step at a time.

As part of this process, I hope to get participation. If you run, write, or type, I would love to read your comments and thoughts. Criticism is okay, but please keep it constructive. If you think my writing needs help please criticize away, but I would prefer you did that via the mail system rather than electronically. My goal through all of this is to become a better writer/commentator and to get my act together with running. I’m too old now to compete at the level I did in the past, but I still want to be competitive in my age group, so I’ll be setting pace and distance goals for future training. Signing up for races will be part of that aim. Look for race reports. If I can’t come up with a good report, I’ll give you a good tale, fictional or otherwise.

Cheers.