Run -- 30 minutes.
Not as long as I wanted to do since I overslept. I accidentally fell asleep on the couch last night in front of the insipid glow of a football game before herding the boys to bed and tucking them in. Even at 11 and 13, they still request that. They no longer believe in Santa Claus, but they demand to be tucked in.
They had been asleep for a few hours when I woke up a little after midnight, the house quiet and tidy, only the late news disrupting the silence. I got up and puttered around -- fixing coffee for this morning, making sure everyone was logged off the computer, feeding the cat.
I checked on the boys, they were asleep in SweetFaceBoy's room. Vix slept in RunningHammer's bed with him. She had to work this morning so I brought her alarm clock in and placed it by the bed.
I climbed in to bed, then kicked myself for not sitting. I knew I would nod off. A few minutes later, Vix and Hammer stumbled in to the room, and we all snuggled in together.
Perhaps it was due to falling asleep, waking up, puttering and then falling asleep again, but I didn't get up in time for my full hour-plus run. The half-hour will have to do. I did it at a pretty good pace despite complaining Achilles' tendons.
It seems that I can never have a stretch of pain-free running any more. Either my
plantar fascia bites me or the Achilles knifes me or my knees ache or my quads are grouchy. I keep running anyway because I like it so much -- it is primal and pure and gently violent. Anyway, after about 10 minutes the pain subsides pretty much, and I can run forever.
I spotted new survey markers on the return leg of my run. Despite the fact that there's a lull in the housing market, building continues here at a steady and gruesome pace. Well, well, I thought, time for a break. This part of my route goes over a bridge spanning a creek, lined on each side with thick, marshy forests -- a stew of palmetto, oak and pine. Often I'll hear owls hooting before dawn, gators grunting in the early morning, bats spinning drunk on mosquitoes.
The first marker came out easily enough. It rained last night and the ground was soft. The second and third ones proved a bit more difficult, but soon they were free to go flying in to the creek, floating their way to a small waterfall about a half-mile away. Then I saw the For Sale sign rising meekly from the kudzu.
How anyone planned to build a house on a swampy strip of mud and vegetation backing up to a natural drainfield and probably bordering a potential sinkhole is beyond me. I thought I should try and spare them the headache.
A few miinutes later, I was on my way down the road again, Achilles grumbling, a For Sale sign at the bottom of the creek.