Running Hard to Catch Up

For about seven years now (!), the very generous Christopher Roussel has been hosting this blog through intervals of activity and inanition, updates to WordPress and waves of spam comments, with never a word of complaint. For a variety of reasons, though, it seemed good to me that I should move to a commercial host. I asked Elliott Noss for a recommendation, and he said ‘Funny you should mention that….’ The Tucows family now has a hosting service as well as its domain registration service Hover.com (of course, I recommend Hover, and I expect to be as pleased with Exact Hosting as with Hover and pretty much everything Elliott sets his hand to). As of today, my blog is back on its feet, my old email address at disseminary.org is functional again, and — and this is the important part, inasmuch as anything is important — I’m planning to begin extricating myself from Facebook by posting anything substantive here. That means the few of you who have been coming here for updates on my progress running will have to be patient with observations on hermeneutics, theology, technology, the Baltimore Orioles and Duke basketball, my wonderful family, and whatever else crosses my mind. And if you find a broken link (within this site), please let me know and I’ll set about fixing it.

Now, true to the title of this entry, I have to catch up on several months of backlogged reports on my biweekly mile run. These have been mostly uninteresting, in contrast to previous reports on my running which have been largely uninteresting. Two occasions seem worth mentioning: First, one Wednesday morning, Christine our breakfast server at St Stephen’s House observed me on her way in to work. ‘Oh, Father AKMA!’ she said to me at breakfast, ‘You look so determined (miming a swimming dog), you look so pained.’ Since that morning, she has not failed to give me a good-natured (Christine is very kind and friendly, and would not afflict me except in good fun) hard time. Second, I did at long last break the ten-minute barrier once. I haven’t done it again, but I’m usually flirting with a plateau of 10:10, so that ordinary variations mean I’m likely to break 10:00 again sooner or later.

And I still hate running — but I have to admit, I don’t hate it as actively during my morning mile as I used to. I remember getting to Tsang’s Takeaway at about a tenth of a mile and wishing I could just pull my lungs out and throw them away; now, I just keep reminding myself that the whole experience lasts only a half hour or so from putting on my shoes and stretching to regaining my breath at home, and that it will be over soon.

Now, for the times:

Sunday, 2 June — 10:15
Wednes, 5 June — 10:15
Sunday, 9 June — 10:25
Wednes, 12 June — 10:13
Sunday, 16 June — 10:06
Wednes, 19 June — 10:26
Sunday, 23 June — 10:30 (pollen levels very high)
Wednes, 26 June — 10:28
(I don’t remember why I missed this week)
Sunday, 7 July — 10:18
(Holiday in Scotland — thanks, Doug!)
Sunday, 14 July — 10:24
Wednes, 17 July — 10:29
Sunday, 21 July — 9:59 Much rejoicing in my heart!
Wednes, 24 July — 11:00 Scorching heat; I took it very easy
Sunday, 28 July — 10:06
Wednes, 31 July — 10:08
Sunday, 4 August — 10:10
Wednes, 7 August — 10:27

(I’ve been taking the last few days slowly, as I have tightness in the ligament or the tendon or something inside my right thigh.)