Running (you are warned)

I am finally running a decent amount again. It took an upcoming half marathon (thankfully up in much cooler Jinotega) to get me back to some semblance of discipline. I’ve been running with three friends in their mid twenties, children really. I can keep up, but I notice that they improve much faster. I told Clara Isabelle about the runner’s world personalized work out schedule because she is training for the Berlin Marathon in the fall. I feel like a drug pusher. Now she is trying to find a 100 meter incline in Granada to do hill repeats. Her runs have turned into workouts.

I myself am past the workout stage, although I may return in a cooler climate. At the moment I am content to head out the door and do easy loops by the lake or through town. I have to watch my feet so I don’t step in any wide-open street sewers or trip on people’s steps, invisible because they are covered in the same square tiles as the sidewalk. I always run through groups of children on their way to school in their white shirts and blue skirts or pants with their hair freshly combed. By the lake, boys are driving cows down to drink and graze. The trees are full of mangoes and people picking them. Its always pretty much the same, except the mangoes are getting riper.