Day 3 – Today, I did #runningwhilemarried, which can be a real, emotional high-wire act sometimes, but today was just a chill jog with my best lady. It was gray and rainy, and out on our favorite loop the mud was peanut butter thick and plentiful. Stealing some time between meetings makes for a win most of the time, though.

We ran the loop to the local Stonehenge backwards, per the assignment. We stopped and stared over the meadow and tried to breathe through our noses. The birds crowded the trees, and the cars drove past without noticing.

I worry I don’t have the legs for this. Since starting PT for my Achilles, my weekly mileage is down to the single digits. But that’s just worry.

Day 4 – I picked Meghna and Caitlin up at 6:30 to run at Fairhaven Bay, where Thoreau did his fishing. It’s pretty fucking lovely there, and it’s never crawling with people. We ran a merciful pace, and it was super nice to be back together with the team I ran the Yeti Snakebite with.

The ground is still bare here in Eastern Massachusetts and recent rain makes for what mountain bikers call ‘hero dirt,’ tacky and soft. My legs were feeling worked when I woke up, but five miles went by pretty smoothly. For the first time in a long time, I felt I could have kept on running indefinitely.

Day 5 – The task was to run a mile at 100% effort, and as much I wanted to do that, I didn’t have it in me. The risk to my Achilles just didn’t seem worth the fun of it, so I walked instead.

I do love the mile though.

When I was running cross-country in high school I was intrigued by miling. I followed the career of Eamonn Coghlan, the Irish track star of the ’80s. He specialized in the mile and the 1500m. This was one of those random teenage obsessions of mine. I could imagine I was the only kid in Alabama paying any attention to Irish track stars.

Interestingly, after he retired, Coghlan became the first athlete over-40 to run a sub-4 minute mile. I, myself, have never come close.