53. Holidays, parties, other effluvia

By last Wednesday I had already been to 75 percent of the parties I am scheduled to attend this holiday season, and good riddance to them.  Holiday parties make me sweaty and drunk and I don't much like them afterwards.  I don't own any holiday sweaters so I always feel dumb standing around in my non-holiday grub.

I might not write again this year because I have nothing to say, so let us take a few moments right now to reflect upon the year which has just passed us by.  By that I mean let us take a few moments to reflect upon my year.  It was a very difficult year, poor me.  First, I was entirely and absolutely ill and homeless for the first third of the year, which really cut into my running season, and although I did run five half marathons, five 5Ks (soon to be six), and one 10K this year, I didn't PR in anything except slowness.  Additionally, I've had money and work problems and only got to spend one month in Australia this year.  Also, the weather was no one's friend until July and, although the summer was fantastic, it ended.  And we did have a beautiful, warm, and lingering fall, but that ended too and now it's the winter.  And sure, the winter's fine so far, but it's only just begun.  The only good thing about 2010 (other than the summer and the races and the month in Australia and all the good times with people I love and other super and wonderful things that I won't enumerate) is that my hair is finally growing out, so that two-year nightmare is almost over, but I found a gray hair this spring.  As a sign of my maturity and grace, I didn't flip the fuck out like I thought I would upon discovery of a gray hair.  The gray hair inhabits my head to this day - I didn't pull it for fear of it multiplying - I'm waiting to see what will happen.  I think it will probably change its mind and turn brown again.)

Despite all the challenges I experienced (one of those half marathons had FIVE MILES of uphill! which also meant five miles of downhill but by the time you got to that who even cared) I give this year two thumbs up (out of two thumbs), and the summer was the best summer since 2005.  Here are the best summers in reverse chronological order: 2010, 2005, 2003, 1988, 1984, 1978.

Here are my resolutions for 2011: to have a good running season ("good" as defined by me and subject to change), and to stop being such a jerk.

Tomorrow will be 40 seconds shorter than today.

52. Weather, running on ice

The day dawned clear and cold and I awoke four minutes before my alarm was to go off. I turned off the stupid alarm, went back to sleep, and didn't go to the group run. That was yesterday. Today I actually got out of bed and went for a run.

I hadn't run by myself for ages and ages. It was super. Just putting on all my running gear made me happy - it seemed like a long time since I'd run at all, even though it had only been about a week. Perhaps it had been two. It was 16 degrees outside and windier than a son-of-a-gun, the Hellgate wind ablowing. Only the crazies were out. All was beiced/Alles war Eis bedeckt, especially the river trail they just paved to make it easier to clear in the winter. (The part they didn't pave was not icy.) I had on my new spikes made of diamonds so I didn't slip at all. I don't have a windbreaker for running so I was wearing a raincoat, the inside of which became a drippy steam room.

I admit I was taken aback by the arrival of the winter, even though August was five months ago now. Missoula is like a giant ice cream freezer these days. But pretty. The hills are large and white. Everyone is friendly and merry. The days will start getting longer in just about two weeks.

I am now reading:

8. Tough Trip Through Paradise by Andrew Garcia. This is like a combination of The Big Sky and The Road to Virginia City. So far, the guy's riding around in the woods with a drunkard, some horse thieves, and 104 stolen horses. I don't know what will happen.
9. Selected Works by Richard Hugo. I come to this collection of poems with deeply ingrained biases against both fishes and poetry, and unfortunately these poems are full of fishes. Also I've always thought Richard Hugo's name was very pompous. I am sorry for that but that's the way it's always been. I will probably be reading this book for the next decade. I'm sorry.

Things have been fine. Multitudinous personages have loaned me books that I'll probably never read. I'll probably start running again for real next month.