Evening

I went for a run with Winnie around the Panhandle after work today. It was the first time I ran in over a week. And, it was the first time I ran in the evening in years. When I was living in Berkeley, I would run in the evenings all the time. I liked running just as the sun was starting to set. I ran through the quiet, flat streets of Elmwood. As I passed the homes, I would peek inside to see families gathering for dinner. I could hear music flowing out on to the streets. In the cooler evenings, I could smell fires burning in fireplaces.

I don't know why I stopped running at nights. I think I just stopped running all together once I started working. Spending hours trying to get middle school students to do their homework and then hosting workshops in the evenings drained all my energy. Then, after riding BART home to Berkeley exhausted and, on some days, on the verge of tears, I just didn't have the energy or the time to go for a run.

But, now, it's different. Work has been much less stressful, and I have grown to understand that work is not and should not be all-consuming.

Now, maybe I need to start the habit of running in the evenings again, since I have been having difficulty getting out of bed in the morning ever since Daylight Savings Time started and it's pitch black when the alarm rings. Even with my motto of "Don't think, just go," I have been hitting snooze a few too many times.

So, Winnie was the pressure I needed to get out of my running funk. We originally planned to run Thursday after work, but she also asked if I wanted to run today. With nothing else planned for the evening and knowing that I wouldn't run on my own, I agreed. She had her running gear in her car and would stop by my house after work.

We made our way to the Panhandle, put on our iPods, and started along side-by-side. The first loop around went okay. Other than trying to dodge other joggers, baby strollers, and cyclists coming from both directions, I was doing fine. I thought I was actually keeping up a good pace, and we even passed people. The second loop was more of a struggle. I kept looking over at Winnie. She kept bouncing along, so I had to keep going too. We were able to keep up with the boys wearing Army t-shirts though. At some point the three boys became two boys, which made us feel happy that we were able to outrun at least one of the Army Boys.

During the fourth loop, I just stopped. We were going up the slightest of inclines and my legs were too tired. Winnie stopped too and we decided to walk the rest of the loop and back to my house. I think we ran for about 45 minutes, which wasn't too bad.

I don't know how much I'll like keeping up this evening run thing though. Trying to avoid getting hit by packs of speeding cyclists wasn't fun. And, there were many more people out than when I usually run in the mornings, which wasn't all that fun trying to dodge them too. But, more importantly, evening runs will throw off my schedule. If I want to see friends after work, I can't. It pushes my dinner time back, which will push back my bed time. Plus, if I shower at night and don't want to shower again in the morning, it'll mess up my hair routine. We'll see how it goes again Thursday.