Early morning run

It started with the dogs. At 2:38 this morning my wife woke me up because of the dogs. Rooney and Tevez were whimpering. I had no choice but to get up. Great. I reached over and, what's that?, felt my daughter's face.

When the hell did she get up here?

I let the dogs out and laid back down. I figured I'd squeeze a few more hours of sleep before getting up and running. Life had other plans.

The dogs started barking. The daughter was restless. Thursday suddenly greeted me with the realization that I'd not be sleeping again for another 19 hours or so. Great.

My wife and I got up, put our daughter back in her bed (despite her jarring awake and crying), let the dogs back in and stopped the charade of trying to go back to sleep. She got in the shower, I put my shoes on.

Might as well do this. I've dragged my feet long enough.

I got my iPod, slung it around my arm, grabbed a beanie and walked outside.

What the hell am I doing? I should be asleep. Or at the very least at the gym.

I'd mapped out a route before. I knew I had roughly 2.25 miles ahead of me just to get back to this very spot. I stretched. I put on Smashing Pumpkins. I ran.

I made it to the end of my street. I think if I divided the run up into portions, that would have completed 1/1000th of my run. I rounded the corner and headed down into the darkness. The part of the street that runs behind our entire community was one long section of my run. I think it's a good half of it so I saw nothing but a white wall with the occasional vandalism on one side and dirt, weeds and a big hill on the other.

If you turn down this street, you could be home in a few minutes.

My mind kept trying to get me to take shortcuts. Perhaps it longed to be anywhere but out on Sierra Avenue jogging at 3:35 a.m. But I had to do it. I have a five-mile run awaiting me on Saturday and I wanted to run this course twice before then. If I didn't do it Thursday, when exactly was I going to do it?

I saw traffic lights up ahead. It's a strange vision, seeing such lights coming up slowly and slowly until finally I reached them and left them behind almost as quickly. My next task was to get to 34th Street. It was another traffic light that I saw in the distance.

Cars zoomed by. I wondered if they wondered what the hell someone was doing jogging at 3:40 in the fucking morning.

Okay, that's gotta be a third of the run I thought as I got onto 34th Street.

Actually, I knew the worst was behind but I still had a good portion left. I got on to the final leg without too much effort. Actually, I ran at a rather brisk pace the final half of the run.

If I was at the gym, I could see how fast I was going but I'm guessing I'm at least running at a 7.0.

Finally, 30th Street. I could hang a right and get home quicker but at that point the thought didn't even cross my mind. I ran down to the end of the street, turned onto my street and saw my house up ahead.

I should still be asleep right now.

I walked up to my front door. I went inside and showered.

See, that wasn't too bad, was it?