Finally had a run like I used to, waking before my alarming time of 4:30, launching at 4:45, and actually hitting pavement at 4:47AM, my earliest run ever.  Actually made it to Mendocino Avenue, turning around just after turning left at Mendo & Steele.  My avg was 8:36, total time 1:02:09.  Still can’t believe I did it; thought about races to register for, but they’re pricey, need more money, and quick money, and that’s where the singular pieces will come into play.. the writing I’m doing for the online mags isn’t quick enough, not nearly enough.  I’ll vend these pages the same way bands and musicians and singers do their work. 

Jackie downstairs with me and Alice still upstairs, asleep, as she needs to be.  Want her rested and on this Father’s Day I understand clearly I couldn’t do any of this alone, none of it; not the run this morning and not the thousand words or 3 pages a day, not the blogging journalism, none of it without her.

Or without coffee.

Need coffee after those 7 miles and I need it fast, should have gone to Safeway yesterday, but I wanted to stay on the schedule, the schedule I designed and had to stick to for this morning.  And I do plan on hitting the cement again tomorrow, but only for 3 miles, and probably right from Jackie’s school, just 3, no more.  As I’m writing always and everyday so the same needeth be with my intervals.  And my relationship with wine, reviewing the bottles I meet and am pulled and pushed by with my poetic pulses– and teaching, teaching, this Summer class into which I’ll put everything I have and share every positive bend and stretch and lean, all of it; for them and their writings and reading and make sure they, too, run.  On page and with their ideas and what they want to try with the material.  I’m seeing now, at 36, what I really am and what I have to do and be.  A writer and blogger, and always moving.  Yes, I’m on the couch as I was in the condo and as little Kerouac enjoys his mornings– a plate of toys paired with a buffet of cartoonage– but this is after 7 miles, over 7 miles.  SEVEN!  When was the last time I ran that much?  Want to do the RAGNAR, run at odd hours, and far, and come home before anyone’s day or any kind of day has started.

I feel like a bull this morning.  A Kodiak, a crocodile, Gorilla, not fearing anything the story has for me or what my character might meet on his Road.  This energy and sight with this morning’s run, racking and siphoning such to my novel, and it’ll be done well before the semester’s closed.  And this is not a hope, this is a clear plan and all I have to do is follow-through, do so, write with my usual speed and one place.

No pain from jaunt to Mendo, not at all; knee left is composed, intact, and fluid; no tightness or that odd ache I experienced a month ago (more, maybe).  I’ll register for one race, at work, and finish the edits demanded for the articles (Napa Hotels, Sonoma Wineries..).  I had the idea yesterday to do similar blog posts for, and paid mind you, for running magazines and blogs, wine, Bay Area life (like SFGate or something similar); and magazines, blogs, on teaching.  Knowing what I’m about as a character, and as I ran back to this Autumn Walk fort, crossing Industrial to where Cleveland becomes Hopper (luckily with a green light, not having to fear the read and look around and some car nearly killing like that 8 mile run a year ago, when Alice was in Monterey..); it came to me, that question “What do you write about?” is actually quite fitting and motivating.  And what do I want to write about?  Parenting and fatherhood, running, health, Wellness, wine, writing.. all I can think of, what I think I’m about right now, here on the couch after 7 miles.  And how do I feel?  Tired, yes, a bit drained and fatigued but– oh, and FRENCH.  Français.  Ma nouvelle langue…..  I’m still writing, or my thoughts are, away and back toward me.  This is just a writer in the morning feeling metaphysically stratospheric.  Is it healthy, contributing to my Wellness and Personhood.. only has to.  And I don’t need coffee, reader.  Not now.  I might later, or I can assure you I will, but now I’m just with what I felt when I ran up San Miguel in the dark.

Just looked at the clock, on laptop, and only 6:35.  Wow, I think, thinking of all I could write today with this energy if I didn’t have to be in the tasting room.. but I want to be.. I want to combat house palate and look further into the wines and what they say and how they want me to write– then I think more about my blogging, and a business plan.. the areas or subjects I’ll attack and market to.  But running will most purposefully be a dominant consistency in my blogging practice..

Last night a no-wine night, may make tonight the same, if not for running early then writing early, and these early Sunday runs will definitely now be a ‘thing’ with me.  An “elite runner”, could I ever be one?  Well that means I’d definitely have to do a marathon or maybe even one of those crazy 50-mile runs.  Again I think of that guy that came into the tasting room at K—-, the guy who was if I remember right 54 and just did one of those crazy ultraruns.

I want to be that.

I want my son to have that as a father.

And my students to have that as their professor.  Or Instructor.  Teacher.  Whatever they want to call me this semester.

(6/21/15)