It's Far Away,..

"Everybody off of the train!" yelled the doorman with broken English and a big grin across his face.
"We have arrived."
I looked over at Josh, he had a puzzled look in his eyes.
"Tim," he whispered from the next row over. "Are we really here?"
"Yeah,..uh..I believe so." I told him, in thought that my confidence would make him certain that we were in the right city.
I could see the sky through the glass window of the train and beyond through the glass window of the station and it appeared to be a mix of Blue and Grey and the wind looked like it was blending them together. Clouds and clear and sun and faint moon.
"Josh" I whispered back with a hint of pressure in my voice.
"Grab your bag..." I paused and looked around the station once more to try and take in how real this was "...lets go."
Josh looked at me with frustration, he knew that I packed lighter than he did, and snapped; "Give me a second to get my pack on man, relax."
I began to walk away towards the entrance of the station, I knew I would find something there while he was getting ready.
As I walked down the row between the train and another empty track I listened to the sounds of pigeons above and the rats below.
Josh approached me and knocked me on the shoulder,
"Hey bro, let's go." He spoke in a mellow tone as he walked passed.
"Excellent." I smiled and looked back at the empty train and isle and beyond to the endless tracks where so many trains have arrived and departed.
We walked out of the station and paused as we looked up at the skyline of Shanghai...

Listening to Ali Farka Touré - In The Heart of The Moon

Marathon Training,..

Nobody ever told me that training for a marathon would be easy, but I did not expect it to be to this demanding. The running is not the difficult part, the lungs, legs and heart are fine while running. It is the recovery on legs after my longer distance runs; 10+ mile days that takes time. My longer runs occur on Saturdays, and it takes until about Tuesday for my legs to recover completely. The good thing is that Sundays are easy 2-3 miles and Mondays are cross training days, so I can swim or bike. I have a schedule that my brother, who is an avid runner and running the same marathon with me in October, gave me in June. Jill also gave me three different marathon strategy books for a Christmas gift that I still have yet to truly break in the spines of. Since June 25th, I have followed the schedule my brother gave me almost exactly. There was a three day period in July where a summer cold caught up with me and I stayed away from the schedule.

I am excited and nervous at the same time for this to happen because October is coming around the corner soon and come September, I will have an extremely busy schedule. As the weeks continue, the weekend runs will get longer and longer and I hope to be able to fit them in. I am confident that I will be just fine. My mind is prepared for this, come October, I hope that my body will be up for the challenge.

Listening to A Perfect Circle