Last Saturday of August: Boston 10k for women run club

Era of WTF… Joy and Resistance

Last Saturday was the last "free" weekend before school starts. I'm still trying to get my syllabus and course content uploaded.

It's also week two of training, and I need to do better with mileage. Eighteen miles was on the schedule for week one, and I think I only got in maybe 12–14. This week I'm doing better: five miles on Thursday, three on Tuesday, and six today. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are for strength training, and on those days I usually add a mile and a half on the elliptical. So maybe I still won't hit 18 miles this week — but my point is, I'm increasing my normal mileage, and I'm feeling stronger.

Today was the Saturday run club for the Boston 10K for Women. I hadn't signed up this week, but since my co-ambassador at BGR said she'd signed up to lead the run, I figured I'd show up too — it would force me to get in six miles. I ran four before the group met, then ran two more with them during the run.

I keep trying to remind myself of the things I can't control. This week, besides the passing of Dolly Parton — which really stings — there's been a lot to sit with. That man in office is selling, or about to sell, parts of Yosemite National Park to a private developer. The grasslands the bison depend on are being destroyed. Land in the national parks of southern Utah is being carved up for developers. And now, the latest: he's renamed Lake Ontario to "Lake America," because of this ridiculous fight with Canada. I still don't understand it — a good portion of our oil comes from Canada, and a lot of the electricity powering the East Coast comes from Canada too. This tariff nonsense is beyond insanity.

And then you have people like Lindsey Graham's sister — I still don't understand how someone so unqualified ended up in his seat — making statements that people should just work until they die, and that we should forget about government health care.

…I need to breathe. My eye is twitching.

Running is my joy. It brings out my agency and my humanity. I loved running this morning — it was great to see the elephant herd, cut through the Public Garden and the Boston Common, and just take in the green space and nature. It was good.

Then I passed my favorite monument, the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, on my way back to Marathon Sports for our group run. It was good to still see history along the way, to look at the different testaments to people and to society. I've said this before: running is more than running.

4.04 miles — 43:20, 11:15/mile pace 2.26 miles — 24:11, 10:41/mile pace