One step at a time

As my longtime friends know, I can be terribly indecisive. (Or possibly not.) Sometimes it takes me forever to reach a decision and then even after I've made it I can't stop worrying over whether it was the right one and whether I should rethink it. I've fretted more often than Eric Clapton.

Lately I've been wrestling with which marathon to enter and whether to move to a much bigger apartment that's coming open in August. I have been going back and fifth over both of these questions many times; before that, it was where to go on my June break (to see family in California) and how much to ask for in my next contract (and that's done satisfactorily for all parties).

Somehow just moving, running, getting stronger and tougher, literally step by step, made up my mind for me. In the last four days, I've run 20 miles (four, seven, five, and four, respectively) and, without much work, the answers have come to me. Tomorrow I'm going to enter the Joongang Seoul Marathon in early November, even though they don't allow anyone on the course for over five hours (which might be a near thing for me), rather than the Chuncheon Marathon, which is run an hour outside the city in late October. And I'm going to suggest that the school let Nicki and Dex, who are expecting, have the big apartment. They need it more and, despite the hellish Pac-Man-bejingled bicycles, which are playing the mindless tune at this very moment, at 10:45 p.m., I kinda like where I live; how much space do a largish guy and a largish cat need, after all?

Two years ago, I struggled in my runs to break 11 minutes per mile; now I'm consistently doing each mile, up to seven of them so far, in 10 minutes each. I've never in my life run as many miles in four days as I just have, and weather permitting I'll be back out with the cross-country kids tomorrow. I've never felt this fit, though maybe if I stopped rewarding myself with a pint of ice cream whenever I feel like it...

I've set my own reward for a good day's run: I get to air drum to If I'd Been the One by .38 Special on my iPod as I do my cool down. As a side effect of the running, I make decisions.

I'm movin' on up, to the (Far) East Side.