jogging

@home
9pm

warmup:
2 mins jump rope
10x knee rotations

strength:
2.6 miles
27:15

cool down:
yoga/stretches

jump rope in front of my condo, i figure the neighbors can hear it and might be annoyed, but whatever, it's only 2 minutes so they can deal with it. i toss the jump rope onto my porch, my blood is really moving. i walk to the nearest intersection, so i can plot my mileage when i get home. a frail bicyclist passes in front of me, but pauses and waves me to pass. they slow down for me and as their handle bars awkwardly shake, they finally have to put their foot down. from my sidestreet i can see the highway. a truck screetches away from the stoplight. fucking high schoolers! i round the corner and pass the gas station. i run by the empty christmas tree lot, and briefly wonder why they aren't selling pumpkins. my guess is that they have the foresight not to compete with the mega bounce house pumpkin lot at the strip mall on the east end of the highway... ah, suburbs... next i pass a funeral home, and then a donut shop. it's empty but the doors open, and i inhale a deep whiff of lard and sugar as a pass by. there's a family inside indulging their sweet teeth - seems like a cheap and pointless thrill, but i can see how it might make them happy.... i run past the taqueria, subway, the vietnamese place that tried to poison me once, mcdonald's, kfc the travel agency, the liquor store. at an intersection there's a white trash guy at the stoplight, who it occurs to me looks a helluva lot like someone i know from high school who lives in rwc, but it's not him. he's in a ford taurus, the same car i inherited from my older siblings in high school. after i pass the car, i hear the passenger who is apparently a woman, say "hey ya' got a nice ass!" i'm not sure what to think, other than "oh, i guess my shirt's tucked in, and i bet my ass is sticking out." i don't acknowledge her, but keep running with a confused smirk on my face. past the pet store, past the nursery, past the 7/11. i come across my first possibly homeless person, standing at the bus stop in front of the retirement home. maybe he's just a retiree, it's dark and i can't really tell, but he does look pretty busted, so i'm gonna stick with my initial guess. he lights up a cigarette as i approach, and i calculate the last moment i can begin my a deep breath in, so as to finish inhaling before i enter his cloud of smoke. i run past, and finally get off the highway. it's dark and the ground is uneven. damn trees ruined the sidewalk and the city hasn't done anything to fix it. there's a mexican church, having a party in their parking lot. it occurs to me that i'm white for a second. vassever. their cars are blocking the sidewalk... so, i just run across the street. the trees are so overgrown on this side of the street into the sidewalk, that i decide to just run on street. i think to myself, "i hope there's no glass or needles in this gutter because they would probably go right through the soles of my vibram five finger shoes." but there isn't any, or at least i don't feel any shards or pricks on the bottom of my feet. my stride is slowing down, i start to notice. check the clock and i'm only around 10 minutes. going for at least thirty minutes total. since i was approaching my halfway point, i didn't need to worry too much about my pace. as i get to el camino, there are two people on the sidewalk. another homeless guy walking behind a wheelchair which i presume that he sits in during the day to power-up his pandhandler abilities, and prey on other people's good will. from the opposite direction is a latino bicyclist riding through a crosswalk onto the sidewalk. wtf are you doing on the damn sidewalk, i think to myself? my street ends in a T at their street, and the three of us cross paths at almost the same time. the good will predator surprisingly sorta pulls over to allow us two to merge without running into him, but he actually made it more awkward by doing so. the back of the cyclists says "pronto pizza"... i like that place but i hate this guy. from where my street hit el camino, to where i got to the underpass, i think to myself that all the cement that i'm looking it is a pretty standard view you would find in any shitty strip mall-addled suburban neighborhood of san jose or santa clara... except that the city-owned negative space created by the gap between the highway overpass, the cross street, and the onramp is overgrown with redwood trees. as much as i loathe redwood city, it strikes me as kinda awesome that these trees are there and have probably been there for a helluva long time. i continue through the underpass, and this side of the highway underpass is barren. i wrap back down essentially what is a freeway exit. i'm running next to stopped cars, which smell like shit. i can literally taste the bad air coming from them, one of them must have been diesel or something. i continue through some intersections, and am now on essentially a freeway on-ramp which happens to have a sidewalk. i think to myself that these might be some of the ghetto-ist houses in redwood city - and it smells like clean laundry. here comes the best part of the run: the union cemetery. there is an awesome shingled wind-mill storage facility and then a graveyard that is at least a few acres. i'm running between the highway's and a cemetery. woah, am i a goth? awesome. eventually i pass another funeral home, and then all the things i passed before from the opposite side of the street. there's a latino couple that see me running behind them, and they sorta pull over to let me pass, but i was running curbside so that was kinda pointless... later i was running towards a couple with a stroller who were facing me. i went out of the way to let them have the whole sidewalk, by runnin in the street. but no "thank you" or anything. it didn't occur to me until now that the same courtesy i expected from the pregnant couple for whom i made way, was probably expected of me from the latino couple who *pulled over* for me earlier. at about 3/4's of my run, i realize i'm getting a blister on the right ball of my foot. oh well, it doesn't hurt that bad. as i approach my cross street, the light is against me. i would j-walk but there's a sheriff waiting for the light. rather than be that guy jogging in place while the light changes, i decide to run down the street a block. the same thing happens with the light, but there are no police, so i j-walk through the median, and around the corner. it's eerily quiet as i get close to my driveway. i'm near my mailbox and my neighbor's pug starts snorting and runs towards me, which makes me flinch a little, i do a double-take and chuckle a little. i get to the mailbox, and walk from there to my porch. on my porch i do some stretching. when i get inside i'm still breathing heavy. i jump in the shower. afterwards, i grab my yoga mat and stretch some more.

that was a good run.