Signs of a New Season

I finally realized tonight as I was out on a late run around Central Park that fall is finally upon us. It wasn’t so much the milder temperatures or the short days that made me bid au revoir to summer. It was the schools of bright reflective colors camouflaging as runners I was streaking past in the dead of night tonight that made me acutely aware that a seasonal change has unexpectedly and suddenly come. Gone are the grueling long summer days when I can usually find solitude running the six mile loop in the park on days I’m home late from work. Instead tonight, everywhere around me, all I can see were running packs and running clubs practicing and training for their fall marathons, each gravitating near a section of the trail almost as if to claim that area for personal/club use . It was somewhat frustrating because as I was running past these individual packs of 50+ runners or so, I felt as if I was trespassing on their property or interrupting their training run. But then I would realize just as quickly that I was training for a marathon too and have as much right to the road as they do. Besides, they’re the ones who are interrupting my training. Where were these people last week or the week before that when I was busting my tail at the same place at the same time wondering if I was the only one on earth who’d be out on a training run around Central Park in the dead of night with no one and no company save the poor moon standing guard over me in the sky. I’m not complaining though, just saying how it is. I just wished that they wouldn’t give me such dirty looks as I’m running past them. Maybe if they were out here when I was out here the past few months, they’d be running past me instead of behind me. So stop trying to make me feel bad! Just my two cents; sorry for the rant. As for me, I just want to run well in the Queens Half Marathon this weekend. Everything else is just practice.