Saturday Run

Saturday morning Hannah came with me for a run around the walls.  I've been feeling pathetic with running, and I've blamed my sneakers.  Every summer I buy new sneakers -- or rather, my dad does, as he gives me money for my birthday in July, and then I head to Marathon Sports and buy myself a brand new pair of sneakers that I plan to make last for one year.  Really I want new sneakers at about the ten or eleven month mark since the soles are worn down, my feet are a little sore, the sides are coming apart from the base.  But I want to make those sneakers last for a year, and I want to start the school year with new sneakers.  As kids, we went every August with my mom to the Hanover mall to get our school shoes for Our Lady's, our elementary school...we had uniforms, of course, and we couldn't wear sneakers to school, so I think this idea of new shoes for the school year has stuck with me.  Alas, last August, after three days on the Viterbo cobblestones and sore feet, I unpacked my new Brooks and stored the current ones away -- only 11 months old -- for rainy days or days next summer to walk the path at low tide out to Bar Rock in Scituate.  So this time I'm not even at the ten month mark, and my feet are tired and my lethargy in trying to run has increased to such a degree that I think it must be my current Brooks that are ripping on the sides and worn down two or three levels on the bottom.  Likely I need less gelato and pizza and more short runs to get in shape to run more than one minute.  Last week I stopped after forty-three seconds -- just stopped, put on a podcast and walked instead...my sister Christine says I just need to train.  I just want to run when it feels good.

So this morning Hannah said she'd come with me.  Sebastian made her a playlist and gave her his phone, and we headed to Porta Romana to start some sort of loop around the city walls with the goal to run twenty minutes.

Hannah's headphones fell out because her ears are small, and sometimes she couldn't hear the music, she later told me, because two trucks went by blaring music to advertise a local circus next week.  But Hannah didn't seem to care.  Her legs kept pumping, keeping pace with me though her steps looked much more energetic.  Per her request, when we got to Porta Fiorentina, we crossed over to the park so she could take a five minute break while I did a loop there.  Then we got started again.

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Hannah said, "I've never been on this road," the part of the loop where there's no sidewalk and sometimes up high on the wall dogs bark down at me when I run or walk by.  But then we got to more familiar spots passing portas on our left, McDonald's on the right.  She said, "Oh, yeah, now I see where we are.  We're gonna go down and then up."  Hannah knows this McDonald's she's been to a few birthday parties there.  This might be what has amazed me most about the kids this year.  They get invited to something -- a birthday party, a playdate, a soccer dinner, a class dinner -- and they go.  They even went way back in September when they didn't know anyone.  I've walked Sebastian to a restaurant for a soccer dinner, waved hello, and then gone on my way.  He doesn't mind being the only kid at the dinner without a parent.  He's happy for the walk there together.  And I'm thrilled that he wants to go.  I offer to walk him there on the condition that Daniel pick him up afterwards.  With an 11pm pickup, Sebastian is often the first one picked up, even on a school night.  Daniel sets an alarm, sleeps a bit, wakes to the 10:45pm alarm, picks up Sebastian.  Sebastian is wired when he gets home and could talk for another hour.

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We get up the hill, seeing our church -- Sacra Familia -- on the right.  I haven't felt this good running for at least a month.  Maybe it's that I slept in or didn't run first thing.  Or maybe the playlist that is part mine and part Christine's.  Or maybe it's Hannah's company and determination and easy gait.  She's just happy to be out there on a Saturday morning.

Hannah stops before I do, and we walk the final bit, through the parking lot where the orange Fiat is parked.  We walk by Porta Romana, find some shade, stretch a bit.  We walk back to the apartment, and I promise Hannah a gelato later on when I have money on me.

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It's Monday.  Hannah's asked me when we're going to run again.  The energy of a seven-year-old.