"In the Good Old Summertime"

Finally starting a new section today, and not a moment too soon. This one is called something like 'Gaslight favorites', theoretically containing even older songs, though this one, from 1902, isn't that old, comparably speaking. And it is one that I know, and that a lot of people probably know, which makes it fairly amazingly long-lived. 'She's your tootsy wootsy' always makes me laugh.

It is very far from summertime here, though it seems like I was just running in the heat and among the green trees, and this morning it was icy and cold, though still relatively sunny. In the summer I feel as though I'm running from one patch of shade to another, while in the winter I'm trying to get to the next sunny bit. I can really feel the warmth from our local star as I pass into its light, it's really nice. Not enough sun to melt all the ice, though, and it does make the going pretty slow. I had run this distance slowly last week, and it was even slower this week after the freezing rain that we had. I'm feeling a bit concerned about my next race, which is not only at the end of February (I hardly ran at all last February, it was so cold), but it's ten miles, a 15K, which I hadn't planned to ever do. I was seduced by the offer of 'free jacket!' if I ran this series of five races, but I thought initially that I would have a 5K or 10K choice for each. No such luck. I am not obligated to do the whole series, of course, but hey, that jacket! And I've done two races so far, I'm practically half way there. This morning, though, I was thinking, I'm going to run almost two hours in potential cold and ice? I'm going to train for this until then in potential cold and ice? It's a shame that I am so easily seduced by the offer of something free. This jacket better be damn warm.

I'm also hoping that Santa comes through with the iPod, so I can listen to a wider range of music on those long runs. Oh, Santa. . .!