The fat man soldiers on.

“I wouldn’t have believed you if you had told me, a year ago at this time, that I would be going out for a run at 9:15 pm on New Year’s Eve just because I wanted to and because I enjoyed it.

“But y’know, that’s just what I did tonight.”
– From the old blog, December 31, 2007

Fast-forward five years, and I will not be going out running tonight.

For one thing, I am full of sinful fondue and looking forward to another beer.

For another, I ran yesterday. And in the last few years, I have taken to only running every other day, as a sop to tendons, feet and other things that complain if I abuse them more frequently.

Five years ago, I put in 619.6 miles. I also missed the entire month of June, as well as parts of January and July, tending to uncooperative body parts.

In the year just past, I put in 510.1 miles — but I didn’t have to stop for anything. Which was kinda nice, because my older son ran his first year of cross-country, and I was in good enough health to take him out for his first two months of runs and kinda show him the ropes in an encouraging fashion.

I ran two 5Ks this year, enjoyed them both, and acquitted myself competently enough. Just yesterday, I signed up to run one of them again next year.

And the first thing I do after getting out of bed in 2013 will be to go run two or three miles — unless one of the kids importunes me for pancakes, in which case running will be the second thing I do in the New Year.

No one who reads Neck Pickup cares about my running; most of you tune in to hear me crack snarky about Top 40 records from 1975.

But running is one of the few really constructive things I do with myself, and quite possibly the only good, self-protective habit I have besides brushing my teeth. So I take a couple seconds from time to time to acknowledge it.

Let’ s see if I manage to keep the creep of decrepitude at bay for another year.