Eleven

I've recently started running again. Three times a week, nightly, at the Salcedo Park. I haven't gotten any real physical activity of late since resigning from being an employee and there are advantages of being self-employed. I don't have to wake up just in time to be earlier than the boss, in fact, I don't even have to be on time for anything.

I had so much time that I spend it needlessly on other pursuits I might as well make it productive. I have gained weight - not a lot, but enough that people notice. So, a few weeks ago, I got my old pair of cross trainers and ran. Thirty minutes tops. That's just about enough I could take for someone as old as I am.

I run at night - the cold air is a natural coolant for the body and besides I really sweat a lot. My old pair of shoes need to be replaced, just as soon as I maintain my schedule. I've been on it for three weeks now and it feels refreshing. And just to make things interesting I purchase a futsal-sized football to aid my exercise.

The thing is, that I easily get tired. I'm not used to long-distance running. I should be, since I play football but I'm more used to sprinting. My running pace isn't stable - I sprint, I brisk-walk, I run, I walk, I sprint and I do it over and over again. Until I'm bored. That's my problem, I get bored easily with the routine.

The ball helps. It keeps up with my ever-changing pace of running, walking, sprinting after the ball as it bounces of from the gutter. I would've stayed out until 12 midnight but the rain was worsening. From eleven to eleven-thirty, I passed the ball to the gutter. Not so much of a challenge, right? Sometimes I wish I could easily find a team to play with me at 11 p.m., but who does play at that ungodly hour?

Well, who knows? Maybe a varsity player for a women's college football team lives around the area and would take pity on a lonely man with a ball at eleven o'clock in the evening.