The dread mill is all inversion for me, some wheel turning out in the wilderness to power this wheel turning under me, here in a small mirrored gym, sports heads talking about bowl games.  Road running is imposing your discipline on the road, and here the black ribbon turned for me, and me for it.  During the first mile I hated it and wished for the road but over the next three I began to develop a grudging appreciation for the relentlessness of it.  There was something useful there, even if I had not quite grasped it completely, would not embrace it fully, not yet, perhaps never.

I leaned into the wind passing by the rose vine fence, hand on my cap.  During rose season (spring? summer?) the fence is a wall of red, but now just brown-green ropes, threading in and out of faded white slats.  I was momentarily surprised by the thorns and watched them as I passed.

I had planned an out and back of two miles, from home, up the hill, through the square, but walked home from shopping instead, empty handed.  It was a nice change, an unplanned route, not quite but closer to a wandering.

My ankle is rusted.

My ankles are still sore, or, perhaps I should say, they are sore, as it feels as if this is their new and constant state.  I strolled a slow 15 miles today, past the railroad tracks, the CSX engines moving the container trains back and forth, loading or unloading I could not be sure, but the groan and squeal seemed appropriate, matching the ache in my bones.

I passed brand new condos and picket fenced houses for sale and a couple of buildings that looked as though they might be the summer homes of zombies, shattered shop fronts in brick from another century, for sale or lease, several signs declared.

In seventeen months I hope to be writing that I completed the Keys 100 ultra.  If so this will not have been the beginning, but it is as good a place as any to start, and a beginning, none-the-less.