Marathons and an annoying campaign

I recently completed my first full marathon. I have been a runner for several years, but did not start joining races until July 2015. In that time, I completed 5Ks, 10Ks, 10-milers and half-marathons since that time, but I always wanted to do the ‘full enchilada. I confess that I was pensive leading up to the marathon. The races always start in the dark and it’s typically chilly on late March mornings. What was ahead of me was quite daunting, but I broke it all down mile-by-mile. I took advantage of all aid stations, but stopping to drink and eat – something that I refused to do in shorter races. When I hit mile 23, it was a wall that I feared I would hit earlier. So, from that point, I did a lot of run-walking. I finished around the time I had hoped for and felt all right the rest of the day. The biggest casualty in all of this was my left big toe nail. I’m in the process of recovering from having it removed. Evidentially, the marathon traumatized that toe nail. Let me tell you, it’s painful – at least for me. I was more than worried about my back, ankles, knees, legs and neck. They’re all fine, but this pesky toe nail! It’s torture getting the bandages off and on. Cami has been my nurse treating me like crazy. She has been putting up with a lot. Perhaps I do not have a great pain threshold after all. More than one week later, I’m already restless to at least get back out there, but I know that I will experience a long respite from running.

Now, here’s my epilogue to this post. Remember those epilogues on TV’s The Streets of San Francisco or Barnaby Jones? Those Quinn-Martin productions loved dividing up their shows by acts – like a theatrical play. Oh, my am I “dating myself.” Honestly, I’m not that old. Anyway, this is a local ‘epilogue.’ Is everyone sick and tired of those political ads for the U.S. congressional sixth district race? This special election, to be held in mid-April 2017 has a lot of candidates in the race, but only a few have could mount big TV ad campaigns. I’m not sure if I’m more irritated by Jon Ossoff’s ads touting his video production career or Dan Moody’s old fashioned cynical spots featuring elephants. Early voting began in the Georgia’s sixth district and it looks like there will be a run-off in June. This is going to get worse before it gets better.