The last time I ran a marathon in the fall.

(Sunday Paper, Year VIII, Issue 19)

The Chicago Marathon, which takes place in October, will be my fourth marathon.

My first one - the Boston Marathon that was postponed and then rescheduled - was in October.

The last two I ran were in April and February, and required a lot of running in cold weather during training.

I’m looking forward to the October training cycle again - I like running early in the morning, before it gets too hot, and for most of the summer training there is no school to interfere with my early morning running.

The other thing I like about the October race is that it perfectly aligns with baseball season.

Things are just about to get going for my training…and you could say the same about the baseball season.

If you’ve been paying any attention to how the Mets have been performing this week, well, you know that it hasn’t been ideal.

I think in any other year I might be ready to panic.

But this team isn’t starting from zero - they were a 100-win team last year, they have a bunch of good players and great leadership.

Last year they faded late after a hot start.

I’m OK with a slight fade now if it means they steadily progress to play their best ball by the end of the year.

And that means hopefully they’re at their peak the same time I am - on October 8th I’ll be running the Chicago Marathon and hopefully the Mets will be beginning a post-season run.

Since I started my little marathon adventures, I have made more than my share of “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” comments. It’s fun when I’m making a silly little comparison…but it really is the perfect description of baseball season. And marathon running.

You can’t get too high or too low after any one event - whether it’s one game or one practice run. It’s all building towards something bigger.

You can’t draw too many conclusions too early - you have to learn from your mistakes in order to improve. (Like the fact that burritos and ice cream are not a good idea for me the night before a run.)

It helps to think about the big picture as the smaller picture comes together.

The Mets won 15 games in April. I’ll focus on the overall monthly picture rather than the small series that make up the month. In other words, rather than obsess over the fact that they lost three games they shouldn’t have in Detroit this week, I’ll wait until the end of the month to pass judgment. 15 wins a month isn’t bad…hopefully they pick up more as the year goes on.

So May is when things are going to ramp up for the Mets and give us a little clearer picture of what to expect the rest of the season.

Just as this week I’ve gotten back to a running routine and started to plan out what I’m going to do running-wise for what amounts to the rest of the baseball season.

It’s early yet…but it’s all building blocks to where we hope to be on October 8th (five months from tomorrow!)

What I’ve Been Enjoying

I mentioned last week that I had finished Seinfeld and I really had no idea what to watch next, but I realized I meant to watch Wednesday months ago and never did. So I watched that this week and enjoyed it - it was a pretty quick 8 episodes.

I haven’t kept up the movie-watching momentum I started in 2022, but I do think this is a nice little opportunity right now to catch up on some TV shows I’ve missed.

Notes

*I’m full of excuses for the Mets that I’ll spare you from right now (weather and no consistent routine among them), but as I hinted above, I fully expect them to play better. I don’t know why I’m so forgiving. Might it might have something to do with investing heavily in their success this year? Probably.

*As I mentioned, I’m easing back into things with running - I ran three miles a couple of times this week, including Saturday. Other than the stomach feeling the effects of the Friday night burrito and ice cream treats it’s been going fine.

*I’ll start throwing this here every once in a while: If you didn’t get in on the Super Bowl Squares pool and you’re interested in contributing to my Chicago Marathon fundraising for Ronald McDonald House Charities, you can do so at this link. Thanks again to everyone who took a square (or more!) and all of the support throughout all of these fundraisers.

*You may remember from previous years (or maybe your own life, because I know this is not unique to us), but May is crazytown bananas bonkers around here. It’ll continue into June for us this year, but it’s all good family stuff, so it’s not a bad thing.

*It also means more yard work, which I’m trying to squeeze in among all the craziness this week.

*Always a bummer to see my team bounced from the playoffs, especially in the first round, but I just never got into the hockey season this year and I’ve definitely had more heartbreaking seasons. I can do without extra playoff hockey late nights. Sorry Rangers.

*As the running ramps up, so will the Instagram posting. You can keep tabs on the social media at the links below.