Run DMZ

A lot of the allure surrounding Coronado, an isthmus that likes to call itself an island, boils down to this: it’s flat, pretty and has plenty of shoreline. Gridded streets are lined with mid-century bungalows and large custom homes with deciduous trees and well-manicured gardens.  New homeownership  is out of reach for most of us (and probably residents who were fortunate enough to purchased property a half-century ago when the place didn’t have much going for it), but a heavy Navy presence adds a little diversity to the community. Coronado has two thriving restaurant/retail centers:  one offering sweeping views of the downtown San Diego skyline and a ferry ; the other, an  iconic hotel  and  ceramic cow .    Near the latter is a beach where they rake the sand daily, so everything looks just so. The result of that attention to detail has been Coronado Beach cracking the Top 10—sometimes even the No. 1 spot—on one of the most respected  annual U.S. best beaches lists. This time, Corona

It’s been an amazing, exhausting, gut-wrenching 10 days. It began on what would have been my parents’ 60 th  wedding anniversary, had they lived to celebrate it. My daughter texted early that morning to ask if I’d watch her 19-month-old while she went to the ER, possibly to give birth a few weeks earlier than her official due date. By the time I got there (ugh, pre-COVID traffic is back), symptoms had subsided and a quick trip to her OB/GYN confirmed she was fine.   About 30 hours later, I got a text that everyone was again at an ER and heading by ambulance to another  hospital that wasn’t under a cyberattack . My grandson had collided with a tailgate during a neighborhood block party and suffered a concussion. He was vomiting and lethargic and disoriented. I needed to take care of their dog, who’d been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer two days prior. I privately noted that it was the anniversary of my beloved grandmother’s passing and therefore all would end well.    And it

  The other week I was doing some deep cleaning and came across this race photo. It resurrected lovely memories from one of my most unpleasant finishes. It also reminds me of how much has changed over the years--to both me and marathons.   Note the slant of the sun . This shot was taken in the last miles of the course, with the sun already inching toward the western horizon. The Richmond Marathon used to start at 12:30 p.m. on an October Sunday to allow locals time to go to church before downtown streets closed. This made weather a wildcard. It could be the cool fall day long-distance runners dream of, or it could swampy. I got both, with heat at the start but a cool breeze at the end.    Now almost every marathon starts early morning to accommodate bigger crowds .   Note the bib number . This race had less than 500 marathoners the first time I ran it. You could sign up race day, especially if you ended up not running that much more popular marathon two hours north in Washington, D.C.