july, july!

"What's up with you this morning? You sound so happy."
"I went jogging this morning. I'm always happy after I go jogging."
"Why don't you usually jog in the mornings, then? And why did you go a month without jogging?"
"Because this is my central character flaw: I am vulnerable to settling into bad routines."
"Well, it's good that you are back at it now."
"I know, especially since I've got this marathon in May. Or as I like to put, I've got this marathon in Will."
"Or as I like to put it, Jeremy's got this marathon in Stupid."

Interestingly, as a variant on the dreams reported last week, I dreamt last night that the Madison marathon was tomorrow. The reversion to being out of shape has done much to demonstrate me that I had, indeed, been in rather good shape, thirtysomething-cardiovascularly-speaking, before. So, anyway, I was all panicked because there was no way I could even run a 1/4 marathon, much less a 1/2 marathon, much less the whole marathon, but I was forced to go ahead and try because, after all, I told my blog I would.

Anyway, current nominee for the pantheon of great winter jogging songs: "July, July!" by the Decemberists, recently recommended to TB (a.k.a. "The Consumption") and introduced to me in an exercise mix assembled by RWS. Any song that causes me to spontaneously raise my arms above my head in quasi-triumph while jogging, and especially while uncertainly and pantingly jogging, gets promoted to said pantheon.

Not part of the pantheon: "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" by The Postal Service, which is just fine as a song-per-se, but I'm not sure how it made its way onto my exercise playlist. I don't really need to hear the lyric "I'm finally seeing / I was the one worth leaving" over and over again while I run, esp. as I've had that re-piphany who knows how many times in how many contexts over the past however many years.