Welcome back, fair weather runners!

Ah, spring. When I go from being the only person on the dark icy sidewalk at 6:30am to being surrounded by runners. I'll admit, more than once I've wondered if I woke up an hour late and was going to be late for work. It's so light out, there are so many people out... there must be something wrong, right? It's sort of funny to me. What did these people do all winter to work out?

It's also sort of sad this year, because whereas most years I'm in peak form (at least for running) by now, this year I'm doing a sort of shuffle/run, which will clearly only get worse and most likely add the word "waddle." I think I could easily be downgraded to "jogger" at this point. Whatever, I'm still out there. Whether or not the 2009 marathon shirt I run in gets stuck on top of my belly and rides up, making any fair weather runner wonder where I got the shirt from since I clearly couldn't make it through a marathon.

I planted cilantro, basil, and tomatoes on the balcony last weekend, and moved the pot of mint outside. The chives somehow made it through the winter and re-sprouted. Last year we didn't get much out of the pepper and tomato plants, possibly because we put too many in each pot. This year I put one big, healthy organic beefsteak tomato plant in the pot that last year held 4-- hopefully that'll help. The cilantro looks delicate, as it always does, but hopefully with more watering and a little love we'll have a more productive "garden."