How it got from May 15 to July 3, I haven't a clue. All of my promises about being a better blogger have rung hollow and empty. What to do but try to begin again?I suppose the big news of the previous weeks is that, as of the beginning of June, I am officially in training for the 2008 Richmond Marathon in November. I've been running consistently over the past year, and I was surprised at how much I loved running the Monument Avenue 10K a couple of months ago. Still, 26.2 miles is a LOT farther than the 6.2 miles that make up the 10K. I admit that I'm already a little nervous about it. The funny thing is that running a marathon isn't that big a deal these days. It used to be fairly rare to meet someone who'd run a marathon. These days I feel like half the people I know have run one. The farthest I've ever run at one time is about 6 miles, and while I've done it four or five times, I'm worried about tomorrow's 8-mile jaunt.
In other news, I've been playing some music with my friends Jonathan and Antonia under the name Jonathan Vassar and The Speckled Bird. Definitely a folky, lo-fi Americana feel, very low key. We're playing a bunch of Jonathan's original tunes (he's a prolific and excellent songwriter), so the lineup has Jonathan on guitar and lead vocals, Antonia on accordion, glockenspiel, and vocals, and I'm covering mandolin, banjo, electric guitar, and vocals. It's been a really fun project so far - if you're interested in hearing some rough live recordings, we've posted a bunch on Reverb Nation...and for those of you on MySpace, you can find us there, too: http://www.myspace.com/thespeckledbird.Hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July. Maybe I'll post again before the next major holiday...Labor Day, perhaps? Anyone want to take bets?
