Back In The Saddle Again

To use a time honoured quote if I may "Reports of my demise have been greatly exagerated" No I didn't "run off to join the circus"....why would I when I work in one every day!!!,nor did I join the French Forigen Legion to forget about women....although there have been a few failed relationships over the years that have lead me to consider that option(you know who you are ladies!!!) The simple truth is that the hunger and desire that has driven me to want to be the best runner I can be just wasn't there for the first time in over a decade and being cut from a cloth that can only do things "from the heart" I opted to take a time out rather than go through the motions..... I had no set time limit on my hiatus,I'd find my way back when I was good and ready which turned out to be yesterday...a little longer than I originally planned but that's life sometimes. At no time during my hiatus did the R word (Retirement) come up.....that said I'm somewhat surprised at the ease of my decision to stop doing what has come naturally to me over the last 11 years in a past time/way of life that has taken up 36 of my 49 years on the planet. Tomorrow I turn 49 which means the clock on hitting the big 50 kicks off in earnest,maybe on a subconcious level that has lead to my questioning my running mortallty, if I were the type to celebrate said b'day(I'm not....I think the day means more to my mother than it does to me)and there was cake I fear the 49 candles could be a fire risk and therefore need to post a few fire trucks outside my apartment in case of a gust of wind lit the place on fire!!! It felt good to be back running yesterday,an easy 4 miler looping around trusty Clark Park, a few of those under my belt this week should see me ready to revist "old faithful" and my out and back 6 miler down to Lloyd Hall via the Schuykill Banks come the weekend,I've set myself a modest target of being "race ready" come Dec 8th and XC Club Nationals in Lexington Kentucky....which is more than could be said for my last outing at the Masters 5k Road Race C'ships in Syracuse on Sept 30th where not only did I "sink like a stone" but also pay the price for not putting the required work in in the weeks prior,my performance that day along w/ my attitude to training for it could be summed up in two words.......SHITE.......SHITE! Public humiliation over I've crawled back out of my shell to reclaim my place in the upper echelon of my age group(m45-49) and while I may be the "old man" in the group I'm not toothless and fangless just yet.....there's still life in the old boy yet like I said at the beginning "rumours of my demise have been greatly exagerated"....