DAY 91, THIS ALKALINE YEAR Barefoot Running

What does barefoot running have to do with eating alkaline?  I’ve noticed over the years that many runners and, of course, other athletes, have succumbed to the so-called killer diseases.  Outstanding among them, of course, was Jim Fixx, who ran in one of the Boston Marathons in which I competed. (My time of 3:23.13, I cannot resist mentioning, was better than his; funny how one remembers things like that!)  His other lifestyle habits, including nutrition, were lousy even by the standards of that time.   I’ve seen many good runners destroy their abilities by scarfing down junk food and what seems to be our national poison of choice, beer.  I feel excited about experimenting with what could be a technological advance in footwear, precisely because I believe that to eat alkaline is to establish a solid nutritional basis for the body and mind to adapt to new circumstances, to work well into highest old age. 

This running barefoot is not as simple as it sounded in yesterday’s blog.  Long-time heel strikers who have always run in protected running shoes may experience sore calves and arches and stiff Achilles tendons if we overdo workouts with minimal or no footgear.   You’ll find history, videos showing the suggested foot strikes, and training tips at the Website http://barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu.  The site also has good biographies of the researchers working on the footstrike issues.  These include Daniel E. Lieberman, PhD, professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard.

While mid-foot and forefoot strikes produce minimal impact force that may lead to lower rates of injury than experienced by conventionally-shod runners, it’s important not to overdo while adapting to barefoot workouts.  Dr. Lieberman and his colleagues specify running no more than a quarter mile to one mile every other day, and to increase distance by no more than 10 percent per week.  With this slow transition, accompanied by stretching calves and hamstrings, it will take months to make the transition.

The Website videos are especially good for developing knowledge about the “barefoot” way of striking, or touching the ground.  This should be a gentle, relaxed landing on the mid-foot or forefoot, gradually letting the heel down.

I’m running five miles a day and preparing to compete in two small races in March, so I’ll heed Dr. Lieberman’s  advice to supplement forefoot or midfoot striking with the way I normally run, to stop if anything hurts, and to do a good portion of the daily workout with my “normal” old heel strikes.   Having suffered a stress fracture back in the 1970s, I don’t want that again, nor any arch or other pain.

The process of adjusting my foot strike can begin long before my FiveFingers shoes arrive.  This is because I’m too cheap to pay for fast delivery; they’re coming via ground mail.  And I usually go barefoot, or wear socks, inside the tile-floored house: another notch in the adjustment process.

After listing all the sensible precautions, the Website notes: “Many people who run very slowly find that forefoot striking actually makes them run a little faster.”  This is seductive! A couple of weeks ago, in this blog, I noted running something like 12-minute miles.  After re-measuring the course, my time was more like 15-minute miles and it’s still in the 14-minute range.  For my age groups in the two races, based on last year’s winning times, it will need to be in the 11-minute range.  And most of the training will need to be in my dear old Nikes.

DAY 90 THIS ALKALINE YEAR: To Shoe or Not to Shoe?

Is it crazy to want to run barefoot?  Maybe, but I’m thinking about trying just that.  My old Nikes are beginning to feel clunky.  While there are no major studies on the subject, some researchers feel that shoeless running is less stressful on the feet than running with well-supported shoes.  The rationale is that the latter cause the heel to strike before the mid-foot and toes, which could be responsible for some heel and ankle problems.  Don't have those, thank heavens! 

Nonetheless, I look back nostalgically to my early running days, on stony beaches (ocean-smoothed rocks and gravel), when I went barefoot all summer, and later, when tennis shoes were my only available footgear.   Nike makes a great shoe and I’ve subscribed happily to their rationale for years.

However, a small northeastern company called Vibram is making shoes they call FiveFingers, which are about as close to running barefoot as you can get.  Instead of buying by conventional shoe size, you order by the length of your foot, in about 1/8-inch increments.

As soon as I find a measuring tape, I’m planning to order some.  Will report back!

DAY 89 THIS ALKALINE YEAR: Posting While Standing Up

A funny thing happened on the way to resuming this blog!  I got caught up in a bunch of other concerns.  From now on, this  is going to be an occasional blog, although some weeks it may be more prolific than others.

First of all, to catch up on the groceries cost, which I’d promised earlier:  the January grocery bills totaled $382.32.  That’s less than $100/week for our two-person family, and it included non-food items such as laundry soap, rock salt, and sundries such as shampoo. Keeping track gave me new respect for the whole shopping process, as well as letting me know that eating alkaline (at least 80 percent for the month) is no more expensive than a budget that would typically include meats, soft drinks, processed foods and other items that I consider to be unhealthy.

This has been a useful exercise for me because it made me realize that our own budgetary strains, such as they are, may relate more to eating out than to what I’m serving at home.  Next month, I’ll keep track also of the latter.

Second, a whole new perspective on exercise is starting to unfold for me, as the result of an article by Maria Chang, a medical writer for The Associated Press.   Writing from London, she did a very good job of summarizing how current research is suggesting that health authorities “rethink how they define physical activity, to highlight the dangers of sitting.”

I also loved her lead paragraph: “. . . Sitting is deadly.”  All of us who’ve sat in front of computers or even typewriters for long periods of time have sensed that, surely.

In an editorial published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Elin Ekblom-Bak of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, wrote that after four hours of sitting, genes regulating the amount of glucose and fat in the body start to shut down. 

Is it possible that we need to limit how much time we spend sitting?  Some of the most telling research that suggests we should, comes from a prospective study that tracked more than 17,000 Canadians for more than a decade, which found that people who sat more had a higher death risk, “independently of whether or not they exercised".

Americans, according to a 2003-04 study, spend more than half our time sitting, whether working at our desks or driving our cars, Chang noted.

Although more research is needed to understand how much sitting is harmful, and how we can offset its effects, it may be helpful to analyze your own current processes and see where you might want to make changes from sitting.  For instance, I realized a couple of weeks ago that my former habit of playing computer games at night was inhibiting my ability to get to sleep.  My mind was still preoccupied with the games, including a delightful Scrabble take-off called Lexulous, so that I couldn’t shut down and sleep.   Maybe standing at the computer would help? 

Am still running five miles a  day, and recently added some circuit training to balance my (deficient) upper-body strength with well-developed lower-body muscles.  The circuit training includes rowing, which, again, is sitting!   Obviously there are alternatives and it will take time for me to incorporate them.

Another set of exercises, adapted from Paul and Gail Dennison’s fine book, Brain Gym, is good for starting the day with gentle activity.  The best two in the small regime  that I enjoy are the Cross-Crawl, in which you lift one leg and touch your knee with the opposite hand, slowly and rhythmically, 10-20 times; and  Lazy 8s,  in which you extend your arms in front, clasp hands with fingers intertwined just below eye level,  thumbnails facing toward you.  Holding your head still, trace a horizontal 8, or infinity sign with your hands, and follow with your eyes.

Perhaps doing such relaxing activity at “standing breaks” from work, would be one way to break into the  sitting habit without seriously disrupting concentration.  Another possibility, mentioned above, is standing at your computer, perhaps walking down the hall to talk to a colleague instead of calling him.   If health authorities  take the sitting problem seriously, computer desks could be redesigned to help users to stand at least part of the time while working.

I’ve watched colleagues get tubbier over the years, and it usually does correlate with sitting a lot.  Even if it’s for a noble purpose, you might serve any goal better by being less sedentary.  Me, too!  I'm going to start by posting this while standing up!

DAY 77 This Alkaline Year A Research Day

Today is relatively quiet, no major news on the alkaline front, so I’m using the time  to research watering systems, including rain catchment systems, both for the three raised beds I’ll be planting this coming spring and fall,  and for the 40-50 lavender plants around my small farm.  Blog will resume tomorrow.

DAY 76 This Alkaline Year: Haiti, Shopping Basket and Footrace Planning

It seems almost sacrilegious to write about marketing and any kind of eating or workout, while my mind and soul are preoccupied with the horror in Haiti, where an individual could previously have lived for more than 100 days on what I spend in one week on groceries.   The medical situation in Port au Prince, including burying the dead, must occur first, but my attention was focused during today’s run on reconstruction.    How could that happen, and what can we as a country do to help?

What if we formed, at the national level, a Construction Corps, to include architects, engineers, builders, electricians, plumbers, and construction workers, which would have the initial mission of helping the Haitian people to rebuild?   It looks like most of the capital will need to be razed; could the rubble be reprocessed to create new building materials?  MIT, where are you?

Such a Corps, with intensive work for six months, could certainly make inroads on helping the Haitian people regain spiritual vision and material progress into whatever the future holds.  And Corpsmen, who would be encouraged to donate their time if that could be done without hurting their families, would certainly be in line for top jobs back home once Port au Prince rebuilding was underway.   The Haitian people who helped and eventually took over the reconstruction would become more stable and likewise in line for better positions in their economy.  What we do for others helps ourselves in the long run.

It is tempting to glaze over the whole issue of birth control while thinking about this, but I do feel strongly that any organization that ignores the problem of overpopulation in this day and age needs to rethink the reasons for its own existence.   Jesus Christ said absolutely nothing about birth control,  and Biblical injunctions to be fruitful and multiply were issued in an age where there was about one human being for every 25 square miles of tillable land.  What has occurred largely as the result of one church mindlessly trying to expand itself has been horrendous even without a major earthquake. 

Back to the less emotional issues!

This  second week’s shopping started more modestly than the first week,  with $55.76 being the total tab for a market basket that also included non-grocery items such as Windex. Good avocados at $1 each, lots of grapefruit at $1/pound.   Last night,  I transgressed at the cribbage group, where one member brought cookies centered with fresh lemon curd she’d made from lemons grown in our neighborhood.  AND I had coffee; I don’t feel bad about it but won’t continue the practice.  At another group I belong to here, for instance, last week the donuts and coffee weren’t even appealing.

Today was also a good time to plan strategy for the local 5 K footrace in March.  Having now determined that the course previously thought to be six miles was considerably less than that, and further measured (car odometer sets easily to zero at the start) an exact five miles, I graphed possible times for the distance from 12.3-minute miles (today’s run) down to 8.3-minute miles.  Of course, since 5K actually is 3.1 miles, I could have made the course that distance, but the longer distance gives me more time to meditate.

How do you increase speed at any age?  Running extra-fast for short distances between telephone poles used to help,  although in those days I didn’t have much vision about feelings while doing that.   Today I reminded myself that it was possible to enjoy these speeded-up times.  And although the telephone lines are all buried underground here, street signs serve the same purpose.

An artist friend who is managing her husband's discouraging physical situation (diabetes, Parkinson's and heart disease) wrote yesterday on the subject of caregiving, “By the grace of God may we muddle through this!”  


Her words must apply in a larger sense to Haiti as well as to our smaller personal concerns.

DAY 75 THIS ALKALINE YEAR More Garden Dreams

Because the vegetable gardening field is too large for me to research responsibly, I’m going to blog today about heirloom seeds, on which I’m going to focus in late spring and summer this year.  Heirlooms are old cultivars, before 1951 and going back 100-150 years, according to The Heirloom Vegetable Gardener’s Assistant (www.halcyon.com/tmend/heirloom.htm).  They are open-pollinated seeds, meaning  pollinated by birds or insects.  They have the tried-and-true advantage of being easy to grow, a reputation for quality.

Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage, for example, has appeared in American seed catalogs since the 1870s.  You’ll want to grow it early if you live in a hot, moist climate, as, according to the USDA, it develops a strong unpleasant smell if left out in very hot weather for too long. It’s included in the kitchen garden sampler from the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants (www.monticellocatalog.org/outdoor).  He and his slaves and, eventually, free men, grew nearly 300 varieties of vegetables in his 1,000-square-foot grden.  The sampler, for $16, includes Brandywine tomatoes, cayenne pepper, cos lettuce, early blood turnip-rooted beet, the aforementioned cabbage, prickly-seeded spinach, thyme, and white eggplant.  They will ship the sampler in early March, 2010.

The sampler will fill one of my three 5’x10’x3’ raised beds, which are made of Pacific Coast Redwood logs cut some three miles from my place when the logs’ owner wanted to thin his grove.  I’ll be able to sit on the edges of these beds to weed without  inconvenient bending!

Additional places for finding heirloom seeds include: Nichols Garden Nursery (Mansfield, MO and Petaluma, CA), www.rareseeds.com; R.H. Shumway (Wisconsin),  www.rhshumway.com;  Heirloom Seeds (Pennsylvania), which offers organic fertilizer and many other garden items including plant labels, 25 for $2.25 for those of us who can’t tell a turnip leaf from a salamander; and the intriguing Heritage Farm (www.seedsavers.org) where for a $40 membership, one can find advice on growing, the opportunity to trade seeds with other heirloomers, as well as a tremendous variety of available seeds.

Hope some of these suggestions work for you; let me know at koltun3@gmail.com.

DAY 74 THIS ALKALINE YEAR: Dreaming A Garden

Day 74 THIS ALKALINE YEAR:  Dreaming A Garden

Winter used to be the time to peruse the plant catalogs; now I study online.   It’s much more interesting than most of the staid old catalogs; the new Websites offer much more than seed and starts. Some, such as www.homegrownediblelandscaping@blogspot.com, offer design support.   This Pensylvania-based company is big on Facebook.  One Seattle-based site, www.eatyouryard.com, states: “The goal of this program is to cultivate year-around gardeners.”    And www.kitchengardeners.org  offers support, encouragement, and a funny view of Barack and Michelle Obama in a Grant Woods pose with carrots in their mouths.  

Still too early to order as we won’t be home from Arizona until April and our car won’t hold much more than ourselves, a few bags, and Binka.  Here are some more of the Websites to which I’ll turn at that time, or four days before we leave,  so they’ll be home when we arrive:

www.ediblelandscaping.com.  This Virginia-based company has more fruit and nut trees than actual vegetables, includes the most detailed zone chart I’ve seen, and detailed planting and caring information.  Particularly intriguing to me were their Knight asparagus, Arapaho thornless blackberries, and a dwarf blueberry for which I have the perfect pot that would, of course, need netting against our  hungry northwest birds.  Although almonds don’t usually grow well in the Pacific Northwest, I may try their Halls Hardy Almond, a cross of almond and peach trees.

Again in the starts department (tomorrow I’ll do a whole blog on seeds),

www.tastefulgarden.com, an Alabama-based firm, offers organic fertilizer, no zone chart, but shipping dates for most states.  They must  know what they’re talking about for Washington state, as they recommend  different dates for eastern and western Washington, which if states were based solely on climate would be two different ones.  I want ALL of their vegetables, which include skinny little French filet beans, leeks, fennel, zucchini and yellow crookneck squash.

DAY 73 THIS ALKALINE YEAR Good Energy!

The past week of eating mostly alkaline paid off today in a burst of energy that started when Binka jumped on our bed this morning with her usual demand to go outside.  A little later, she and I had a good five-mile run at a leisurely 14-minute pace.  Later, talking with the  Senior Games people,  a kind lady with a British accent told me that the winner in my age group last year covered the course in a little over 10-minute miles.  Well!  I’ve some work to do!

Rowed 2,000 meters in 14:57 later in the afternoon, and managed to find an hour to write part of a short story.  It’s always a good day when the latter happens.

Oatmeal with raisins for breakfast, soup for lunch made from last night’s leftover stew, and a big dinner salad, after which we played four-handed cribbage in a large group for the first time and snacked on an apple back home.

DAY 72, THIS ALKALINE YEAR Tools of the Trade

One problem of being a snowbird is that my favorite tools are sometimes in the other house.  This is particularly true this winter; our Northwest leave-taking was stressful as my husband had suffered a fall so I needed to pack for two of us.   What I miss the most is my beloved Vita-Mixer.  Here in Arizona I have a blender that doesn’t do the job well.  Tonight, for instance, I made garlicky cauliflower, which is supposed to have the consistency of mashed potatoes.  The blender purees reluctantly.   To make it grind up the steamed cauliflower, I needed to add so much vegetable broth  that the dish tasted like watery mashed potatoes.

Next to the top on my tools list is a knife with a heavy blade that will smoosh garlic cloves easily.  It, too, is sitting in my Northwest kitchen.  I also discovered while eating the cauliflower tonight that I’d used way too much garlic.  Half a clove of elephant garlic is plenty to flavor enough cauliflower to feed two adults; had used a whole clove and can still taste it an hour afterwards!

On the whole, however, today has been very good.  I spent half an hour on the rowing machine at our neighborhood athletic center, and later jogged two miles with Binka.   My athletic aspirations took a great leap when I found that our town has Senior Games in March.  I immediately signed up for a 5 K footrace, for which I may have an advantage in that it’s a much shorter distance than the five or six miles  I customarily cover, but a disadvantage in that I’ll be at the top of my age group (70-74).

Day 71 THIS ALKALINE YEAR Market-basket Update, New Food Prep Method

Made this week’s second (and final) grocery shopping, which included the usual tomatoes, almonds, radishes, eggplant, leeks, red onion, garlic, with a few new additions: apples, oranges, cauliflower, quinoa pasta, lemons, rolled oats.  Total: $43.13.  Total  for week: $116.06.  Seems expensive; thirty years ago, I fed a family of four on $100/week; this is just for the two of us with occasional guests.  Am hoping that total will go down as I pay greater attention to it.  Jack is getting into the spirit of this adventure, so perhaps I won’t need to buy much extra food for him.

When you go to all the food-prep effort of chopping and dicing and creating a great meal, it seems counter-productive to let leftovers moulder in the refrigerator, right?  My newest food prep method, for the past few nights, has been to make varied vegetable stews, a little more than we needed for dinner, refrigerating, then throwing the leftovers into the blender to make  soup for lunch the next  day.  One meal, which both Jack and I liked, was eggplant cutlets topped with a generous helping of the stew. 

To make the cutlets, roast the whole eggplant in a 400-degree oven for 20 minutes, let it cool a little, then peel it and cut four big slices, each about ¾” thick,  from the middle.  Brush each side with sesame oil, salt and pepper to taste, then set them aside until the stew is almost ready.   (You can use the extra eggplant the next day in the lunch soup.)   Just before finishing the stew (see below), turn the oven to “Broil.” Set the eggplant slices under the broiler until nicely browned on each side.

For the stew, you’ll already have a beet boiling and a yam nearly baked in the oven.  Dice  half of a big fennel bulb, as much of the leek as you care  to clean (the green part is good nearly up to the top), and brown them in a little olive oil.  Chop (each vegetable) and add half a green pepper, a tomato, the baked yam and mostly-boiled beet, and add half a cup of vegetable broth.  Add salt and pepper to taste, and spices such as turmeric or garam masala.  Cover, lower the heat and let the mixture simmer for five or ten minutes, adding more broth if needed.

While the stew is simmering, broil the eggplant cutlets as suggested above.  Spoon the stew liberally over and around the “cutlets” and enjoy!

Day 70 This Alkaline Year Do You Want to Live to 100?

During my travels of the last few weeks, I’ve enjoyed reading John Robbins’ Healthy at 100, an intelligent, sensitive book that explores spiritual as well as physical and mental aspects of increasing your life span.  An internationally-known speaker on environmental subjects, he has written several other books, including Diet for a New America.  I’ve been intrigued by his work for many years because he walks the talk without being self-absorbed: a particularly worthy goal.

Not having any particular aspiration to live to be 100—at least no more aspiration than I had to run marathons before doing it--Robbins’ book nonetheless underscored for me the importance of living healthily to any age.  Doing for others is essential to good health, and he provides numerous insights on this process.  He shows, for instance, how all societies where people live the longest have strong community, where wealth means nothing unless it is shared, and where the traditions of caring are strong.  Conversely, the societies where wealth is concentrated among very few people who do not share are characterized by short life spans among wealthy as well as poor.   I figure our North American society is a mixed bag!

As for the nutritional aspects of living a healthy old age, Robbins provides a fascinating discussion of the China Study, called the most comprehensive examination of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease.  A cancer survey, initially undertaken at the behest of then-premier Chou En-Lai, involved 880 million Chinese citizens, providing information about the rates of 12 kinds of cancer in different counties of that country.    Seven years after his death from liver cancer, the international China Study used this epidemiological base to study the nutrition in in 24 of China’s 27 provinces.

The correlations between eating habits and rates of cancer, heart disease and diabetes were so strong in the more affluent areas where people could afford to eat meat and took to it with gusto,  that Dr. T. Colin Campbell, who directed the project, said  it would be most accurate to stop referring to “diseases of affluence” and instead call them “diseases of nutritional extravagance.”

Robbins notes: “As a result of the vast amount of information gathered in the China Study, Dr. Campbell came to believe that the scientific evidence indicates a diet based on plant foods with a minimal amount of foods derived from animals as the ideal diet for human beings.”

Sound familiar?  That’s Michael Pollan’s “Eat food.  Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Might it be that as we become more affluent, we are faced with more choices of relating to our fellow human beings, and that as we share our food choices as well as other ways of caring, we strengthen our society as well as ourselves?  In a stronger society, living to 100 healthily could be the norm.

DAY 69 THIS ALKALINE YEAR A Constitution for Eaters: Voting With Our Dollars

Michael Pollan’s well-reasoned book, In Defense of Food, lays down three  simple but not simplistic rules for eaters that amount to a constitutional framework for healthy living, one that has judicial, legislative and executive aspects.   The rules: Eat food.  Not too much. Mostly plants.

If you accept  Rule One, for instance, the judicial part means  judging foods by whether they are whole foods or processed.  Are they grown locally or have they come from a distance?  If the latter,  have preservatives been used to keep them fresh?  The legislative part means  that when eating in company—as most of us want to do—you’re free to make different choices than  your table mates; everybody doesn’t have to eat the same way (although the eater should take responsibility for major food prep choices), and neither you nor they need to feel guilty or pressured about that.  Finally, the executive part means considering your food decisions carefully, including the money you spend on your choices.

If you’re going to eat organic vegetables, it will probably cost more.  Giving up wine and coffee can cut your costs dramatically while furthering your basic alkaline well-being.  Says Pollan: “. . . shopping this way takes more money and effort, but as soon as you begin to treat that expenditure not just as shopping but also as a kind of vote—a vote for health in the largest sense—food no longer seems like the smartest place to economize.”

Back on Day 60,  I noted: “I am willing to bet all comers that I can save $30  weekly on a two-person budget by eating alkaline, over what I’d buy to make Standard American Meals.  The reason:  I’ll be buying fresh fruits and vegetables, a little seasoning, rice and coconut milk, olive oil, whole grains such as emmer, quinoa and oatmeal.  Most important in the savings, of course, is what I’ll NOT be buying: coffee, sugar, most packaged, processed foods, meats, dairy, starches such as breads, and of course, alcohol.   I’d welcome suggestions for the comparison, which I’ll start in January, 2010.”

Okay, it’s pedal-to-the-metal time!  For my two-person family, husband not eating as alkaline as myself, grocery bills Jan. 5 totalled $72.96. That included organic avocados, grapefruit, bananas, broccoli, hearts of romaine, almonds, red cabbage, green bell peppers, parsley, anise,  salad dressing, salsa, and macaroni and cheese packets, the latter three  items being for Jack.  He already has cereal, bread, and rice milk on hand from previous shoppings, but this should even out in the next few weeks.

I’m keeping copies of the grocery bills, along with an Excel spread sheet.  Let me know how you’re doing; koltun3@gmail.com should reach me.  

Time to head out for an easy jog: three miles today.

Hope you enjoy the economic benefits of eating alkaline, as well as improved health!

Back to the Basics!

DAY 68 January 6, 2010 After a five-week hiatus in which I’ve traveled from Washington state to Boston and then settled into Arizona for the winter, I've made a variety of food choices, tending toward alkaline/vegan but often with  a glass of wine at dinner, coffee, breads, and sometimes dessert, I’m ready to start this blog again and of course to rejoin Camp Alkaline.   For  the last few days, I’m been a devoted camper, and already am beginning to shed a bad cold that followed the poor eating choices.  I’ve also acquired a  couple of new outlooks: 1) to explore how eating choices  help or hinder my daily walking/jogging; and 2) to make my alkaline food look more attractive to both my husband and myself.

Toward Outlook Two,  in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts gift shop, I found a handsome book, Great Chefs Cook Vegan, by Linda Long, who according to the inside cover blurb has been involved with vegan cookery for more than 30 years.  I can’t use all the recipes because some call for sugar  or artificial sweeteners, or for starches such as potatoes that are acid-forming, but the photography is wonderful and useful and many of the chef's dishes are adaptable.

Outlook One  will be easy to measure in another few weeks, as I  walk and jog nearly every day.  Our dog, Binka, goes with me, and if  I miss a day she responds by chewing up the furniture, which provides lots of motivation to get out there.  Using today as a baseline, we covered six-and-a-half miles in a leisurely hour and a half: 55 minutes walking the first 3.25 miles and 35 minutes jogging the last 3.25 miles. The times—15-minute miles overall, more than  10-minute miles on the jogging part--are far from the seven and eight-minute miles of my fifth decade; it will be fun to see if that can be whittled down without concomitant aches or pains.

I wish all readers a healthy, successful and joyous new year.