2. Thanks, runners, for all your wise advice. I’ve been doing the “add a minute each time at the faster pace” and so far I am up to fourteen whole minutes at the 10 minute/mile pace, and then I try to run at least another mile at my slower jog pace. I am heeding folks’ cautions about allowing for adequate recovery time as well.

3. In a related note, man alive, when you go to the gym in the early afternoon, it is silent as the grave. When I unpacked my stuff in the locker room, I took up, like, the whole entire bench without a qualm. (Have you noticed that even if there’s only one other person in the locker room, inevitably they have picked the locker next to yours, so you get in each other’s way regardless?)

4. Saddest sight — well, I guess not saddest per se, but the most indicative-of-neighborhood-change — that I’ve seen since returning to Portland: the ex-Clown House yard, put into service as a Christmas tree lot. Sigh.