The gas company woman crouching on the sidewalk looked up at me as I passed her for the second time. She nodded a greeting, but she looked suspicious.
Maybe she thought this didn’t look like the kind of neighborhood where anybody did much jogging. Some of the houses along this street were distressed, dilapidated or maybe even just given up for dead.
Soaked garbage lay scattered by a fence that did little to keep the weeds from reaching the sidewalk.
Maybe she thought I looked out of place, which I was, but I’m sure others had run through ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä’s East End. Sure, maybe not many, but a lot of runners stay away from densely populated residential neighborhoods.
You can step around rotting garbage, broken glass or high weeds. It’s harder to keep away from the cars.
People on their way home drive like idiots. They roll through stop signs or absolutely skip them. Drivers unable to wait another five minutes for the latest update, distract themselves with Facebook or, worse, X (formerly Twitter), and every now and again, one of them will creepily slow down as they pass, like they’re considering stopping to toss you in the trunk.
I smiled wearily and waved. I was totally harmless, just passing through.
Please don’t mace me.
There were miles yet to go — at least a couple more on this particular run and another 297 before the end of the month.
Twenty years ago, I moved to ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, put down roots, and made the city my home (even if I currently live outside of city limits).
The recent trouble with gas service on the West Side reminded me how little I really know about the city where I live. After 20 years, it still surprises me. I’m still finding out things I didn’t know.
For December, I thought I should dive a little further into learning about ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, get to know something about the geography of the city.
That brought me to Mayor Amy Goodwin. We work out at the same gym. I’m better at pullups. She’s better with the jump rope, but that may not be forever. She works harder than I do.
One morning, I asked her if she knew how many miles of street the city of ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä had.
She said, “I don’t know, but I know who to call to ask.â€
A few minutes later, the mayor came back with the number: 300. ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä has 300 miles of streets.
The mayor asked me why I wanted to know.
I told her I was thinking about running or walking on every street, maybe putting my foot on every mile. This would be a way to see parts of the city I’d never known or paid any attention to. Who knows what I might find?
The mayor shrugged. Sure, why not?
But running 300 miles in a month would be a challenge even if I’d still been training like I had for the ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Distance Run in September. To prepare for that 15-mile race, I’d run between 3 and 6 miles four or five days a week and then much longer on the weekend.
Briefly, I considered grabbing one of those electric scooters that have cropped up in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä. Zipping around like that, I could probably cover 300 miles, but I think my scooter days left right around the time I graduated the seventh grade.
Also, I felt like if I was riding around on a scooter or driving in a car, I’d miss something. Everything would go by too fast.
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It wasn’t just that I wanted to travel over every street, but I wanted to pay some attention to what I was seeing. I wanted to take it in and see some of the details.
No, I wanted to run and walk the streets. Ten miles a day to start was too much, but maybe I could work up to the distance. Besides, the point wasn’t necessarily to cover 300 miles in 30 days, but to see as much of the city as I could.
To help me keep track of where I was going and where I’d been, the mayor offered to send me a city street map. I could trace my path, avoid repeating the same routes unnecessarily and maybe come up with plans of where to go.
My first trip out was on a brisky, sunny Saturday afternoon.
It was an awful run. Brisk is annoying.
I’d rather run when it’s cold.
When temperatures get to around freezing, it’s easy to dress for the weather. You wear long underwear under your sweats. You can either use the same cotton stuff you used to dread getting at Christmas when you were 8, or the slick, modern stuff that makes everybody look like a superhero (with the right lighting).
You cover your head and maybe your neck, face and eyes. You wear thick gloves and at least two pairs of wool socks.
Or, you skip all of that and go run on a treadmill at the YMCA. You might have to watch FOX news while you’re getting in your miles, but at least you don’t have to worry about slipping on ice, risking hypothermia or looking like a deranged version of the Michelin Man.
The in-between temperatures are harder for me to figure out. Invariably, I overdress and underdress.
The sweatshirt I’m wearing will be too warm, but I can’t take it off because the T-shirt underneath is soaked through with sweat. My head freezes because I didn’t bother to wear a hat, but that feels off because I’m fine in flimsy running shorts.
The gloves I’m wearing will be completely unnecessary, but I can’t do anything with them because I don’t have pockets. Meanwhile, my toes have gone numb. I should’ve worn wool socks.
Because it was the very beginning of the project, I chose a route through the East End, an area I was somewhat familiar with.
I started at the end of Capitol Street, turned right, ran past Capitol Market and ran straight on. I jogged past the ballpark and then later past the Roosevelt Neighborhood Center and the East End Community Park, where they have the local community garden plots.
I ran as far as the street would take me, which was a dead end not far from the Capitol. Then I turned around and started back in the direction of where I’d begun, following parallel streets.
As best I could, both to and from, I went up and down side streets and turned down dead ends.
I passed the gas company worker three times and also several folks out walking dogs or just making their way from one place or another.
I stopped at 4miles and then walked another two, mostly tracing one portion of the East End. Then I worked my way back, staying on sidewalks I hadn’t been on that day.
The next day, I left again from Capitol Street, running to the west side. I got as far as Kroger’s before turning back. Again, on my route, I tried to circle blocks and cover side streets, while also trying to stay out of the way of carloads of people headed to church.
On my first weekend, I put in a puny 9 miles. I’d have to do a lot better if I hoped to get anywhere within 300 miles.
Three hundred miles seemed impossible, but maybe 150 or 200 in 30 days was achievable with a certain amount of grim determination.
But all of that went into doubt as soon as two lines appeared on a COVID test. At long last, I’d finally caught the bug.
