The Hardy Boys and Morning Runs

Two of the greatest pleasures of my life are reading and running.  If I do nothing else, I want to encourage J.P. and Joe to develop a lifelong love of reading and running, or some other physical activity.

Recently, I went to my mom's house and after digging around her attic, retrieved several "Hardy Boys" books.  Jude and I have been struggling a bit to find age appropriate books to read to J.P. and I thought he might enjoy reading, or me reading to him, one of the Hardy Boys books.

As a boy, I devoured the The Hardy Boys mysteries.  Frank and Joe Hardy were two of the heroes of my youth.  Books like those were what helped me develop my love of reading.

Running, well, I've written many times about how important running is to me.  Lately, I've been getting up early - 5:20 a.m. - and heading out for morning runs in the new 'hood.  This is huge for me, because I've always been a late night person, as a result of which I haven't been much of a morning person.  For the last few years, I've run mostly at night, after the boys are in bed.  By time I unwind after my run, read and get to bed, it would often be after midnight.

This morning, I hit the streets at 5:30 a.m.  I violated my longstanding rule of not starting a run when it's raining, because I really wanted to get a run in and it was only drizzling.  Of course, as soon as I headed down Belmont Blvd., it started pouring rain and I ran the rest of the 3 miles in a hard rain.  It's been so hot, really, that it was kind of nice.

Now, the good part.  I got home, the front door opened and out popped J.P.  "Can we go for a run, Dad? he asked.  I smiled and replied, "sure."  So, we ran stretched, ran down Belmont Blvd., and finished at Belmont U.  We got water and Gatorade from the Circle K, then walked home together, talking all the way.  And that's the best part, the walking and talking.

After breakfast, we laid in bed and finished reading "The Hooded Hawk Mystery," the first Hardy Boys' book we've read together.  Awesome.

A perfect morning for me.