The hay is in the barn.

Two weeks until I run the marathon I've been training for since late July. I'm feeling pretty good about it; training has gone pretty well, and I'm confident I can meet the goals that I've set for myself. This is always a nice part of the training calendar. The big runs have all been completed, and I'm tapering for a couple of weeks. Sometimes the surfeit of energy produced by the taper can make me feel a little bit edgy, but it's better than being worn out and sore all the time the way I usually am at the height of marathon training.

In other news I'm reading Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book when I get a spare moment. It's not a book that people read much anymore--not even professional Victorianists such as myself. 600 pages of dense poetry has a way of taking people off their game. It's another sign--as if there weren't enough already--that poetry has long been taken off central stage in our society. It's sad really; it's beautiful, interesting, funny, intriguing, challenging verse novel that lies relatively dormant because no one--aside from a few specialists like myself--reads it anymore.