Member-only story
Jogging in Avalon
One morning, after a twenty-four hour shift, I strapped sneakers on and set out for the year’s first half-marathon. I’d plotted a course that started right near the back of Fire Station number Two in Palmetto, FL and wound through Emerson Point along the Gulf of Mexico.
The first mile was a shaded concrete footpath.
A ditch, barely alive with the trickle of non-recent rainfall was on my left. Chain link fence edged the wooded track on my right. Brief swaths of land would occasionally interrupt the running chain link, those were strategically marked with outdoor exercise equipment.
A wooden lean-to, designated for sit-ups, a push-up bar, a pull-up station.
The apparatus served as a nice warm-up; one final procrastination for the coming three-hour crawl.
As the obstacles came to an end over one last culvert, I pushed on between two white poles preventing vehicles mistaking the concrete trail for a left hand turn. A definite possibility, as it met the pavement right in the middle of a fifty-five and up community.
Now, there were mobile homes with clean, sandy-colored vinyl siding. Miniature American flags flew on the mailboxes and full-sod yards were trimmed like perfect Chia pets.