Pretty cool tiny marquee one of my daughters got for her sister for her birthday…

(Sunday Paper, Year IV, Issue 39)

Last week I tried to run 9 miles.

I know I promised I wouldn’t be one of those guys who constantly talks about his running, but this is not a brag.

The 9-mile attempt did not go well.

About the only positive that came out of the (attempted) run was the idea for this blog post.

I knew I was going to be away this weekend and I didn’t want to be slapping together a last-minute post on Saturday night while trying to enjoy some time with the family.

So here I present to you 9 thoughts I had during the almost two hours I struggled through 9 miles of terrain last weekend.

1) The first thing I thought about when I began my run on Sunday afternoon (remember, I wrote last week about how I skipped the Jets game to do this run) was how easy that first mile was. I thought, boy, I’ve come a long way. I breezed through that first mile. The next 8? They sure were a problem.

Here’s the thing - I tried a different route. I ran for 6 miles - an hour, basically - and it went OK. But then I took my walking rest and 5 minutes of walking turned into 10 minutes of walking turned into pretty much 3 miles of walking. And the different route I ran was just mostly uphill for those last three miles and I just could not get my body to get running again. It was a classic case of hitting the wall…but I guess it also becomes a measuring stick. Some other time I’ll try to tackle that course again and see if I do any better.

But it won’t be until after I train a lot more.

2) I’m not sure if I undersold the new Keane album last week. I stand by the fact that if you haven’t listened to Keane at all yet (but you’ve certainly heard them on the radio - either ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ or ‘Everybody’s Changing’ or, as I realized when it came on the speakers in Whole Foods this week, ‘Is It Any Wonder?’) you’re going to want to start with earlier albums. But this album is very good, and the songs, though the majority of them are not very up-tempo, are really, really good...a lot of them about the friendship of the band and how that friendship has ebbed and flowed over the years.

3) As you can tell by the banner picture above, it’s almost time for another Comedy Night at Exhibit ‘A’! The October show is sneaking up on me fast, and tickets are on sale - you can get them at this link.

3a) And while I’m self-promoting: @jsucich on Twitter, and Like the page on Facebook!

4) The nine-miler was not only one of my longest runs (well, two-thirds of a run) but it was also the first time I did a really long run before I did a comedy show. Sunday night I was at The Comedy Studio, wrapping up that stretch of dates I had there that began in late August. Each of those shows was valuable for me - I worked and re-worked some stuff, and I tried out a couple of new things on the Sunday night show. Each show went really well - there were some great crowds and I left each of those shows really happy and grateful to have the chance to perform there as often as I do.

And even though my body quit on me during the run, it managed to make it through my five minutes on stage.

5) The past few weeks I’ve been telling you I’ve been finishing up working with an editor on a piece that should run soon…and I just found out it will run on a popular writing site on October 14th. So that’s something to look forward to.

6) I am aware that after last week’s list of the ‘things I like about Keane’ (one other thing I didn’t list was the fact that they are not super-super-popular so it feels like Kathy and I have a secret that other people don’t really know about) and then after writing this piece in this format it seems like I have an obsession right now with writing in list form.

The evidence seems to suggest that is true…but it’s not something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. I do enjoy writing things in list form - but it’s not a habit I’ll get into with the Sunday Paper.

7) Looks like I’m not the only Sucich brother with a monthly brewery show. I told you recently about Matt’s big party at Big aLICe Brewing to support his album and the release of the similarly-named beer. That looks like it’s turning into a monthly residency at the Brooklyn site of the brewery. (Not to be confused with the Long Island City version.) I don’t think I can make the October show but I love that it’ll be happening every month and I’ll make it to one of them. (And this ties into the running theme because I have listened to ‘Thousand Dollar Dinners’ on runs before - it’s good to run too.)

8) The Mets unlikely run to the playoffs came to an end this week…and thank goodness the Jets have a bye week this week. I have no qualms about missing future Jets games to go for runs…and it’s a lot easier to get through a busy October when there aren’t Mets playoff games to work around. It was a frustrating Mets season - they blew a lot of games early on that you just knew were going to haunt them in the final weeks. And they sure did.

I am putting this post to bed Friday night, after Mets first baseman Pete Alonso hit his record-tying 52nd home run as a rookie. I’m hoping by the time you read this he owns the record…or at least ends up setting it later today.

9) I spent pretty much the last mile of that (attempted) run last week thinking, “Really? You were thinking about running a marathon? This isn’t even half-marathon distance! What were you thinking?” And, I mean, I was right…but I also was not running the marathon last Sunday, you know? This may have been the kick in the butt I needed to realize, hey, it’s not easy. It’s not like you can roll out of bed and run 9 miles. Up until 8 miles things have come surprisingly easy and not painful. Seems like I still have a lot of work to do if I end up doing a half-marathon anytime soon or a marathon anytime in the future.

Which is OK. I’m willing to put that work in.

My last thought on Sunday was, “I’m never running again.”

But I’ve come around over the week to thinking, “I’m going to work harder and soon I’ll conquer this 9 mile route.”

(But first I’ll do some training on some other routes.)