Six Mile Hike

In keeping with my plan to maintain fitness despite Doctors Orders, I hiked six miles yesterday, to the top of Big Bearpen again and then along Lower Lake Road and up Sunset Rocks and back.  I will consider the cataract surgery a success if my intraocular pressure remains at an acceptable level because the goal, after all, was 20/20 vision in my left eye, and it is clearly close to that.

What a great view from the top of Sunset, with my new lens implant, looking down on the Town spread out below me.  Were it not for trees blocking the red light on Main Street, I think I could have seen it cycle through from red to yellow to green.  I could count the windows on the front of Highlands Inn.  Vision is a wonderful thing, after all, and we do take it for granted.  That is why our language is filled with images (images!) about sight: insight, far-sighted, visionary, a light to my path.  I can see for miles and miles and miles.  With such great clarity!

  

Highlands Roadwalker

The other exercise Dr. Secosan released me to enjoy is walking, and I have been taking him at his word, walking at least two miles on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.  Yesterday, following a good report Monday afternoon, I decided to walk the four-mile loop from the Town Hall parking lot to the summit of Big Bearpen and back again, which I have been running on a weekly basis since mid-December, weather permitting.

The comparison between walking and running was an interesting one for me.  I admire the walkers that we see on our running route in the afternoons, many of them in their 70s and 80s, staying fit and enjoying themselves.  If one of them says something like "I can't go as fast as you" as I run by, I will invariably say something self-deprecating and encouraging, like "That's a much more sensible pace, believe me!" or, if we pass them more than once, "I just can't seem to get ahead of you!"  And I discovered Sunday when I took a long walk around our regular running route with Martha that I noticed much more around me, even had time to stop and talk to others who were out, or to more closely examine something seen along the road.  But yesterday I was able to make a direct statistical comparison between two known four-mile loops:

RUNNING Distance:  4.00 miles Elapsed time:  1:10:12 Pace per mile:  17:33 Heart rate on climb:  106

WALKING Distance:  4.00 miles Elapsed time (12/30/13):  44:14 Pace per mile:  11:03.5 Heart rate:  Unknown

I don't know what my heart rate has been while running because I have not yet succumbed to the temptation to wear a heart-rate-monitor when I run, but surely it has been more than 106.  According to one chart I consulted, that put me in the "weight management" zone of 60%-70%.  On a good day I am definitely iin the aerobic zone (70% - 80%) or the anaerobic threshold zone (80% - 90%).

That explains a lot about why I became a runner:  I can simply cover distance more quickly, which when I worked a regular job and had only a small window in which to exercise was an important factor.  It is also a good thing, according to much that I have read, to  get that heart rate up from time to time into the higher zones.

As for the exhilaration upon reaching the summit on a clear clear day in late February, high cirrus clouds streaking the sky, and the solo songs of Spring birds high in the bare branches of those big oak trees along the way?  Whiteside in the distance?  The sweet, sweet air.  Exactly the same.

The Bitterest Medicine

If anybody checks this blog from time to time, he or she might have noticed that there has not been a post in a week or so.  The reason for this silence is that I had small incision cataract surgery on Friday, February 21.  The surgery appears to be a success so far, according to my ophthalmologist, Dr. Secosan, and the vision in my left eye is something close to 20/20 at a distance when the haze of eyedrops and corneal trauma clears from time to time.  But until things settled down and I can get a new prescription for reading glasses, I am having difficulty reading and writing. 

The only other complication is the bitter medicine he gave me again yesterday:  no, not eyedrops, or that ointment I smear under my eyelid at night - no running before at least Monday, March 10.  I can, however, go to the gym and do other exercises that do not involve my new lens implant bouncing up and down (so plyometric jump squats are out as well).  I am being philosophical about Highlands Roadrunner not being able to run - perhaps the rest will do be good after all, and in the meantime the cross-training at the gym can't do me any harm.

My calendar entry for March 10 says Run Run Run!!!

Slowest Marathon Ever

My marathon last December was one of my slowest, though not as slow as the one I suffered through in 2007 (which taught me never to run another marathon in warm temperatures).  I look at every marathon as a victory if I merely cross the finish line, and plenty of younger, healthier men and women, some of them celebrities praised for having run a marathon, have run slower than 5:17:08.  There is even some stubborn pride in having run so slowly.

But today I came upon the story of the world's slowest marathon time, held by a Japanese runner named Shizo Kanakuri.  Kanakuri was actually an excellent runner who has been celebrated in Japan as the "father of the marathon,"  He set a world record in 1911 of 2:32:45 and was invited to attend the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.  However, according to Wikipedia, he is best known for his disappearance during the Olympic Marathon.  Like me (and that is probably our only similarity other than having run the same distance) he encountered warm conditions - 104 degrees F at the start - and like over half the runners in the event he suffered from hypothermia.  He lost consciousness (which I nearly did in 2007 under less trying circumstances) and dropped out of the race, returning to Japan.  But he returned to his native country without notifying Swedish authorities, who considered him missing for 50 years.  In the meantime, he had competed in other marathons, married,, and raised a family.  In 1966, he was offered the chance to complete his long-unfinished marathon in Stockholm, and he did so, clocking a time of 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 5 hours, and 32 minutes and 20.379 seconds.  He is quoted as having said after the race, "It was a long trip. Along the way, I got married, had six children and 10 grandchildren."  Kanakuri died in 1983 at the age of 92. 

It was indeed a long trip, as is every race..  But he was a finisher, and therefore a victor.

"Old Guy on Your Left!"

That's not really what I said during the Frostbite 5-K, but it's what I felt like saying as I passed literally scores of younger runners on that first massive hill.  It was a gorgeous day, temperatures up in the 50s, and cloudless skies.  And the course is equally gorgeous, climbing almost immediately from the Lelia Patterson Center in Fletcher up one hill after another.  Frisky horses galloped alongside us on that first hill, snorting and stamping in excitement.  I did feel especially good today! - no longer bothered by the lingering effects of the marathon two months ago, or cramped by that circle of tight muscles in my lower right leg.  So perhaps the visits to the gym, the continual stretching, and (the remedy every runner dreads) rest have done some good.

I love to run races, short or long, and it was in the back of my mind that this race was 23.1 miles shorter than my last one so I could afford to push the pace a little more despite the hills.  My senses seemed heightened as I wander through the crowd of gathering runners, hearing snatches of conversation, watching runners warm up.  We line up and listen to the national anthem, and it reminds me of so many races that I have run before.  The excitement is the same whether it is a marathon of a 5-K.

I am usually not very competitive, but this time I noted how many arrogant young teenaged boys were joking about getting "chicked" (passed by a "girl"), a supposed indignity which I no longer pay much attention to.  The first two finishers passed us on the way downhill (it was an out-and-back course, circling around a traffic cone), and the third finisher was not far behind, a lovely young woman with long, flying blond hair.  So I figure every man and boy in that race, except No. 1 and No. 2, got deservedly "chicked."  And it was entirely satisfying for an almost-65-year-old runner like me to pass so many younger runners on that hill, the teenagers and youngsters in their 20s and 30s.  Of course, I have been training on Big Bearpen!  My secret weapon.  I would come up behind one of these young studs, holding back for just a second to gather a burst of speed, and then absolutely blow past them as they glanced over to their left and saw this old guy with thinning hair putting them away!  I shouldn't take so much delight in such little things.

Not bad for an old guy, though - second place in my age group (out of four), and only 59th place out of  280 runners.  All the really fast old guys must have been running the 10-K.

Frostbite Race

It is with some trepidation that I have decided to miss the Saturday group run this morning in order to rest one day for a race tomorrow - my first race since the marathon I ran on December 14, the Frostbite 5-K in Fletcher.  This race is aptly named because it always takes place in early February, and on at least one occasion in the past it has been memorably windy and cold.

According to my race log, I first ran the Frostbite in 2005 with Martha.  I remember it well because that was the year I gave away my favorite running hat.  Moments before the race began the light rain that had been misting the air ceased completely, and as I was warming up I circled through the parking lot and concealed my hat up under the cover of my spare tire (the car being locked).  When I went to retrieve it after the race, I realized that I had unknowingly donated my hat to the owner of an identical red Honda CRV, which might have come as a surprise had it been discovered when changing a flat tire at some point.  I don't know why runners become so attached to hats, and socks, and other articles of "lucky" clothing.  But I was so disappointed in losing that fine hat that in succeeding years I checked out the spare tires of every other red Honda CRV in the parking lot at this race, hoping to find it still in that spare tire cover, as runners eyed me suspiciously.

Martha has another reason for remembering the Frostbite, because my notes indicate it was her first race ever.  Yes, I remember it now!  I was so proud of her as she won 2nd place in her age group (I took 3rd in mine, thus giving her a slightly larger ceramic pot at the awards ceremony than mine). "PB&Js and cookies at the finish line," my little log reminds me.  "And Mexican food in Brevard on the way home."  What wonderful memories we all have of going to races, good or bad - the crowds of other runners, the excitement of lining up at the start, the things that we see and that happen to us all along the journey, the little losses and wins that make running so worthwhile - so much like life itself, except life lived more intensely for just a little while.

My race log tells me that I ran this race again in 2009 - has it been five years? - the day before my 60th birthday.  Martha ran, too, and I noted that it was cold and windy.  The next day I was genuinely surprised at the Sapphire Mountain Brewing Company by a couple of dozen friends at a birthday celebration planned and organized by Martha.  Wonderful memories!  And I hope to add to them tomorrow.

Valentine's Day

Our road has now been scraped by the D. O. T. at least three times - once late yesterday afternoon, and twice this morning.  The sun is shining and the snow is diminishing.  Is it possible that I will actually be able to get out and go running this afternoon?  I have not run since Tuesday, and if necessary I am willing to simply run up and down our driveway, or any other dry stretch of pavement, for as many times as it takes to get some distance covered and to dispel this dark lethargy that overcomes me when I cannot run.

But the sun is shining today and I am a happy man.  Not just because I will be able to go outdoors and run, but because it is February 14, Valentine's Day.  And the 37th Valentine's Day that I will be spending with my loving wife Martha!  It does not seem that long!  But at the same time, it seems like forever that I have held her in my arms and in my heart, my true love.  And it is another snowy February, just like those good old days on Arrowood  Road, isn't it?

I love you, Martha!  

Happy Valentines Day!

Diary of a Snow Shoveler

For many years at the Highlands-Cashiers Players Christmas Reading, local actor Stuart Armor has read a hilarious piece called "Diary of a Snow Shoveler."  I suppose I must sound like that naive, hapless snow-shoveler at the beginning of a long season of relentless snow, but I really do love clearing walks and driveways with that little aluminum blade, exposing sidewalk and driveway with clean, geometric precision.

Snow-shoveling reminds me of growing up in Connecticut, where we sometimes had epic snows.  Here's a photo my Dad took sometime in the mid-1960s on the 35mm camera he had just gotten for Christmas - our little Cape Cod house on Anthony Road:

My brother and I, entrepreneurs that we were, would head out the morning after a heavy snow (but only AFTER we had shoveled our own driveway!) with nothing but snow shovels in our hands, and would go door-to-door down the block.  "Want your driveway shoveled?"  we would ask.  There was little competition from home snow-blowers at the time (which were new-fangled in the 60s) and we could name our price - anywhere between $2.00 and $5.00 depending on the length of the driveway, which seemed like an enormous sum to us at the time.

So today I remembered shoveling snow with my older brother, who is long gone except in my memory.  He would have appreciated the sleet we had here last night, which turned 3 or 4 inches of snow into an inch of condensed, heavy ice.

Now I'm waiting for the D.O.T.'s snowplow driver to erect that long, high ridge of ice at the foot of the driveway.  Where was he?  When I was a boy he used to show up at the precise moment we went inside the house and took off our wet gloves.

More Snow

More snow today - about 3 more inches.  And no running.  We spent the day indoors, catching up on indoors activities, and then ventured out in the afternoon to take some photos and turn the heater on in the well and pump houses.  So far our power, which flickered once or twice last night, has been rock-steady today.  Martha got on the treadmill and I did some light exercises, but the footing was just too treacherous to venture out today.

Yesterday:

Today:

Running in a Hasui Print

It began snowing here pretty heavily this morning, then tapered off by mid-day.  What a beautiful snow it was, too!  Clinging to every branch and leaf like it does sometimes when there is absolutely no wind and the temperature hovers just below freezing.  I felt like I was in a Japanese woodblock print by Hasui:

The roads were still unfrozen so I decided to run from my house, down Sassafras Gap Road, in the haunting beauty and utter silence of a February snowstorm.

All the little birdhouses in our yard were magically transformed as well.  Astonishing beauty!

More snow, truly deep snow, is forecast for tomorrow.  We will look forward to exploring with camera and wide open eyes, and hope that the power stays on.

Storm Breeder

Yesterday my Saturday long run went better than expected - 8.6 miles, all over Town, and many runners coming with me away from the usual three-mile route.  After lunch I decided to tackle more of that firewood I had cut a couple of weeks ago.

This oak has been especially difficult to split, but often when you cut it and leave the grain exposed in a little rain and snow for a few days, or approach it on a sub-freezing day, it will split more readily.  It is very satisfying to hit one of these big sections of log once, twice, three or four times, and suddenly notice a different, deeper, hollower sound to the blow, and watch the impregnable surface cleave suddenly into two halves, and then halves of halves, narrower and narrower.  Slowly each section falls into a little scattered pile of stove wood:  the fresh aroma of red oak, the chips scattered around, the THWACK of the go-devil, the fresh cold air as I stop from time to time to stretch and load the old wheelbarrow.  The stack of wood grows larger, little by little, just like the miles I log in my little running journal:

It's a good thing, too, because now the weather stations are all predicting another snowstorm - Winter Storm Pax - for next week.  Firewood on the patio, soup in the pantry, fuel oil in the tank and gas in the generator.  The satisfaction of being resourceful!

The IronStrength Workout

Today was my day to go to the gym and lift weights, something I have been trying to do twice a week since completing my marathon in December.  Winter is down-time for me and most other runners, so it is a good opportunity to hit the gym and strengthen some muscles; runners are notorious for having unbalanced muscular strength and I have found over the years that cross-training can keep injuries at bay.  And my last marathon was affected by some issues that could perhaps be remedied with some leg presses, curls, extensions, and toe-raises, all of which I have been doing for several weeks.

This month's issue of Runners World has an article about Dr. Jordan Metzl's IronStrength workout.  Metzl is an accomplished marathon runner and triathlete and the author of a book called The Athlete's Book of Home Remedies, which I happen to have bought a year or so ago and read with great interest; it includes a series of exercises designed to strengthen runners in particular - the glutes, hamstrings, and other weak spots runners all develop over years of running - most of them not requiring weights.  Here's the link, but it doesn't seem to be working today, probably because every reader who subscribes to Runners World is watching the video:

http://www.runnersworld.com/workouts/ironstrength-workout

The most important exercise in the workout, which I incorporated into my own workout today, he calls the plyometric jump squat (or, in the book, iso-explosive bodyweight jump squats.  This lovely lady demonstrates the exercise in the video, which Dr. Metzl says should be easy for runners to do:

I did a few of these on the aerobics floor where I could scrutinize my form in the big mirrors on the walls.  And needless to say it was a challenge for an old guy like me.  No, that is an understatement.  My legs burned so much going up the stairs from the weight room that I wondered why nobody had considered installing an elevator.

Will this make me a stronger runner, as the editors of Runners World who tried to workout for a few weeks claim?  Time will tell. 

Also, my long run tomorrow morning may be a bit of an ordeal to complete.

Zeno's Paradox

I seem to dimly remember, dredged up from the recesses of an undergraduate philosophy class, something called Zeno's Paradox.  I don't often apply classical philosophy in my everyday life so I had to resort to this definition in Wikepedia to refresh my memory:

Zeno's paradoxes are a set of philosophical problems generally thought to have been devised by Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea (ca. 490–430 BC) to support Parmenides's doctrine that contrary to the evidence of one's senses, the belief in plurality and change is mistaken, and in particular that motion is nothing but an illusion.

Now that is especially amusing because the reason Zeno popped into my head today was that I was running 400-meter intervals, in the same place as in recent weeks, near Harris Lake.  I was having a little trouble getting each one below 2:00, but on the second-to-last one I had just hit 1:58, which was very satisfying.  "I can do better than that," I told myself.  "Only a year or two I was running these at 1:45 and even 1:40.  I'm not getting older, I'm just not used to using my fast-twitch muscles."  (Yeah, right.)  So I started the last one, which ends adjacent to Harris Lake at the intersection with Leonard Road, filled with a renewed sense of purpose, and as I neared the little white line which marks each interval on the pavement, I noticed that a large and playful-looking brown dog had begun to run from the little park area near the lake directly toward me, and just before I reached the mark he was in front of me, forcing me to veer off-course.  I glanced at my watch - 1:57? - and said, "Dammit."  The apologetic owner had by then corralled his dog.  "I'm so sorry," he said.

"That's OK," I gasped, "Not his fault.  I was just trying to time myself to that little white mark there."

The dog's owner crouched down and clamped a leash onto his collar and scolded the dog.  "Now see what you've done, Zeno?"

I ran the final cool-down mile filled with remorse for having gotten angry at poor Zeno, who after all only wanted to play.  It was a lesson in not taking my running or my watch so seriously.

Or Zeno of Elea, either.  "Motion is nothing but an illusion?"   Thanks, but I'll go with the evidence of my senses.

Zeno of Elea

All Over the Place

It's nice to run with friends, but we normally run the same three-mile route in the afternoon.  Some might call it a rut.  Today I had to run a little earlier, starting about 1:30 p.m., so I was by myself.  My thoughts were miles away before I suddenly realized that I had gone nearly a half-mile and was at the familiar end of Fifth Street, turning right, the same route I ran every day.  Instantly I decided to change it up a little, and I turned left, not knowing exactly where I was going.

What a  great feeling that is for a runner! - not to know exactly where one is going.  I ended up running up to Highway 64, past the ball field, down Cullasaja Drive to the Mirror Lake Bridge, a route I had not taken in months, not actually planning out the route, just letting whim, light and shade, and terrain lead me onward.  Ducks were taking off from the lake, the sun was warm, and there were streaks of high white cirrus clouds overhead.  I circled back, climbed  Foreman Road hill, and then back up Chestnut to Sixth, around to the Peggy Crosby Center, down Spring Street, up Main Street.  My GPS watch told me the total distance - 6.16 miles - and I when I got home I jubilantly wrote in my running log:  "All Over the Place!"

The View from the Summit

Yesterday's run was indeed  remarkable for February.  Once again I found myself in shorts and T-shirt, running by the frozen Harris Lake (no longer safe for ice-skating, but still covered with a milky skim of ice).  And it was good to run up venerable Big Bearpen Mountain again after the unrelenting flat roads of Amelia Island.  I had e-mailed my friend Fred, who lives on the very summit, and told him how I had been missing my favorite running route and asking him whether the roads were still icy on the summit.  He told me that it would be better not to admit that I actually enjoyed running up Bearpen.

On the summit, there were muddy ruts where only a short time ago there had been ice.  The vista is always a little different, but this time I could make out the lakes of South Carolina, glimmering out along the horizon.  Or was it just a mirage?  My eyesight has been deteriorating a bit more than usual, aggravated by cataracts and compounded by an incident that had happened two or three weeks ago when (I believe) I had been keeping a very hot fire going in the fireplace insert.  I realized one morning that there was something wrong with my transition lenses:  a fine spiderweb cracking developed all along the surface, which I determined from reading some on-line forums was probably caused by the heat of the open fireplace.  My potter friend confirmed that one of his friends had suffered the same problem with his transitions, caused he thought by a hot kiln.  So on the way down the mountain, light strobing through the trees, I actually took off my glasses and could see better without them.

Effective February 1, my Medicare coverage became effective, which is both comforting and frightening.  So today I spent some time with my opthalmologist, Dr. Secosan in Brevard, who has been treating my eyes for 25 years and performed the glaucoma surgery (called a trabeculectomy) on  them nearly 20 years ago.  I decided to have cataract surgery in one eye.  Is this what everybody does when they go on Medicare,  I wondered?  Go to Florida and have cataract surgery?

Home Again

As much as we enjoy going places, it is always nice to come home again to a place like Highlands.  We were greeted by unusually warm weather, as if Florida had hitched a ride with us; temperatures were way up in the 50s.  What a joy it was to go to our church Sunday morning, to go to the Civic Center and work out on the great new equipment, and to go on a six-mile run with friends we have not seen for several days.  Home again.

And to be wearing shorts and a thin T-shirt on top of it all!  Today the sun is out and the sky is blue and it is 55 degrees on the back porch.  But I am not so easily deceived.  As much as we would like to believe it, that groundhog saw his shadow on Sunday.  So I spent some time today working on that pile of logs and trying to get some more firewood stacked up before the next storm.

I will not rest easily until that pile is a lot higher.

Respite in Florida

It has been an unusually cold winter in Highlands, as this blog has pointed out, and last week we decided it was time for a respite.  So we decided to escape for a few days to Fernandina Beach, Florida, on Amelia Island.  We had never been there before so it was fun exploring the historic district, eating fresh seafood, and enjoying some more temperate running.  While we were gone, the latest winter storm, Leon, extended its cold and icy grip far into the south, snarling traffic in Atlanta to the extent that I-285 became a parking lot.  We saw horror stories on Facebook of friends forced to spend the night in a Home Depot, and there were several local fender-benders.  We were fortunate to have missed the snow and ice by one day - our house during our absence looked like this (photo taken by our neighbor Dori):

Dori reported that they were enjoying sledding on our road, which would have made transportation a little difficult and would have brought my running program to a stand-still (or its opposite, a fall-down).  Still, I have to confess that we were a little envious missing the Clear Creek Winter Wonderland and putting the sled into operation again.

Fernandina Beach was chiller than expected (and the locals said it was unusually cold, even for January), but I had not realized how much I had become acclimated to the colder temperatures this winter.  My first morning found me doing a three-miler along the beach road in 36-degree temperatures, and it felt absolutely balmy!  My warmest day was Friday - temperatures well into the 50s - through a lovely, long and curving road to Fort Clinch, on the northern end of the island:

The three-mile road was intersected by cycling and hiking trails, and in addition to the snowy egrets I had seen the previous day I saw this great egret (not my photo, but exactly like this) during my run.

But during the summer months I would have been a little nervous departing from the main road.  This sign was prominently displayed all along the road and along the nearby Egans Creek Greenway:

No worries.  I'd sooner encounter a Highlands bear than a gator of any size.  And what about those Burmese pythons that are overrunning the state, I asked our desk clerk?  I'm not from around here.

"Oh, I killed one of those in my back yard last week."