Fall Temperatures in July

We have been visited this month by a lovely reprieve from the usual heat and humidity of July and August.  A "Mini Polar Vortex," as the weather forecasters describe it, has brought a surge of cool Canadian air to Highlands, with temperatures this week down in the 50s every morning.  I'm not complaining - it has seemed like an early taste of Fall, and even the burning bushes behind Mountain Fresh Grocery and those lovely maple trees alongside the Presbyterian Church are starting to show some color.  Surely Fall is the best time of year to run in Highlands.

The plan called for six miles Tuesday - including two mountain (Big Bearpen and Sunset) -  six miles Wednesday, and six mile today.  And it has been accomplished!

But I have to admit that my legs are feeling a little tired.  Time for a rest tomorrow before Saturday's long run.

Week Two - Perfect Pitch

Week One is over and Week Two has begun.  I ended up doing two ten-mile runs in Week One - one on Sunday and one on Friday - and 10 miles in between, so a total of 30 miles within 6 days.  Now is the time to build miles.

I did not run Saturday because I drove to Asheville to read some poetry.  Yes, it's true, I confess it - Highlands Roadrunners is also Highlands Poemwriter (the two activities are not entirely dissimilar, I find, as I place one word carefully after another on the path) and two of my poems were selected this year as finalists in the North Carolina Literary Review's James Applewhite prize.  So although I did not win, I "placed," and it was an honor to meet James Applewhite himself and be invited to read one of my poems (both of which will be published next year) in front of a hundred or so North Carolina poets (most of them University professors who knew one another, it seemed).  When I read my poem, I first blew upon this little pitch pipe that I took out of my pocket.

 

I suppose most people might think it is about my Dad's pitch pipe, which (I explain in the poem) I inherited when he died.  But it is not.  It is about writing poetry, about the creative process itself, about the poems which we pitch into the cavernous chancel silences.  The marathons we have the audacity to attempt to run.

Tomorrow is a rest day, but the next day I will resume training with six miles of hills.  And all around me I will marvel at the gentle breeze, lifting the hemlock boughs, and all around me the sounds of the great good choir beginning to sing as I climb Big Bearpen once again.

Daily Kick in the Butt

As a long-time subscriber to Runner's World, I now receive a "Daily Kick in the Butt."  This kick comes to me every day, by e-mail, in the form of an inspirational quote.  I am not sure why they are referred to as a kick in the butt rather than, say, a "Looking Good," or "You Can Do It!"  Today this one arrived in my inbox:

"Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle." - Wilma Rudolph

Yes indeed!  That's what I've been saying, Wilma (see recent posts).  Another way of saying it might be, "The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it." (Moliere)  Or, "Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life.”  (Haruki Murakami).

Gold medalist and Olympian, Wilma died in 1994 after a stunning career.  Imagine what struggles she went through as an African-American Woman!  Wikipedia just scratches the surface:

Wilma Glodean Rudolph was born prematurely at 4.5 pounds (2.0 kg), the 20th of 22 siblings from two marriages;her father Ed was a railway porter and her mother Blanche a maid.  Rudolph contracted infantile paralysis (caused by the polio virus) at age four. She recovered, but wore a brace on her left leg and foot (which had become twisted as a result) until she was nine. She was required to wear an orthopaedic shoe for support of her foot for another two years. In addition, by the time she was twelve years old she had also survived bouts of polio and scarlet fever.

From that beginning to "the Fastest Woman in the World," as she was called at the time.  What a hard race she had!

 
I can't come close to that kind of struggle.  But I did need that kick in the butt today. 

Training

I love to be in training mode.  Whether it is a 5-K, 10-K, half marathon, or marathon, it is the same:  there is a goal to attain, and now the matter at hand is to focus on that goal, to persevere day by day.  I have set out my little training plan for the next 16 weeks on my calendar.  And while I can be flexible, and should in fact at my age be very attentive to the little aches and pains that might portend injury, it is now a simple matter of running each workout, day by day, one at a time.

And so far it is going well:  10 miles on Day One, rest on Day Two, 4 miles up Bearpen on Day Three, and 6 miles today on Day Four.  Four days so far!

Only 109 more days to go.

Week One Day One

What if a 65-year old runner wanted to try another marathon?  Would that be a crazy idea?

I have thought about this recently (see blog post of June 7, 2014) and I have even made some tentative, contingent plans.  Because if a man did decide to run a marathon in the Fall, Veterans Day weekend might be a good target date.  There are two good marathons that weekend - the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon near Chattanooga, and the Townebank Outer Banks Marathon.  Both would be very satisfying to complete.  There are few things in this world for a runner that can match the feeling of accomplishment after training hard for sixteen weeks, enduring the long runs and the tempo runs and the 800s and the mile repeats and the hills, persevering through it all while staying balanced on that knife-edge of injury, and then crossing the finish line of a marathon.

Look at that lopsided, exhausted smile!  That is an absolutely spent, but supremely satisfied man.  But that is also a younger and faster man.  A man who, at the time, was a lot more confident that he could complete the ambitious task that he had set before himself.

If a person wanted to begin training, today would be the day on the calendar to do so.  Week One Day One of a 16-week training plan.

So I ran 10 miles today.  And I tried to push way back in my mind the little thought that kept cropping up toward the end of a humid and hilly run:  "Could I run 16.1 more miles?"

Bears Again

We returned Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning it was pleasant to run with a large group of runners, including one of the new Presbyterian Co-Pastors.  Now if the Methodist Pastor can recover from injuries he has apparently sustained and join us again, we can have some good theological discussions out on the road, like "How many miles do you get out of a pair of shoes? or "How fast are we going, anyway?"  These are important theological issues!

Today I ran up Big Bearpen and saw the biggest bear I have seen while out running.  He (or she) loomed up on my left at a house just before the fork in the road at the summit, leaped a split-rail fence, and then lumbered off into the back yard.  There is only one way down Big Bearpen (unless one goes "cross country," as Fred reminded me when I saw him carrying his trash down to the road a couple of minutes later), and so I made some noise as I passed that spot in the road, clearing my throat and speaking nonsense in a loud voice.  "Hey Bear, watch out now, here comes the Crown of Creation, yee-hah (hmmph hmmph), go on now . . ."

He (or she) was long gone, probably down on Fifth Street by then on the garbage-can route.  There are plenty of acorns this year, after all - is there a hard winter coming? - and the only reason these creatures come near "The Crown of Creation" at all is that they have come to prefer dog food and left-over pizza and bags of Cheetos left on the front seat of pickup trucks to their normal fare.  "A fed bear is a dead bear," as the saying goes. 

But this one was very much alive.  And healthy.

Mount Pisgah

The book of Dueteronomy tells us this about Pisgah:

"Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the LORD showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. Then the LORD said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” 

The sharp peak is clearly visible for miles and miles, and its summit is laden with many communications towers, but Pisgah is still a beautiful hike.  We climbed it in less time than we thought - the summit suddenly appears, with its huge steel tower, round a bend in the path.  Up on the viewing platform we struck up a conversation with a couple who had just climbed it and had noticed my Asheville Half Marathon shirt; they were a fit-looking couple and easy to talk to, as so many are on the summits of mountains of their upper paths.  It turns out she had run four marathons and he had run two.  He was 84.  She was 73.  What an inspiration!  We decided that we would like to do this hike again in 20 years or so, God willing. 

So, we came home again today, refreshed and still celebrating.  Crossing over here to the Promised Land.

Gazing in Disbelief

Thursday morning I ran 3 miles from Little Switzerland, partly on the Blue Ridge Parkway but partly on some quiet residential gravel roads I discovered nearby.

But Little Switzerland was not the only place from which we gazed with disbelief today.  After breakfast, we drove to Crabtree Falls and hiked down to one of the most gorgeous waterfalls in the area:

After lunch back at the Inn, we drove up to Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the Eastern United States at 6684 feet.  (Remarkably, the Altimeter app on my phone was accurate to within 10 feet of this elevation).

The climb to the observation tower is short but steep.  It had turned cloudy and rainy, and we got caught in a shower on the way down from the summit.  But what a surprise!  The restaurant near the top (at 6578 feet) was open and thriving on this rainy day, so it was time for a mid-afternoon piece of blueberry pie and a cup of coffee, made even more memorable by the swirling clouds and the shower that kept coming and going.

A brief stop at Craggy Gardens (we passed up the hike to the top because of the threat of rain) and we finally arrived at Pisgah Inn, surely our most special place along the Parkway and, in some ways, the final destination on this trip.  It is where we celebrated our wedding 35 years ago, at this very table as far as we could remember:

I had a great deal more hair then, but Martha's hair is long and lovely, and she looks as beautiful today as she did that day.

High Country

Wednesday morning we left the rolling hills of Virginia and began to climb to some of the highest parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  As we traveled south, the air turned cooler and we saw different flowers blooming, like the lovely Indian pink:

We had time to stop along the way on this trip, and so we again detoured off the Parkway into Galax, Virginia, where we had some good barbeque.  Back on the parkway, we crossed the Linn Cove Viaduct and then had time to exit again for a visit to Grandfather Mountain, a place we had not seen in many years, with its famous mile-high bridge:

We had time, too, for a hike down to Linville Falls, marking the beginning of the Linville Gorge, one of the wildest places in this area.  I understand that Navy Seals used to train there.  But the path we took was wide and graveled and populated by all sorts of people.

 The upper falls spill into this wild pool, and then swirl away wildly in a spiral below:

Our destination Wednesday night was Switzerland Inn right on the Parkway.

The Inn is a truly magical place and commands a view that is simply breathtaking.  This brief history is found on the back of the restaurant's menu, and I thought it was especially well-written:

"It was June 1909. Grassy Mountain rose steep in front of them as the three men guided their mules cautiously over the rough turf that covered the mountainside. As they reached the open grassland of the top, the instigator of this trip drew in the reins of his mount and sat gazing in disbelief. From all sides, as far as the eye could see, they were surrounded by an incredible dream of misty blue mountains and green valleys. To the west, Mount Mitchell, the Black Brothers, and Celo; to the south, Linville Mountain, Turkey Cove, the valley of the North Fork of the Catawba River, and, in the distance, the South Mountains. To the east and northeast, Table Rock, Hawksbill, and Grandfather; and to the north, Roan Mountain, almost obscured by the brow of the mountain they were on and by the tops of chestnut trees.  Thus Little Switzerland was so named because its sweeping panoramas of deep valleys and distant ranges resemble those in the foothills of Swiss Alps."

We reined in our Mini Cooper and spent the night here.

Lonesome Pines

Tuesday night we stayed at a small cabin at Orchard Gap overlooking the Parkway.  (On the way, we took a detour in Floyd, Virginia for lunch, stopped at Mabry Mill on the parkway, and toured the Chateau Morrisette Winery; dinner was at Primland Resort - too many photos of these places to place on a running blog!) 

The cabins were located at one of those places - an intersecting road, rolling hills, a once-thriving but now apparently abandoned gift shop of some kind - that depended for its very existence on the Parkway, and there were rental cabins dotting the hills across the way.  It was a quiet, almost a lonesome place (it was called "Lonesome Pines," although we never saw a pine), the adjoining cabins spaced far apart with cars parked at only two of them, holding unseen tenants, I suppose.

That night a rainbow arced across the sky and a glorious sunset lit up the huge grassy hill behind us.  What a glorious wide-open space this was!  It seemed like the grass, the rolling hills - time itself - rolled on forever.

In the morning I ran three miles along the Parkway - butterfly weed, morning glory, sourwood, and freshly-cut hay rolled into big wheels.  The perfumed air was almost intoxicating.

Sharp Top Mountain

Today I awoke early and ran three miles, round and round Abbott Lake, which is the focal point of the Lodge.

Almost immediately afterward, we climbed Sharp Top Mountain - a first for us in many visits to Peaks of Otter.  Sharp Top is one of the three "Peaks" in the area and the steepest, it's rocky summit visible from the Lodge.  The boulder-strewn trail climbs up stone stairs and switchbacks.

At the top, we were rewarded with magnificent views of the area, Abbott Lake and the Lodge sprawled out beneath us, from several stone patios and platforms.  "Goats upon the battlements!"

A stone house built many years ago is still used by hikers, it seems.  This is the place we want to stay next time!  I think I could be happy here for a long time.

A good day of running and hiking.  And a beautiful lake, a beautiful wife.  Time to relax.

Blue Ridge Parkway Trip

One of the places dearest to our hearts is the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We used to live a lot closer to this 469-mile national treasure than we do now, and drives and hikes along the parkway were a prominent backdrop to our earlier life before we came to Highlands.

So it was only natural that in celebrating our 35th Anniversary this past week, we took a six-night seven-day drive on the parkway, beginning at the Peaks of Otter Lodge (which we reached by a combination of back roads and I-81), then heading south and ending at Mt. Pisgah, where we celebrated our wedding on July 6, 1979.  We drove a total of 940 miles, and by allowing so much time we managed to run and hike nearly every day, often in beautiful places we had not visited in a very long time - too long!

Eager to get on the road, we left a day earlier than planned, spending the night in a quaint little motel in the Town of Burnsville which came highly-recommended on TripAdvisor.  It is operated by a friendly young couple from Zimbabwe, Trevor and Maureen, who fell in love with the area and decided to raise a family there.

The next day we made the rest of the journey to the Peaks of Otter Lodge, which is located directly on the Parkway a little north of Roanoke.  (Lunch at the original Mast Store in Valle Crucis.)  That's Sharp Top Mountain in the background, one of the three "peaks of otter," visible from everywhere at the Lodge and beckoning to be climbed.

We have stayed here before, the last time in 2004, and never failed to see deer grazing in the nearby fields, strolling between the lodge and the restaurant as casually as if they were staying there, too, and were on their way to dinner.

Camaraderie

Today we welcomed some new and some visiting runners to a Fourth of July Holiday Run.  Overnight, the temperatures dropped and the wind picked up - that lovely breeze kept up all night, banging the little aluminum pans we had hung amongst the apple trees in a (probably) futile effort to keep the deer away.  And this morning it was still breezy, and improbably cool after so many warm days - 62 degrees at our house, 58 up in Town.  I ended up doing a little over 12 miles at a leisurely pace.

I have been running by myself recently, and so it was good to remember how much fun it is to run with others - a group of companionable runners, enjoying this Highlands morning together.

Shifting Gears

It's all very well and good to talk about shifting gears as I did in my post last week.  How carefree and seamless the process seems!  "I have found in the past that when I reach 30 miles, I simply shift into another gear.  My running surges ahead a little more easily as I shift into that higher gear; everything becomes a little easier, feels more natural." 

One can almost picture me in my sports car scampering around another turn in the road, smoothly shifting gears - simply shifting gears!  In reality, the process is not like that at all.  The gears are not bright primarily colors as depicted above, but rusty old parts, perhaps wobbling a bit or missing a gear tooth here and there, clogged with the sludge of old gear oil. 

So despite my new shoes, this week as I tried to maintain that ambitious 30-mile goal I mysteriously found my left foot cramping up, my right knee hurting.  Little "niggles" as we like to say.  The gears are grinding just a little bit.  And it is July now and it is hot, dammit! 

Still, I have to trust that I will get there eventually.