Another Year Ends

As we near the end of another year, I sit in my study reviewing the past twelve months as a runner.  I ran fewer miles in 2019 than in any other year since I began keeping records.  I did not run a single step for two months during recovering from hernia surgery in April and May.  And I only ran six miles during our 23-day trip to Britain and Ireland celebrating our 40th anniversary in August and September.  I could not have avoided the first layoff, according to my doctor.  And I would not have wanted to avoid the second layoff!

I am an optimist my nature, and I have to think that perhaps these layoffs did me some good in . . . well, the long run.  That troublesome knee does not seem to be hurting at all, and while my finish times this year were slower than ever before, I did manage to complete nine races, two of them half-marathons.  Moreover, we managed to enjoy a lot of adventures and some wonderful travel, including what surely must be that "trip of a lifetime" to Britain and Ireland.  For her part, Martha had perhaps one of her best years as a runner, placing in most of the races in which she competed and capping it off with the silver medal in the Senior Games in September.

I remember returning to Highlands after our trip and telling one of my running friends that my mileage had really suffered because of only being able to run three times overseas.  "But," I told them, as I had told Martha a week or two earlier, "Life is not all about running."  Words she thought she'd never hear, perhaps!  But we both know it's not, of course.  At the same time, it is a major part of our lives, the cornerstone of our fitness.  And the struggle to stay fit the older we become is not an easy one.  I am reminded of that poster that used to hang in our gym at the Recreation Park.

Today it is raining and we are taking down all of our Christmas decorations.  Tomorrow morning, we are both planning to run, our last run in 2019.  Wednesday morning we will be joining many of our friends by celebrating the New Year with our 18th Annual Resolution Run.  Balmy temperatures and a more leisurely starting time rewarded us with a good turnout last year and we are hoping for the same this year.

Toward the end of the week, temperatures are expected to plummet again.  Ice will stitch itself on the outside of our windowpanes and the cold wind will blow.

This is the time of year when our hearts turn toward the ocean.  We are fortunate indeed that Martha’s Aunt Lizette has graciously let us stay in her condo at Atlantic Beach for another year.  We are so grateful to her!  Warmer temperatures will permit us to stay active on days when we would be house-bound by ice and snow and frigid temperatures in Highlands.  We have already signed up for races in the area in January, February, and early March.  It is a time for renewal and reflection.  We have come to love this area of North Carolina's coast, and we look forward to re-visiting the old familiar places we love, like Fort Macon and Beaufort and Harker's Island, as well as discovering new places.

We are looking forward to 2020, and we are thankful for the blessings of good health, good friends, and beloved families.

Christmas Day

We give each other fewer and fewer gifts each Christmas.  We like to call our little house here in Clear Creek Peace and Plenty, for we are blessed to have plenty in life, especially of the important things.  The gifts we do give each other seem to be more thoughtful, though - books, delicious little treats to eat.  And this year Martha surprised me with a new running duffel bag to replace the one I have had for decades, a torn and battered artifact of running 191 races.  I should have taken a photo of the old one beside the new one, but I so promptly stuffed the old one in the trash that no photo was taken.  I gave Martha (and myself) a new running log for 2020 - the same 3 X 6 weekly planners in which I have been recording my running activities for over 20 years and that Martha now uses, too.

 
And since I am confessing so completely my obsessive-compulsive recording-keeping behavior as a runner, I might as well admit that, in the back pages of my running log I keep a running total (hah!) of mileage for the year - a modest 511 so far this year, the fewest I have ever run.  And on the very back page I keep a record of overall mileage since I began keeping records in 1995, which will be a little over 30,500 miles by December 31.  That's a lot of miles!  And I have not regretted a single step.

We offered to prepare Christmas dinner for Martha's family again this year, and between putting the turkey in the oven and beginning to prepare the macaroni and cheese and the broccoli casserole (my own contributions to the feast), I realized I had an opportunity to run again, and that's what I did, down to the end of the road and back, more or less, another three miles entered ambitiously in the aforesaid running log.

Christmas dinner at Martha's Mom's house is always a little sad since her Dad passed away three years ago.  But we cherish those wonderful memories of him and all the others who have passed away.  And we have passed the Winter Solstice so that every day will be just a little bit brighter.  We will be looking forward to a New Year, with new destinations, new adventures, new discoveries.

Christmas Eve

How did Christmas manage to arrive so quickly this year?  Perhaps it is because Thanksgiving arrived on November 28, as late as it possibly can. Or perhaps it is just that we are a year older than last year, and time seems to move more and more rapidly with every passing year - the opposite of this aging roadrunner, who seems to move more and more slowly . . .

I see that I have not written in this blog for more than two weeks.  During that period of time, the weather turned warmer, then colder, and then warmer again.  Today, Christmas Eve, the temperature was a balmy 61 degrees in Highlands.  According to the meteorologists, this is not the warmest Christmas on record, but it surely must be close to it.  I ran six miles in shorts and a light shirt, four of them with my friend Fred, talking about everything and anything.  Except politics, that is.  Why spoil a good run in this holy season by talking about Washington?

This afternoon, I watched a performance of Amahl and the Night Visitors on my computer, one of my favorite pieces of music for this time of year.  And then we attended the candlelight service at the Presbyterian Church this evening, at which the old familiar hymns are sung and visiting children dressed in red and green make us smile.  We remember bringing our daughter here many times, beginning when she was six months old.  "Remember that time we realized one of her little shoes had fallen off, and you had to go back outside and find it?" Martha asked, and of course I did.  Christmas is made of memories like that, and the sweet smell of cookies in the oven, the baking turkey, the family gathered around the table, and the tree hung with ornaments collected over a lifetime.

I wrote a little carol on this theme many years ago:

A Carol.

All the lights are on tonight,
All the candles lit;
The star is in the window where
The little village sits.

These decorations, so familiar,
Year to year:
The words of love and kindness
We need to hear.

Christmas carols sung outside
In the frosty night,
Gathered round the welcome door,
Warm and golden bright.

It is indeed a holy time of year, and I always like to remember those wonderful words spoken by Marcellus at the end of the first Act of Hamlet on this night:

Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time. 

After the candlelight service was over, we departed from tradition (something we find we enjoy doing more and more) and decided to have Chinese food, so we stopped at Asia House for take-out - jumbo shrimp and mixed vegetables - the first time I remember eating our Christmas Eve dinner with chopsticks.  Then we returned to tradition and played a game of Christmas Scrabble in front of the fireplace (extra points for Christmas words, like ox and ass and manger and star).  

And so we wish you all a Merry Christmas in this hallow'd and gracious time of year.

It's A Wonderful Life

It was Day Three of our eventful holiday-themed weekend, and we had a wonderful time visiting with Martha's aunt Anne in Clemson this Sunday morning, still a little full after dinner at Paesanos the night before.  We had plenty of time after lunch to carry several boxes of Christmas decorations from her storage room and help set them up.  Every family has a trove of such decorations, reminders of loved ones long gone and memories still alive.  Surely that is the part of this special season that we all treasure the most.

The play we were going to see was the Clemson Little Theater's rendition of It's a Wonderful Life, that 1946 Frank Capra movie so many of us associate with the Christmas season, starring Donna Reed and James Stewart at his best.  They always do a top-notch job in this theater - many of the actors are professors from Clemson, we understand - and the performance today did not disappoint us.

The story of banker George Bailey, rescued by his guardian angel Clarence as he is on the brink of suicide, is a heartwarming tale that is especially welcome during these sad times our country finds itself in, where the same kind of greed and corruption personified in the corrupt Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) seem ready to overtake us.  But:  "Remember, George:  no man is a failure who has friends."  And as Pa Bailey said, "All you can take with you is that which you've given away."

At the beginning of this Christmas season, it is good to discover again, as  George Bailey did, that we can rely on what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature."  And that it is, indeed, a Wonderful Life.

Reindeer Run

Race morning dawned cold and clear; frost was on the windshield and sparkling in the grass at the Boys and Girls Club, located in what looked like an old school building not far from downtown Brevard.  We had prepared with adequate clothing, though, and after warming up for a mile or so we felt comfortable.  The race had about 250 participants, not as large a field as Greensboro, and many children, some of them probably running their first race.  "Don't worry," I told Martha.  "They'll be dropping like flies on that first hill."

We listened to a very nice a cappella performance of the National Anthem by a young woman who was dressed for running the race, and then everyone listened to a recording of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer before the countdown.  I have never especially liked this song - can it even by classified as a Christmas Carol? - but to disparage it too much might make me seem like a Grinch.  The children liked it, though, and sang along.  I would have thought Run Run Rudolph would have been more appropriate:

"Run run Rudolph
Santa's got to make it to town . . ."

We were off, and once again this tall, slowing runner was dodging many weaving children and dogs on leashes before, as I had predicted, we hit that first hill almost immediately and began passing walking children.  On the downhill, holding back, I could hear the thunder of fearless little feet behind me as they flew by on youthful knees and legs, only to start walking on the next hill. The pack began to thin a little after the first mile, and the sun came up farther and farther, too.  It was a beautiful course, the terrain leveling out and the road leading us into the countryside, pastures and barns on one side and a small herd of loudly-mooing cattle on the other.  I was surprised that I had completed my first mile in almost exactly eleven minutes, and when we compared notes later Martha agreed that the hills had seemed more intimidating in the car yesterday than running this morning, possibly because we were passing so many young people.  I may have mentioned this in the past:  It is always enjoyable to pass young people at my age!

"How's that knee?" a friendly volunteer asked as we turned the barrel in the middle of the road halfway through the race.  I had actually felt no pain in that troublesome knee today or in the last race, but was wearing a knee brace as a precaution.  "Thanks! It's doing just great!" I replied.  I was glancing at my watch in the last mile and realized I was on target to run about the same time as I had nine days ago, and I was right:  my finish time was 34:25, faster by two seconds than my time in Greensboro.  Two seconds!  That's not very long, but even small, incremental improvements are causes for celebration.  Martha finished in 30:20, about 15 seconds slower than Greensboro, reflecting the tougher terrain.  That was good enough to take first place in her age group, though, and I took third in mine.

So it was another good day for us.  We wandered around chatting with other runners, drinking water, in that comfortable exhilaration following any kind of race, whether it is a mile or a marathon.  I walked up to hear what a man was saying to a large group of young boys seated on the ground around him.  They must have been a team from somewhere, perhaps the Boys Club here in Brevard, and he had an award for each of them, a handshake, and some quiet words of praise as one by one he looked them straight in the eye.  What a difference this quiet coach might be making in the lives of some of these boys!

After returning to shower and pack up, our lunch was barbecue, a rare part of our normal diet but especially welcome after a race, at the unfortunately named "Hawg Wild."  We ate careful small portions rather than with hawg-like abandon because of the next part of our planned weekend:  a visit to see Martha's aunt Anne, who lives in Clemson, and dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant, Paesanos.  It has become something of a Christmas-time tradition to eat dinner, stay with Anne, and take in a holiday-themed matinee the next day at the Clemson Little Theater in Pendleton.  

So these two reindeer flew southward, with healthy appetites and medals around our necks, on a cloudless afternoon in Brevard early in this Christmas season.

A.T.O.M.

A casual reader of this blog might wonder what "A.T.O.M." is, and what is has to do with running, the ostensibly subject of this blog.  But all shall be explained.  And this is the season of wonder, after all:

Oh, star of wonder, star of night,
Star with royal beauty bright.
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us with thy perfect light.

This morning we packed our running clothes and proceeded eastward, not westward, to Brevard, where in the morning the 14th Annual Brevard Reindeer Run was scheduled.  It will have been only nine days since our Thanksgiving Day 5-K in Greensboro, but this is a race we had identified on the race calendar and wanted to run.  Last year, we actually drove over to Brevard for the race, checked out the course, but deterred by cold rain did not run it.  So this year was a kind of Reindeer Redemption, I suppose.

We had decided to spend this weekend enjoying more than one kind of activity.  The first thing we did was drive through Brevard to the South Ridge Shopping Center near the Asheville Airport, where we spent some time Christmas shopping.  Then we returned to Brevard and visited the Transylvania Heritage Museum, a place we had never visited despite eating lunch over the years at Marco Trattoria directly across the street.   We had read about a display of A.T.O.M.s, an acronym for the Aluminum Tree and Aesthetically Challenged Seasonal Ornament Museum and Research Center.  The museum was located in an old two-story historic house and staffed by a friendly volunteer who welcomed us in to see the historic trees.

The Museum's website provided more detail:

"How did this get started?  In 1991, a friend jokingly gave Steven Jackson, local home designer, a tattered aluminum Christmas tree pilfered from a garbage heap. Remembering the silver tree in his childhood home, Jackson threw a party and invited guests to bring the "most aesthetically challenged" ornaments they could find. The gathering was a big hit.  A few years later, someone gave Steven a second tree unearthed at a yard sale and by 1998, Jackson owned seven. "It was just too many trees to fit in my house." Over the years, the Aluminum Tree & Aesthetically Challenged Seasonal Ornament Museum and Research Center snowballed as friends nabbed more trees from flea markets and dusty attics.  The current exhibit features over two dozen trees."

The trees did not have lights on them because of the electrical hazard of shorts, but instead were illuminated by a revolving circle of blue, red, yellow, and green glass in front of a spotlight.  I remembered that our next-door neighbor when growing up in Connecticut had such a tree and just such a light!  Our family - for whom the ritual of visiting a Christmas Tree farm and selecting a real tree, fresh with that fragrance of fresh balsam, and returning with it tied to the top of the car with twine, was an essential part of the Christmas season – thought their tree odd and futuristic, but beautiful in its own way.

These trees had been decorated in several styles by different non-profit organizations.  One of them, for example, bore pictures from the I Love Lucy TV show.  The actual instruction sheet for setting up an aluminum tree was displayed, stained from having spent many Christmases in a dusty attic, I would guess.

Around the corner, some whimsical person had made a display of Aluminum Christmas Tree seeds (aluminum beads) and instructions for growing your own tree from seed.

The Museum volunteer confided in us that one visitor had actually asked her what type of soil was best suited for growing these trees.

Also on display as part of the permanent exhibit was this television set from the 50s and a list of the shows that were being aired, such as Rin Tin Tin, Lassie, Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, and I Love Lucy.  Of course, we both remembered watching all of these shows, often fighting to see them through the snow on the screen, twisting rabbit ears and antennae to try to get a clear picture.

On the way out, we noticed a strange little piece of furniture on the porch which Martha thought looked like a pulpit or speaker’s podium.  But in a sudden flash of memory, I realized what it was, confirmed later in the day by this photo from Wikipedia.  It was a shoe-fitting fluoroscope, used in shoe stores from the 1920s until the 1970s.  Feet would be placed in the slot below, and an X-ray picture of wiggling skeletal toes inside a shoe could clearly be seen.  The fluoroscope was discontinued because of the growing knowledge about the danger of radiation.  But not before I, as a child, had viewed my very own wiggling toes on at least one occasion in the shoe department of Sears Roebuck in Hamden, Connecticut.  I am assuming the dosage of radiation did no permanent harm to this runner's feet.

We had time to drive the Reindeer Run course again to refresh our memory from last year - directional signs had already been placed at all the turns for tomorrow morning.  I had forgotten how many steep hills were in the first mile.  We agreed that it was at least as challenging a course as the Running of the Turkeys in Greensboro, perhaps more so.

Dinner was a huge salad and bowl of spaghetti with marinara sauce, each large enough for at least four runners, at Big Mike's in downtown Brevard.  If I ate here every night, my name might be preceded by the title "Big!"  Our humble motel for the night was the Sunset Motel, a small retro-style place on the outskirts of Town decorated in a style that would have fit right into the Heritage Museum, featuring lots of turquoise, pink, posters of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, and, yes, a good bit of aluminum.

Are You Not Running Today?

After an unusually pleasant Saturday morning run, with temperatures in the 50s, a cold front has moved into Highlands.  It is 26 degrees, the wind chill is 16 degrees, and there was a light dusting of snow overnight.  You cannot really call it a storm.  But it is definitely a storm in the northern half of the nation, where it has tangled Thanksgiving travel and has been dubbed Winter Storm Ezekiel by The Weather Channel.  When did we begin naming these winter storms?  

As noted in previous posts, I have become a wimp in cold weather like this.  Gone are the days when I would bundle up with two pairs of gloves and many layers of clothing and flinch in pain when I would turn a corner into the wind.  Still, I have been sighted often enough in horrific conditions, hat white with snow.  Crazy runner!  So everywhere I went today, people were asking in one way or another and with varying degrees of smug sarcasm, "Are you not running today?"  No, I'm not running today, and I did not see any other runners on the streets of Highlands running today as I drove to the Post Office this morning, seat warmer on and heat on high.

It was a good day to catch up on some baking, though.  With the help of my trusty turnover press, I have perfected the making of delicious but humble-looking apple turnovers, much to the delight of Martha and of her mother Jane who have frequently shared the results this winter.  

Is there anything more satisfying to see than the face of one's mother-in-law (who has been under the weather the past few days) accepting a container of apple turnovers still warm from the oven?  It is worth it every time.

I haven't run since Saturday, but the forecast looks a little better tomorrow afternoon.  And an apple turnover looks like the perfect post-run food for tomorrow night.

The Running of the Turkeys

Martha and I love running races on Thanksgiving Day, and I have run Turkey Trots and Gobble Wobbles in destinations as far away as Orlando and Charleston.  Last Thanksgiving, we drove to Winston-Salem and ran the Turkey Strut there with nearly 1900 other runners.  I recall that Martha had been better positioned than I had been at the start of that race; I had been stalled behind countless walkers and strollers and dogs so that I don't think I hit my stride until halfway through the race.  This year, Martha found a race in Greensboro, a city which we always seem to drive through on our way to Raleigh and the east coast but never actually visit.  And based on last year's participation the Run for the Turkeys promised to be smaller in size.

Greensboro is four-and-a-half hours from Highlands, but with some stops along the way we were not able to pick up our race packets until late in the afternoon.  It seemed to be a well-organized event, with chip timing, nice long-sleeved technical shirts with hoods, and silly turkey hats which were not aerodynamic at all - they might have functioned well for strutting or trotting or wobbling, but not for running.  As a result of the late hour, we did not have an opportunity to drive the course and had no idea what conditions we would be facing.  It was being held at Greensboro Country Park, so it might conceivably consist of unpaved trails.  It's nice to know what to expect on a course, but sometimes it's fun to be surprised, too!

This would be my 190th race, I realized from my running log, with distances varying from a single mile to a full marathon.  Martha has run about a hundred fewer than that but is catching up.  All of those races have given us a good idea how to prepare, and for most of our races it has been the same the night before:  pasta with marinara sauce, a little bread, a little salad . . . and very little sleep.  The alarm went off at 5:00 a.m. and we had our usual breakfast, then drove to the Country Park and a parking lot that was already filling up.  Temperatures were in the 40s but the wind was a factor, and we waited in the car until it was time to warm up.

Most Thanksgiving Day races are family events and this was no exception, with many young children dressed like turkeys, pumpkins, and pilgrims.  What a wonderfully appropriate event for an active family to do together on this national holiday when we pause to give thanks for our many blessings, to celebrate the bonds of family - in the words of the hymn, to gather together to ask the Lord's blessing.  Of course, we both thought about our own families growing up as children, the trips to Florida to be with my Mom and Dad while they were alive, and then the many years that we traveled to Raleigh to be with Martha's family, to see her grandmother "Mamah," and to eat a delicious and bountiful dinner prepared by her aunt, Lizette.  Only later in life when we prepared dinners similar to this did we realize how much work went into it!  Thank you, Lizette!

It turned out that there were about 1200 participants today, including 300-or-so walkers in a Fun Run that began before the timed 5-K race.  This was more than we had anticipated, but we both lined up toward the front, nervously eyeing the many strollers and dogs around us.  I have almost been tripped by both in races before, so we were both apprehensive.  "Just make sure you don't trip," I told Martha, and she told me the same.  A few minutes before the start, a young woman sang the National Anthem - for a 5-K, this race had everything! - and then we were off, on wide, paved trails, elbowed by throngs of runners but soon thinning out a little.  I came very close to tripping over a stroller, and one or two dogs seemed to be on unusually long leashes.  The stiff wind was in our faces.  And there were hills, and lots of them, also unanticipated.  But that is a challenge we are accustomed to overcoming; in fact, I found myself passing many runners on the uphill, and in turn being passed on the downhill.  And these children!  They would sprint past an old guy like me, weaving back and forth, and then abruptly stop, out of breath, often right in front of me.  Even at the finish line, I could hear the sudden commotion of little feet behind me, and five or six children ran by on either side.  I threw up my hands in frustration:

And then I realized that they were children, out here having fun, and I know their parents were happy that they were not sitting in front of a TV, or gazing down at the tiny screen of a mobile phone, as so many were.  And the look on their faces was pure joy at having run a race, an invaluable experience for a young child.

We both found ourselves running well, and I realized that I was finally beginning to get back in good race condition after this year's setbacks.  And that is a good feeling - pulling hills, passing younger runners, and no pain in that troublesome right knee whatsoever.  I had planned to try to finish under 35 minutes so was pleased with my 34:27 time; Martha finished in 30:04.  "Guess what?"  Martha told me a minute or so after I finished.  "We both placed!  Second place!"  That was a surprise; I discovered later that there were 6 men in my age group, and Martha had an incredible 29 women in hers, nearly all of them younger than she was.  Somewhat reluctantly, I donned the silly hat for the awards ceremony photo, and was glad I did. 

Now it was time to celebrate!  Martha had identified a local restaurant called Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen, which featured "exceptional renderings of classic Southern dishes."  Thanksgiving dinner consisted of smoked turkey, pureed parsnips, collard greens, and spoon bread, a different take on the usual fare and one which we appreciated.  It was good, healthy cuisine.  And despite the wording on the back of our shirts, we did not overeat!

After dinner, we found our way to a local movie theater and watched a movie that we had been looking forward to seeing, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, about Mr. Rogers.  I knew that Fred Rogers was a fellow Rollins College alumnus and an ordained Presbyterian Pastor, and I also knew that Tom Hanks was playing the lead.  It proved to be a very good movie, a tribute to a true hero to many young children who grew up learning that wonderful lesson:  "I like you just the way you are:

We could sure use more people like Mr. Rogers in this day and age.

Baking Bread

We once had a real estate client who told us, when he learned that we had planted a vegetable garden, someday maybe we would make enough money that we wouldn't have to grow our own food anymore.  Martha posted it on Facebook and it received a lot of comments.

In reality - if one takes into account the cost of fertilizer, plants, and seeds (not even including man-hours of labor) - it probably costs more to grow one's own food.

But of course one cannot count the cost of labor, the good gentle exercise out of doors.  Let's start at the very beginning.  First there is the raking of leaves (which I have finally completed this year), hauling several loads uphill to the compost bins where they slowly decompose over the winter.  In the spring, there is the hand-tilling of our raised beds, incorporating all that compost hauled back downhill into the soil.  And then there is the laying out of rows of beans, the placing of tomato cages, and the careful planting of the young seedlings in the best possible location, dirt accumulating under the fingernails, the sweet smell of fertile soil.  And during the summer the mulching, watering, placing deer-netting over the succulent young plants.  That's a lot of work to finally enjoy the easiest "labor" of all, wandering down to the garden on a late summer evening with bucket in hand to pick ripe vegetables.  Surely there is nothing better than a vine-ripened tomato still warm from the sun.  My mother-in-law has a plaque in one of her gardens that I have often seen in this part of the country, a quote by Dorothy Frances Gurney:

Why, indeed, would anyone spend good money on seeds and plants, and expend so much labor?  You don't need to ask a gardener.

In the same way, baking bread is like gardening.  Our client might just as well have said that maybe we would make enough money to be able to buy a loaf of bread.  But in the same way, we would have missed the sweet smell of bread baking in the oven and the lovely fragrance as it cools on a wire rack on the kitchen counter, which is what is occuring while I post this.  It seemed like a good day to bake bread, with temperatures plummeting rapidly outside and the wind beginning to howl (wind chills close to zero are expected by morning).

Not bad for my first loaf of the year!  It's a boule, and I used the same method I have used for the past two years as set forth in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François.  And it really works!

The reality is that Martha and I both enjoy doing things ourselves, and have always done so.  We love to cook our own meals, and to bake.  We designed and built our own house.  And, in a way, we designed our lives, which is as it should be.  There are far too many people in this world who allow their food to be sold to them out of a big store, their bread to be delivered in a plastic bag from the bread aisle . . . and their lives to be designed by others.

The Big Picture

The unseasonable warmth that is preceding the Arctic Chill continued on this Veterans Day; it is supposed to be raining or snowing by midnight, but it doesn't look like it today, with the sun shining and temperatures again in the upper 50s.  I wasn't sure where I was going to run this morning, but I wanted to try a different route.  It is easy to get in a rut as a runner, running the same route every day, the same races every year.

As I neared the top of Chestnut Street, I realized that I had not run to the summit of Big Bearpen Mountain in a very long time.  We began the year running in Atlantic Beach shortly after New Year, and when we returned in early March I was recovering from the Myrtle Beach half marathon and preparing for the Flying Pirate half marathon in April, so long slow runs were on the agenda.  And then I had my hernia surgery.

But I have missed this mountain, the familiar, relentless grade that never lets up until the determined runner reaches the very summit, legs aching, ears popping with the altitude, rounding the first curve with its view of Satulah Mountain.  I always stop here to stretch and to marvel at the uncanny silence at the top of this mountain, a phenomenon I have noticed at the top of Mt. LeConte and other mountains.   On clear days, Lake Keowee can be seen shimmering in distant South Carolina, far off to the southeast.

On the back side, to the northeast, there is a splendid view of Whiteside Mountain with its steep cliffs.  I pause here, too, and gaze in wonder at this distant mountain I have climbed dozens of times.

The descent is always a delight, the gentle downward road.  I thought about all of the other runners who have climbed this mountain with me.  The first one was veteran Fred (see previous post), who lives at the very top.  When he was quite a bit younger, he would run down the mountain and meet the running group on Saturday mornings, run a few miles, and then run back up to his home; the unspoken rule was that one of us should accompany him, and I was often that companion.  I've run up here with Martha, too, and countless other runners, some of them no longer alive.

But today I climbed it, as I usually do in recent years, all by myself, along with my thoughts and my prayers of gratitude.  This is one way to get out of a rut:  run up a mountain, and take a long look at the big picture.

Tough as Old Boots No More

Halloween has come and gone now, and the weather continued to be much milder than usual through all of October.  The leaves are still on some of the trees down in Clear Creek Valley, which is unusual for the first week in November.  And when raking leaves on Tuesday I discovered another yellow-jacket nest in the yard that was still active.

But we finally had our first frost this week and were reminded of how uncomfortable cold-weather running seems to be these days.  Veteran 80-year old runner Fred is a hard one to discourage - "tough as old boots," they would call him in Britain; even when the temperature drops below freezing, he usually wears shorts.  But he doesn't like it much, either.  "I used to not like running when it was below 20 degrees," he told me last year.  "Then it became 30 degrees.  And now it is 40 degrees."  We all feel the cold more and more as we grow older.

This weekend we skipped the usual Saturday-morning run and ran on Friday instead because temperatures were predicted to be below freezing.  We were in the post office on our way out of Town that morning and ran into our friend Bob, who no longer runs because of knee problems but was once one of our regular companions.  "Richard!" he said.  "What are you doing here?  Why aren't you out running?"  I mumbled something about cold temperatures, and he laughed scornfully.  "We used to get out in weather like this!  Remember that old picture you send out from time to time?"

I did remember that picture, and I found it:

That's Bob on the left, then Brian, then me, then Skip.  And I well remember that magical day, when we all started running our normal three-mile route and it began snowing, accumulating an inch or so before we could return to the Town Hall.  I think the year was 2003.

And I found this one, too, in the same photo album.  January, 2016, and another exhilarating snowy run in Highlands!  That's an impressive accumulation of snow on my fleece vest.

But these days I avoid running in weather like that, and I am not ashamed to admit it.  I slipped on a patch of ice crossing Fifth Street a week ago and went down in an instant.  Fortunately, only my butt and my pride were bruised and nothing was broken.  But I do not like to take chances anymore.  This year I was sidelined by hernia surgery for several weeks, the longest I have been forced to stop running, and I do not want to be sidelined again because of carelessness.

The weather miraculously warmed up again this afternoon to the upper 50s in Highlands, just for a day or two.  Martha had a good five-mile run and found that she had overdressed.  I am planning to run tomorrow morning when it is going to be equally pleasant - short sleeves and shorts.  But looking ahead, on Tuesday, this lovely little respite will end and winter will arrive in earnest as an Arctic Chill sweeps relentlessly southward.

It doesn't look like we will receive what weather forecasters like to call "significant accumulations" of snow.  But the temperature Wednesday morning is predicted to plummet from the 50s to a bone-chilling 17 degrees.  I will be indoors on Tuesday, making sure the generator is ready to crank up and the heaters are on in the well house.

I will not be running. 

Plenty of Beauty

It has been unusually warm this month, one of the latest falls that I remember.  It is so warm that last Tuesday I disturbed a nest of yellow jackets while raking leaves (fortunately I escaped with only a minor hit on my arm), something I am accustomed to dealing with in July and August while mowing the lawn.  Leaf rakers should be unmolested by yellow jackets, and our seasons should not be mixed together like this.  Even the snakes may still be out, I thought, and so I handled piles of branches carefully.

Visitors who have carefully planned their holidays in Highlands to coincide with the "height" of fall color must also be disappointed.  It normally peaks by now, although there is plenty of beauty if one knows where to look.  These maples next to the Presbyterian Church are always reliably gorgeous, and they hang on until the very last days, too.  The red light at Fifth and Main is barely visible against their bright colors.  I wasn't sure if some of our visitors made it down Main Street that far, in their exercise tights and thigh-high boots, carrying Versace purses and shopping bags.

I walked up on Sunset Rocks today and there was plenty to see there, too; there were many other hikers climbing the familiar path to the top, and they seemed to be enjoying it too, far from the shoppers on Main Street.  It was a beautiful day to be hiking.

On the way to the top, I spotted this very special leaf, which I am 99% certain is that of an American Chestnut.  Local forester Bob Zahner, who passed away many years ago, once hiked up this trail with me to help me identify some unusual species of conifers which I had been labeling as part of a project when I was working for the Town.  On the way, he  pointed this specimen out to me in an off-hand manner, much to my astonishment.  I had mistakenly thought the American Chestnut was extinct as a result of the blight that stuck in the early 20th century, one of the great tragedies of forestry.

But in fact there are millions of sprouts that can be found throughout this area, which still produce trees that can grow to eight or ten feet before taken down. The blight kills the above-ground portion of the trees, but the root system can survive and form new sprouts for years and years.

I never seem to be able to find this small surviving tree except at this time of year; perhaps it is hidden among the rest of the foliage. 

The summit is always worth the climb.  There was our little Town, nestled in the valley below, serene and quiet from this height, far above the bustling streets, the thriving shops and hotels and restaurants.  It's a different world up here.

There is always something beautiful to see!  On my way back down the trail, I was stopped in my tracks by this simple fern, waving gently from side to side.

But I also saw this sobering sight:  the tall, dead trunks of hemlock trees, killed many years ago by the hemlock woolly adelgid, a tiny insect that has killed most of this species in our area.  They are just waiting to fall.  And, unlike the American Chestnut, they will never come back again.

I stopped at the library on my way down, and a man was sitting in one of the rocking chairs out front reading a book on this fall day.  Other than hiking up a mountain, I could think of no better way to occupy the time.

And on my way back to the car, I stopped to take this photo of the old steeple of the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, framed by blood-red leaves.  There's plenty of beauty if one knows where to look.

Bethel Half Marathon

Martha and I have both been running the Bethel Half Marathon for a long time.  The race is in its 26th year, the oldest half marathon in North Carolina and the third oldest in the Southeast.  It is a beautiful course, a figure eight that doubles back to the start halfway through, in a mountain valley east of Waynesville; the Blue Ridge Parkway on the ridge to the west is often ablaze with fall color (although not this year).  As I noted in my last post, I have run it four times, and every year the weather has been perfect.  It was my first half marathon in 1998, and the following year I ran my PR there (1:44:02).  I vividly remember crossing the finish line that first year and thinking that, with a little more training, I might actually be able to run a full marathon, and I did exactly that in December of 1999.  Martha ran her PR there, too (2:05:35, in 2011), and we have good memories of running with many friends over the years.

So we were glad to see Anthony in the Bethel School gym when we arrived, with several of his friends from Franklin.  He is planning to run a marathon in Los Angeles in four weeks, so this was a "short" run for him.  Temperatures were a little warmer than expected and had climbed into the lower 70s by the end of the race.  I was running the 5-K, which starts five minutes later and a quarter-mile or so down the road from the start of the half.  I warmed up and stood along the side of the road with the other 5-K runners waiting for the crowd to pass by us.  The siren went off and the runners started down the road toward us, but suddenly we noticed that they had turned left on the short road that leads down to the finish on the school track.  "Where are they going?" I asked.  "They must have changed the course this year," someone replied.  

"They didn't change the course!" I said.  "We drove it last night and the map was hanging on the wall of the gym this morning!"  We had driven it the night before, and we had also carefully reviewed the water stops on the map that very morning.  We later learned that the lead runners has mistakenly followed a police car down that road, thinking it was a lead vehicle; but we had never seen a lead vehicle in this race before.  As we watched one after another of the runners, including Anthony, turn down the road, suddenly a small pack came toward us on the correct course, with the rest following, and I could see that Martha was in the lead.  "There's my wife!" I said.  "She knows the way!"  Martha later told me that she had watched the runners in front of her turn and in a split second had realized that they must all be going the wrong way.  For a half-mile or so she led the race until faster runners caught up and passed her.  Anthony and most of the others came by us about five minutes later; they had run perhaps a mile before realizing their mistake.  "I should have known better," Anthony later said.  "I've run this race before."

It would not have been easy at the very beginning of a race not to be caught up in the moment, and I later told Martha that I was as proud of her for having the confidence to know where she was going as I was for finishing what proved to be a tough race for her.  They were like lemmings running off a cliff, and when I searched for the foregoing image (which I am probably using illegally), I found that (a) it is, as expected, a myth that lemmings run off a cliff and commit mass suicide, and (b) there are many political cartoons on the internet capitalizing on this mythical phenomenon, most of them featuring our current misleading con man of a President.

But back to the race.  The 5-K went well for me; I felt strong, even on the hills in the final mile where I passed several younger runners (always an immensely satisfying experience to an older runner!), and in a time of 35:17 I achieved my goal of running faster than last year by nearly 30 seconds.  I discovered at the awards ceremony that I was also first place in my age group, although there was only a handful of us over the age of 70.  

After the awards, I walked up to Sonoma Road where the race had started and watched for the half marathon runners to pass by in their seventh mile.  Anthony's wife Sharon was there, too, and we chatted while we watched first him and then Martha pass by.  Martha looked strong and positive, but with inadequate training and the temperature rising I knew the next six miles would be tough ones.

I walked down to the track where the race finished and watched runners crossing the finish line, which can be very inspiring.  Not many people were standing there, so I tried to applaud and speak to each of them.  "Good job!  Nice strong finish!"  A little word of encouragement can mean so much at the end of a difficult struggle.  As expected, Martha's time was slower than her time last year, but eventually she came into sight, rounding the curve on the track, running strong and staying in front of a younger woman.  I could tell that she had given it everything she had.

With a finish time ten minutes slower than last year, Martha found with some surprise that she was third in her age group (as was Anthony, despite his extra mile).  

So it was a good day.  In the parking lot, I passed a woman who I recognized from the 5-K.  "It feels good to be finished, doesn't it?" she said.  "It's the best feeling in the world!" I said.  We drove back to our hotel, the Waynesville Inn, recovered a little, and joined the throngs of people at the Crafts Fair they always schedule on this same weekend on Main Street.  Our late lunch was at Boojums, a little place we had discovered last year.  Then we returned and sat outside our room and watched golfers finishing up their afternoon game in the waning light.  A group of people from Chattanooga were staying in nearby rooms, and one of the women talked with us for awhile.  They come very year in October and play here, she said, and it turned out - small world - that she knew some of the same people Martha had known at Highlands Country Club.  They had ordered take-out barbecue, and after it had been delivered we were surprised and pleased to see them all stand in a circle, bow their heads, and give thanks. 

It was indeed an evening for giving thanks, to be grateful for fitness and health and for achieving new goals.  It was a beautiful setting at the edge of this golf course, and with temperatures cooling it felt like fall was in the air. 

We are looking forward to the coming weeks, with crisp temperatures, falling leaves, and the fragrance of wood-smoke in the air.

Change of Plan

In my last post of nearly two weeks ago, I noted that we had both completed a ten mile run in preparation for the Bethel Half Marathon on October 12.  "It has been an unusually steep climb up the slope of this training plan to the summit of a final long run," I said, "Still three miles short of the distance of a half marathon.  But it succeeded in making us confident that we could complete the race in two weeks time."

Now that those two weeks have nearly elapsed, I have reconsidered that confidence.  I ran six miles last Saturday, and three-mile runs twice this week, and after due consideration it has become apparent to me that, while I could complete a half marathon by walking and running at a 13-minute pace, I have no desire to do that.  If I'm going to run a race, I want to do my very best, and there has simply not been enough time for me to adequately train for a half marathon after the layoff this summer following hernia surgery and our trip to Britain and Ireland.  Also, the risk of injury would be too great in running a race that I am unprepared to run, and I don't want to miss the rest of our racing season.  So last night I sent an e-mail to the Race Director asking if it was too late to switch to the 5-K Saturday.  I received an immediate reply:   "Hi Richard! Not too late at all. I will log in and switch you now."  So it is done.

Martha, on the other hand, buoyed up by her silver medal in the Senior Games, will have no problem completing the half marathon despite her own lack of runs longer than ten miles.  For myself, I hope to at least run the 5-K as fast as I did last year, and I am looking at a series of shorter races this fall, leading up to Atlantic Beach this winter and the Crystal Coast Half Marathon on March 7.

It's good to have goals.  But it's good to have realistic goals.

Both the 5-K and the half marathon courses at Bethel are beautiful, mostly on two-lane roads out in the countryside east of Waynesville.  I ran my first half marathon there, way back in 1998, and went on to run it three more times, as well as completing the 5-K last year.  I hope to be prepared for the half marathon next year.  The weather forecast is good, with temperatures expected to be in the low 50s, and we are looking forward to the race.

Ten Miles

The week went by quickly here at the beach.  Tuesday, I ran three miles early and then we drove to New Bern, an hour away, for lunch at Morgan's Tavern.  Wednesday morning, I heard bagpipes playing again and saw our piper standing out on the beach.  He was attracting more interest by morning light than he had in the dark, and shell-gatherers and dog-walkers stopped to listen as he went through his repertoire.

For lunch, we attended a "Brown Bag Gam" at the N. C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort.  We have attended these programs in past years (in fact, we are members of both Fort Macon and the Maritime Museum).  Interested visitors pack a brown bag lunch (or pick up some take-out) and listen to a maritime-themed presentation by one of the curators.  A "gam," by the way, is "a social visit or friendly interchange, especially between whalers or other seafarers.  Today's program was about Lightships and Light Towers (as opposed to lighthouses constructed on the shore) and we found it interesting as usual.

After lunch we walked around Beaufort, one of our favorite places.  It was named by Travel and Leisure as “America's Favorite Town,” and its laid-back charm is infectious.  It is easy to find a shady bench down on Taylor's Creek and simply watch the boats come and go.

Thursday, after another three-mile run, we took a ferry from Beaufort to a destination we had never visited before, Sand Dollar Island, out in the Sound between Rachel Carson Reserve and Shackleford Banks.
 

We were surprised to find that the “island” seemed to be little more than an exposed shoal of sand, and indeed our ferry captain said that during the winter, it is often submerged at high tide.  There were no trees or vegetation of any kind, just a few shells and plenty of sand dollars.  It was a true “desert island,” and I found myself thinking of that Laurie Anderson song, Blue Lagoon:

I've been getting lots of sun.

And lots of rest. 

It's really hot.
Days, I dive by the wreck.

Nights, I swim in the blue lagoon.
Always used to wonder who I'd bring to a desert island.

The sand dollars were not lying around on the sand, but instead could be found only by wading out in the shallow water just off the sand shoal, where they told us you could sometimes feel them with your toes.  Martha found one, along with a pretty shell we could not identify, while I contented myself with wandering around on the sand taking photos.

The week, as I said, went by quickly, and every day was hotter than the preceding one.  So today, Saturday, we knew we had to get started early.  I set the alarm for 4:30 a.m. and we were ready to go by 6:00 a.m.  I did a couple of laps around the parking lot, waiting for it to become light enough to safely run on the road and not trip on cracks.

It was a tough run, ten miles in unaccustomed heat and humidity, and we were both drenched with sweat when we finished.  It has been an unusually steep climb up the slope of this training plan to the summit of a final long run, still three miles short of the distance of a half marathon.  But it succeeded in making us confident that we could complete the race in two weeks time. 

Tomorrow morning we will drive back to Raleigh, and then to Highlands, grateful for this week of running and preparation and adventure, bagpipes and laughing gulls, sunrises and sunsets, and the ceaseless sound of the surf breaking on the shore.