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.