Oskar Blues 4-Mile Race

It could not have been a better morning for the Oskar Blues 4-Mile Race at the Oskar Blues Brewery in Brevard – a sunny day, temperatures in the 60s, and a light breeze.  We have run this race twice before, in 2015 and 2016, but on a difference course.  Leaving early in the morning in our Mini Cooper, we arrived in plenty of time (the start time was 11:00 a.m.) to check out the new course - as much as we could, anyway, since part of it was on the Brevard Greenway, a nicely-paved, broad Greenway trail on which we had finished the Flight of the Vampire last October, and also on which I had run a 5-mile race in 2017.  Flatter than any of those previous races, mostly in quiet neighborhoods where dogwood and azalea were in full bloom, we were looking forward to a new course and to seeing our friends Skip and MaryAnn.

I admit that I was not in the best condition for our first race since December. We had been working hard this week, my training had dropped off, and allergies were affecting both of us, with pollen counts in the Code Orange medium-high zone.  Sometimes this can result in a surprising turnaround once the race starts, but this morning my legs felt heavy as I warmed up in the parking lot of the brewery.  Our friends showed up, and Skip decided he would run with me (although I suspect he could have finished faster than I did).  We have run together for nearly 40 years, and it was nice to run a race with him again.  We tried to recall how long it had been since that had happened.  At one time, we were closely matched – I remember beating him to the finish by mere seconds in a race in Clarkesville nearly 30 years ago, and he did the same to me in Bryson City a few years later.  And one year we ran the Rocket City Marathon together, his first and only marathon, and he never stops reminding me how imprudent it was of me to continue in such a masochistic pursuit for many years after that.  I explain in turn that all the blood descends to my legs when I begin running a marathon and my brain stops functioning at full capacity.

The race was well-attended by families, with several mother-daughter and father-son pairings and plenty of strollers and dogs, all of them to be avoided.  It is always nice to see very young children running perhaps their first race.  Skip and I ran side-by-side, chatting amiably about past races, commenting on the beautiful azaleas and the nice, flat course.  I do love to make jokes during a race! – it seems to lift everyone’s spirits, including my own, so I asked volunteers along the way if they were sure there would be beer at the finish line, I accused one woman and her baby who passed us of having a motorized stroller, and so on.  But despite the flat course, each mile split was slower than the last one, except for the final mile which was partly downhill, and we crossed the finish line together in 52:00.

Martha, on the other hand, was absolutely on fire.  She disappeared ahead of us pretty quickly and I did not see her again until the finish, when she announced that her time was 38:20.  She had told me on the drive over this morning that she hoped to break 45 minutes, so this was indeed a spectacular finish time.  Looking back, she had finished in 2015 in 41:31, and in 2016 in 39:16, so this was a 4-Mile PR for her, and she is six years older now.  There were ten-year age groups and neither Skip (who is 69, and potentially running against 60-year-olds) nor I expected to place.  But Martha found that she had taken second place in her own age group, at the age of 66; the first place woman was a mere 17 second ahead of her, and she was only 60 years old.  Very impressive!

As for me, I confess that I was a little disappointed not to place at all in my age group.  Looking back at my race records, I have not failed to place in my last 15 races over the past three years, eight of those being first place.  I had been telling Skip how much he would enjoy turning 70 in November and being in a new age group – “Runners don’t grow old, they just enter new age groups.”  Still, I was a year older and there was some stiff competition in my age group – the first place winner, who was exactly my age, finished in 33:52, nearly twenty minutes ahead of me.  We all learn pretty early in a lifetime of running races that it does not pay to have a fragile ego.  There is always someone faster than you.  But it does pay to have a sense of humor!

So it was a good day, as every day is when we complete another race, another milestone, another achievement logged in the book of our lives.  And we never fail to learn something from a race, if we are paying attention.  What did I learn today?  Humility, and gratitude, and an appreciation for the beauty of this greening and flowering time of year.  At the end of the day, I was able to watch my beautiful wife set a deserving PR, we were able to celebrate recent good news that MaryAnn had received and her birthday tomorrow, and I was able to run a race with my oldest “running buddy” Skip – and all of those blessings were reward enough.

New Adventure on the Horizon

My last post to this blog was on March 10, the eve of our departure from Atlantic Beach.  We returned two days later, and it seems that there has been little time to spare since then.  Our long list of things to do upon return included such things as pruning and fertilizing and spraying the apple trees, working in the yard, appointments with doctors, and visits with friends and relatives.  We had a good overnight visit with Martha’s aunt in Clemson, had lunch with her brother, and had a nice lunch with our old friends Skip and MaryAnn in Brevard.

Less enjoyable tasks awaited us as well, such as filing our Income Tax return and paying a visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles for a Drivers License.  I had discovered while in Atlantic Beach that mine had expired in February – I had not received a reminder – and the DMV office out there was by all reports the worst in the State (“Do they beat their employees in the back room or something?” one reviewer on Google said.  “Is it a requirement to work for the DMV that you have to be unhappy?”)  Thankfully, that was not the case at the Franklin office – the problem was that there was only one over-worked yet cheerful woman issuing Drivers Licenses for the entire county.  I arrived just after lunch to find the tiny office filled to capacity (five seats), the door locked, and two people already in line.  That line grew to more than a dozen (most of them to be sent away disappointed), while from time to time the Examiner came out to release a person from within and admit a new candidate.  After an hour I was admitted to the inner sanctum, where I could at least sit in a chair, and finally into the Examiner’s chamber itself, the Holy of Holies, where after a brief examination a very unflattering photograph of me was taken, which shall be my identity for the next five years.

Spring arrived tentatively, along with Daylight “Savings” Time (what is really “saved,” I wonder?), which is not welcomed by morning runners who face darker, colder mornings.  Still, we have both been running when weather permits, and I even encountered an old friend on Monday – Big Bearpen Mountain, which I have not climbed since last April.  Climbing to the summit without stopping is always a test of will power as well as leg strength, but the reward of those views at the top are worth the effort.  Justin Kinsland, owner of Highlands Excursions, passed me halfway up, driving a small family of sightseers to the top, and he was parked at the Whiteside overlook at the top.  “Do you need a ride?” he asked as I ran by.  I suppose he was joking.  Or did I look that wobbly?  A young boy in the back gawked at me in wonder as I passed.

April is always a month of surprises in Highlands, though, beginning with April Fools Day.  Yesterday afternoon I drove up to the Post Office and the grocery store, and when I reached the Eastern Continental Divide on the Walhalla Road, the few spatters of light rain on the windshield turned into snow, and by the time I reached the parking lot it was coming down in earnest, the first real snow we have seen.  This morning, I went out on the deck early for my Tai Chi and discovered a pretty good dusting of overnight snow.  With uncharacteristic good sense, I decided to postpone my Saturday morning long run.  It was 26 degrees in Highlands, road conditions were questionable, and I have fallen once this year and do not want to fall again.

One of the things that has kept us busy is ironing out the details of a planned trip overseas this year, a New Adventure on the Horizon, which I do not think I have yet mentioned in this blog.  Our original plan was to visit Scotland last year – ultimately cancelled due to Covid – and participate in something called the Scottish Highlands Tour, organized by a small group of Mini Cooper enthusiasts on a ten-day trip through the most picturesque parts of Scotland.

After watching some videos of past tours and immediately deciding, "Yes!  I'm in!" I realized also that this adventure would be . . . interesting, for a few reasons.  First, the roads are mostly two-lane with pull-offs (or “lay-bys” as they say over there), and aside from oncoming cars, there can be small herds of black-faced sheep in the road, obstacles we never encounter while driving our own Mini Cooper on this relatively sheepless side of the pond.  Even more interesting, in those places where there are two-lane roads, we will be driving on the left side - I have to be get used to saying “left” rather than “wrong - and even more alarming, the steering wheel is on the right.  I will not be leading the way!  But nothing worthwhile is accomplished, after all, without pushing the envelope, getting out of our comfort zones, and so these challenges cannot dampen our excitement.  Can we really be returning to one of the most beautiful countries we have ever seen and motoring in a Mini Cooper?

Since air fare is one of the most expensive components of a trip to Scotland, we decided to spend a little time in the area while we are there.  As we looked at all of the possibilities, including river and canal cruises and other tours in the UK, our plans evolved into a tour in France.  So we are planning to take the Eurostar train, which travels at over 200 miles per hour, through the Channel Tunnel (the “Chunnel”) to Paris, a trip that takes just a little over two hours and avoids baggage and airport transfers.  The Eurostar takes us directly from London's St. Pancras station to Gare du Nord in the heart of Paris.

In Paris, we will spend five days at the Hotel Mercure, taking walking tours of the city, visiting the Eiffel Tour and the Louvre, and even having a luncheon cruise on the Seine – all of these thanks to Martha’s good sense and ability to identify and make reservations.  (In fact, it was she who first found out about the Scottish Highlands Tour.)  After our time in Paris, we will begin a two-week Trafalgar tour that will take us on a route throughout France to see destinations we have longed dreamed of visiting, including Van Gogh’s Arles, Monet’s Giverny, Monaco, the Riviera, Lourdes, Bordeaux, and the beaches of Normandy.

We are not seasoned travelers, but this will be our third Trafalgar tour, and we have found all of them to be excellent.  The itinerary is extensive, and the tour guides are unfailingly informative.  We will be not just travelers on a sightseeing trip, but explorers diving into the culture and the history of the country, with plenty of local down time to explore on our own.  We are as excited about this part of the trip as the first part.  Also, I will see if my high school French will stand me in good stead, taught to me by a wonderful teacher named Miss Satterlee 55 years ago (who did not allow us to speak English in her classroom), continued in an intensive semester in college, and was sharpened by a bilingual French-Canadian fellow-student, Pierre.  I cannot say that I am fluent in French, but what I know may be adequate, and it is a beautiful language that I love to hear.

We have spent a lot of time working out the details of this trip, which will begin on June 30 and end on July 29.   That's a month, and we will let our vegetable gardens and apple trees fend for themselves.

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Our surprised passports were retrieved from the Safety Deposit Box where they have been sleeping for three years, and we are working on the day-to-day itinerary - what train is best to take from London to Birmingham, where our Scottish Highlands Tour friends will pick us up?  What size luggage can we carry on the Eurostar?  (85cm long at its widest point).  How long is 85cm?  

We will say farewell to ordinary things for nearly a month as we embark on an extraordinary journey. In a matter of only two or three months, this blog will take its followers on new adventures - from the “hairy coos” of the Scottish Highlands to La Ville des Lumieres – the City of Lights. 

Who knows what will happen before then?  Covid is surging in many parts of the world, including the UK, but we are vaccinated and boosted and will have a second booster before we leave.  A war is raging in Europe every bit as horrifying as World War II, with more than four million Ukrainians fleeing to Poland and other parts of Europe, some of them to France.  We pray that the violence will come to an end before this summer, but we just don't know.  Part of me could feel guilty that we will be stopping in Bordeaux to taste wine and gaze at the sun setting on a vineyard, while so many will be suffering so close to us.  But in the same way that we live our lives here in Highlands, striving to find peace in our hearts in the midst of it all, we must go and see and do what we can while we are still young enough to travel.  If not now, when?  The City of Lights beckons to us from across the ocean.

And now I find that beautiful song by Judy Collins going through my mind, the one she wrote about the same time I was learning French from Miss Satterlee:

My father always promised us
That we would live in France
We'd go boating on the Seine
And I would learn to dance

I sail my memories of home
Like boats across the Seine
And watch the Paris sun
As it sets in my father's eyes again