Water Lilies

We have had more visiting runners than usual this summer, and it is always interesting to run with them.  Today we met Sonia, who found our website weeks ago and e-mailed me; she did not want to miss any training for her first marathon at Disney World in January.  We ran six mile with her, and in the process took her round and about Highlands - the quiet neighborhoods where we normally run, the Nature Center where we stopped for water, and the Biological Station where she planned to hike with her husband in the afternoon.  "What a beautiful place to run!" she said.

I have often found it interesting that, while showing visitors Highlands, we seem to see it more clearly ourselves; it takes the perspective we have when running with others to notice once again how cool and beautiful it is in the morning with the mist drifting away over Satulah Mountain, and the sounds of katydids and morning birds all around.  When my sister visits us, for example, I find myself noticing more than ever how nice it is to dine on our deck in the evening, and then watch the fireflies come out and slowly rise and fall on the evening breeze.  She doesn't want to do much else but sit and simply soak it all in, and I find myself thinking, "Yeah, it is pretty wonderful, isn't it?"

And today Sonia stopped short on Lower Lake Road and simply dropped her jaw at the lovely water lilies on Ravenel Lake.

How many times have I run by this lake, engrossed in conversation or lost in my own thoughts, and not noticed how many more there seem to be this year than in the past?  To take the time to pause and be thankful for living and running in this beautiful place.

Lifeboat Tea

It's not always easy balancing running and hard physical work, and as I increase my training this summer to 30-mile-weeks and spend some time doing real work, I can feel it.  By real work I mean working in the garden, mixing up concrete and mortar in a wheelbarrow by hand, tearing out that old handrail on the porch with a crowbar, all out in the 80-degree-plus heat.  This kind of work, which I have always done despite my white-collar background, gives me an appreciation for those men amongst us who work like this all the time!  The builders and roofers and lawn guys, many of them Hispanic, who do good hard "honest" work.  As I sit bone-weary and drenched in sweat to take a break in the shade, I have to think that this cross-training will eventually prove more beneficial than the afternoon nap that seems to be the prevalent type of cross-training for most of those in my age group.  What I need mid-afternoon, after nine miles of hills this morning, is something that is a staple of  the British - a cup of tea!

Our favorite tea this summer is Lifeboat Tea, which we stocked up on at the Outer Banks this April.  It's imported from the UK and, according to the box it comes in, every purchase goes to help the Longhope Lifeboat Station in Orkney.  That is appropriate because as far as I know the only place to purchase it in this area is at the Chicamacomico Lifesaving Station in Rodanthe:

My little lifeboat, saving me from the sea of exhaustion!  Highly recommended to focus the mind and refresh the body in a time-honored way (since 1869, according to its package).  Although I do not think it will catch on with the roofers in Highlands.

Running Log Guilt

I have tracked the slow progression of my mileage in my running log, and it is encouraging to finally reach 30 per week - a number that makes me feel as if I am suddenly in a higher gear.  The last three weeks I ran 25.24, 27.03, 30.23, and 30.00 miles.  But last weekend I missed my long run.  Instead, on Saturday we went to Snowbird Mountain Lodge in Robbinsville to celebrate our 36th Anniversary.

Although I managed to ride a mountain bike Monday afternoon on the Cherohala Skyway, and we had a lovely hike in the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest on Sunday morning, my mileage suffered a setback.  I actually went five days without running.  So, consumed with "Running Log Guilt," I ran 9.00 miles on Wednesday, intervals on Thursday, and a long run on Saturday.  But the planned 12-mile long run was much more difficult than I had anticipated, even with nice cool breezes and lots of companions along the way.  I began to feel as if I was running the final mile or two of a marathon.  My worn shoes were not helping, either.  So I stopped at ten miles, feeling slightly disappointed at not completing the workout.

But should I really regret a long weekend with my beautiful wife in a beautiful place, eating good food and drinking good wine, and wandering amongst these towering giants?

What a foolish mistake it is to let one's life be dominated by running, and one's running life be dominated by the Running Log and its demand for more and more miles!  Instead, a runner should always listen to his or her body, and adjust accordingly.  So I took a complete rest day from running today, took new running shoes out of their boxes, and hit the reset button.  Tomorrow I am looking forward to running up some mountains again.

Hydration

The importance of hydration on these hot days of late June was brought home to me this morning as I completed by nine-mile run, which again included Big Bearpen.  But this time I climbed to the summit and back down again at the tail-end of my run when it had heated up five or ten degrees and I had become dehydrated.  Despite circling back to the water fountain at the Park several times in the first half of my run, the round-trip is four miles with no water (unless I carry it, which I do not), so by the time I staggered down Fifth Street back to the water fountain again I was feeling a little light-headed.  I was tempted to join the little kids from Rec Camp playing in the new fountain. 

And the scales when I returned home told me that I had lost three pounds.  Opinions vary just a little, but the formula for re-hydration is this:  “For every pound lost, replace it with 16 to 20 ounces of fluid."  So I've been drinking water all afternoon until it is sloshing around in my belly.  So is our little cat, returning frequently to one of the various bird-baths in the yard which I keep full for that purpose (would a bird be reckless enough to perch on one?)

And now it seems as if the very sky is becoming hydrated as the afternoon heat builds:  the growling of thunder on the horizon to the west, darker and darker clouds building.  The cloud cover and cool rain would be a welcome relief, and the garden which I have been watering almost daily would also appreciate it. 

I'm glad that I have now become an unrepentant (and prudent) morning runner!  I cannot imagine going up to Town to run in this heat and under these stormy skies. 

Benchmarks

The recovering runner listens carefully to what his body is saying.  And today it was saying, "I ran well this week.  Perhaps I am ready for something big."

My mileage since the half-marathon on April 19 has been a classic model of recovery - slow, careful progression, with a mixture of hills, speed-work, and long runs.  And today I shifted into another gear - a 30-mile week.  I know this sounds obsessive-compulsive, but after all I do record my mileage from my GPS watch and I enter it in my log every day, so it was an easy matter of displaying this good data on an Excel bar chart.  My daughter would be proud!

I could almost feel the sound of the clutch being gently pressed, the RPMs dropping down - Third Gear!  Suddenly it feels as if I am on track for a half-marathon, or perhaps even a marathon.

It was a good morning - a cool breeze blowing continuously, and a visiting runner from St. Louis running with us, a veteran of eight marathons.  It made me start thinking again of the "work of noble note" that Tennyson talked about in his poem Ulysses that I have decided to commit to memory.  What better verses to recite during the final miles of a distance race?

 "There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: 

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep 

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 

'T is not too late to seek a newer world. 

Push off, and sitting well in order smite 

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds 

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 

Of all the western stars, until I die."

 

 

Staying Cool in June

The temperature this morning was a comfortable 64 degrees, and it should be two or three degrees cooler up in Highlands.  As I was having my coffee out on the deck, enjoying a light breeze, I thought that this was perfect "Chamber of Commerce" weather - exactly what has led people to this corner of the world for the past hundred years.  Afternoon heat will inevitably build up and there is a slight chance of a thunderstorm as always this time of year, but mornings are a paradise for runners!  Tourists flock here from Atlanta and from Birmingham and from other parts of the South where it is hard to stay cool even early in the mornings, and the runners are out these weekend mornings, some of them even joining our group for a mile or two as we call out to them.

I remember complaining about the heat to one of our part-time residents from Atlanta several years ago - I think it may have been in the low 80s at the time - and he said that he had run in 98-degree misery in Atlanta the previous afternoon.  So I never complain about the heat anymore.  And I'm looking forward to our Saturday-morning run this morning.

Even when the temperature creeps up, as it is scheduled to do later this morning, into the 70s.

Big Bearpen Again

It has been three weeks since my last post, but at last I am seeing some improvement in my training.  It seems that the older I become the easier it is to have a "setback" - a check in progress, a step backward.  First I acquired some kind of vague stomach bug the week before last.  And then last week I managed to inexplicably and mysteriously pull something in my lower back.  This despite daily stretching and strengthening that has included, since May 1, a daily regimen of 66 pushups spread out over the day (three sets of 22, usually) in honor and defiance of my age this year.

But last week I had a great run up Big Bearpen, my old friend in adversity, despite a still-stiff back.  And the past two Saturdays I had great, strong, ten- and nine-mile runs.  I even ran some 400-meter intervals last week.  And today I literally stepped up again, running to the summit of Big Bearpen and back down twice, entering with satisfaction in my running log, "Bearpen X 2."  I am not the only one who is crazy about Bearpen.  Derek says he has been running it regularly and is surprised at how much easier it seems every time.  Vicki is a regular, too.  And today Jonathan accompanied me up Chestnut Street and then left me in the dust on his own ascent (my second).  The miracle of hill running is that it builds strength despite everything. 

And so we continue to climb.