The Catbird Seat

This morning we ran our last three-mile run before the race, taking the same route as Monday, down to the Picnic Area and then back on the beach.  Low tide was a little after 9:00 a.m., and once again there was little wind and the ocean was calm under an overcast sky, so that the wide, flat beach was a welcome alternative to the hard pavement on Fort Macon Road.  I was surprised when we first started coming here that it is so pleasant running on the beach, which at low tide is packed down and smooth, not at all the soft sand one encounters on most beaches.

I sat on the bench along the dune-top deck and soaked up the sights and sounds around me after my run this morning.  It is this place, like a little stage at the end of the walkway, where I do my Tai Chi nearly every morning and then, if the weather is nice, return with a cup of coffee for awhile. 

A year or two ago, I referred to this place as the Catbird Seat, thinking about the famous James Thurber short story.  Sometimes we will look out from the balcony and see someone sitting here, but not often this time of year.  "There's someone in your Catbird Seat," Martha will say.  It looks as if it would be a convivial place for socializing late in the afternoons during the season when this place has more people than we suspect we would enjoy.  It was not a catbird but a mockingbird that I was listening to this morning (I have learned the distinction from Ranger Randy on our Fort Macon bird hikes), perched on the very peak of that house next to the condos where the roofers were working on Saturday night.  He went through his entire repertoire, which was amazingly lengthy, then seemed to start over again, his mocking song unfurling fluently in the still morning air.

We are starting to think about the race seriously now.   We will pick up our race packets on Friday and drive the course; although we have both run the half marathon and I have run the 10-K, it will be good to refresh our memories about where the mile splits are.  Although only half the distance as the half marathon, the 10-K route still crosses the Atlantic Beach Bridge and then returns again.  The weather forecast is calling for strong winds Saturday morning, and we hope they will not rise to the level of those 50 mph gusts we encountered two years ago, which can be daunting up on that high, exposed bridge soaring across the sound.

The race is always on the first Saturday in March, so it is later this year (March 7) than it has ever been before because of Leap Year.  We both feel in many ways that our Sabbatical is coming to an end now, and within a few days of completing the race, depending on the weather, we will start packing up and returning.  It is so generous of Martha's Aunt Lizette to allow us to stay here in January and February, and we do not want to outstay our welcome.  It will be good to see her in Raleigh on the way back and spend some time visiting and celebrating her upcoming 91st birthday.   And then to get back home to Highlands.