A Window Opened

I ran up Big Bearpen again yesterday - my once-a-week workout these days - and had intended to take a day off and run Thursday and Saturday this week.  But the weather forecast for Thursday did not look promising.  "Snow Showers!" - and just when the tulips are blooming - what a slap in the face!

The forecast for this morning did not look much better.  Partly cloudy,  then mostly cloudy, then thunderstorms, then "Strong Storms."  The radar map was filled with bright orange and red blotches, crawling inexorably closer, and then continuing all day.  The WLOS and WHLC weather reports warned of thunder, lightning, and possible tornadoes.

The perfect morning for another run, a day after climbing Big Bearpen!  Actually, my hourly forecast indicated that there was a window between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. - that "cloudy" then "mostly cloudy" part of the forecast - so I might be able to run two or three miles before the worst of it.

When I started out, it was merely sprinkling sporadically, barely enough to get wet.  A couple were walking their dog on Fifth Street and I called out encouragingly, "It's not going to rain!"  They laughed and replied, "Not until 11:00!" which confirmed the forecast I had heard.  I realized I was running faster than I had planned, especially the day after a steep workout, but I decided to keep up the pace, listen carefully to my body for any signs that I was pushing too hard, and turn this Window Run into a Fast Run.  Going into my second mile on Wilson Road, a flat-bed truck was parked in the road, adjoining neat stacks of concrete blocks that had been unloaded for a new home under construction.  A young man was standing in the road watching me approach, and he called out, "Is there a bear chasing you? and laughed.  I must have looked like I was running fast!  "No, just my past," I said, "And all my old sins."  That evoked more laughter.

I had been hearing thunder from time to time, and coming around Harris Lake into my third mile there was a pretty loud boom.  But at the same time, there was bright light along the horizon to the north, and the rain had increased only slightly.  There was a flash of lightning nearby, too, and that energizing scent of thunderstorm-ozone was in the air.  I came down the last hill, finishing with a 32:03 for 5-K, and I realized that I had been enjoying sustained fast running again, that exhilarating feeling of flight we experience during races, of pushing the gearshift into a higher gear and taking off!  The rain picked up even more on my cool-down lap, and the thunder was unnervingly close; by the time I returned to cover it was a downpour.  The window had been abruptly slammed shut.

There are not many more rewarding experiences in a runner's life than running fast and watching it rain hard after you have gotten back to cover! 

April Road Trip

I will be putting this blog on vacation for awhile next week because we are once again embarking on a road trip, one which we have been planning for a long time.  In fact, we had the route pretty well fine-tuned last April when we realized that "Mini Takes the States" would not be held again until 2018, so we took the month of July instead and went to California and back.  It is an opportunity we will never regret, as even novice travelers like ourselves come to understand.

This trip will be taken not in our Mini Cooper but in our more sensible (and 4X4) Honda CRV.  We will be going up north where the weather will not be conducive to putting the top down on a convertible!  In fact, I checked out the webcams at one of our stops, Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont, and it looked like we might need the four-wheel-drive.

But we plan to travel in the same way as we did last summer:  pack light, keep moving, and see and experience as much as we can along the way.  I will take notes in a journal and then catch this blog up to date after we return, as I did last July, for the benefit of any of my followers.

Our route will take us up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Peaks of Otter; northward to Hershey Farms Inn and Restaurant in Amish country, where Martha's Mom and Dad enjoyed many wonderful times when he was still with us; on to Niagara Falls and the Maid of the Mist; across the Canadian border and along the north shore of Lake Ontario (Note to Self:  be sure we have our Passports, and refrain from making jokes at the border about being refugees from Trump); eastward across the northern portions of Lake Champlain to Stowe (where snow may well await us); eastward again to Bar Harbor, and then rambling down the coast of Maine over a period of three days to Rockland, Kennebunkport, and eventually through Boston to Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island, and Mystic Seaport in Connecticut; through the insane traffic of New York as quickly as possible, and south to New Castle, Delaware; down the peninsula and across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to Virginia Beach; and then finally arriving in familiar Duck for a week before returning home.

So we will once again be on the road, as two great poets have sung so memorably:

"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before me . . ."

- Walt Whitman

"On the road again

Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends
Insisting that the world keep turning our way
And our way is on the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again."

- Willie Nelson

April Fools

I had not realized that so much time has passed since my last post.  I think it is safe to say that Spring is finally here, and with it there is work to be done as well as running to enjoy.  So over the past two weeks I spaded the garden beds, I pruned and fertilized the apple trees, I fertilized the lawn, I removed the rotten oak barrels from the garden area, I picked up more fallen branches.  There never seems to be an end to yard work this time of year, but it is as satisfying as a long run, and (as I re-discovered while spading the garden beds) equally as necessary to pace yourself.

Our tulips are coming up now, finally, and I posted this on Facebook last week.  Of course, it can still snow in Highlands, and it usually does on the daffodils, but once the tulips are blooming the new season seems locked more securely in place.

We have been running more and more, too, now that warmer weather is here.  On these beautiful mornings, clouds often nestle in the valleys and rise up gradually, and then blow away like wild white hair from the mountaintops; mornings like this call us to the summit of Big Bearpen again.  The lakes of South Carolina can almost be seen to the south.

And to the east, Whiteside stands up shining and glorious, clouds drifting across its face.

Friday was a "rest day" between a two-mile run down Sassafras Gap Road and a 9-mile run on this April Fool's Day, so Martha and I hiked to the top of Sunset for the first time this year.  This climb always puts into perspective the bustle down below on Main Street.

We have hiked (and run) up here so many times I have lost track, but sometimes on the way up I like to remember and name silently all of the friends and relatives and daughters and mothers-in-law and dogs that have gone this journey with us over 40 years.  I posted this on Facebook and my nephew's wife commented, "I've been up there!" 

On this day in the past, some of us used to run down Horse Cove Road - and, more significantly, back up again! - and I can name those April fools silently as well.  The First Fool was Morris (he would like that title, I think).  I well remember the day when we were starting to cross Main Street at the start of what was then the "usual" route, but there was a stream of traffic blocking the road for some reason; so we turned left, past the Episcopal Church, toward that point where Main Street turns into Horse Cove Road and drops a thousand feet or so in elevation down to the valley below, and one of us (me, probably) said, "Hey, why don't we run down to Horse Cove and back?"  And I think it was Morris who replied with those dangerous words, "I will if you will!"  And so it began, the long descent burning in your calves and hamstrings, the turn at the Little Church in the Wildwood, and then the even longer climb back up this relentless mountain, one step after another, refusing to stop, the only traffic an occasional out-of-state car dragging behind it the sour fragrance of burning brakes.  We kept up the tradition for several years, and I even recall running it all by myself one year in a light snow on a cold and hungry afternoon before meeting Martha for dinner at Cyprus.

We old fools have had some good times!

The Solitary Runner

I think my flatland legs are finally beginning to recover their mountain strength!  Today I ran six miles, all my myself, and it was one of those rambling, wandering runs that I love so much.  I began on the usual route, but at the top of Chestnut Street I departed from pavement and climbed around Lower Lake Road, and then across Gibson to the top of Harris.  From there I circled the business district of Town, going down Spring Street and then back up the entire length of Main Street, which I love when there is little traffic - past all the shops and restaurants, past the late-risers coming out of Buck's with coffee to go, past stately Highlands Inn, and all the way back around Fifth and Chestnut.  I did not even think of looking at my watch until that point, and realizing that I wanted a mile or two more, I took a right on Fifth and found myself climbing "Monkey Hill" on Hickory Street.  Then past the ball field, all the way up Chestnut, and around once more.

Six miles.  I did not plan out a route, so every turn I took was completely by whim.  This is not easy to do unless a runner is by himself, and perhaps this is why so many runners do not want company.  As I have said before in this blog, I do enjoy the company of other runners.  There's something almost biblical in it, after all:

"Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,
as the manner of some is; 

but exhorting one another."
- Hebrews 10:24-25

But I love days like today, too, becoming a kind of running heretic, departing from the normal route and answering to no one, under the vow of silence, deep in my own solitary thoughts, giving thanks for returning strength, for deep breath, for the bright sun breaking out from behind the clouds.  Solitude.

First Day of Spring

It was the first day of Spring in Highlands, and it felt like it; temperatures began just a degree or two below freezing, rose to the 50s by noon, and was up to 70 degrees in Clayton where we ended up this afternoon after an errand in Franklin.  It was a good day for New Beginnings.  And I am a little superstitious about New Years and New Seasons; it marks the opportunity to begin a new project, to prepare for a new journey, to sum up what has come before and look ahead with anticipation toward what lies out on the horizon.

So I ran up Big Bearpen, for the first time since January 2 (I actually had to look that date up just now).  It was a great way to start off a New Season, climbing higher and higher, the morning sunshine warming me as I climbed, step by step.  That old bluegrass song went through my mind.

I'll be waiting on the hillside on the day when you will call

On the sunny side of the mountain where the rippling waters fall.

And it was the same as I had remembered up on the summit, bright clear vistas stretching out on the south toward South Carolina, the bright unmistakable profile of Whiteside Mountain on the east.  It is always a little humbling to stand and gaze out at these distances, legs trembling a little, breath coming back slowly.  A beautiful morning!  And good to be home again.

But I sure felt it when I ran back down-mountain, easing carefully around the curves with knees unaccustomed to that kind of running.  I have been running on relatively flat roads for 10 weeks or so.  When I got out of the car at the Post Office I realized that my legs were a little rubbery.  It will take a little time to adjust to this altitude again.  But today there seems to be plenty of time.

I wrote this Spring poem 37 years ago for Martha, and today I was reminded of it again.

Now the crocus-ruckus has begun,
The branch is empurpled with sap;
From stony bulbs of tulip and daffodil
Slender green stems break

Out of their cold ruts.  The bud is sticky,
The stem shines.  There is dew
Instead of frost.  Instead of ice
Water wells up in the ground

And careers in orange torrents
In the roaring creek.  The wind
Is an eternity of air shifting,
A wall advancing, a new

Weather, a different key.  Love,
Cast away the details of last year,
The hollow, bone-white weeds,
The old bark and leaves,

And let the season sweep you
Up in ruckus.  This daffodil,
This trumpet voluntary:
Listen - it is for you!

After dinner, we noticed that a peculiar kind of light was tapping softly at the windows; we went out on the deck and sat in our rocking chairs and watched the first day of Spring come to a dramatic end.

Daffodils and Visitors

"Cutting slack" this week has meant more days off than this obsessive-compulsive runner, with his running log and his unrealistic plans, would like to see.  But sunshine finally made a modest appearance on Thursday afternoon, and we ran a couple of miles down here on Sassafras Gap Road where temperatures are usually at least five degrees warmer than up in Town.  But that wind was still sharp!  Eliot thought April was the cruelest month, but I would cast a vote for March; those warm days and fragrant daffodils making a sudden appearance, tempting the unwary runner out in shorts and a too-thin shirt, and then slicing him up with that sharp wind.

So it was nice to see temperatures finally rebound to 50 degrees for our Saturday morning run, and to see so many runners gathered at Founders Park, as ready as I was to recover some lost mileage.  One of our visitors was Terry, who had e-mailed me earlier in the week and said "I'm supposed to run eight miles."  I told Terry that sounded like either a training plan or a guilty conscience.  It turned out that it was a little of both, and I was also surprised that Terry was a woman.  She had undergone ACL surgery a few months ago and was training for a half marathon with her running group, although she did not actually plan to run it.  Terry turned out to be a likeable and chatty companion for me and Fred and Martha and Vicki, as most visiting runners are, and I ended up with more than seven miles in my precious running log.

It is nice that we have a presence on the internet (Terry said she had Googled "running routes in Highlands" and our website came up) and can meet up with so many visitors, many of them training for a distance race and not wanting to lose mileage while traveling, and some of them even sending back finish-line photos.  We are part of a community after all, one of the nicest things about this obsessive sport, and it never becomes more apparent than when we can offer hospitality and make a new friend.

Cutting Slack

I was looking forward to seeing my running friends in Highlands on Saturday morning after being gone for so long.  It really wasn't that cold - just a few degrees below freezing and a light breeze - and, expecting to see a large, convivial group waiting at Founders Park, I was surprised to see only one runner, Bob, and he did not look very happy.  He was not feeling well either, he said, and only came to Town to take his daughter to work.  We waited the usual five minutes, then five more minutes, standing around the corner of the building to avoid a wind that had become sharper.  I told Bob he should go home; then I left on a solo three-mile run.  When I returned home I sent out this e-mail to some of the Saturday morning regulars:

"Hey, what's going on?  Has this running club fallen apart in my absence?  I show up Saturday morning - a nice balmy morning, by the way - and only one runner shows up, Bob, and he is not feeling well so he has to go home.  So I have to run BY MYSELF!  Saturday morning runs are the MAINSTAY of the running club!  Where was everybody?"

Always nice to stir up a guilty conscience!  As expected, I received some replies from the guilty and the innocent and the merely tardy.  Karen said she was late and saw me disappear around the corner as she crested the Fifth Street hill - fair play to her!   Morris said he waited until later in the day, when it was warmer.  Despite my outraged e-mail, I have to agree that it is sensible to wait until the warmest part of the day this time of year (but when have runners been known for being sensible?).  The problem this week was finding any warm part in any day.

We awoke to a light snow Sunday morning and it looks like there is more on the way, with temperatures going down to a bone-chilling 12 degrees by mid-week. There was a time when I would run in conditions like that just to test myself.  Art and I ran one Saturday morning when it was 10 degrees and I joked that, when I spit, it froze into a little ice-ball and bounced on the road.  But those days of "character building" runs seem like a long time ago today as I sit here enjoying a cup of hot tea.  I completed a half marathon a week ago, after all.   

We all need to take a few days off from time to time.