Running with Jean-Charles

After we had unpacked at the hotel yesterday, we walked across the street to a little sidewalk café called Que pour les Gourmands.  We struggled with the French a little, but the jolly young waiter was very patient, and we ordered some appetizers (including salami, cheese, and a Terrine de Canard – duck Pâté, which I sampled only enough of to be polite), the Salade Gourmande du moment (salad of the day), and some good white wine at €5.00 a glass.  The exchange rate varies daily, but a euro is about equivalent to a dollar.  We found that both the food and the wine were very inexpensive; you can dine well in France on a budget.

Tai Chi on the balcony was a bit of a challenge, a narrow space with a low railing eight floors above the Rue de Tocqueville, but I don’t like to miss this daily ritual and never did the entire time we were traveling, even if practiced in a tiny hotel room.  The street was remarkably quiet, the air cool and still.  We went down to breakfast – La Petit Dejeuner – and I was proud to be able to tell the hostess our room number, “Dix cent trois.”  What a bountiful spread! - consisting of my morning staples muesli (granola) and soy milk (lait de soja), fresh-pressed orange juice (plus four other juices), yogurt, fresh fruit, dried fruits and nuts, apricots, figs, prunes, jams and jellies, a fresh baguette of bread which you could slice yourself, croissants, and some other delicate, flaky breakfast desserts.  We have never had croissants so light and flaky!  The hostess had to show me how to make the coffee, flat flying-saucer-shaped little pods placed in a machine sort of like a Keurig which produced frothy French coffee or espresso, depending on the setting.  There was also a basket of eggs and a pot of boiling water (which I had not noticed but Martha had) next to it.  On Sunday, a woman on our tour, assuming they were all hard-boiled, took one to her table and broke the shell, releasing fresh raw egg all over her plate.  “I would not be a bit embarrassed,” I told her.  “You’ll be telling this story back home for years and laughing about it!”

After breakfast, we embarked on an adventure that I mentioned in an earlier post.  Since we were in Paris for five days before joining our Tour group, Martha had found and booked some very good experiences, and they actually turned out to be the highlights of our time in Paris.  This morning we went down to the lobby and met in person (we had been e-mailing him) Jean-Charles Sarfati, who is the owner/operator of Paris Running Tours.  He was a friendly and enthusiastic man only a few years younger than I am, and he took us on a three-mile orientation run from the hotel all the way to the River Seine – the perfect thing for jet-lagged legs, and a great orientation tour of Paris.  (And what else would you expect of Highlands Roadrunner on our first day in Paris?)  He was an experienced marathon runner, completing the Paris Marathon every year, and was going to Japan later in the year to run the Tokyo Marathon with his son who lives there.  He had also runs marathons in the US, and is planning to run Boston next year since he qualified.  He was willing to slow the pace down for us, and we stopped frequently while he pointed out various sights and took photos. 

Martha posted a five-star review on Tripadvisor when we returned:  “Jean-Charles met us at our hotel on our first day in Paris, and took us on a wonderful orientation run around Paris.  He was very informative, and shared some fascinating historical details along the route.  He also took many photos, which he later dropboxed to us on the very same day.  It was a pleasure running with Jean-Charles, and we are happy to recommend him and give him the 5 stars he deserves!”

I mentioned Rue de Tocqueville, and he knew very well that it was named after Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote Democracy in America in 1835.  I cannot begin to describe all of the fascinating details of history, culture, and architecture that he told us about.  “You know about Haussmann architecture?” he asked, and I confessed I did not.  All of the buildings on this street and many in the 17^th Arrondissement were designed by Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann, who famously modernized 19th-century Paris.  The buildings almost always had balconies on the second and fifth floors, the second floor being where the wealthier residents lived, servants upstairs.  We ran southward to the lovely Parc Monceau only a few blocks away, a great place to run, and a nearby (free) Asian art gallery, both of which we would visit on Thursday.  He even pointed out the unattractive street trash cans, unenclosed since the terrorist attacks of a few years ago so that bombs could not be concealed there.

 
He took us down the famous Rue de Lévis, a pedestrian shopping street lined with fruit stands, butchers, fishmongers, wine stores (caves), boulangeries, patisseries, brasseries.  This is where I would shop if I lived in this beautiful city, picking up a baguette or two of bread every day, a bottle of rosé, and perhaps a small quiche.

We made our way eventually to the Petit Palais and the Grand Palais, the latter used for large exhibits but the smaller a very fine museum with high painted ceilings and gorgeous statues, as well as a small cafe in the courtyard where we would have a glass of wine later in the day. 

We finished our run in the Jardin de Tuilleries on the other side of the Champs Elysees, where bleachers and barricades were being set up for tomorrow’s Bastille Day parade, and would remain in place for the final stage of the Tour de France (on rough cobblestones that I would not want to negotiate on a bicycle under any circumstance, but especially not on the 21^st stage of a 2,068-mile race),

There was a significant armed police presence in the area, especially in the vicinity of government buildings, and we often saw groups of three men in uniform (always two in front, one behind) carrying G-36-style assault rifles.  Once I noticed that one of the soldiers was a woman, a very attractive woman who would have looked more at home in the nearby Chanel store, but not someone I would want to cross.

Jean-Charles had recommended for lunch the restaurants in the Tuilleries, and we found ourselves seated outdoors under shady umbrellas eating delicious sandwiches and draft beer (bière pression) to satisfy thirsty runners on what had become a warm afternoon.

Afterwards, we made our way back slowly to our Hotel, stopping at the Petit Palais for that glass of cold white wine.  And thanks to our orientation tour we managed to find our way back easily.  Alors:  a three-mile run-walk on our first day in Paris.  Parfait!

NOTE:  Jean-Charles, if you are reading this, mes excuses for abbreviating so much of your interesting tour of Paris, and for quite possibly misspelling most of the words that still reside in my high-school-French memory.  And good luck in Tokyo and in Boston – Courir Fort!

Arriving in the 17th Arrondissement

One day slides into another when we travel through time zones and across wide gleaming oceans, and today we found ourselves in a new country and a new day.  Although technically Britain is part of Europe, flying across the English Channel seems to cross a border of a different kind entirely, onto the continent, and a country that speaks a different language and has an entirely different culture than we experienced in the United Kingdom and Ireland three years ago.  We were in the EU!  We carried with our passports a new form which we had obediently printed out, the EU Digital Passenger Locator Form (dPLF), which bore a QR code and identified our temporary address as Paris, Rue de Tocqueville 118 75017, and which we were never asked to show any authority during the entire time we were in France.

While waiting in Heathrow Airport for our flight to Paris, I had been surprised as I had been three years ago at the many races, ethnicities, and cultures all around us.  It makes one feel provincial!  I was sitting on a bench waiting for our flight to Paris and noticed a young woman near me wearing a head covering who was carrying on a series of conversations on her phone in what seemed to be at least four different languages, one after another.  She finished her calls and struck up a conversation with us in excellent English, and we learned that she was a doctoral student pursuing cancer research; originally from Turkey, she had traveled widely in the US for her education.  What a bright and personable young woman!  Surely she is the hope of the future in finding a “cure” for this disease, although in our conversation we agreed that it was unlikely that there would be a magic bullet, that cancer was likely caused by many factors including lifestyle and environment. 

One of the things this woman told us was that her baggage had been delayed for two weeks recently, and we tried to imagine how such a calamity would affect us.  Two weeks from now we planned to be on the last leg of our voyage, on the way to Mont-Saint-Michel and the Normandy Beaches.  But a very sharp young man at Charlotte Douglas had taken a look at our itinerary and said he could get our bags transferred to Paris so we would not need to claim and then re-check them in Paris.  “I’ve tried three different ways,” he had said with some frustration as he wrestled with his computer, before telling us confidently that he had worked it out.  Could we trust him?  We made our way immediately to Baggage Claim.  There are few sights more welcome to a traveler than the appearance of one’s humble piece of baggage on the conveyor belt, safe and intact, making its way slowly around the carousel.

Charles de Gaulle Airport was a beautiful, modern airport, and passing through security was much easier than Heathrow.  The concourse was filled with the luxury shops which we would become accustomed to seeing in Paris:  Prada, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Hermes, Gucci, Chanel.  And of course, everybody was talking French.  We had been advised by Trafalgar Tours,  “Make your own way to the hotel at your own expense.  If using a taxi, ensure that it is an official taxi from the rank outside the Terminal Building.  By law these must have a ‘Taxi’ sign on the roof and a taxi meter.”  We found a taxi meeting those requirements immediately, driven by a friendly and talkative Asian driver named, I think, Hai.

When I say “talkative,” I mean that he spoke about as much English as I spoke French.  This was my first attempt to carry on a conversation with a French-speaking native and I was proud of myself and grateful for Miss Satterlee grounding me in the basics of the language.  Over the next few weeks, I would find that my vocabulary seemed to bloom and expand; long-forgotten words came to me easily, rising to the surface and surprising me.  It was a good time to visit, Hai told us, because all the Parisians were on vacation, or vacance.  This was la grande vacance, he said proudly, which could be as long as deux mois.  “Two months!” I said.  “We are lucky to get two weeks in our country – deux semaines.”  He laughed.  “Oh, we have that, too, la petite vacance, deux semaines.  We don’t like to work as much as you do.”  Paris was consequently filled with tourists, which made business good and driving a taxi profitable.  

It was rush hour in Paris – heure de pointe – and traffic was heavy.  I was struck by the beautiful modern architecture all along the way, the modern well-designs roadways, and by the complete absence of pickup trucks and large SUVs.  Everybody seemed to be driving compact or subcompact cars, which is understandable when gasoline (sold in liters) is the equivalent of $7.50 per gallon.  (Yet for some reason, French residents do not feel inclined to post stickers of Emmanuel Macron on fuel pumps blaming him for the high prices.  Instead they buy smaller cars.)  We arrived at our hotel somewhere close to six or seven o’clock, the Hotel Mercure, located in a relatively quiet part of Paris, the 17th Arrondissement.

We were relieved to be checking into a hotel after many, many hours without sleep.  The room was small, as we had expected in Paris, but since we were arriving five days before the Trafalgar Tour was scheduled to begin, Martha had booked a room on the eighth floor (“Etager huit!”the elevator announced) with a narrow balcony overlooking the Rue de Tocqueville below us.  Across us were eight- and ten-story buildings with metal mansard roofs from which picturesque chimney pots protruded, and off to the south a portion of a long, green park called Parc Promenade Pereire, where an abandoned railway had been converted into a pedestrian greenway.

We had gone out onto the balcony immediately when we arrived, and we shortly discovered that the air conditioning was not working in the room.  But Guillame, a tall friendly young man on the front desk, came upstairs and quickly solved the problem.  When the balcony door is opened, he said, and not shut entirely, with the handle turned down, the air conditioning does not work.  Which after all was entirely sensible.  As most things in France, we would discover over the next few days, seemed to be.

Miss Satterlee's Student Goes to Paris

I am posting this on July 31, one day after our safe return from France.  Over the next few days I intend to bring my handful of followers up to date, day by day, on the adventures we experienced this month.  It is typical summer weather here in Highlands as I write, hot and humid, afternoon thunderclouds gathering in the west, and I am weary from the lingering effects of jet lag and Covid (more about that unfortunate turn of events later).  It never rained once while we were in France, so it is good to see such a lush and green world outside the window.

But before I begin my tale in earnest I have to talk about Miss Satterlee – Rebecca Satterlee, that is – my high school French teacher.  Until I unearthed my high school yearbook, I did not even remember, or perhaps never knew, the first name of this remarkable teacher from whom I took three years of French 55 years ago.  On our first day in class we were instantly immersed in this language, which is after all the basis of 30 percent of our English vocabulary today thanks to the Norman Conquest in 1066 A.D.  Miss Satterlee would not allow us to speak anything but French in her class, which was a bit of a struggle at first but soon became a challenge and ultimately a triumph of accomplishment.  If we wanted to know a word in French, we would have to ask, “Comment dit-on ‘chair,’” for example, and she would say, “On dit, ‘la chaise.’”  We sang Christmas carols in French, we learned which nouns were male and which were female, we learned slowly and tediously how to conjugate verbs.  And at the end of three years, we went to the home of a class member and had a sumptuous French dinner, which included, mousse au chocolat and, yes, escargots.  And we could speak French!  What an amazing thing it is to learn a language, the earlier in life the better, and to find it still embedded deep in the brain all these 55 years later!  Because yes, I discovered to my surprise that my French was surprisingly passable after half a century.

There she is in my high school yearbook, seated, third from the left, and now I realize that she was the chairman of the department.  At the time, we thought she might be a spinster, but now I see that she was a young woman, with an impish smile and a pixie hairdo, probably only a few years older than I was.  So thank you, Miss Satterlee – merci beaucoup!

On Monday morning, our bags already packed (one checked suitcase, one carry-on), we drove the three-and-a-half miles to Charlotte Douglas International Airport, one of the busiest in the country for passenger flights, with 700 flights each day.  That works out to about 30 per hour, one every two minutes, and when we arrived at the nearby Holiday Inn (were we parked our car for three weeks) we could hear the exciting, constant roar of aircraft taking off and landing.  I suppose those who fly regularly for business or pleasure may become accustomed to flying, but for a relative novice like myself it is still thrilling to experience this miracle of modern transportation as a 90-ton aircraft lifts effortlessly into the sky.

Our flight was on time, and checking our baggage and going through security was easier than we had expected.  In no time at all we were in the air, 38,000 feet above the North Atlantic, the outside air temperature in the minus 40s.  I always take Dramamine and have never been bothered by motion sickness when flying.  The food was surprisingly palatable, and we both watched movies that we had been wanting to see – Kenneth Branaugh’s Belfast for me, and Lady Gaga’s House of Gucci for Martha.  And we tried, unsuccessfully, to sleep during the flight to Heathrow, where thanks to a strong tailwind we arrived ahead of schedule.  Already we were being affected by time zones, though.  Our seven-hour flight had advanced through five time zones, so while it was 4:00 am. in Charlotte it was already 9:00 a.m. in London, and we could definitely feel it.

Heathrow Airport, where we transferred to a British Airways flight to Paris, was chaos compared to Charlotte Douglas.  Long, zig-zagging lines awaited us everywhere, and occasionally while standing shoulder to shoulder with other travelers, strangers from every nation on earth it seemed, there were signs advising us to maintain a safe six-foot distance due to Covid.  At last we were through it all, and sat down for a light supper at a place called, if I remember correctly, The Vagabond.  And then we were aboard our flight to Paris, bound for Charles De Gaulle Airport, our first glimpse of France appearing out the window, the deep blue River Seine curving back and forth below us.  “Prepare for landing.” 

Tour de France

Regular readers of this blog may remember (see post of April 9) that we are planning on taking another overseas trip like the one in 2019, this time to France.  The original plan was to first visit Scotland and drive a Mini Cooper in that country with a small group of Mini enthusiasts, then make our way via the Eurostar to France; but the company organizing the trip is a small one and was badly affected by Covid, so we have had to cancel that portion of the trip.  However, the trip to France is very much still in our plans, and in fact we will be driving to Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Monday - tomorrow morning. (Tomorrow!!!).  While I am sorting through photos and updating this blog about our trip to Hendersonville, I am surrounded by a variety of travel necessities – passport, tiny umbrella, adapter plugs for French outlets, Covid test kits – and we will begin final packing tomorrow, making our way down the lists we have been keeping for many weeks now.  We are not seasoned overseas travelers – this is only the third time we have been overseas – but we are organized, and we are trusting that good organization will prevail over the horror stories we are hearing about cancelled flights and overcrowded airports this summer.

Our plan is still to spend five days at the Hotel Mercure in Paris, taking walking tours of the city, visiting the Eiffel Tour and the Louvre, and having a luncheon cruise on the Seine – all of these thanks to Martha’s good sense and ability to identify and make reservations.  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 long dreamed of visiting, including Van Gogh’s Arles, Monet’s Giverny, Monaco, the Riviera, Lourdes, Bordeaux, and the beaches of Normandy.  Our Tour Director, Bruno Courtois, has already contacted us, and he sounds as professional as the other tour directors we have relied on in the past.  We have also been communicating with a wonderful man named Jean-Charles Sarfati, with an organization called Paris Running Tours, who is going to take us on a three- to four-mile run from our Hotel to various nearby sights on our first morning in Paris.  What a great way to be introduced to the city, and also to loosen up our travel-cramped legs!

Just as I did in 2019 for our trip to Britain and Ireland, this blog will fall silent for three weeks.  But I will take notes, day by day, of our adventures, and write it all up when we return.

I have been watching highlights of the 2022 Tour de France on YouTube.  What beautiful countryside passes by those fit young cyclists as they compete together in this bicycle race!  It is the perfect way to prepare for this journey to a country we have never visited before – our own Tour de France!  As Tennyson said in Ulysses:

. . . Come, my friends,
'Tis 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 . . ..

Allons-y!

 

Independence Day 5-K and 43rd Anniversary

It has always been a bit of a quandary that our anniversary falls on July 6, only two days after the Fourth of July.  That has its disadvantages (difficulty in making hotel reservations, crowded venues) but also its advantages (Fourth of July festivities and fireworks displays).  One of the other advantages is a Fourth of July race; we have run races in Brevard and in Bryson City on the Fourth, and this year Martha found one in Asheville.  We had already been looking at staying at the Echo Mountain Inn in Hendersonville, a little over 30 minutes away, so the race fit in perfectly with our 43rd Anniversary.

This was the third time we have stayed at this beautiful, hidden gem on a mountaintop only minutes from Hendersonville.  It is family-owned and was originally built in 1896 as a private residence, then used for years as a girls camp – “Camp Happiness.”  We drove over on Sunday and stopped along the way for a picnic lunch and two places we have been meaning to see over the years.  One was “The Pretty Place,” AKA the Fred W. Symmes Chapel, one of the buildings that make up the YMCA Camp Greenville.

The other place is only a mile or so from the Echo Mountain Inn, higher up the mountain – Jump Off Rock, named after an old Cherokee legend, a love story turned tragic.  A Cherokee Chief left his lover to go off to war and was killed in battle, and she threw herself off the rock in despair.

It is a beautiful view, and we could see thunderstorms building in the distance over the mountain and hear the rumble of thunder.  We arrived at Echo Mountain and spent, unfortunately, a restless night, disturbed by some revelers who did not heed the sign in the lobby asking for quiet after 10:00 p.m.  But we rarely sleep well, anyway, the night before a race, and in this case the alarm was set for 4:30 a.m. 

We arrived for the Independence Day 5-K in plenty of time, pulling in to Carrier Park at the so-called “Mellowdrome” along the French Broad River.  The place is on a Greenway and is a hub for various fitness activities, including a large circular track for bicycle racing, formerly the site of the Asheville Speedway, which closed in 1999.  I remember that I lived nearby in West Asheville 50 years ago, before I met Martha, and I could hear the sounds of NASCAR racing on Saturday nights.  Little would I have expected that all these years later I would be entering a 5-K race here!

It was hot and humid, and the well-attended event got off without a hitch, starting and finishing on the track.  The Greenway, initially a shady asphalt-paved surface with only the occasional tree root obstacles, soon turned into a sidewalk and then deteriorated further into a gravel path and finally, on the return, a single-track path across a grassy field, before coming back onto the track.  Martha had been hoping to break 30 minutes – her time at the very hilly (but entirely paved) Braveheart 5-K only two weeks earlier had been 30:47.  I struggled through the humidity and rough terrain to a time of 40:56, almost three minutes faster than two weeks earlier, and was happy with my time.  Martha, waving at me from high over the track when I crossed the finish line, announced a little later that her time was 29:20.  So it was a good day for both of us as it always is when we meet or exceed our expectations.  On top of that, Martha placed 2^nd and I placed 3^rd in our respective age groups.

Now that the race was finished, it was time for good food and good beer!  We returned to Hendersonville, showered, and found both at Hubba Hubba Smokehouse in Flat Rock, where we both had the brisket sandwich.  We are not frequent consumers of barbecue or beef these days, but it tasted very good after a hard race, especially since we were able to sit under an umbrella on the terrace out back.

We returned to downtown Hendersonville later in the afternoon and enjoyed watching the Fourth of July festivities on Main Street, which had been closed off, but we returned to Echo Mountain Inn well before the fireworks were scheduled.  We could not see any fireworks, but we could hear them clearly from our room, where we sat outside and enjoyed Proseco and a charcuterie board ordered from the dining room.

 The next day was filled with more activities in the area.  A great advantage to staying in a location as nearby as Hendersonville and remaining for several days is the opportunity to visit so many interesting places.  We visited the nearby Carl Sandburg home in Flat Rock, first; the house itself was closed but the goat barn was open to the public – the goats there are descendants of those owned by Lilian Sandburg.  From there we began a tour of vineyards, starting with Burntshirt Vineyards, which happened to be the N. C. Winery of the Year, where we enjoyed eating a delicious box lunch – again, outside under an umbrella – and a good white wine from the vineyard. 

From there we continued to nearby St. Paul Vineyard, stopping at a Cidery on the way back, and finally late in the afternoon ending up at a spectacular mountain-top events venue and vineyard called Point Lookout Vineyards, featuring gorgeous 30-mile views.

Wednesday, our anniversary day itself, we began with a visit to Historic Johnson Farm, ca. 1876, donated to the public several years ago by two unmarried brothers.  It includes a very nice brick house, barn, and outbuildings, and is now operated as a heritage education museum.

There was an apiary behind the barn, and we met the head beekeeper himself, who was just suiting up to join some other enthusiasts who were harvesting honey from the hives.  He gave us an interesting impromptu description of beekeeping, and among other things we learned that honeybees are not native to North America, but were imported by the Pilgrims. 

After an interesting tour of the old house, we returned for an early lunch at the Flat Rock Wood Room, and after that we spent some time touring the historic St. John-in-the-Wilderness Episcopal Church and its ancient cemetery.  It was the first Episcopal Church in Western North Carolina, consecrated by the Bishop on August 28, 1836, a quiet and sacred place with a beautiful pipe organ inside.

The main feature of the day was attending a matinee performance at the Flat Rock Playhouse of West Side Story – music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a musical we had somehow never seen before, although we recognized almost all of the songs.  The performance was excellent, although like the Cherokee legend that inspired Jump Off Rock, the Romeo-and-Juliet-based story of star-crossed lovers ended tragically.

Our Anniversary Dinner was enjoyed in the Dining Room at Echo Mountain Inn; it was very good, and we toasted our 43^rd Anniversary, happy that our own love story has not been a tragic one, grateful that we found each other and that our marriage has endured for so long.   

One of the interesting people we met at the Inn was a 92-year-old woman who was the “Matriarch” of the family now running the place.  A widow, she and her husband had celebrated 60 anniversaries before he died of Lou Gehrig's Disease.  We had spoken with Marcy many times – she lived permanently in one of the detached rooms across the parking lot, and she would make her way back and forth to the Inn every day with some difficulty but with great determination.  What a beautiful and interesting woman!  On our final morning, as we were packing up our Mini (on our way to yet another attraction, the Bullington Botanical Gardens), we were putting the top down and preparing for the fun drive ahead of us when she stopped to talk to us again.  “You’re just kids, really, aren’t you?” she said.

I told her that we were, and that we hoped to still be kids when we were her age.

Braveheart 5-K

The Bravehearrt 5-K has been held in Franklin in conjunction with the Annual Scottish Festival for a number of years.  It is aptly named because it is not for the faint-hearted.  “Race through the streets of Franklin, NC and feel like William Wallace (AKA Braveheart) battling the English,” says the race website.  “If you like a challenge, you will love this course.”  We do like a challenge, and this was not the first time we drove to Franklin to battle the locally famous hills. 

I think this was the nicest morning we have ever had for this race, though.  After several sweltering days (by Highlands standards), a cold front moved in Friday night and by the next morning temperatures were in the low 60s.  We arrived in plenty of time to pick up our race packet and to mingle with the bravehearted participants, which included some young men wearing blue face-paint like Mel Gibson in the 1995 movie of the same name.  Quite a few men wearing Scottish kilts were in attendance, including local bagpiper Michael Waters, as well as some of the participants in the race.  But despite the cooler temperatures, a woolen kilt would have been a wee bit warm by the top of that first hill.

It has only been a week since our last race, the Waynesville Main Street Mile, but that had only been a mile after all and most of it downhill.  I have been suffering from a little plantar fasciitis and resultant heel pain and applied the entire arsenal of remedies against it all week – ibuprofen, massage, and relentless stretching.  I felt pretty good standing at the starting line just outside the Scottish Tartans Museum after a brief warm-up, back and forth on Main Street a few times.  We watched the under-tens finish the Rob Roy Fun Run first and then lined up at the start, where a prayer was offered followed by Michael Waters playing “Scotland the Brave” on the pipes, which was very moving.  And then we were off, running slightly uphill on Main Street and then turning right on Harrison and climbing up an even steeper incline, which had already reduced some of the participants to walking.  Martha was already out of sight after the first half-mile, every bit of which was uphill.  I realized that would make for a nice fast finish since the course was out-and-back. 

The course leveled off and then turned left abruptly at the corner of the Sunset restaurant and descended the long, notorious Bidwell Street hill for almost a mile, then right on West Main for a bit, circled a traffic cone, and returned to the base of  that long hill to begin climbing.  An enthusiastic woman was just behind me most of the way, calling out encouragement even to the walkers straggling at the back of the race, “You’re doing great!  Everybody else chose to stay home this morning, but you came out here!”  We chatted a little as we ran and I looked her up after the race, when she told me that it helped her as much as the others to be so upbeat.  I try to be upbeat and crack jokes during races, too, and I have noticed the same thing.  Laughter buoys up everyone around us, and makes a difficult run so much easier to bear. 

I was determined not to stop – my only goal for this race, really – and except for a few steps to grab some water handed to me by some young boy scouts and girl scouts on Bidwell Street, I met that goal.  But that hill forced at least half the runners I saw to a walk, including one bravehearted little seven-year-old girl who had stopped and looked as if she might start to cry.  Her kilted dad turned and came to her and she hugged him.  “You’re doing great!” I told her.  “And the last half-mile is all downhill!”  She had, after all, opted to run the Braveheart with her dad, rather than the 10-and-under Fun Run which she might have won outright.  Up and up we climbed, and then finally we topped that last hill and realized it was all downhill, a cool breeze suddenly in our faces, and shady trees, and we turned east on Main Street where we could see distant mountains on the horizon and hear the sound of bagpipes at the finish.  It was there that the seven-year-old and her dad passed me.  “I knew you’d beat me!” I said, and then I saw Martha standing on Main Street applauding me.  Another finish line crossed!

After recovering a little, stretching, and downing a bottle of water handed to me by the Race Director when I crossed the finish, we enjoyed wandering around chatting with the other finishers.  It is always special to have completed a race of any distance, and especially a tough one like this, an exhilaration combined with a peaceful, calm satisfaction.  Martha had hoped to break 32 minutes and was happy with her time of 30:47, which earned her a second place trophy.  Had the age groups not been ten years, she would have taken first place.

My watch told me that I had finished in 43:37, one of my slowest 5-K times to date, but I was proud of not stopping to walk and also glad that my troublesome heel and knee felt just fine.  We waited longer than usual for the awards because apparently there were some technical issues with the timing.  Despite the timing chip on the back of my race bib, my name did not appear in the results, although I know I crossed the finish line.  No matter:  I knew that I had not placed in my ten-year age group, in which a very fit 75-year-old had taken first place in 32:16.  It did affect some of the other results, though.  The encouraging woman I had met during the race, who had definitely finished behind me, turned out to be 77 years old, yet the results had her finishing in an impossible time of  28:40 for first place, which undoubtedly took a trophy away from the real 70-79-year-olds who had beaten her.  

Because of the delay in the awards, we did not wait for the ceremony to finish.  They had started with the older age groups and were working their way backwards to the younger and the overall finishers, and so we also missed the very moving ceremony at the very end (which we had seen in previous years) in which the overall male and female finishers are presented with the beautiful, engraved William Wallace sword, kneeling (which I would not have been capable of doing), and being “knighted” by Sir Daniel Williamson of the Scottish Tartans Museum & Heritage Center, lightly and reverently touching them on each shoulder.  I have never seen a finer finish trophy and seldom seen a more moving awards ceremony.

It was a good day once again.  I realize that it is with those same words that I conclude nearly every one of these blog posts about our races.  This was race No. 205 for me, and most of the last hundred or so have been with Martha, who is maintaining a high level of performance in her mid-sixties.  Competition keeps our running focused, and going to races are events that we often turn into mini-vacations.  But even small, local races like this are worthy of celebration, and we headed back home through Walnut Creek, Norton, and Cashiers in our Mini Cooper, where we enjoyed cold beer and salmon BLTs at Whiteside Brewing, our thirst and our hunger sharpened even more this day by running Braveheartedly.

Main Street Mile

After a hiatus of several years, in part because of Covid, one of our favorite races returned this year – the Waynesville Main Street Mile.  The distance is a popular one because it attracts the very young (some of the runners were only four years old this year), the not-so-fit, and also the fit runner accustomed to longer distances who wants to see exactly how fast a mile can be completed, and a slightly downhill mile at that.  We fall into the last category, and we ran this race in 2010, 2011, and 2015.  That first year, way back a dozen years ago when I had attained the peak of my modest fitness as a runner and before the decline of recent years, I surprised myself by running the race in 6:48.  In 2015, Martha and I both threw caution to the winds and ran this race on a Friday night and then the tough five-mile Maggie Valley Moonlight Run the very next night.

An evening race, the Main Street Mile has staggered start times, first the very youngest, then the women (6:50 p.m.), then the older youth, and then the men (7:30 p.m.) the 40-minute difference in starting time making the logistics of pre-race eating and drinking a little difficult.  We remained in Highlands until after lunch, and were both restless.  I drove to Town and looked at some of the exotic cars parked near Kelsey-Hutchinson Park for the Highlands Motoring Festival, focusing mostly on Porches this year but also featuring Ferraris, Jaguars, and some classic Austin Healeys.

It was a little disappointing that there were no local participants at all that I could see, even though there are many car enthusiasts who live in Highlands.  Martha’s Dad had placed his classic A-model and T-model Fords in the show in past years, as well as a very unusual King Midget, and we wondered if he would have been admitted to a show featuring cars that I would not have been surprised were valued in the six- or seven-figure cost range.  It is a trend that we see more and more in Highlands, unfortunately, events that seem to be increasingly focused on the very wealthy.

We had a pleasant drive over to Waynesville in our Mini Cooper (none of them in the show, either) and checked into the Waynesville Inn &Golf Club, currently being renovated and, alas, lacking a dining room where we have enjoyed memorable breakfasts in the past.  The golf course, too, was under construction, but our room had already been renovated and was very nice.

It was a good day for an evening race, temperatures in the mid-70s and a slight breeze.  One year I remember it had been 90 degrees at the start.  After we checked in and picked up our race packets, and while we were waiting for our respective races to start, some of our friends arrived.  Long-time running friend Morris Williams, now 77 years old but still very fast, drove over for the race, as well as Derek Taylor, Race Director for the Highlands Twilight 5-K (I had told him about this race as soon as it had been announced), and Mayor of Highlands Pat Taylor.  It is always nice to compete with friends, although I realized I had little chance of keeping up with any of them.  Derek also brought with him a 13-year-old, Timothy McDowell, who shows much promise and in fact had the fastest time of us all.

The starting line for the race is a mile up Main Street, so the warm-up is a run or run-walk that distance.  A little after 6:30, some of the youngest runners began finishing their heat on Main Street, by-standers cheering the loudest for the very youngest.  One little four-year-old girl was so distracted by the cheering that she went over and starting talking to people.  “I’m running a race!” she seemed to be saying, and her Dad finally had to scoop her up and carry her toward the finish line still a quarter-mile away.

Martha made her way up to the start long before I did, and although I did not see her finish, I was waiting at about the three-quarter mile mark to watch her run by.  She was running very strong and was toward the front of the women, ahead of several younger women.  She had run a time trial in Highlands a week ago and completed a similar mile in 9:03, so she was hoping to break nine minutes, and it looked like she was definitely on track to meet that goal. 

I started jogging up to the start line then, and was able to watch and cheer for the older youth, including young Timothy, who ended up finishing third overall in a blazing 5:11 finish time.  This young man has a future ahead of him as a competitive runner.  There were perhaps 30 men in our heat, and as always it is fun chatting with complete strangers connected by the bond of running.  One man who said he had just turned sixty noticed my Boston Marathon singlet and pointed out his shirt, which depicted a signpost for Hereford and Boylston Streets in Boston, and said he hoped to qualify this year.  I told him that was how old I was when I qualified, way back in 2009, which seemed a long, long time ago tonight.

The race started, and nearly all the other runners in my heat quickly left me behind except for a few run-walkers behind me.  That is a little disturbing to a runner’s ego, I must admit, because we all have an ego however much racing humbles us over the course of a career – there is always somebody faster – and there are usually quite a few overweight, unfit, or younger runners behind me.  But I felt strong, and when I later saw a photo captured on Facebook, I looked strong.  In the end I knew I could not have run any better than my finished time of 10:39.  As Tennyson said,

“Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days,
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are.”

Martha was at the finish chatting with the others from Highlands, and I discovered that she had finished in 8:13, second in her age group, and much faster than expected.  Were it not for the injustice of ten-year age groups, she would have taken first place (a sixty-year-old took that award).  She has been training hard, is in great racing shape, and she far exceeded her goal, so it was good to celebrate with her at the finish celebrations farther down Main Street, featuring pizza and several varieties of good draft beer.

We returned to our motel and sat in rocking chairs on our deck for awhile watching the nearly-full moon, gauzy in the sky over the golf course, grateful for good health and fitness.

While all of the other Highlands runners had returned that night, we have learned to enjoy these races as mini-vacations.  We got up early Sunday morning and found a good place for breakfast, the nearby Beach Mountain Diner, where we were able to sit outside.  Proudly wearing our race shirts.

One of the pleasures of completing a race is often the breakfast the next morning, most of all after a marathon or half-marathon, but just as delicious after a one-mile race!  We took the long way back to Highlands, up Highway 276 to the Blue Ridge Parkway, where we tarried for awhile in rocking chairs at the Pisgah Inn, a place dear to our hearts.  Over four decades ago we came up here for dinner on our honeymoon, and it has not changed very much over the years.