Fall Temperatures in July

We have been visited this month by a lovely reprieve from the usual heat and humidity of July and August.  A "Mini Polar Vortex," as the weather forecasters describe it, has brought a surge of cool Canadian air to Highlands, with temperatures this week down in the 50s every morning.  I'm not complaining - it has seemed like an early taste of Fall, and even the burning bushes behind Mountain Fresh Grocery and those lovely maple trees alongside the Presbyterian Church are starting to show some color.  Surely Fall is the best time of year to run in Highlands.

The plan called for six miles Tuesday - including two mountain (Big Bearpen and Sunset) -  six miles Wednesday, and six mile today.  And it has been accomplished!

But I have to admit that my legs are feeling a little tired.  Time for a rest tomorrow before Saturday's long run.

Week Two - Perfect Pitch

Week One is over and Week Two has begun.  I ended up doing two ten-mile runs in Week One - one on Sunday and one on Friday - and 10 miles in between, so a total of 30 miles within 6 days.  Now is the time to build miles.

I did not run Saturday because I drove to Asheville to read some poetry.  Yes, it's true, I confess it - Highlands Roadrunners is also Highlands Poemwriter (the two activities are not entirely dissimilar, I find, as I place one word carefully after another on the path) and two of my poems were selected this year as finalists in the North Carolina Literary Review's James Applewhite prize.  So although I did not win, I "placed," and it was an honor to meet James Applewhite himself and be invited to read one of my poems (both of which will be published next year) in front of a hundred or so North Carolina poets (most of them University professors who knew one another, it seemed).  When I read my poem, I first blew upon this little pitch pipe that I took out of my pocket.

 

I suppose most people might think it is about my Dad's pitch pipe, which (I explain in the poem) I inherited when he died.  But it is not.  It is about writing poetry, about the creative process itself, about the poems which we pitch into the cavernous chancel silences.  The marathons we have the audacity to attempt to run.

Tomorrow is a rest day, but the next day I will resume training with six miles of hills.  And all around me I will marvel at the gentle breeze, lifting the hemlock boughs, and all around me the sounds of the great good choir beginning to sing as I climb Big Bearpen once again.

Daily Kick in the Butt

As a long-time subscriber to Runner's World, I now receive a "Daily Kick in the Butt."  This kick comes to me every day, by e-mail, in the form of an inspirational quote.  I am not sure why they are referred to as a kick in the butt rather than, say, a "Looking Good," or "You Can Do It!"  Today this one arrived in my inbox:

"Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle." - Wilma Rudolph

Yes indeed!  That's what I've been saying, Wilma (see recent posts).  Another way of saying it might be, "The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it." (Moliere)  Or, "Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life.”  (Haruki Murakami).

Gold medalist and Olympian, Wilma died in 1994 after a stunning career.  Imagine what struggles she went through as an African-American Woman!  Wikipedia just scratches the surface:

Wilma Glodean Rudolph was born prematurely at 4.5 pounds (2.0 kg), the 20th of 22 siblings from two marriages;her father Ed was a railway porter and her mother Blanche a maid.  Rudolph contracted infantile paralysis (caused by the polio virus) at age four. She recovered, but wore a brace on her left leg and foot (which had become twisted as a result) until she was nine. She was required to wear an orthopaedic shoe for support of her foot for another two years. In addition, by the time she was twelve years old she had also survived bouts of polio and scarlet fever.

From that beginning to "the Fastest Woman in the World," as she was called at the time.  What a hard race she had!

 
I can't come close to that kind of struggle.  But I did need that kick in the butt today. 

Training

I love to be in training mode.  Whether it is a 5-K, 10-K, half marathon, or marathon, it is the same:  there is a goal to attain, and now the matter at hand is to focus on that goal, to persevere day by day.  I have set out my little training plan for the next 16 weeks on my calendar.  And while I can be flexible, and should in fact at my age be very attentive to the little aches and pains that might portend injury, it is now a simple matter of running each workout, day by day, one at a time.

And so far it is going well:  10 miles on Day One, rest on Day Two, 4 miles up Bearpen on Day Three, and 6 miles today on Day Four.  Four days so far!

Only 109 more days to go.

Week One Day One

What if a 65-year old runner wanted to try another marathon?  Would that be a crazy idea?

I have thought about this recently (see blog post of June 7, 2014) and I have even made some tentative, contingent plans.  Because if a man did decide to run a marathon in the Fall, Veterans Day weekend might be a good target date.  There are two good marathons that weekend - the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon near Chattanooga, and the Townebank Outer Banks Marathon.  Both would be very satisfying to complete.  There are few things in this world for a runner that can match the feeling of accomplishment after training hard for sixteen weeks, enduring the long runs and the tempo runs and the 800s and the mile repeats and the hills, persevering through it all while staying balanced on that knife-edge of injury, and then crossing the finish line of a marathon.

Look at that lopsided, exhausted smile!  That is an absolutely spent, but supremely satisfied man.  But that is also a younger and faster man.  A man who, at the time, was a lot more confident that he could complete the ambitious task that he had set before himself.

If a person wanted to begin training, today would be the day on the calendar to do so.  Week One Day One of a 16-week training plan.

So I ran 10 miles today.  And I tried to push way back in my mind the little thought that kept cropping up toward the end of a humid and hilly run:  "Could I run 16.1 more miles?"

Bears Again

We returned Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning it was pleasant to run with a large group of runners, including one of the new Presbyterian Co-Pastors.  Now if the Methodist Pastor can recover from injuries he has apparently sustained and join us again, we can have some good theological discussions out on the road, like "How many miles do you get out of a pair of shoes? or "How fast are we going, anyway?"  These are important theological issues!

Today I ran up Big Bearpen and saw the biggest bear I have seen while out running.  He (or she) loomed up on my left at a house just before the fork in the road at the summit, leaped a split-rail fence, and then lumbered off into the back yard.  There is only one way down Big Bearpen (unless one goes "cross country," as Fred reminded me when I saw him carrying his trash down to the road a couple of minutes later), and so I made some noise as I passed that spot in the road, clearing my throat and speaking nonsense in a loud voice.  "Hey Bear, watch out now, here comes the Crown of Creation, yee-hah (hmmph hmmph), go on now . . ."

He (or she) was long gone, probably down on Fifth Street by then on the garbage-can route.  There are plenty of acorns this year, after all - is there a hard winter coming? - and the only reason these creatures come near "The Crown of Creation" at all is that they have come to prefer dog food and left-over pizza and bags of Cheetos left on the front seat of pickup trucks to their normal fare.  "A fed bear is a dead bear," as the saying goes. 

But this one was very much alive.  And healthy.

Mount Pisgah

The book of Dueteronomy tells us this about Pisgah:

"Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the LORD showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. Then the LORD said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” 

The sharp peak is clearly visible for miles and miles, and its summit is laden with many communications towers, but Pisgah is still a beautiful hike.  We climbed it in less time than we thought - the summit suddenly appears, with its huge steel tower, round a bend in the path.  Up on the viewing platform we struck up a conversation with a couple who had just climbed it and had noticed my Asheville Half Marathon shirt; they were a fit-looking couple and easy to talk to, as so many are on the summits of mountains of their upper paths.  It turns out she had run four marathons and he had run two.  He was 84.  She was 73.  What an inspiration!  We decided that we would like to do this hike again in 20 years or so, God willing. 

So, we came home again today, refreshed and still celebrating.  Crossing over here to the Promised Land.