Autumn Breeze 5-K

Last year’s Autumn Breeze 5-K took place on October 4, and although Martha took first place in her age group and I took second in mine, no photos survive of us standing at the finish line afterward beaming proudly.  That’s because we were huddled with all of the other runners under a tiny tent in a downpour that began almost as soon as we began running the race.

“Anyone who was here last year, raise your hands,” our friend and co-race-director Anthony called out at the start of this year’s race, and several hands went up.  We looked around at all of the other proud veterans of insane weather conditions last year who had lined up in light rain, listened to Anthony describe the course and thank the sponsors in great detail while it began raining harder and harder, and decided that we were already wet so we might as well do this thing. 

As if to make up for last year’s horrendous conditions, this year it was clear and cool, just perfect for a race on one of the most beautiful courses we know about.  We both lined up close to the starting line because there was no chip timing, and almost immediately began climbing up a slight incline (which would mean a fast downhill finish).  Despite the paved surfaces, there was plenty of uneven terrain, especially in the final mile where roots had swollen the asphalt pavement on the greenway trail.  But whenever I could, I glanced to the side at the picturesque Tallulah River.  We crossed several bridges, one of them a swinging bridge that swayed underfoot.  The leaves were just beginning to turn.  It was a very beautiful race!

I passed a man with a bright red shirt and double knee braces in the first mile who I thought could have been in my age group, and then he caught up to me again and we began talking.  He said he was 79 – “Ah, not in my age group!” I said – and he told me that a man up ahead in a white shirt was 82 years old, and he thought he might be able to overtake him.  He pulled away from me gradually, and ultimately both Red Shirt and White Shirt finished ahead of me. 

I had wanted to finish in under 40 minutes, but as I approached the finish line I knew that would not be possible.  Still, I was happy with a time of 40:54.  I had run my best, and that is reward enough.  This is one of those races where they hand you a numbered card as soon as you leave the finish chute, and I wandered around for a few minutes before dutifully filling it out with name, age, gender, time, and home town.  When a young lady hung it on the big age-group board behind her, I was surprised to see that I was No. 1.  I looked over at the Female 65-69 group and found Martha’s name on the top, too, in a time of 30:50.

 So it was an especially rewarding day at Tallulah Gorge, and we celebrated at a place called The Edge Café and Bar, located just up the hill from where the race had finished, in the old Visitor’s Center which had been vacant for several years.  It turned out to be a very nice place – good food and good beer – and we sat outside watching children throw frisbee and play corn hole on a wide lawn and climb on a child-sized climbing wall.

Oskar Blues Race to the Taps

The Post Covid Fatigue I wrote about in my last post has begun, I think, to diminish.  My running is still languishing, but I have been able to get some work done in the yard.  In fact, I even mixed up some mortar by hand this week and worked on the stone patio at our new entrance, although a day of running and a day of physical work means a third day of needed rest.

We had signed up for the Oskar Blues Race to the Taps in Brevard long ago, so I decided on Monday that I would see if I could run 3.l miles non-stop at a fairly good pace (although these days I don’t know what that means anymore).  Martha kept telling me, “You don’t have to run this race if you don’t want to,” which I appreciated.  But I had managed last week to run two miles non-stop without ill effect, so I was optimistic and ready to test myself.  I was encouraged to finish the time trial, albeit on familiar roads, in 42:41, a little faster than my time way back in June at the Braveheart in Franklin.  So now there would be no turning back!  As Hamlet says:

If it be now, 'tis not to come;
if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will come.
The readiness is all.

It was a perfect morning for a race, cool and crisp in Highlands, warming up to the low 60s in Brevard.  I could not have asked for better conditions for my first Post Covid Race.  The course was mostly on the Greenway that begins and ends at Oskar Blues Brewery, but the middle mile was on roads in a quiet subdivision that we had driven a couple of weeks ago and knew it contained some steep hills.  Martha and I both walked a few steps on the steepest of these, in fact, but we both picked up the pace in the last mile and it was our fastest mile.  And it was good to be racing again, joking with fellow runners and spectators.  No matter how slow my finish times become, competing in races is an experience I hope I can continue to enjoy as long as possible!

Martha ran a great race in 30:26, finishing second out of five runners over 65.  I finished in 41:22, faster than my time trial on Monday, and therefore better than I had anticipated despite those formidable hills. 

After the race, we drove to Asheville and had dinner at Nine Mile, a Caribbean-inspired restaurant which we had visited only once before (Nine Mile is the town in Jamaica where Bob Marley was born), and it was absolutely delicious.  After dinner, we drove the half-mile to the Montford Park Players outdoor amphitheater and watched a performance of Hamlet, a play which I have seen and read countless times but which is always different with each showing because of Shakespeare’s unparalleled genius and because it is a play, a living, breathing work of art that relies on players and directors and audience to come to life.  It was an ambitious performance for this small company of players, now in their 50th season, but they played it well, with especially strong performances of Hamlet, the Ghost, Polonius, and Laertes. 

Our next race is scheduled for two weeks from now, and I hope I can continue to improve with every race this fall.  Martha, meanwhile, has gotten herself to a place where she is in top condition.  I well remember what it is like to be improving with every race!  Still, we do what we can, no matter how slow or how fast.  And we give thanks after every race for health and fitness and the joyful challenges of competition - of proving once again that we can be ready!

Post Covid Fatigue

Since returning from France, my running has not gone as well as expected.  I knew that the combination of jet lag (which only lasted a day or two), Covid, and a three-week hiatus were setbacks that I needed to overcome gradually, and so on my first run back in Highlands my only goal was to complete a single mile (see post of August 3).  The following week, I increased that distance to two- and three-mile runs on alternate days at a very easy pace with plenty of walking breaks, and I felt pretty good in other respects – I mowed the yard, I resumed lifting weights.  The following week I increased the distance to four and then five miles.  Early in the next week, I even tried two 400-meter interval.  I was feeling pretty good!

And then it all went south.  After completing those two intervals, I found myself walking most of the final mile.  TIRED I wrote in my running log.  I fell into a habit of taking naps every afternoon, something I rarely do.  On Saturday, I could barely keep up with my friends Karen and Vicki, and after two miles I urged them to go on without me.  I don’t think I have experienced fatigue like this since those days long ago when I resumed running after completing a marathon.  I finally came to the realization that Martha was right.  I needed more of that bitter medicine that most runners are forced to take as a last resort:  Rest.

I have been doing a lot of research, and what I have been experiencing seems to fit something called Post Covid Fatigue Syndrome.  “Some experts believe it might be a natural course of the infection to see symptoms ebb, then return,” one Harvard Medical School researcher said.  “Covid’s course it not a purely linear process; it waxes and wanes a little bit.”  That would explain why I felt good enough to run five miles one day, and yet was dragging around slowly the next day.

I finally took the recommended medicine this week – five days without running a step, although I did walk between one and three miles most of those days.  Finally, on Thursday, I tried to run a single mile without stopping . . . and it went just great!  Not only that, I felt good enough to mow the yard again and do some other work around the house, and still felt good the next day.  And I have not needed naps in the afternoon. 

 So it seems as if Covid is beginning to wane.  And I hope it will continue to do so.

Uncorked

Only one week after returning to Highlands, we drove to Bryson City for an event on the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad called “Uncorked.”  When Martha signed up (it sells out very quickly) before we left for France, we knew that we might still be suffering from jet lag, but not that I would be dealing with the lingering effects of Covid as well.  It was not a strenuous excursion – basically, it involved sitting and eating and drinking and watching the scenery go by – but I was glad that we had arranged to drive over the night before for an early-morning departure on the historic #1702 locomotive, which dates back to 1942, one of only two remaining in the United States.

 
The description on the website sounded like just the thing for two possibly jet-lagged passengers who enjoy both good food and good wine:

Passengers will enjoy a full service All-Adult First Class ride in our First Class cars with a private attendant and plush, well-appointed dining seating.  A narrator will accompany the ride to present each pour to guests and share knowledge and history of the wines selected.  Passengers on this specialty car will enjoy an exclusive sampling of cheeses and a surf and turf meal prepared fresh.  We have carefully selected our wine samples to accompany the meal. All passengers will receive a GSMR souvenir stemless wine glass, four samples of selected wine, and a dessert that’s perfect for the season!

It certainly sounded First Class, and when we climbed aboard our dining car we were pleasantly surprised.  The facilities were very nice, as we imagine dining had been at the height of rail travel in this country.  We pulled out of the Bryson City station right on time and headed into the Nantahala Gorge, which we had driven through many times by auto but had never seen from this perspective on the north side of the Nantahala River.

As we went around some of the sharper bends, we could look out the window and see the engine ahead, a cloud of smoke billowing from its stack.  I was enjoying the scenery a great deal:  deep woods, huge tangles of kudzu in open fields, junked cars, quarrying facilities, and Fontana Lake.  We went past Fontana Lake and saw some kayakers paddling out in the water, and they waved at us as we chugged past on the old trestle.  So did folks standing out in their yards, and groups of rafters out in the Nantahala River busy negotiating the currents.

 

 

We were immediately presented with a nice cheese plate accompanied by mimosas, and much earlier than we had expected the main course came along, followed eventually by dessert, each accompanied as the description had said by an appropriate wine.  Both the food and the wines were very good, and even included a pricey Biltmore Reserve Cabernet Franc that was just excellent.  I was so busy taking photos of the scenery and enjoying the food and wine, that I neglected to take photos of the food.  But Martha remembered to do that, and these photos are courtesy of her.

The train turned and came back past Nantahala Outdoor Center, a frequent stop for us over the years where we have enjoyed watching rafters and kayakers paddling by.  We stopped long enough for the curious to step outside and see the NOC and the famous bridge where the Appalachian Trail crosses the river.  By that time the usual summertime afternoon shower had materialized, so we were content to stay inside, sip wine, and watch the rafters.

We told the young man pouring our wine that we were amazed that such delicious food could be prepared on a train, and a lot of it – there were 150 or so diners, we learned, in addition to other passengers who were in non-dining cars enjoying box lunches. 

At the end of the day, we met some nice folks who were sharing the journey with us.  And the food and wine was even better than we had expected. 

First Run in Highlands

The combination of Covid and jet lag has left me with little energy, but since we arrived on Saturday afternoon I have improved day by day.  It has been a good opportunity to sort through photographs and bring this blog up to date.  For the first time today, exactly three weeks after our last run with Jean-Charles in Paris – it seems so long ago! – I felt good enough to try running.

I parked at the usual place near Kelsey-Hutchinson Park, and I saw some early-morning dog-walkers enjoying the relatively cool temperatures.  I started out at a walk, but quickly felt good enough to run, although with some walking breaks.  My goal was to complete a full mile, and I was halfway through when, at the top of Chestnut Street, I paused to stretch and walk a few steps.  I continued down Sixth Street, when I was surprised to see a very large black bear, slouching majestically across the road perhaps 15 feet in front of me.  A bear on my first run in Highlands!  I stopped immediately and let him make his way out Meadow House Lane and across the road, where I could see him walking down the middle of the driveway to the Highlands Biological Station, the uncontested proprietor and ancient master of all that he surveyed.

I have been communicating with Jean-Charles, who took us on a running tour in Paris (see post of July 13) and is the latest follower of my blog.

I wrote:  “It was so good to meet you and run with you.  What an introduction to Paris!  If you are ever anywhere near Highlands, North Carolina, I would be privileged to show you our little Town, so much different from Paris!  Today I went running for the first time, three weeks exactly since our run in Paris, and encountered a large black bear!  They are not uncommon here (they love looking through garbage cans when they can find one open), but still a little scary to see crossing the road only 15 feet in front of a defenseless runner!  Something you probably have not seen crossing the Rue de Tocqueville.”

He wrote back:  “Yes, since you gave me the link to your blog, je suis un de vos fidèles lecteurs. I really like the way you describe your adventures in Paris.  I am honored by the article you wrote about our tour (I wrote a comment on the post just after the publication).  A bear! Yes, I guess your landscape is very different than the large “Haussmannian” Parisian boulevards…”

C’est vrai!  But no less interesting. . .

Returning Home

Our tour schedule for this morning:

For now it's time to bid a fond au revoir to the Best of France and your fellow travelers at the end of a magical and memorable holiday.

Trafalgar provided a shuttle to the airport, and we left the hotel mid-morning with eight or ten others who were flying home.  Martha asked some of them what the most memorable part of the tour had been for them.  Some said Omaha Beach, some said Nice.  We were sorry that we had missed the former but glad that we had had plenty of time to explore Nice.

Travel is always interesting, and sometimes difficult.  The flight from Charlotte to London over two weeks ago had been uneventful.  We had sipped a glass of wine, eaten some of the surprisingly edible airplane food, and watched a movie.  But the lingering effects of Covid meant, without going into any detail, that I had taken some Imodium this  morning, which I learned should not be taken with Dramamine.  That in return made the nine-hour flight to Philadelphia very unpleasant.  I never knew that I was so prone to motion sickness on an airplane, and realized I had never flown before now without the benefits of Dramamine.  I had no desire for wine, or food, or a movie, and there was a small child directly behind me who spent the latter half of the flight crying miserably, which echoed my own feelings although I remained stoically silent, hunched over between an understanding woman on the aisle and my sympathetic wife at the window, who somehow produced a welcome pair of earplugs.

There were long lines at Philadelphia International Airport, and it was raining outside when we landed, the first rain we had seen in three weeks.  Because we were returning from overseas, we had to pass through a few more steps – maybe “run the gauntlet” describes it more accurately – before being admitted to the land of the free and the home of the brave.  We could have spent a very long time at the incomprehensible kiosk which appeared at the end of a switch-backing line but for a helpful employee, in an airport that was woefully understaffed, who walked us through it.  The touch screen asked us if we had all manner of things to declare, including chickens.  “I left my chickens in the parking lot in Paris,” I told her.  She looked like she had a sense of humor and she did; otherwise, a joke like that might have led to my being strip-searched by the TSA.

Martha seemed to have little trouble passing the next hurdle, but I was inexplicably required to remove my shoes and was carefully searched as I passed through the screening portal.

“What’s this in your pocket?” I was asked gruffly.  We had already emptied our pockets, placed our liquids in a clear baggie, and deposited wallet, phone, and carry-on on the conveyor belt.  It was the earplugs, I discovered, dropped into my shirt pocket and forgotten.  “Crying child behind me on a nine-hour flight,” I explained, and he seemed to sympathize with me.

Although we had left Paris mid-afternoon, we had passed through six time zones, so we arrived around 5:00 p.m.  As we retrieved our baggage and checked it again for the transfer to Charlotte, we realized that we were in an increasingly narrowing window between the two flights, especially when we found ourselves in another line for a very long time.  Many travelers in line with us had already missed their flights.  One man was very philosophical about it.  He told a very agitated man in line behind us, “Oh, we missed ours too; it’s already in the air!”  He was almost cheerfully.  What would we do if we missed the flight to Charlotte? we wondered.  Our baggage would be there, unloaded onto a conveyor belt, and we would be here in Philadelphia 500 miles away, presumably trying to find a hotel for the night.

As luck would have it, our flight was delayed a couple of hours, and we eventually found ourselves in a comfortable lounge area at the loading gate, waiting once again.  But the flight to Charlotte was only an hour or two long, and it was a good one.  The airplane had plenty of leg room and was not crowded, and when they dimmed the lights we both took little catnaps.  What a relief to finally see the lights of Charlotte below us!

Our suitcases were miraculously among the first to appear on the conveyor belt, and Martha called the number for the shuttle to our hotel.  By this time we were beyond exhaustion, operating entirely on nervous energy.  The Holiday Inn shuttle finally appeared, and we climbed in gratefully.  It was driven by an African American woman who was friendly and had a good sense of humor.  She asked us where we had been and she said, “It’s always good to get home, isn’t it?  You want to get gone so bad, and then you want to get home!”  I told her I was not looking forward to mowing our knee-high lawn, but maybe I could use jet lag as an excuse.  She laughed merrily at that, “Oh yeah, honey, jet lag!  You can milk that for a long time!”  It was nice to be greeted by such a down-to-earth woman after being in the air for so long.

Our hotel at last!  We slept like babies.  And not the kind who cry.

The next day we had a nice breakfast at the hotel and started on our three-hour drive to Highlands.  And our Honda CRV started without hesitation!  It was warm and humid, and it rained off and on.  We were back home, late July in North Carolina, thundershowers every afternoon.  It was indeed good to get home.

A few days later, I wrote this on our little blackboard in the kitchen:

Au Revoir Paris

Today was our final full day in Paris, and we decided to set out on foot to find and explore an area we had not yet visited, the Montmartre quarter in the 18^th Arrondissement.  Montmartre is an elevated area in Paris, and at its summit is a beautiful Roman Catholic church called the Basilica of Sacré Coeur de Montmartre as well as the famous Artist’s Square on the Place du Tertre.  It had been an optional experience on our tour and some of the tour group had visited it yesterday.

Join us for a stroll with our Local Specialist through Montmartre – an artists’ village once home to Picasso and Toulouse Lautrec, tucked away from the modern city. The paint will still be wet on the canvasses, as we watch apprentices work before our eyes in the famous Artist’s Square.  Mingle, barter, and stand in awe of Sacré Coeur Basilica in this historic, bohemian neighbourhood.

It was a little over two miles on foot, but it was cooler than it had been in Nice and I had recovered from most of the effects of Covid.  Navigating there was a little tricky.  There was no direct route, but using a combination of Google Maps (which provided streets and landmarks but no directions) and a compass, we managed to zigzag across an unfamiliar part of Paris until we could see the rounded dome of the Basilica ahead of us.  We were on some narrow streets unlike the wide boulevards in the 17^th Arrondissement, but as I have noted before we felt completely safe.

On the way, we descended off the main street into a large area called the Cimetière de Montmartre, dating back to 1825 and 27 acres in area.  Readers of this blog may know that I especially enjoy cemeteries, Highlands Memorial Park and the Old Burying Ground in Beaufort being two of my favorites.  This was truly a beautiful place, though, unlike any cemetery I had ever seen before.  We wandered up and down cobbled streets marveling at the crypts and the gravestones, some of them 200 years old but some of them quite recent.

We finally found ourselves on a wide boulevard, divided in the middle by a tree-shaded sidewalk and bicycle path, the Boulevarde de Clichy.  It was very pleasant walking there, away from the traffic, and on the way we passed the famous Moulin Rouge cabaret which some of our tour group had visited the previous evening.

The area just past the Moulin Rouge was what I can only describe as seedy, although nothing like similar areas in cities in the US, with  private clubs, cafes, and gift shops.  We lost sight of the Basilica, but found it again at the summit of a steep street, the Rue des Martyrs.  There was a lot of pedestrian traffic up the street, a mix of obvious tourists and young people who looked like artists and students.  We stopped for lunch at a little café on the corner called La Fourmi, located in what looked like a very old building, and struggled a little with the menu and the language barrier, which is always a little exciting.  We both ordered the croque-monsieur végé (zucchini, and comme-ci comme ça) and an amber-colored IPA (délicieux).

After lunch, we started up the Rue des Martyrs, zigzagged through an interesting little area filled with more cafes, and then began climbing what turned out to be many, many steps.  I was still a little fatigued from Covid and have to admit I was a little winded at the top.  But the views up there were spectacular - we could see the Eiffel Tower in the background - and the landmark which we had been approaching all day was well worth the climb.

Just around the corner was the Place du Tertre, a large shady square with cafes all around, packed with artists at work displaying their art and sketching portraits of tourists.

We stopped for a basket of bread and a glass of cold Côtes de Provence rosé at a little brasserie called La Mère Catherine, which I later learned was one of the oldest restaurants on the square.  We were packed in very tightly, shoulder to shoulder with what seemed to be mostly tourists.  We noticed that a woman next to us had ordered something we had not yet tried (and would not try) – beef tartare, which seemed to be served everywhere in France this time of year.  We had seen it on menus all over Paris as well as in Lyons and Nice.  Apparently it is safe to eat this dish, which consists of a cylinder, perhaps the size of a stack of a half dozen pancakes, of raw ground beef.  The woman consumed the bloody dish completely.

We took a taxi back to the hotel, driven by another interesting driver.  He had been all over the world, including many places in our country (Niagara Falls, Las Vegas, Florida), and he seemed to have enjoyed it all equally, a modern-day Ulysses in a taxicab.

We had been looking forward to a final dinner at Que Pour les Gourmondes, the little sidewalk café across the street from the Hotel Mercure where we had eaten our first dinner in Paris when we had arrived more than two weeks ago (see post of July 13).  We learned that they did not open until 7:30 p.m., which is a little late for us but the time most Parisians enjoy a leisurely dinner.  We waited for them to open and were glad we did.  The same jolly young waiter helped us, and we learned that the chef was his mother, who made an appearance at one time to chat with a friend who had dropped by.  The Salade Gourmande du moment this time was fresh fruit, mostly melon, with feta cheese and some of the best lean Serrano ham I have ever had.  The entrée was salmon with a spectacular sauce of some kind.  And we could not resist the dessert as well!

This was our last evening in Paris, and it made me think of Humphrey Bogart telling Ingrid Bergman (although in a slightly different context), “We’ll always have Paris!”  We had a toast with the usual Côtes de Provence rosé and watched the sun set over the skyline of Paris.

It had been a beautiful day, and despite the interruption of our tour by Covid, it had been a beautiful adventure in France.