Run for Autism 5-K

In my post of February 6, I reported that after the Valentine Party in Beaufort on Sunday, we had driven down to Taylor Creek to check out the course for a 5-K race being held on March 4 on Front Street.  “We had not run the Cocoa 5-K due to wind-chills in the teens, and are hoping to be able to complete this one, our first race of 2023.”  It’s not that we’re wimps – we have both run marathons and half-marathons in the rain – it’s just that we have become more “choosy” about running races.  Some might say “sensible.”

In any case, the weather on this Saturday morning cooperated for this choosy and sensible Highlands Roadrunner and his spouse.  A weather front had moved rapidly out over the ocean during the night, sweeping the clouds away and leaving a brisk 15-miles-per-hour west wind behind, but with temperatures in the 60s.  Our only concern was the pollen, which had been very thick the past few days, coating our car green and making us both a little congested. The course was advertised as a certified one and was out-and-back on Front Street, which meant a wind at our back for the first half of the race.  And unlike most races in our part of the country, it was perfectly flat, running between Taylor Creek, and beyond that Rachel Carson Reserve (where we had spotted wild ponies on that Valentine Party Sunday), and beautiful historic Beaufort homes facing the water.  

A little over 250 participants had signed up as either “competitive” or “non-competitive,” (“run/walk”) but there was convenient parking near the start, with plenty of volunteers and official-looking timing mats under the START banner.  After a short warm-up, we lined up and chatted with some of the other “competitive” runners lined up in front of the walkers and strollers.  “You look like you might be in my age group,” I said to a man in a green singlet, “I’m going to stay right behind you and kick at the finish!”  We also chatted with a woman with a long braid who might have been in Martha’s age group.  But when the race started, both of them (and Martha) quickly pulled away from me.  I concentrated on my form – Martha had pointed out to me a week or two ago while running intervals that I was not swinging my left arm as I should – and occupied myself with talking to other runners, feeling the wind at my back but heating up pretty quickly.  “Oh no!”  I said as a young woman whizzed by, “Passed by the first stroller,” and she laughed.  “You should see my eleven-year-old, he’s way out front.”  Martha came by from the other direction, having already turned and started back to the finish.  “Looking good!” I called out.

We turned at a water stop, a table containing the smallest cups of water I have ever seen in a race, but I thanked the volunteers (who were plentiful and friendly all along the course) and gratefully gulped it down, and when I turned we felt that cooling breeze now in our faces.  I slowly caught up to the woman with the braid, who was taking deliberate walking breaks (she was wearing a Jeff Galloway shirt, the author and running coach who famously endorses walking breaks, and said she had finished many marathons using the method) and passed her with some words of encouragement.  And I passed a woman dressed as a Dunkin’ Donut (one of the race sponsors), who was walking in the one-mile Fun Run that had started after our race.  “Yay!  I passed a donut!” I said, and she laughed and cheered.  But I never saw the man in the green singlet.  (After the race I learned that this inspiring 79-year-old runner was named Finn Hassing, and he had finished in fifth place overall in an incredible time of 23:51).  We passed the three-mile sign, and I kept looking at my watch; I had been hoping to break 40 minutes, and it seemed like a long way to the finish line.  I finally crossed the line in 40:52, and realized from my Garmin watch that the course had been 3.14 miles.  Even certified courses can be short or long.  Had it been 3.10, by my calculation my time would have been 40:24, still not under 40 minutes, but definitely good enough for this day, this runner, this new year, this new 74-year-old age I find myself in.

Martha was waiting at the finish, and learned that with her asthma, she had suffered from the pollen more than I had, finishing in 32:54 (32:28, corrected for 3.14 miles).  She was disappointed that, struggling to catch her breath, she had had to walk two or three times.  The woman with the long braid, who was in the same age group as Martha, told us that she had gotten her time from the officials and learned she was first in her age group, which was puzzling because she had finished behind both of us.  The mystery was solved when, calling out the awards, Martha was surprised to learn that she had taken First Place Masters, faster than all of the other women runners in their 40s, 50s, and 60s.  She also received a $15 gift certificate for Dunkin’ Donuts, which she promptly gave away.

I learned that my age group was 70-99 (!), and when I went up to accept by second place award (first place had been taken by the 79-year-old Finn Hassing), I assured the handful of applauding onlookers that I was NOT 99.  No, not yet.  And I hope that I will still be running when I am 79.

Shackleford Banks

The wind-pushed waves in Beaufort inlet
smacked the pilings like clapping hands,
the salt-marsh grass swinging in the sparkle
and easy communing of freshwater and salt,
while we waited on weathered plank benches
for the Shackleford Banks ferry to depart,
the sky so blue that it made our eyes ache,
the brisk wind lifting hats and rippling nylon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It was a good way to spend another birthday,
a small adventure, looking for wild ponies,
remembering the long road to land’s end,
and bracing for the crossing ahead, the inlet
as choppy as we have ever found it, bucking
the big swells, tilting precipitously, the way
a little boat can do on a big sea, before finding
the leeward shallow and the silken shore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked for an hour searching for ponies,
over the dunes and the scant cropped grass,
threading between massive piles of dung,
some of it so fresh it was black shining wet,
and thinking what a peerless day for seeking,
whether we found one or not.  When suddenly
there they were, four of them, calmly grazing
in a sheltered spot between the red cedars,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Eking out their frugal lives on this island,
digging holes in the sand for fresh water and
browsing on sparse grass, living and dying
their fleeting lives on this windswept island,
their ancestors surviving far rougher waters
than these, furiously swimming away from
sinking Spanish galleons in the dark night,
struggling shoreward toward this hard refuge.

We Find So Much to Do

It has been two weeks since I have posted anything to this blog, and that lapse is partly because of all of the activities we find ourselves occupied with in this last month of our Sabbatical.  We learned that our friends Billy and Mary from Highlands were staying in Emerald Isle, so we met them for lunch in Beaufort last week on Valentine’s Day, and we had a good time catching up over delicious and authentic Mexican food at Front Street Taco, a place we had been intending to try.

“You two find so much to do!” Mary told us, but she didn’t know the half of it.  We had dinner reservations that night, for example, at Amos Mosquito’s (they only take reservations on New Year’s and Valentine’s Day) and it was all delicious.  Dessert, in which we seldom indulge, was S’mores – the marshmallows roasted over an open flame at our table – and it was a lot of fun.

These photos are some of the ones Martha posted on Facebook, and from the comments they attracted a lot of attention, including the information that S’mores were enjoyed (in memory, at least) by many of our friends.

We have also been hiking in addition to running, first at Fort Macon, where the three-plus-mile Elliott Coues Nature Trail winds through a maritime forest from the Fort to the Picnic Area, where we run our intervals during the week.  This part of the trail is sheltered from wind and features sprawling live oak trees and expanses of salt marsh to the north.

We stopped at one point and noticed a large white bird perched on a branch above the still water, which I am guessing with its short neck may have been a cattle egret, although it was large for that.  A blue heron, perhaps?

From the Picnic Area, the trail returns to the Fort on the ocean side, winding around and over sand dunes where there are spectacular views of the surf.  The trail here is stabilized from the wind with Christmas trees collected at the Fort each year, and you can smell its lovely pungent fragrance all along the trail.  We often think this may be what it is like to hike on open moors in Scotland (except for the Christmas trees).
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The trail returns to the Fort near two World War II-era cannons, original 155-millimeter caliber field guns on loan from the Army National Guard.  In 1941, when the United States entered World War II, hundreds of Army soldiers were sent to Fort Macon as part of the harbor defense of Beaufort Inlet, defending the area against German U-boats. It took park rangers years to track down the guns and they are very proud of them; all of the other weapons in the Fort are Civil War-era, seen on the battlements in the background.

This gun points out to the inlet and reminds visitors that the Fort served a very real military purpose in two different wars.

Last week we hiked in another place we have been meaning to visit, Patsy Pond Nature Trail, between Morehead City and Swansboro.  The terrain was very different from that at the Fort, flat and very likely hot in the summertime.  There were signs at the trailhead that warned us, Beware of biting insects, venomous snakes, and poisonous plants on the trail, as well as a mention that alligators might also be on the prowl.  Fortunately we saw none of these creatures, but we did see almost immediately a dark, forbidding, ominous looking sinkhole – Bob’s Sinkhole – named after a Forest Ranger (although I could never determine who “Patsy” was).

What was more interesting was the presence of Longleaf pines, a tree which once dominated the Southeastern United States in the same way that the American chestnut did.  Sadly, while the latter was destroyed by blight, these pines were decimated by loggers cutting them down irresponsibly.  I had seen a good display about this at the History Museum in New Bern a couple of weeks ago, and I read about it on Wikipedia:

As they stripped the woods of their trees, loggers left mounds of flammable debris that frequently fueled catastrophic fires, destroying both the remaining trees and seedlings. The exposed earth left behind by clear-cutting operations was highly susceptible to erosion, and nutrients were washed from the already porous soils. This further destroyed the natural seeding process. At the peak of the timber cutting in the 1890s and first decade of the new century, the longleaf pine forests of the Sandhills were providing millions of board feet of timber each year. The timber cutters gradually moved across the South; by the 1920s, most of the "limitless" virgin longleaf pine forests were gone.

Efforts are being made to restore the Longleaf pine here and elsewhere, and evidence of treatment for insects and protection from fires was present everywhere.  The trees towered above us impressively, and I read that mature trees could live for 500 years.

The trail finally circled around the shore of a lake – no alligators – and brought us back to the trailhead.

Walking among these giant trees, I was reminded of a framed little poem that I recall from my childhood which was always hanging in my Mom's bedroom.  She was a North Carolina native, born not far from here in Roanoke Rapids, and I believe the poem was a school award, the first verse of the official North Carolina State Toast:

Here's to the land of the longleaf pine,
The summer land where the sun doth shine,
Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great,
Here's to "Down Home," the Old North State!

What else can I add to this catch-up post?  Martha continues to prepare delicious seafood:  witness this from last week – crab cakes from Blue Ocean Market, roasted carrots, and salad.  Yum!

And I haven’t even mentioned Mardi Gras on Middle Lane in Beaufort, which we attended on a gorgeous cloudless day on Saturday afternoon, a parade and street carnival featuring Cajun food and music.  Martha posted photos of this on Facebook, too:

A highlight of the parade each year (which I enjoy thoroughly even through I am not a parade enthusiast) is the Bodacious Belles of Beaufort, a bevy of beauties who look like they are having the time of their lives.

We also attended two back-to-back theatre performances this weekend, one in Morehead City – Love, Loss, and What I Wore, by Nora Ephron – and one in New Bern – Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, featuring a very talented singer and a jazz pianist and based on the tragic life of Billie Holiday, AKA Lady Day.   

I have abbreviated all of this because it is almost dinner time, and Martha is preparing fresh scallops (the small ones are local, shucked just a day or two ago at Blue Ocean) with roasted carrots and cauliflower, and the aroma as I write this is wonderful!

Bon appetit!  Until next time!