A Nine Mile Slog Jog

Yes, I know the sign says half mile scenic loop and yes, I ran that.  Who wouldn't love a run on Goat Island?  But all said and done, I ran nine miles yesterday which included that half mile goat loop. I ran the riverwalk trail in Milford too, and saw a Black Crowned Heron huddled just off the riverwalk bridge.  I was surprised because I hadn't seen one of those since Florida several years ago.  The heron looked cold, if that's a thing, to be able to see that.  I was all layered up. The sun was out and it wasn't crazy windy but it was not much above freezing. So why don't I have a picture of the Black Crowned Heron?  My phone battery ran down to 10% and it wouldn't take the picture.  I swear.  And I had charged it before I ran.  It was 60 or 70% charged when I took off.  It must have been stuck on and picture mode or something, in my pants pocket, as I was running.  Plus I took a call from my daughter while on Goat Island.  But still, wtf? The universe was conspiring  (or Apple) to ruin what would have been a great picture of that heron because it was less than five feet from me just watching me.  

Below, the bridge going out to Goat Island. Goat Island is a sweet little trek with really nice boardwalks and bridge walks through wetlands.

As with many small towns in Delaware, Milford, on the Mispillion River and close to the Delaware Bay, used to build ships.  I ran past the shipyard on my way to Goat Island. 

After leaving Goat Island, I ran the town's riverwalk.  The little theater, shown below in the picture on the left side of the Mispillion River, appropriately named the Riverfront Theater, is host to the 2nd Street Players. It has a good reputation from what we've heard.  Many of the local actors try out and act in the  live theaters up in Sussex and Kent County.  There are several, happily.  We haven't tried out the Riverfront Theater yet.  Soon, I hope.  We love it when the arts are big in the small town communities. 

And speaking of the arts. The town's riverwalk has these miniature painted wooden boat replica's spaced here and there.  Charming.  This is the one near the Riverfront Theater.  The quote on the starboard side is appropriately from Shakespeare: "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players."

This picture of the theater-themed boat is the last one I was able to take before my phone refused to cooperate.  I had no idea the battery was so low.  I was so bummed.  the heron would have been a gorgeous picture.  I may have to run the Riverwalk again to day on the oh-so off chance that the heron is nearby. 

Brrrrr...A Cold and Windy Run

It was cold as (____) and windy as (____) but I got it done.  I was layered up.  My calves felt like they weren't working quite right.  They were mooing in protest.  OK.  I know.  That was dumb.  But I am not taking my runs or myself all that seriously these days.  Unless you count that I am serious about just doing it, just getting out there to give my fork a run for the money.  It felt good to run even though it was cold.  It was a good day. It was a seven mile slog-jog.

Tiny twigs filled a portion of the trail, washed in from a recent rain.  I love the delicate arrangement of these, like a really tough puzzle that nature completed. I wonder what a small fabric art piece would look like inspired by this twig puzzle photo.  I wonder if I could make the textures stand out to give it interest or to stitch in outlines of the twigs, even the tiniest.  

Child's Play

A wet, cloudy morning.  Who cares? Get outside!

Run like a child!  Remember how it was when your body moved to respond to the joy you felt without thinking about it.  As an older adult, ahem, I do have to think about it a bit.  Where I place my feet while trail running is a lot more important than it was when I was a child running in a field or pastureland on the farm where I grew up.  But let that joy well up in you again.  Get back in touch with that child in your heart and look around you.  See the beauty.  Feel the amazement of a body that can mobilize your enjoyment of the world in person.  Let go of some of your rules on scheduling and training.  Call it a fartlek or fun run.  Whatever.  But go out and have fun.  Stop and take pictures along the way.  Bend and examine moss cozying up with tree roots and think to yourself how that is an amazing work of art.  

 

See the mouth on the "fish" above.  It's open and ready to swallow food.  And below, the "fish" has an eye top right where the leaf starts to curve downward. Ive' named these the Great Spotted Fish Leaves. 

Flowers are blooming.  I found them on the edge of the woods.  I was surprised.  Charmed.  I bent to examine them.  The run will continue.  Why not take the moment to enjoy life to the fullest.  Everything else can wait for now. 

As I trotted about I remembered a quote that I've seen attributed to Golda Meir but also much older, a proverb attributed to gypsy societies, "The dog that trots about finds the bone."  I love that because as I've been free to roam North America the last several years, I experience many things.  I see wonderment everywhere in nature.  Beauty tucked away in small places you'd miss if you weren't out there trotting about, moseying around, putzing here and there, wandering.  

Above, a little pond in a wetlands area.  Below, a toppled tree seen from below.  Now tell me. How many times have you seen the bottom part of a tree?  Really.  Think about it.  Of all the trees you've seen in your life, have you thought about what they look like from below?  Where here is your opportunity.  This one is a bit vintage.  I think it looks like a whacky dark star.  I think it is a beautiful sculpture. 

And below is the water.  Reflections of the trees in a marshy area.  In this area barred owls talk back and forth about what meals they may be cooking.  Woodpeckers move up and down the trunks of trees and out onto limbs, jackhammering when they find a good spot. Turtles are starting to emerge from the muck. Frogs to be frogs and make that rubberband sound that amuses me in addition to the croaking sound we associate with them. Or better yet, the mating sounds that we first thought were ducks quacking.  The first time we heard it we headed toward the pond where the sound was emanating. When we arrived there was nothing there...or so we thought.  But then we started to notice frogs.  How cool we thought.  But what happened to all the ducks that had been here?  We'd not seen them flush.  So after a bit we walked on.  Then we again heard the duck quacks starting up.  An uproar of quackers.  So we returned slowly quietly, staying just far enough away to look in.  And that's when we realized they were frogs. Dozens. Hundreds.  And we saw them mating.  Sorry, but it was funny.  Weird.  Cute.  Frog sex.  Frog reproduction.  Why is that a taboo thing?  It is not.  It is life happening.  The carrying on of nature into the future.  We loved it.  It is one of my favorite wildlife memories.  I have that treasured memory from trotting about.  Adventuring myself.  

So this run was just about 6 miles all told.  I picked up some "road kill" on my way back from the trail run part of my journey.  One item was a faded yellow plastic basket that was small enough and light enough for me to carry it home as I jogged along the highway.  Another was a partly eaten dog toy apparently dropped from a dog's mouth out a car window.  It was the remainder of a fuzzy green cloth tyrannosaurus, I think.  The head was torn off.  I picked up the tyrannosaurus thinking I'd wash it, of course, then maybe harvest the green fuzzy part for a miniature fabric art project I want to do where I create a fiber image inspired by one of my nature photos.  So the picture of the moss and tree roots above in this post is what I want to duplicate.  As for the yellow plastic basket, I picked it up partly because it was garbage that needed to be recycled one way or another: either through official home waste recycling or recycled into another life of use.  I thought I could wash it and use it in my kitchen cupboards for storing my juicing accoutrement.  But as I ran home carrying that basket, it began to crack here and there, it was so brittle from the sun and time.  But hey, even though I carried it a couple miles home, it became a great way to later transport the wet, nasty headless green tyrannosaurus dog toy that I hope to upcycle into a work of art. 

Life is good.  Go for a run.  Run like a child.  Don't compete with anyone.  Don't even compete with yourself.  Don't train.  Just run.  Have fun.  Sightsee.  Look about.  Explore.  Be you.  The you you could be.  

After a Long Hiatus

And so I resume the capture of my running experiences.  I'm here to tell you that you can not outrun your fork.  But I also know it helps to try.  Primarily I'm resuming a steadier practice of running, well, I call it slog jogging or sightseeing while trotting about.  It's more important to me to be outside enjoying nature and to stop to take pictures or to examine something or to pick up "road kill" meaning interesting pieces of rusted metals that have fallen off trucks or trailers, or other interesting trash like baby pacifiers trying to return to nature.

So lately I've had some beautiful runs.  I'm shooting for 6-7 mile runs. I love it when I can combine road running with a trail run.  I prefer to leave from home and do different loops but I will do an out and back occasionally or we will load up and go somewhere for a particularly beautiful or interesting area. It could be a large city, a beach town, or meeting family or friends for a run.

This, below, is from yesterday's run where I added a new loop to my repertoire.

Last Friday it was foggy in the morning.  I love foggy days.  And these pictures, below are from one of my favorite slogs.

I usually have the urge to take pictures that don't include man-made structures (other than trails).  Trails are special.  Wild animals make the and use them too.  They just have a special magic, an invitation to an adventure. But the power lines lit by the sun in the fog, the muddy boat launch into the fog...

The contrast of the red diamond signs.

I love spider webs in the fog.  You see them everywhere.  Without the fog weighting them slightly and making them look like they are tiny diamond nature necklaces strung about in the wild, we wouldn't even see most of them.

It was a good day to to run.

The NCR Trail Marathon

Ugh.  It was ugly.  It was almost as ugly as the Presque Isle, Erie, PA, marathon we did a couple years ago in October.  Both were flat, both were in cool weather.  Both should have been easy because of that.  But both entailed repetition, covering the same territory.  And both were done while my weight was elevated.  I have no idea how much I weighed during the Erie Marathon, well maybe I do but I'm not saying.  It was at least ten more than I weigh now, I think.  And for every pound you carry over what you should be to be fit, that slams down on the ground, reverberating up your body many times over your actual weight.

It is tough to be a fat runner.  I know from experience.  But here I am, once again attempting to out run my fork.

For the NCR Trail Marathon I was up maybe five or seven pounds more than for the Baltimore Marathon last month. And I felt it.  It took me maybe a half hour longer than the Baltimore Marathon.  My right foot didn't hurt as bad as it did with the Erie Marathon, but like the Erie Marathon, I psyched out around the 14 mile mark.  That's pretty early to be mentally dumping the race. In the Baltimore Marathon I knew the race route, knew my city, felt good despite the heat and the hills.  I did good for me, for what my usual timing is on a marathon.

But in the month between the Baltimore Marathon and the NCR Trail Marathon I put on pounds, I began eating comfort food, I felt stressed with my daughter's wedding planning and venue hunt (and the upcoming costs for her and for us and the fact she couldn't/wouldn't make decisions whereas I make them pretty quickly and live with them), and stressed with our house hunting, first in Delaware and now, focusing on North Carolina in the mountains. (OK, so maybe I am dragging my feet on the house selection, waiting for just the right fit, just as my daughter is dragging her feet on the ceremony and reception venues, waiting for just the right fit).

Also, I was physically beat up coming into the NCR Trail Marathon.  I carried two big piles of our possessions which were in boxes and bags in our friends three story attic.  I placed them all on the bottom floor near the door while Dave was out golfing.  Most of those boxes were full of books.  Heavy.  I did all this by myself, except for a couple larger items that Dave helped me with the next day. Then we loaded it all in our old motorcycle trailer and drove it all to our storage shelter and packed it all in.  More lifting.  I felt my age because my back and neck were very sore from carefully navigating the three flights of stairs, trying to avoid bumping into framed paintings and plants. This was the Tuesday and Wednesday before the NCR Trail Marathon. I began taking Tylenol and was on the mend but not quite there.

The NCR Trail marathon is a small marathon, maybe 600 runners between it and the half marathon run that started on much the same route and just ten minutes after the marathoners took off.  It might be around the same size as the Erie marathon.  Both are definitely small compared to the Baltimore, or the mother of all marathons, the Marine Corps Marathon.  Why would that be important, you might ask?  Because if you're slow like me, you risk being the last one in.

Who cares, I should ask?  Well, me.  But let's look at that.  Of all the people in the world, how many never even consider running a marathon?  How many are overweight, content to nurse bad habits of ill health, laying on couches watching sports instead of participating, dropping potato chips between the cushions, dribbling ice cream on their clothes?

Of all the people who decide they want to run a marathon, how many even finish the training and show up for the race?  Of those, how many finish?  We've now whittled the population down to a, yes, I'm going to use this phrase - elite few.

So I have always known I was a slugger, a slogger.  Slow runners sometimes refer to themselves as penguins which is funny because that is how we look running so slow our feet barely seem to be moving us ahead. Penguin runners come in all sizes and shapes and ages.  But I think of myself as an old clydesdale.  I'm big and strong and not meant for speed. I'm slow and sure despite my aging frame. I get the job done.  I always have.

Next to the slender, truly elite athletes I look out of place.  When they quit a marathon it is because they are having an off day and are afraid of injuring themselves.  I have always finished what I start. Knock on wood. I say I will crawl to the finish if I have to. That is an exaggeration, but I am not too proud to walk, to try to cover a limp, to put on a smile to cover my grimmace. I know I can do long distances by hiking, running, walking.  I can get the job done.  But the mental part of knowing people are waiting for me, that I might be holding race volunteers up from shutting down the race and going home, holding up family members and friends who are finished and ready to leave, that bothers me some and I fight those thoughts as I make my way down the path, suffering but stubborn.

Dave volunteered at the NCR Trail Marathon, along with our son and grandson.  They were all at the 5 mile mark which was also the 21 mile mark since the NCR Trail Marathon, run on the NCR Rail Trail, is an up and back run.  Dave said all the other volunteers, members of the sponsoring Baltimore Road Runners Club, knew each other and probably most were truly elite runners.  Dave said some where commenting that people who run 12 minute miles or over shouldn't even be doing marathons.  I'd like to say shame on them for their impatience, their long view down their noses towards those of us who are also fellow runners just trying to accomplish something difficult in our lives, maybe the most challenging thing we've ever done.  Runners coming in last in marathons are struggling.  It takes lots of guts to be last.  The pain is ugly, and we do it knowing most everyone else is finished.  We are stragglers.  Dave said he gave one elite runner a ride from the 21 mile mark back to the finish line because he said he just didn't have it that day and didn't want to injure himself.  He made sure to declare that he'd run ultras, finished hundred mile races before.  He wanted people to know he wasn't a loser.  Whoop-t-do. He didn't finish the NCR Trail Marathon and I did.

I remember once lamenting after Airborne School that my roommate there was discharged out of the military due to shin splints so bad that it made her physically unfit to continue in the Army.  She had just come out of Officer Candidate School and those were the days of running in combat boots for everything.  Her legs were all beat up by months of running on asphalt in non-running gear.  She was a much more gifted runner than I was, faster by a lot.

Yet I graduated jump school and she did not.  Survival of the fittest, I was told.

The Baltimore Marathon

So I have another marathon under my belt.  It wasn't pretty, and none of them have been. By pretty, I mean that I don't run fast.  I did 12+ miles and from the time I ran my first marathon at age 22 until now at age 58, I can say that I am nothing if not consistent in my times.  I stay right around the 5:30 finish time, maybe ten minutes earlier, and once, ten minutes slower. 

Aren't these medals cool?  A crab.  Opens.  Fort McHenry on the inside. Once, when I was still on Face Book, a friend from somewhere else in the US complained about her experience at a professional baseball or football game where her team played Baltimore.  She thought it was disrespectful that the Baltimore fans shouted a loud "O" for Orioles when the words "Oh" comes along towards the end of the anthem.  I wanted to jump in and respond to her, explaining that Baltimore is where Francis Scott Key's poem that became our National Anthem was written.  He was captive in a British ship sitting outside city listening to the "rockets red glare" and knowing that our flag still stood as long as the Brits were still fighting.  Our Baltimore homies were defending the city.  Like they are still today, they are rough and tough, and disdained by many so-called gentle folk across the country.  People are afraid of Baltimore, our crime rate.  But we are proud of our city, proud of our heritage.  And our homies have a special relationship with our National Anthem.  It is not a lack of respect, but a feeling of ownership, of pride.  That's our song.  Those are our words.  The woman, the so-called friend who insulted our fans doesn't think very deeply or she'd have realized all that I just said.  She is too suburbanized. She is a mall girl.  She doesn't know shit.

 In the picture below I am skipping along as I approach Fells Point and see Mike Beckner, the owner, and a good friend, of the B.O.P.  (Baltimore's Brick Oven Pizza).  He was standing at the intersection watching.  I gave him a big sweaty hug.  This was right around the 15 mile mark. 

 I love my city.

Long Fun Runs & Finding Bottle Caps

With two marathons coming up this fall you'd think I'd be seriously training.  But then, that would show that you don't know me very well.  I've never seriously trained for a marathon or even the 50K. I'm not bragging; I'm not a fast runner.  I'm just saying; I don't care that I'm not a fast runner.

My training style for years was just to do around six miles a day and maybe up to a ten now and again. Now my style is just doing long walks with an effort to put in a 15 mile run here and there, hopefully one a week.

But now I am morphing to just a long fun run which is really a combination of running and walking.  I stop to collect old beer bottle tops off the ground, many smashed flat, some packed with mud on the underside, some twisted, some so old they are fully rusted with no previous color evident.  You can't tell what flavor they capped.  I like the patina on those and the slightly lumpy bumpiness on the generally flattened cap.  

I find bottle caps all over the place, in parking lots in upscale neighborhoods, outside package stores and bars, along the highway, on trails in the woods and along bike paths.  But mother lodes can be had around neighborhood trash bins, but mostly in neighborhoods that have seen better days.  Mother lodes also appear near industrial or working class venues as if the employees get off work and down a few cold ones before hitting the road.  Or maybe at lunch and after work.  

I am going to use the beer bottle tops for some kind of art project, a sculpture of some type.  I'm not sure yet.