Friday, July 27, 2007

Random thoughts along the lake shore

Paula & Kendall at the end of today's run (Manistique, Michigan)

Another day of running Highway 2 along the north shore of Lake Michigan. There's a fair amount of traffic so not much time for day dreaming. Nonetheless, the thoughts do tap dance through the brain. Some from today:
  • I've got new music playing in my brain! In Nebraska, Iowa, and the early days of Minnesota, the theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies was firmly planted in my brain's sound track. That was replaced by "mama makes shortenin' shortenin' shortenin', mama makes shortenin', shortenin' bread" which made it the rest of the way through Minnesota and Wisconsin. Crossing the state line into Michigan, Sousa popped into my brain and I am quite delighted. Perhaps it's in homage to my high school band teacher, Max Smith, who had our marching band high stepping to Sousa marches whenever we took the field.
  • Last night I dreamt I was running...in my sleep. And I was wondering if the mileage would count if I was sleeping while I ran.
  • I chatted a bit with a couple of cyclists at a rest stop today (btw: there seems to be no rest stop that I won't pause at these days). They're riding from Washington state to Bar Harbor, Maine via Canada, Montana, Idaho, and are heading back into Canada until Niagara Falls. What a beautiful trip!
  • Light rain seems to be my favorite running weather. I had a couple days in Wisconsin that started in a light mist/rain and ran very well. Today started in fog/mist which developed into rain, then mist then fog (before getting warmish and humid with no mist in the afternoon) and the morning miles just flew by. Bets on how long it takes my shoes and hat to dry out? 'Tis just a tad more damp here in Michigan than in Colorado!
  • I find myself talking to myself...not all that unusual. But now I even talk out loud to myself on occasion. Especially if a word is fun to say. In Nebraska I would often burst out with "rumble bars" - pretty much whenever a sign appeared announcing the rumble bars. Today I announced to the world "It's a cannon!" - when a truck went by pulling a trailer with a cannon.
  • Paul accompanied me for a couple miles today (the guys had to take a detour that I was allowed to run through; Paul came back and found me). He said Kendall was at the outskirts of Manistique where there was an Arby's, a Shell station, a car wash, a Burger King and "other random stuff". Paul is now hereby dubbed King Random Sharbyash.
hmmm....perhaps it's time to wrap up these many days of many hours of solo running.... ;-)

We're spending the night in Manistique (where I finished running today). So far the schedule published yesterday still holds!

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