Horizons

Rolling fields of Nebraska

When a visual of the summer's run flits through my mind, it's usually of the horizon. Pointing yourself in an easterly direction for eight weeks on the open road through the middle of America, really opens you up - in both mind and spirit. I believe this has a lot to do with the phenomenon of spending hours upon hours gazing at the horizon...no closed doors, walls, or roofs to be found.

Coming back to a life that involves a fair amount of indoor time has been an adjustment. However, I noticed today, as I pedaled my bike to my volunteer job just at sunrise, that a grin spread across my face...as my view filled, once again, with the eastern horizon. Getting a daily dose of open is a good thing.

Made it through the day

September 26th has come and almost gone without mishap. All that's left is the brushing of the teeth, the putting on of the jammies, and the climbing into the bed. I do believe I can safely negotiate those three hazards.

I rode my bike to & fro my volunteer job with nary a spill. I also ran twice and used sharp tools and still came through the day unscathed. Perhaps the comment left by thronedoggie has a point: it's the combination of the 26th, the bike, and the Boulder Backroads marathon that was playing havoc with me the last two years. The marathon isn't until this coming Sunday (the 30th) - and I'm not even running it this year (the first year I'll not participate in Backroads since its inception!). Who knows, I may make it into October with neither bump nor bruise. (I gotta find me some wood to knock on. See ya'!)

PJ during a midday break in Nebraska - not wounded,
simply resting with ice packs on the feet, ice cloths on the quads
and a Great Harvest Longmont energy bar at my side

Cycling Adventures

Paul & Paula, Cowboy Trail, June 26, 2007

I have been known to be a bit of a klutz on a bicycle. Enough so, that one might question why I would ever move any closer to the pilot's seat of a bicycle than I am in the above picture. For example:

• Two years ago, on September 26, 2005 (one day after running the Boulder Backroads Marathon), I was riding my bike home from work, spotted an exceptionally well-played pick up basketball game in progress along side the bike trail, and became so engrossed in the game that I rode right off the bike trail, crashed, and broke my arm.
• One year ago, on September 26, 2006 (two days after running the Boulder Backroads Marathon), I was riding my bike home from an errand, got to my driveway, swung my leg off my bike, caught my pants (shorts) leg on the seat and crashed backwards, pulling my bike over on top of me, bonking my head, bruising my hip, and torquing my back.

Tomorrow is September 26th. Should I avoid riding my bike? Or should I try to break the curse? I haven't yet decided - but I did have quite the cycling klutz test yesterday when I rode to my volunteer job.

When I left my house a little before 7 a.m., there was a light rain falling. It seldom rains hard in the morning in Boulder so I wasn't too worried. Ha! The further away from home I rode, the harder it rained. In fact, it started raining so hard, my skin started to protest. No wonder - there was hailed mixed in with the rain - and then there was hail covering the bike paths, and then there were rivers covering the bike paths, and then there was lightning, and thunder! What a ride! I did manage to arrive at the volunteer office in one piece - actually, one very soggy piece. A couple hours later, I rode home. No more hail coming down, but mounds of it covered the bike paths, interspersed with more new rivers, growing by the minute as the rain continued to fall. An interesting - and very wet - ride. But I arrived home upright, klutz test passed.

So, brave the curse of 9/26 and bike to work tomorrow? Or......

Dog talk

Jester dog and I ran together this morning as the sunrise eased into daylight. On our way back home, we turned a corner in our neighborhood and were greeted by the sound of a yapping dog hidden behind a tall wooden fence. Actually, it was a looong tall wooden fence so there was a lot of yap! yap! yap! yap! as we made our way past the fence. Just as we were approaching the next corner, a human's voice floated out from behind the fence with "Shut up!" - and the "yap! yap! yap!" turned into "ruhh Ruh! ruhh Ruh! ruhh Ruh!" I'm pretty darned sure that's dog for shutup! shutup! shutup! Ya' gotta be careful what you say around these pooches!

Changing Seasons

Earlier in the week, we were east of Boulder and I was shocked by the sight of a cornfield - it was brown! All the lovely tall green corn stalks that I had become so accustomed to over the summer had been harvested leaving a swath of dirt dotted by a few dried and weathered corn stalks. Last night my husband called from the road (he and Devon are on their way to Illinois to set Devon up in his first post-college apartment). They had switched from I80 to the Lincoln Highway at Ogallala to show Devon a bit of my running route. Kendall said, with a wistful note in his voice, that it looks very different. There, too, the formerly emerald fields are now brown and empty.

My son has left the nest and moved on to a new chapter in his life. My father and my first running buddy passed on this year. The corn fields have been harvested. And my run from Colorado to Michigan is history. Usually I revel in autumn's glory. This year, I think it will be a more reflective passing of the seasons.

But, before one begins to think I'm becoming more morose with the passing of the summer: I ran some hills this morning and felt like I was really running once again, breakfast at a running buddy's house was a taste bud-tickling meal with fresh-off-the-vine tomatoes (delish!), I cheered on the Colorado Buffaloes as they won their football game today 42-0 (a performance we haven't seen in Buff land for quite some time), I made arrangements for an evening out at the theater to celebrate Kendall's and my 32nd wedding anniversary, and I've just submitted my first article about the run. Life is rolling merrily along. And you know what? I suspect there will always be more corn. In the meantime, the earth offers many a joyful experience.

Grandpa's Funny Farm, a wee bit north and a tad east of Bigelow, Minnesota

Packing Up

Devon & Paula just after Paula arrived at Petoskey's waterfront, 8/1/2007

This time it is my eldest, my first-born, who is packing. And this is no ordinary packing job - not for, say, a couple weeks of camp or for a trip or even for college. No, Devon, who graduated this past June then came back to Boulder to hold down the fort and take care of Jester dog while we were out galavanting across the country, is moving out on his own...back to Illinois where he went to college. My boy is a man.

It's been interesting, this round of packing. Sorting through all of his boxes, drawers, cupboards and shelves has offered quite the trip down memory lane. And digging around the bowels of the house and in the bargain bins of various thrift shops sent me right back to the 70s when I had but a few dollars to my name and was shopping for my first apartment. Twenty-two years of memories and a future burgeoning with possibilities. I wish you a magnificent ride Devon Andrew.

Grandpa (Paul Vaughan), Devon, and Opa (Woody Miller) , 1986

Devon & brother Paul, first day of school, circa 1993

Paula (Mom) and Devon, Spring 2007

Running with the stars

Sunset from the road to Brush, June 9, 2007

...as in starry starry night - or pre-dawn.

It's been a long time since I've run in the dark. During The Run, my only run in the dark occurred on June 9th, the fourth day of the run and our first day with the motorhome. It turned out that those few last minute items consumed most of the morning so the final RV prep plus the drive out to the day's starting point meant I didn't begin running until almost 1 p.m. and didn't finish running until 9:15 p.m. Me in the dark without a reflector vest and the guys on bikes with one bike light between them. What a team! I was definitely bushed in Brush that night. (But what fun camping for the first time in the motorhome, in the Brush city park, and for free!)

Since then, all my running has been done in daylight - until this week. I now have a volunteer job that starts at 7:30 three mornings a week. I'm a much better person if I've had a run before I confront the public so I've been getting out the door around 5-5:30 for a bit of a run before breakfasting and volunteering.

It's dark at that time of the day - just like when I was running while I was working! What a wonderful time of day to run...stars, planets, little critters, not so little critters. When I ran with my old dog, Loki, I had an early warning device leashed to me. Loki loved everything and everybody. If his ears went up, I knew there was something interesting ahead; if his ears went back flat, I knew there was danger ahead. Very handy. Jester dog, on the other hand, is a bit more cautious. He scruffs his neck whenever he detects anything he believes to be out of the ordinary: a trash can, a loose piece of paper, a person, a critter, an invisible spooky thing. So now we have a wary dog attached to a neck-swiveling human wondering what the heck mister Jester is looking at. Be that as it may, we're both quite excited by the prospect of grabbing the leash in the morning just like old times. And I do love being out there in the pre-dawn quiet...almost as good as those long country roads this summer.

It's everywhere!

I may have mentioned, through the course of my summer run, that we saw a lot of corn...a lot of corn. Calf-high corn in Colorado, growing throughout Nebraska until it was taller than me by the time I crossed into Iowa, then a whole lotta corn in Minnesota...as far as the eye could see, a bit less corn in Wisconsin but still plenty, and the occasional corn patch (delicious corn, by the way) in Michigan. Yep, a whole lot of corn. When I visualize this run, corn is a dominant vision (with a strong surrounding cast of soybeans, cows, horses, and wild turkeys - oh, and raspberries on every trail...can't forget the raspberries).

But back to the corn. When we pulled into our driveway upon our return to Boulder, what did we see (besides a boisterous welcoming committee)? A corn stalk standing proud in our lawn. Methinks the corn gods did not want us to forget the land I had just crossed. Since then, we have been very careful to mow around the stalk, appreciating its green leaves but with little expectation for it to do much else besides, perhaps, grow a little taller. It surprised us last week by putting forth tassels. And today, the biggest surprise of all - there is actually an ear of corn growing on this little stray stalk. What a magical summer this has been.

Top picture is an example of "real" corn in Minnesota.
The bottom picture is our wee stray stalk of lawn corn, with its mini ear in the lower left.

Memories of my first running partner

I just got a call from a good friend. We were in grad school together and have been buddies ever since. His wife (Lysa, the woman who crewed for me for a week in Nebraska this summer) had run into someone at a meeting who knew another friend of ours from grad school. This person broke the news to Lysa that our mutual friend had died this summer due to injuries suffered in a cycling accident. This mutual friend, Deb J, was my very first running partner.

Deb J and I had decided to take a PE class while in grad school, primarily to get out of the classroom building and library where we spent most of our day and to get the blood flowing a bit. It just so happened that our PE instructor was a big fan of running; thus two new passionate runners were born. Deb and I trained for our first marathon together. Our training runs, done with her dog, Rocket, pretty much showed us how we could do everything wrong (too much mileage too quick, no fluids, running in the heat of the day, going out to fast...you name it...). In our first half-marathon, we were lapped by the winner of the marathon. But we kept at it, much to the amusement of our grad school buddies who watched us go down stairs backwards after our marathon debut. And we did have fun. She used to live at the top of a hill - there's nothing quite like a long run, ending in a hugely long climb, followed by a collapse on a lawn with a friend at your side and a cold beer in your hand. We (the grad school gang) did a lot at Deb's house - seeing as how she was the only one of us who actually owned their own place...lots of wine, lots of cooking - she even taught me how to make runzas!

Time and life moved us in different directions after grad school, with Deb eventually heading to California. But we stayed in touch. While I continued with the long runs, she took up cycling and swimming and cut down her mileage, putting marathoning on hold for a while....until running Chicago in 2003, 23 years after our first marathon. She was thrilled! After Chicago, she ran Big Sur, beating her Chicago time by 5 minutes - again thrilled! And with plans to run more marathons...perhaps even a marathon we could run together if we could get our schedules in synch.

Finally, last spring (2006), we were able to run together once again when Deb made a quick trip through Boulder. What a delight. There's nothing quite like running with a long-time running partner; and there's really nothing quite like running with your first running partner. Especially a running partner who has seen you through a degree, a career launch, the purchase of your first house (we got lost during the run when I tried to take her by the house we were going to buy), relationships, the adoption of your first dog...

Deb's last email to me was in May, when she offered me a hearty "you go girl." She said my upcoming run made her want to retire but that she would substitute biking to cover the distance I would be putting in each day...that she had been riding "to the coast and back" on weekends. I cannot believe that she will never come back...

Aimless...

...is the word that kept floating around in my head last week. I was wondering if I needed more structure in my day though I don't think of myself as a very structured person, as I don't much care for repetitive routine. Thinking back on the summer, a carefree, wide-open-spaces feeling always wafts over me. It's deceptive however. When you look more closely at the summer, there was very much a structured routine:

• get out of bed as soon as the birds start chirping,
• dress in running gear,
  
• eat (typically oatmeal for breakfast...as in the bleary-eyed picture),
  
• lace up whichever pair of shoes is next in the rotation of four,
  
• slather on sunscreen,
  
• check the gatorade supply,
• get today's map out of "PJ's Run" book & put it in the running belt,
  
• put on the sunglasses, the hat, the running belt,
• grab the bandana and the big-honking-dog-whistle,
  
• turn on the cellphone,
  
• return to the chalk mark of last night's stopping place,
  
• run four more hours towards Michigan following the carefully mapped-out route,
• get back in the motorhome,
• ice,
  
• eat lunch (usually either Justin's nut butter on Great Harvest bread or Great Harvest bread and soup),
• nap for an hour,
• change socks and shoes,
• hat, sunglasses, running belt, bandana, whistle
• run four more hours towards Michigan on the aforementioned carefully mapped-out route
• ...and if the route is a trail, grab one Paul boy, his bike and loaded paniers, and have some very enjoyable company along the way,
• ice,
• shower (whew! really needed that!),
  
• eat,
• sleep,
• do it all over again.
  

It certainly was very much a routine - yet it certainly never got boring.

Now, no routine, but a tad aimless with just a hint of boredom. So, this week, I started working toward a bit more purpose without losing the freedom of retirement. So far the tricks include:

• boosting up my running a bit (mileage is in the 50s and I'd like to get it even higher) - and trying to do it by just running wherever I feel like going (I do like those wandering rambles) and/or meeting up with friends - or a combination of both.
  
• stopping by the rec center to lift weights and, starting Thursday, trying out a drop-in muscle toning class. (I might as well make use of that membership I got when the blizzards were pounding Boulder this past winter.)
• pouring through the volunteer listings. I contacted a few places yesterday, received a response from one, interviewed today, and will be working (volunteering) each Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning from 7:30-9 a.m. The early morning hours are key. If I get my butt out of bed early and get a start on the day, usually the entire day is much more full and enjoyable.
• writing. I have an article I need to finish about the run, and I'd like to keep going with this blog - and then, who knows. Lots of folks have said I should write a book. I'm already undecided about what angle I should take with the article, much less a book. If anyone is reading out there, what would you be interested in reading about if I wrote something about the summer's run?
• getting started on that to-do list. Many of the items on the list require a concentrated amount of time and my concentration isn't particularly great right now...it keeps wanting me to be outside. Unfortunately for the to-do list, all of the items on the list are indoor tasks. Yuck. One aspect of the run that I absolutely loved, was being outdoors all day. Wonderful stuff that fresh air and whistling wind. That said, I'm biting off little chunks and have started to make a dent in the list.
  

Somehow the tricks have begun to work their magic. The aimless feeling hasn't made an appearance this week, stuff is getting done - both fun stuff and 'to-do' stuff. And the calmness that introduced itself to me this summer can still be found. That's a good thing.

Day off in Red Wing, MN, relaxing with the big shoes (July 12, 2007)

Back to the hills

One would think that after running 1400 miles over the course of about 8 weeks, one would be fairly well-practiced at running. It turns out, at least in my case, I became quite well-practiced at running realllly slowly, stopping frequently for drinks/food/picture-taking/raspberry-picking/what-not, walking up hills, walking to stop overheating, walking to check out the scenery, etc., etc., etc. So, yeah, I became well-adapted to running and sight-seeing - but didn't do a heckuva lot to enhance my racing abilities (such as they are/were).

Strolling along Wisconsin's Mountain-Bay trail (lots of raspberries here!)

The last few weeks have been an exercise in breaking my leisurely running habits. The first habit to break was the stopping-to-walk habit. After about two weeks, I was finally able to run more than 30 minutes without walking. Whew! Next came the walking-up-hills habit. I used to be a hill charger, and had to break that habit quickly in order to survive the 30-mile days. Now it was time to reverse that and convince my body that, yes, you can actually run up this hill and live to run another day. The third and fourth habits I'm trying to break are the long-run-shuffle and the slow-motion-run. If I want to a) run mountain trails again and/or b) run quicker than all but a giant earth-moving machine packing down a dirt hill (the only moving thing I ran faster than this summer), then I have to actually pick up my feet and move them quickly. To this end, I've started doing hill drills (bounding, high knees, skipping up a hill), and speed drills of various types. At times I wish I were back moseying my way through the sandhills and corn fields. On the other hand, I've made enough progress with the hill running, picking up the feet, and moving slightly quicker than molasses, that I was able to get in almost 3 hours of running this morning on the trails of western Boulder. Delightful!

Skunk Canyon Trail, Boulder, Sept 5, 2007