A picture is worth a thousand words

...and a whole lot of memories

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Weekend thoughts

After fighting a virus through most of December and falling straight down on my tailbone on Christmas Day, it seems like I've pretty much lost all of the muscle, lung capacity, endurance, and thinness that I gained during the preparation for and completion of my summer run. One thing I did not lose, however, is the knowledge that I have the ability to achieve that level of fitness. This weekend's running brought me closer to that mindset.

Yesterday I ran on the in-town portion of the South Boulder Creek trail. While out there running along the creek and amidst the grazing cows it felt like I had slid on a favorite pair of comfy old shoes....cruising along, taking in the sights (two coyotes trotting through the herd of cows), enjoying the mild weather and peaceful trail. Ahhhh.

Today I ran the Bluestem trail on the west side of town. Of any of the local trails, this is the one that comes closest to what a poster of Alan Culpepper's encourages: "Choose a course you can love. Make it your own. Put your name on it every day. On the trail, the path, the street, track, or wherever your road is. It will always be there for you. It's there for you now. You should be there too."
Bluestem offers a lot of variations - but one thing is guaranteed, you're going to climb, and you're going to descend. You'll work your butt off going up, you'll stretch it out coming home. Heading west, you'll have fantastic views of the flatirons - glowing at sunrise, frosty in winter, rock-solid year around; and on the east-bound trip, the town and prairie seem to stretch all the way to Nebraska. I've run this at the top of my game when it felt like my feet barely touched the ground and I've tackled it when my legs felt like concrete. Today, I was simply pleased to be out there.

Fiddling around

My husband says that's the answer he'll give folks when they ask what his retired wife is up to these days...."She's fiddling around." (He doesn't twitch nearly so much saying that as he did when he was responding with "She's running to Michigan.")

Actually, yesterday seemed very reminiscent of my old work days. I dressed in "real" clothes (pants with a zipper and not an ounce of elastic! a shirt with a collar!), I went into our office and dealt with outstanding email correspondence, turned to the desk and tackled the pile of papers waiting there, ate yogurt with kashi while plowing through these things, drank a pot of coffee, and once the clutter of all these odds and ends was obliterated , I wrapped my mind around the major project of the day (an actual paying work assignment!). I concentrated hard on the project in order to make some good forward progress before my afternoon "meeting." All in all, it was spookily like the rhythm of my old work days.

And just what was that aforementioned "meeting"? My first fiddle lesson! Weeehawww!
Learning to play the fiddle was an early entry on my what-I'm-going-to-do-when-I-retire list. And now I'm doing it! If you want to hear Twinkle Twinkle Little Star played by a 55-year-old violin novice, just holler!

A look back

Many have asked "what's next?" - and I don't have an answer to that. There are a lot of little things on the drawing board - but nothing big (yet)...certainly not as big as the summer's run. That run encompassed so much: a journey through new country and to new places in mind, body and spirit; an incomparable family road trip; the accomplishment of a decades-long goal; an entirely new perspective on day-to-day life...leading to a new perspective on life in general; the successful completion of the biggest project I have ever tackled.

And, as with a butterfly's wings, the run had a ripple effect. So often since I started the run, I've heard folks say things like "I'll feel tired then think about you and finish [name it]" or "Now I want to [insert goal here]" or "If you can do that, I know I can do this." I hope the ripples continue forever. If you have a dream, hold onto it, let it germinate, and continue to nurture it.
With patience, planning, a heavy dose of optimism, and, yes fortitude ...mayhap stubborness... your dream can - and will - blossom.



Pictures:
top - Lake Michigan beach, Upper Peninsula;
bottom - flowers along the Cannon Valley trail, Minnesota

Holiday running

One of the things I like about running this time of year - besides the beauty of running through a winter wonderland - is the holiday decor spicing up various lawns and homes. Someone with a magnificent imagination maintains a garden along one of my routes. Just recently the aliens that appeared during Halloween season were replaced with a variety of Santas - santa in a canoe on top of a caboose, santa pushing a reindeer sitting in a sleigh, santa tumbling into a well. Fun enough to make one forget the tricky footing of the season!

Magical mornings

Gentle snow run...dawn

Owls hoot - back and forth - east, west
A crystalline world

Feeling funky but looking up

Last Tuesday, I came down with my first sickness since retiring July 28, 2006. Despite all the mileage and stresses I put on my body over the last 18 months, I successfully avoided colds, flu, grunge... Perhaps it wasn't "in spite of" but "because of" all the mileage that I was so darned healthy. In any case, this fall my mileage has been declining, and now I'm sick.

Last week I had a fever, no voice, no energy. In fact, I logged my lowest total weekly mileage since breaking my arm in September, 2005. But this week, I have turned the corner and am running (and speaking) again. Yay! And today's run home from my radio reading service volunteer job was a wonderful reminder of many of the delights I experienced during the summer's run.

• A train (infrequent in Boulder) chugged alongside giving me the opportunity for one more race-with-a-train (the train always wins).
• A flicker landed in a tree next to me, tweeting and pecking.
• Geese flew overhead.
• A stick threaded its way up into my shoelaces as I trotted down the trail.
• A giant pile of tumbleweeds filled up the entrance to an underpass, bringing to mind this summer's famous "Take Heed! It's a Tumbleweed" song.

• And Paul and Jester met me along the trail, running me home once again...
  

Pop

Paul George Vaughan celebrating his 85th birthday

flying paper airplanes with grandson Paul

My dad would have been 96 years old today. He made it to 95 years and 4 weeks...never quite buying into my run-to-Michigan thing. He was having a hard time wrapping his mind around any reason why I might want to tackle such a venture and, even when he began to concede that maybe I had an itch to do something that might be ok for me though beyond his personal tastes, he, being such a direct and straightforward fellow, was decidedly frustrated by the roundabout route I would have to take. That's a fast-flying pilot for you (pop being a WWII pilot with a life-long love of flying).

Be that as it may, I am thoroughly convinced that he was with me the entire way. Running along the road, gazing at the horizon, the tumbleweeds, the rolling hills, the livestock, the clouds, the bizarre piece of machinery, the cannon rolling by, the whatever...and I could talk to my dad about it. "Did you see that?" "How about those clouds" "What the heck is that pop?" "Have you ever seen such a [fill in the blank]?" and "Hi Daddy" whenever a plane would fly overhead. Every day there was a "Thank you pop" for the gracious drivers, the calming rhythm of the run, the making it through another mile on my own two feet, and for the weather. The weather was one of the factors that most convinced me that my dad was with me during the run. I got so darned lucky with storm-free running - it got to the point that, if you wanted to locate where I was along the route, you would need only look at a weather map and find the 30-mile stretch that didn't have thunderstorms, tornadoes, or blistering heat. Spooky. Or pop and friends smiling down on me.

Given my extraordinary stretch of good luck, Kendall, too, was becoming convinced that pop was watching over me. The clincher was the day I ran into Michigan. Just as I headed for the state line, twelve WWII planes flew overhead in formation, circling above the entire time I was running over the bridge from Wisconsin to Michigan.

Thank you, pop, for the run of a lifetime.

Thankful

...thankful for everyone who helped to make The Run happen, who brought smiles to my face along the way, and to those who gave me the gumption to even think of doing the run, to start, and to carry through all 1400 miles. I am one very lucky human.


























...gumption past and present...

Picture key:
Top row from left to right:
- Paula with cycling Kendall (always ready with entertaining conversation) on Mackinac Island;
- Devon (elder son, who held down the fort - and house and dog - in Boulder) greeting Paula upon arrival in Petoskey;
- Paul (younger son, and ace support crew member) running Paula in on her last few miles for the day...done many a time during the journey and always with a smile;

Second row from left to right:
- Lysa (support crew for a week in Nebraska and exuberant all around supporter), Paula, and Deb (logistics chief throughout the prep, support crew on Day 1, and cheerleading welcoming committee in Michigan) back in Boulder celebrating the run;
- AndyE, part of the very enthusiastic surprise welcome home committee (and year-round running partner, running partner on the last 9 miles of Day 1 and support crew for two very fun days in Wisconsin) and Paula, upon her arrival home in Boulder;
- Paula and Joe (year-round running partner and Day 3 support crew) setting out on Day 3 of the run;

Third row: Bob Kulus (and Paula and Paul) who welcomed us near Cannon Falls, Minnesota with a passel full of homemade goodies and great cycling company on the run.

Fourth row left: Randy of the Missouri River Runners - my guide through the bike trails from Dakota City, Nebraska to Sioux City, Iowa
Fourth row right: Welcoming committee at the Mountain-Bay trailhead (Helen, Valerie, Paula, Barb and Paul)

Fifth row left: AndyE and his brother-in-law Mike who hosted us for a few days at his farm in Marshfield Wisconsin while AndyE crewed for me and Kendall & Paul took a brief respite.
Fifth row right: Burwell pie ladies (Fridays in Burwell - pie and coffee and delightful company all for $1 at the Senior Center - one of the best mornings of the entire trip!)

Sixth row center: my motorcycling cousin Jim who visited us in Jackson, Minnesota then hosted us for a night of spaghetti and great conversation.

Seventh row center: high school buddies Carl and Connie who surprised me at the outskirts of Petoskey and ran a mile with me along the waterfront; cycling Tom in the background guided me the last day on the Petoskey-Mackinac trail

Past & Present Gumption
Top left: my siblings-in-law - Andy, Steve, Cheryl and my husband Kendall...they've welcomed me and supported me as one of their own.
Center: my father-in-law Woody who believed I could do anything...my run started on what would have been his 82nd birthday.
Top right: me and my pop during my high school years...my pop was one big bundle of gumption. The gumption he passed along to me got me going, Pop watching over me, got me to the finish line.
Bottom: At the finish in Petoskey: Mom, always worried, yet always cheering me on...this was a hug to revel in...

The written word

I've been writing some articles about The Run...a series of installment pieces. The first was about preparing for the run, the second about the first four days, and I'm currently working on the third installment which covers the bulk of the miles to Michigan. Today, as part of creating this third installment, I spent the afternoon at a coffee shop reading the journal I kept during the run. The actual journal was something that Paul made in his first grade art class many years ago. I was saving it for something worthy of his fine work. Chronicling the run seemed to fill the bill.

Keeping a written record of this run was one of the smartest things I've ever done. I wrote in the journal after each run segment (morning and afternoon), capturing thoughts, struggles, conversations, weather, trivia, sights, and sounds. Reading through it today brought both smiles and tears as the memories came rushing back...almost as though a film reel was running through my brain. The power of the written word...