The Vacation is Over

-

 After a 9 hour drive home, I made it home from West Virginia. Joy did 75% of the driving while I read a book, watched some documentary about sailing and surfing, and stared out the window. Vacation came to a close somewhat ceremoniously because it ended on my birthday. I bought a candy bar in Athens Ohio when we stopped for groceries and rationed myself to one of the five pieces for the next 5 hours of the trip home. Being in a car is much harder than being on a boat where there is opportunity to get up and walk around even if it is only a few feet at a time. 

As I reflected on in a few previous posts, running on vacation is delicate because of the unpredictability of the surroundings. Hills/mountains, uncertainty about navigation, various road conditions or lack of sidewalks/pathways interrupt a standard workout on a small scale, and end up adding up for a bit of disruption in the broader training schedule and routine. But as I need to remind my daughter oh so often, it doesn't need to be perfect to be beautiful. And let's face it, I'm a recreational runner. This is a hobby. I might have a YouTube channel and blog, but at the end of the day, this is suppose to be fun (even on the not more challenging days). Running on vacation ultimately exposes the tension between wanting to maintain routine and having flexibility to adjust to various conditions. 

Yesterday I really found a high degree of flexibility and freeness in purposely going outside the bounds of the usual to celebrate being in a new space and my birthday. 

A trail run *GASP!

But while in the mountains I'd be remiss not to try and avoid breaking an ankle on a tree root or rock while running through the forest up (or down) a narrow pathway. Certainly didn't need to worry about cars. And I heard the trail ended in a sunrise so in stead of asking 'why' I decided to ask 'why not?'

The novelty of running on a trail coupled with it being my birthday and culminating in a unreal view of the fog lifting up over the valley below at down made this 3.87 mile run completely worth sacrifing the typical thump, thump, thump of a steady pace on pavement. 




The drive home also gave me time to reflect on how different my running story would be if I lived in any one of the spaces we visited. Training for a marathon my have the same plan as I am following now, but the experience and routes would be much different. (The muscle groups that got worked also may include those "hill muscles"). 

A lot of running is boring, but vacation running opens moments to stash away as stories. I'll be able to pull these out when times get dull or reminisce about them sometime down the road. As disruptive to a "plan" as vacation can be, choosing to embrace it always works out best. 


Popular posts from this blog

I smashed my face in a bike accident

-
Image
Well it finally happened. After all the miles on my feet it turned out that the bike would be the culprit that sent me to the emergency department. Just when I was starting to try and heal from my calf strain and keep my fitness up by riding my bike. I guess they don't call it endurance for nothing. On my way back home riding through the neighborhood faster than I should have I wasn't paying close enough attention to the parked car that took me out. It all happened so fast that I can't really say exactly what happened other than knowing that I landed flat on the curb with my face ( Yes, I did have a helmet on and pretty sure it saved the rest of my skull).   The homeowner came out of the home pretty upset that some blinking guy in the street was by her car “what the __ are you doing?” she yelled from her front stoop because it was 4:30am and dark. When she approached, I politely explained in my pain that I had hit her car. Her tone changed immediately the minute she put two...
Read more

Heart and Mind are Hemming and Hawing

-
Image
I am in a constant state of framing and reframing just what my next move is for this weekend. Strikes against the marathon: 1. Diminished fitness  2. Calf niggles continue 3. Facial fractures 4. Poor practice with nutrition And yet it's tough to to leave it on the line at this point.  The race organizers say I can downgrade (perhaps "modify my registration" or "Transfer" are gentler words) to the half marathon until the close of the expose (Saturday afternoon) So if i scratch the marathon what do I have left.  A 3 month masters class in endurance to draw from sometime down the road? A plaque that says, "love the process?" I'm not at the point of resignation yet, but I'm getting there with some reflection. Perhaps I rushed signing up for a marathon when a half-marathon would have be suffient with aims as Chicago in 2026 and the Boston in 2027. Its interesting how on track I was 4 weeks ago and how quickly things unraveled.  Alright so I run the ...
Read more

All the feels

-
Image
There is a little incline at mile 3 of the Glass City Marathon and a turn into a boisterous cheering crowd. It happened for me about 22 minutes into the race.  Today the chill of the morning and perfect light made this moment the one where I teared up inside, and a little outside. It's been a long winter. It's been a long past 4 weeks. But in that moment I remembered the joy of participating in an endurance race. It might not have been the 26.2 I wanted or planned, but the overwhelming sense of accomplishment against the challenges surfaced as the crowd rang cowbells, held signs with silly phrases, and yelled words of encouragement. I didn't know a single person on the sidelines today, but it didn't matter to them and it didn't matter to me.  Over the course of this training cycle I've experienced a slew of emotions. I learned to feel the feels no matter how they came: Wonder Hope Disappointment Discouragement Resolve Satisfaction Pride Optimism Frustration Wear...
Read more