Running with Bristol

I just got home from a ten-mile run in the dumping rain. As usual at Croft, the left-side trails were muddier, "flowing," even, we decided. Seth and I planned to run in the morning ahead of predicted afternoon thunderstorms, knowing they were calling for drenching rains. This return to a running schedule for me has coincided with Bristol's being able to run with me, along with the time change and lots of rain. I said before how much I like running int he rain, and I've gotten plenty of chances lately.

Another piece of this run was Bristol's first longer than 5 1/2, which we did together at Croft earlier this week. The next day, he needed a longer run than the regular three-mile easy day I've been giving him. I even added the 30 seconds hard/30 seconds easy mini-workout at the end. I knew then that he was ready for ten, and that this weekend would be the time. The rain did nothing to hamper either of us.

I told Seth it was okay if he popped him a time or two; Bristol is still getting the hang of how far feet kick back while running. He likes to follow, and, and spent most of today between me and Seth. I don't think either of us hit him, but he does get pretty close. He likes to stop and wait, then take off just in front of you. I'm pretty used to it now, and don't hesitate. I did clip his feet once.

The bike trails at Croft are well designed, and shed water reasonably effectively. There are few standing puddles, though with this rain, they were inevitable. It did take until the second half of the run for my feet to get wet, or really wet at any rate. The trail starts at a high point above Fairforest Creek, after it passes through its urban course including some brownfields. At Croft though it tumbles over rocks, and winds through sand bars. Today it was brown and high, tempting I reckon for a paddler. The trail traverses that crest for a couple of miles, dropping in and out of a few unnamed seasonal draws.

At about 2 1/2 miles, it turns down the slope towards Fairforest, completing the turn back south. At that point you are running with the flow of the creek; having run it many times the opposite direction, you truly can feel the pull as you run through the flat flood plain on the bank, sometimes close enough to maybe slip in. At times the trail is sandy from having been underwater as recently as two years ago. I've seen the Fairforest from the trails above the flood plain as wide and fast as any river.

At about five miles you cross the Centerline Trail, which bisects the oval Southside Trail. This second half is the wilder half, twistier, rougher, rockier. Following the creek for another mile or so, you climb back out of the flood plain. This is the Tricky Dick section, very twisty, rooted and rocky. At one point it follows along a draw, dropping in and out of it for some great banked turns.

Seth and I both felt better through the second half. I told him that when I cross Centerline, I almost always feel a little surge. Often though the Tricky Dick section takes it out of you, sapping energy as you following the twists. That's the part of trail running that makes you stronger, holding through turns and slips, especially today with buckets of rain falling. But coming out of that section we both knew we had about two miles of rolling hills, with one substantial climb, and a long gradual slope to the parking lot that we usually end up racing.

Today it was flowing deep, a couple of inches of rain running down the center line of the trail, the safest part by far over the slippery edges. The red clay sin;t particularly muddy here, so you're just in water, trying to flow like the water. "Does the water worry about the rocks?" Body control has always been one of my athletic abilities, and I love the dancing, hopping kind of running you can do on rocky or muddy trails.

The trail crosses one of those unnamed draws, flowing most days and today a rage. But the trail maintenance folks have put in a great bridge that has really handled the water better than the previous experiments there. What used to stop you dead looking for the best jump is now a concrete block pathway. Makes for a much faster ascent of the substantial hill I mentioned.

Plenty of times I've started to put a hurt on Seth at that point about 3/4 of a mile from the finish. I've learned that he needs to be broken. He's not as fast as I am on the long run, but he can kick past me unless I start pretty far out. Today I didn't feel much like putting a hurt on anybody,and kind of dreaded the upcoming macho testosterone induced push.

But I did feel better at the top of the hill. Coming off the last twisty section, I passed Seth with about 4/10 of a mile to go. Soon you pass through some nasty red mud in a clear cut section leading to the parking lot. Lost some steam there but definitely felt good, and by the end we were rolling around six-minute pace. For some silly reason, I fended off one push from behind.

So guess who finished ahead of me? Bristol, of course. When we took off, he loved it, sprinting to the front. He had a great run, staying off our heels, playing as we went, but most definitely focusing on the run as much as we were. He'll be a great running dog.

Getting in it

So I've been having a hard time getting into a running routine for a while now. I'll run several days one week, zero the next.

I realized not so long ago that for quite some time, at least 7 years, I ran every day at 4 pm. I knew someone else who did the same thing, and mostly for the same reason: cross country practice. I coached and taught for those seven years (and taught for 11 more, total of 18 years), and ran from school or with the cross country team. The habit became, well, habitual, and without that schedule, I've floundered some.

The other day it was raining real hard, and my neighbor called to ask me to go running, ten miles, on a nearby trail. I jumped right on it, though I hadn't run ten miles in a week for three or four weeks. We had a nice easy run in the mud and rain.

The next day, rainy and cold, I took our dog Bristol to an in-town trail less than a mile from home. Slow from the day before, and with Bristol off the leash from the start, we trotted along in the drizzle, warming up gradulaly through the 1/2 hour run.

It's the weather I want, I think. It's being outside, exposed to the elements, that keeps me running. I don't like a treadmill, and don't belong to a gym, because I don't like exercising indoors. I just need to be in the outdoors.

If I Ever Was Myself

One day I sat in on a class that hosted Joyce Carol Oates, the remarkably prolific Canadian writer whose work I admire. I worked for eighteen years as an English and history teacher in a variety of independent and one public schools, and had gotten to know some of the local literati, some of whom teach at the local colleges. One, my friend Sam, had received a grant to bring Miss Oates to town, and he invited me to the class session she had agreed to meet.

I wasn’t the only person invited of course. There were many others, and they held the class in a large meeting room, the class itself sitting around a long table, with Miss Oates at one end, and I at the other.

She was captivating. A small woman, thin with glasses and a soft-spoken manner, she talked about writing, her life, her life as a writer. At some point in the conversation, she mentioned being younger, and being able to “run 26.2 miles” without feeling the pain of it. Sounded like a runner line to me, but since she was the author of an acclaimed book about boxing, I figured she just knew things.

Later, though, in response to a question about how she occupies the time when she's not teaching or writing or traveling, she gave an answer that could easily have been mine: “I run,” she said. “In fact, I feel most human when I run.”

So do I—I’ve said many times how running even a half-hour makes me feel better every time just for having done it. I’ve talked about the incredible high I’ve felt, running alone in the woods for an hour or two, and then bumping into someone on a bike, say, or hiking. I rant, practically, so stoned from endorphins. My face aches from the grin.

As the class time continued, I kept thinking about running with her, about asking her afterwards if she wanted to go for a run. I figured she had some other engagement, or would think I was maybe just a little weird for asking, or, just maybe, she’d say, “Sure. My shoes are in the car.”

Throughout the class, she had done as any good teacher does—make eye-contact with just about everyone in the room, including me. I always appreciate a good teacher, and she was inspiring and forthright in her discussion. She hates the novel, she said, because it takes too much time and commitment, and the pain she feels when writing one—the pain of trying to get it right on such a large scale (I think it was here she used the 26.2 line)—that pain has become almost more than she can endure. She researches, and researches. And, I thought, she feels human when she runs.

I had, of course, every reason to hang out afterwards to get a word with her. This was my friend Sam’s class, and I had come with his wife Margaret who was a colleague of mine. I hadn’t asked any questions, feeling it was the class and not I that had been granted this opportunity. She had made eye contact with me more than once, so she knew I had been there throughout. Dangit, I even had a tie on.

So I waited my turn. Even if she didn’t go running with me, it was an entrée into a longer conversation, especially to the human-feeling aspect of running, of sweating, of aching, of feeling muscle and bone, dammit. When at last the class had finished thanking her and commenting on something or other, I stepped up to her. I said, “Thank you for coming, that was truly inspirational” (or something equally benign). “I just wondered if you might have time to go for a run.”

She nearly collapsed into herself, stepping away slightly, and murmuring, “No, um, no, it’s very hot down here.” She turned to the door, where the department chair was waiting to move her on to her next gig.

I felt terrible. I had seen her read before, and knew she was shy and reserved. But I scared the shit out of her, I think. Someone said that she’s not used to Southern hospitality, where inviting someone onto your porch for a glass of lemonade isn’t uncommon. She’s a Yankee, and the invitation led her to close up like an apartment door; I could almost hear the locks clicking closed down the jamb.

But I have a hard time with that, since my Southern-ness is suspect; I’ve never liked being lumped in as anything—a man, a West Virginian, a hippy, a runner, whatever it is that confines me into a persona. I just realized that if someone had come up to me after a class, I would have at least talked about running in some way. I thought it a little rude of her not to acknowledge that, or maybe she was, moving to a how’s-the-weather kind of comment that maybe makes it uncomfortable for her. At any rate, I stopped blaming myself, understanding that at least I had a great story to tell.

If I Ever Was Myself

"If I ever was myself, it wasn't that night." Wilco, "Handshake Drugs"

"I feel most human when I run." Joyce Carol Oates