Archives for November 2010

Tarmac Meditations #34: Shock and Awe in Minor Key

November 26, 2010 By longrun 1 Comment

There’s something wonderful about starting fresh in the morning…in life…whatever.

September 8, 2010
Morning is heavy on the land today. Fall is in the air. A gravel and tar road bed winds through the trees, and loons are quiet on the lake. Out of the mist figures emerge, old friends out running in the early morning. These days the memories move faster than our legs, but the greetings, hand slap or head nod, are a connection to all the places we have been together. With Sam and Dave I am so glad I made it. Amen to that.

Mist in the trees…light breeze…Minnesota in the late summer. Apparently the walleye are jumpin’ or so the locals say.

Sunrise comes softly sometimes, a lovely idea that has found its proper time.

September 9, 2010
Strange day. Not enough sleep, head cold coming in, trumpeter swans on the lake, North wind blowing strong, storm coming. Full of signs and portents? Maybe. Maybe not. Beautiful in the way that the norm is replaced by an awareness of powers greater than any schedule…nature’s very own shock and awe in a minor key.

September 10, 2010
Today is the day the folks of my faith go down to the river and chuck in all their sins. When I was young it seemed a lot of walking for no discernible purpose. And all those black clothes and city shoes. Makes more sense now, which I’m guessing it is due in part to my having amassed a whole sh-tload of sins over the year/s. I’m clean now, did my chucking, ready to start again…look out sins, here I come.

Tarmac Meditations #33: Time Flies or Something Like That

November 24, 2010 By longrun 1 Comment

September 5, 2010
Slept a little. Going out now to shoot the Eugene Women’s Half Marathon — first inaugural, 2000 strong. Lifted, ran a little to get my “game face” together. It’s been a long way from a Kodak point-and-shoot four years ago in Newport to here. Joe (you know who you are) put me on this road, as he had done with so many others in his quiet way. Running down the road for miles only to find out who you are and who you can be. This one is for you.

Update: “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” (Dylan, Clapton, Jah Levi, The Dead — like that), it’s a marathon morning. Everything, everyone, that came before got me here. The start is two hours away. I have no idea what daylight will bring. Time to lace up, quiet down, give thanks, show up. One step at a time is what I have. Not running here, but shooting it, being who I have become — different, thrilling, scary, and quiet. Time to go.

September 6, 2010 early
Shot it. Sorted it. Sent it off (mostly). Everything I know about how to do what I do, and everything I used to pretend to know how to do, came together for a few hours — 10,000+ images. Everything got covered. The Eugene Women’s First Inaugural Half Marathon is in the books. Winning time 1:14+ . Thanks 2 Richard, Jill, Nicole, Andy, William, Ivar, Jay, Eric, Richard, Lydia … and the 2000 women who made it what it was.

Time to be up headin’ east…country, out of town, gone fishin’ (with my Canon). Gonna run the early morning road miles with old friends. Gonna watch the sunrise. Gonna listen to the loons’ call and gonna remember how it is in the fall when the mornings are cold, the water is like glass, the fish are jumpin’ and the livin’ is a gift beyond measure.

September 7, 2010
Some days are missing from the journal…I’m pretty sure stuff happened but if I don’t write it down, it goes away…tempus fugit or something like that.

Up country, down by the lake…wind blew in from the Northeast, a rain wind, lightning and thunder. Felt like it always does — a deep quiet inside the majesty of a summer storm brings out in me a desire to be in front of a fire with friends and conversation or, equally, to be alone or with someone special, and a fire and an old dial-up tube radio, listening to jazz from some other place, a time far away.

The locals tell you to watch the reeds. Everything you need to know about what is and what is about to be can be seen if one looks closely, quiets the mind and lets the language of the waters speak to your heart…Minnesota morning, northeast wind, rain comin’ in.

Went. Walked. Talked. Work now, lift later. Longer run tomorrow.

Photo Credit

“Time to Fly” Photographer Padawan @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

Tarmac Meditations #32: Running Out of Excuses

November 22, 2010 By longrun 3 Comments

September 1, 2010

Ran out of excuses this morning. Ran several miles. Felt stronger in the broken places (Hemingway suggested it might work that way). Ate some carbs and seeds. Drank tap water. Worked through an obstacle. Posting on FB is not writing. Exactly.

I am looking for song lyrics that include “brown recluse spider”…no, I’m not kidding. Why? Going to Marathon Camp. Endurance beasts? Possibly. How about “beaver”, as in work like one. Cheetah, as in run like one, mountain goat, Labrador retriever (has to be a Canadian tune with that) and dolphins…Please don’t ask why, time to do or die…sayeth the Raven.

September 2, 2010
Ran with B this morning. He is recovering from use injuries that have plagued him for over a year. Me? I’m recovering from the ravages of aging (ego mostly). We walked to warm up, did maybe eight sets of ‘run the straights’, ‘walk the curves’. The high school was closed; the dreams dreamt so long ago were still alive in the morning mist. Walked back, drank coffee, talked, went to a meeting…Words, I’m comin’ to get ya. Now.

September 3, 2010
Run first. Write later. Write first. Run later. Post on FB. Do nothing. Do nothing. Post on FB. You see where this is going. Me, I’m out the door. Running. Writing in my head. Looking both ways when I cross the streets of my hometown. I know my name and address, telephone number too. Writing is where you find it. Feets, don’t fail me now…..Ran. Now what? Oh, right! Write!

Photo Credit

“Run like hell!!” Ken douglas @ flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

Dancing After Midnight

November 20, 2010 By longrun 3 Comments

A man meets a woman and writes a poem. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

When I got to the bar it was nearly empty. The usual? Yeah, I said, a draft and a Jack back. An old bartender once told me that it was a man’s drink so that’s what I’ve ordered ever since. I suppose I like how it sounds. Sometimes it makes me feel like I’m starting out for the first time.

It’s past midnight now and I’m coming down the stairs, tapping out a hopscotch memory, just tapping to beat all.

Rebecca saw me tapping and she laughed. She told me, when I asked her, that she was here with her partner, she told me she wanted to be a photographer. Why not, I thought. If she specialized in self-portraits she could make a good living.

Something about her reminded me of a photograph I once saw of a dusty Guatemalan hill town. The photographer was looking at the church at the end of the dirt road. The setting sun, caught at the edge of the frame, lit the bell tower like fire against the night sky. What held my eye though, were the two figures embracing in the recessed doorway of a flowered garden wall. It appeared they were local kids hiding out, stealing a kiss. Maybe they were talking about times to come. It was the kind of photograph that Neruda wrote.

Steely Dan played something about reeling in the years and for whatever the reason I reached my hand out across the bar and Rebecca and me, we started dancing. We laughed and then we did it some more. On the way home, I noticed that the trees were turning green.

I wrote this poem later that night. I told my friend Peter about it. In fact, I read it at an open mike poetry reading at the bar a couple of nights later. When Rebecca found out about it she was furious. Peter’s girlfriend told him that Rebecca felt violated.

I guess romance is best left to the Guatemalans.

Photo Credit

“the Loving -renegade- @Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

Tarmac Meditations…Lessons I Learned at Marathon Camp Redux

November 18, 2010 By longrun 1 Comment

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 1…Run for an hour. Turn your hat backwards. Follow the moon home. Wash your face with cold water. Do crunches for four minutes like Coach told you to, 40 years ago. Do 20+ pushups. Eat toast, drink coffee. Go to a meeting. Do it again tomorrow. Life is where you find it. Life is what you make of it. “Welcome to the mountain. If you love mushrooms you are already a billionaire. ” Sakai said that.

Marathon Camp lesson No. 2…Run more. Facebook, Twitter, ESPN? Less. Rest, eat some good stuff, sleep and then get up and run again. Keep an open mind, open clear eyes, trust your pure heart. In other words, run daily, run slowly, don’t eat like a pig. Equally, relax and keep paying attention. Ernst Van Aaken said that, with a little help from Roger McGuinn.

Marathon Camp lesson No. 3…Pain is nature’s way of telling you to stay the hell in bed, get some rest, use ice, elevation, vitamin I (Ibuprofen), watch movies, read a book. Or maybe, get the hell up, do the run, the situps, the pushups, eat something, go to work. I suppose one could do both, in reverse order. Or not. Maybe the best approach is to walk slowly in a circle, and think about everything. Or not

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 4…Go out before daybreak. Start at bottom of trail. Turn hat backwards, turn on headlamp. Walk slowly. Pick up pace as muscles loosen. Pump elbows, breath in, breath out. Follow the trail. Avoid the glittering eyes in the trees. At the top, turn off your headlamp, lower your voice. Gaze at the stars. Pause. Turn on your headlamp. On the downhill, stretch it out, let it rip. Breathe deeply. In. Out. Smile. Everything is possible.

Napa 2009 Memory…A steady rain falls over the hills east of the Silverado Trail, an augury of the internal storms to come for those here to run the 31st Napa Valley Marathon. Cold, wet, tired, migrained, 62, I am at a start line after an absence of three long years. The rain seems a messenger from on high, cleansing the earth, the road ahead, readying the bodies and minds of the faithful for the task at hand.

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 4.5…Whip 2 eggs, 3 cups of skim milk, 3 cups of oatmeal, cinnamon to taste, 2 tbs sugar…preheat oven to 350, bake until done. Taste and refrigerate until morning or the midnight creepies, which ever comes first. Homemade carb loading after midnight. How cool is that?

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 5…1/2 bagel with PB. 1/2 banana. Water. Gatorade. Walk to a start line. Clear mind. Start slow, find your pace, look around. Lean on the final turn, keep your head up, eyes clear. Get a medal and some food. Look for a smile and a hug. A 1/2 marathon is not half of anything really. It is a full 13.1 miles. Later, when the road shows no sign of the race, embrace the idea, the reality, that the memory will last your lifetime.

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 6…Thomas Wolfe of “Look Homeward Angel” wrote that he would “…go up and down the country/and back and forth across the country/…go out West where the States are square/…go to Boise and Helena and Albuquerque/ I will go to Montana and the two Dakotas/…the unknown places.” Unknown places in the heart, a cadence of breath and footfall; the miles unwind, mind clears; all there is left is the doing.

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 7…How will I be humbled today? It is difficult when it is difficult because it is supposed to be. The lesson is that water wears away the hardest stone by flowing around it and over it; so, too, I get where I am going by yielding and continuing on at the same time. There is exhilaration, relief that the hard part has arrived. Now it is my time to find out what there is to find out on this day.

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 8…We do not often speak of the Wall, of leg cramps, hunger, rain, or hills in reverent tones. In each of us lives a desire to be challenged, to keep on, to stay in when the road gets hard. Without the difficulty, the victory over distance, of self over self, is harder to calculate, harder to embrace. It is harder to cherish, harder to keep shiny for the moments when things get lost and life gets away.

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 9… My magic mystical tour of the marathon has given way to a recognition that a run is just that, a run; train for it, run it. To carry the weight of recovery, of failed dreams and self image is way too much. 26.2 miles brings one to one’s knees no matter who they are; it is a humbling exercise in reality, in acceptance. It is less about will power and guts and more about being present with who we are in that moment.

Marathon Camp lesson No. 10…Take a step. Take another step. Repeat.

Napa 2009 Memory No. 2…By late afternoon there was no evidence of the 2,500 runners and volunteers. No paper cups, no Gu packages. The sun came out and by nightfall the Silverado Trail was dry. The next morning all that remained was local traffic and the faint sense of something that had happened here. It, too, would be washed away by the morning rains, falling light upon the vineyards whose bounty was still months away.