All Downhill From Here

Saturday morning I knew the Moose would be calling, so I went out looking for it. I loaded up 3 new gels and 3 Nuun tabs into my water belt. I topped up the frozen water in my bottle and took it along. It was hot, even early in the morning.

My legs were tired and achy before I even made it out of my neighbourhood. I made deals with myself up and down the familiar route: If I walked to there, then I would have to run to there, and so on. As ran down through a ravine, I wondered where the Moose was. All I heard was the dull thud of my feet in the dirt.

I ran over the roller coaster of the escarpment behind the Edgemont Club and remembered the snake from a couple of weeks ago. No evidence of wildlife today. Where was my Moose? I grabbed a couple of drying saskatoons from a bush and kept on climbing.

I sucked down an orange Accelgel (creamsicle-like) and re-filled my water bottle at the park entrance near the one hour mark. I figured I’d find my groove in the second hour, up on the plateau of Nose Hill Park. You know what? I’ve decided I don’t like plateaus much. Too flat.

I wandered around amidst the tall wild grasses with no set route in mind, except to go generally east in a quest to get to the other side of the park. I didn’t want to go straight across – that wouldn’t give me enough distance for my training goal. I didn’t want to diddle around too much there either. I was tired and hot.

At one point I stopped my watch, traipsed off the path into a particularly tall stand of grass, laid down and looked up at the sky. Did I hear the moose? Nope. All I heard was the wind in the grass.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh

I didn’t have time for this. I have so many things I’m supposed to be doing, accomplishing, thinking about! The Moose is in three little weeks, and I needed this run to be solid. I could be at home organizing a race instead of out here on this ominous trek. I could be in a nice, cool basement, folding laundry. And what was I doing? Staring up at the cloudless, bright blue sky.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh

It was almost as if I was being told to quit thinking such loud worrying thoughts and just enjoy the summer day. I got back up, re-started my watch, and found the other side of the park (at the 64th St. lot). I climbed back up into the park and right up onto a big boulder three times my height to eat my second gel. Stopped my watch to admire the view. Forgot to start it again for about 5? minutes when I continued on. There was a strong wind, but it was still hot.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh

The route back was not pretty. There was more sorry, achy hiking than running involved, but I eventually made it home after four hours of rambling around. I stopped by the 7-11 and carried a jug of milk the last km home on my head. I guess it wouldn’t be a decent long distance goal if it didn’t involve a sucky training session or two.

I’ll find that Moose soon enough.

My mom’s mom passed away on Thursday. She was 91 and a half. Over the last couple of years Grandma’s formerly strong, active farmer’s body has been a challenge to maintain, and this last month she faded quickly. Mom kept us posted with emails about her condition, and we kept her in our prayers.

Grandma was practical woman with a big heart and a strong sense of who she was. She educated herself, made her choices and trusted God to take care of what she couldn’t. She expected us to do the same.

For several years growing up, I got to spend a week or two at Grandma and Grandpa’s farm each summer, and sometimes at Easter, too. She’d saddle up the ponies for us in the corral and let us figure out what to do on them while she milked cows or weeded the garden. If we whined that the horse had stuck its nose in a corner and wouldn’t move, she’d shout out a suggestion to deal with it “Pull his nose around to your boot and keep it there ’til he moves!” and keep on milking.

She took me out saskatoon picking a-horseback when we’d go out to the back 40 to count the cattle. I still think of her when I pick saskatoons, no matter where I find them. Once when we were heading out on the horses with our berry pails, Grandma’s horse stumbled and she fell off. After she was done scolding the horse, she told me the key to falling well was just to relax and roll with it. Then get back up and carry on. That lesson is part of who I am.

She’d set us to shelling peas before dinner. She made really good creamed peas. She often tried to grow new and different things in her huge farmer’s garden. Even in her seniors apartment, she grew tomatoes and flowers from seed. She let us name her goats’ baby kids, gave us goat’s milk to drink, and served us billy-goat stew. She made good bread from grains she’d grown herself. Canned saskatoons over ice cream was a favourite dessert. She recycled stuff all the time. She was Green and healthy way before it was trendy.

This spring I marveled at all the different things she and Grandpa had tried on the farm. As she tallied up their experiments for me, she warned “NEVER raise turkeys. Stupid things…”

She hauled my brother and I off the tractor when Grandpa shouldn’t have taken us out on it. I had a blast bushwacking with and without her in the woods behind her house. She helped out in sending us to summer camp, to college, and was generous when our kids were little and we were struggling. When my cousins and I all gave birth to daughters in the same year, she gave us all new sewing machines she found on sale. It didn’t matter if we didn’t sew. We’d figure it out.

We’d go to church with her on Sundays. Her and Grandpa’s parents were some of the settlers who founded a small country Lutheran church, and she and Grandpa were active members. Grandma was an active member in a lot of things. Even in her retirement years in town, she swam, played horseshoes, bowled, and sang with the Sunshine Singers. When the Lutheran church was too far to walk in later years, she shuffled her walker over to the Anglican one. She wasn’t one to complain, and she didn’t make excuses.

When I visited her this summer she asked how my tatting was going. I said “Grandma, I don’t know how to tat. I don’t even know how to knit.” She chuckled and leaned forward, “Shame on you!” Yarn/string craft has just moved up on my to do list.

We’ll be heading up to her funeral later this week. Peace, Grandma.

Do you ever have those moments, where you realize you’ve bitten off way more than you should be chewing? That’s what this week felt like for me. It occurred to me that perhaps committing to so many new activities in one year wasn’t the best way to go.

In the last year I have taken on:

• The Calgary Roadrunners Board – you’d think once-a-month meetings wouldn’t be so hard to manage, but it chips away at the available time for other things, like…
• Race Directing – The Robert Hamilton Memorial 5 & 10 miler is August 24, if you’re interested in racing, volunteering, sponsoring or all three)
• Encouraging new runners in new ways to me – I led a Learn to Run group from the Tech Shop this winter/spring, and started a Learn to Run blog with the Roadrunners.
• Two new jobs – Last summer I wrapped my brain around a new job, then this spring I changed jobs again. More hours, stimulating work! and challenging in this world of only 24 hour days.
• Triathlon – I’ve always wanted to do one. Not sure why, but I have so many friends that are into it, (Nancy T, Linae, Shawn, Ellie, Dianne, Richelle, Leana, Nancy C and more) it must be fun! Fitting in swims and bike rides has been a nice change from the running, but oi, the tri-lifestyle can get expensive in time and money! I race my first ever triathlon tomorrow. Ack. Even Sarah says she’s coming to cheer.
• Orienteering on Wednesdays – Another extension of my running associations – plus it’s way more fun to do with Little Runner than soccer. That wraps up in mid-September.
• Oh yeah, and in the background of my runs I still hear deep bass bellowing of the Moose (Sept 6) calling to me through it all.

The Moose called me out the door last Saturday for ~21 km of hilly trails. It took me over three hours. I ran and hiked from my Ranchlands home to Nose Hill Park, all the way over it and to Berkley Gate in Beddington on the other side. Very cool! Actually it was very hot. Whatever.

Since then I’ve only exercised twice and very gently; a 30 minute bike ride on Sunday and a 40 minute orienteering (flat) course with LR on Wednesday. I haven’t been sick, just spending a little time at home with the family (who are amazingly still there). I’ve been trying to catch up on my rest and race directing, to be ready for the the commitments I’ve made to come to fruition in the month to come. I do this once in a while – just take off a week of exercise – then I just carry on.

I’m kind of feeling like I’m in the last third of a race – you racers will totally get that. I know I’ll get to the finish lines – it’s just taking a little more effort to keep up the pace.

Last night a meeting kept me late at work, but somehow I got home in time to change, grab a granola bar and some water, and zip down to Edworthy for hills night. It was supposed to be “Yen’s Loop Around the World”, but she was likely off doing something important, like planning her wedding or something. Danny suggested a route we’d never tried before, so after the usual one mile warm-up, etc., we followed him along the south side of the river out west of the park.

I would never have tried that route on my own, but it was cool to be out there with buddies. The faster ones waited for Carla and I at regular intervals, to make sure no one would get lost, or left behind if they fell. There are so many desolate places in our parks – I had no idea this path existed! The single dirt track got very narrow and steep in some places, but the trail pulled me along and my inner goat came back about 20 minutes into it. There weren’t a ton of hills, but we had to pick up our feet or risk tripping on unseen rocks when the long grass drifted across our path.

Eventually we came out of the wilderness near the Bowness-Shouldice bridges and took a couple of miles of pavement back to the parking lot. Funny, on dirt trails I feel lithe and fast, but on pavement it’s like I gain 50 pounds. A wave of fatigue returned and I fought it.

Carla was a great support and hung in there with me that last paved couple of miles – I think she likes the pavement better than the dirt. I was tired and told her I’d take a walk break once I got to the ball diamond, or the soccer bleachers, and she could keep going. Then the fast group started looping back for us. COOL! They looped back for us twice and it cheered me up immensely. I was tired, but I didn’t hurt anywhere, so I ran all the way back, and was glad I did.

While we were stretching, Danny surprised us even further with a big watermelon to share amongst us. It was delicious. We re-named the run “Danny’s Delight”.

Tuesday night I thought about running, but that’s as far as I got. I was still wiped from the last two trail runs anyway. I should have at least gone out for a bike ride, but no, that didn’t happen either. Leana is so gonna kick my butt at the Strathmore Women’s Tri next weekend.

Wednesday I showed up at Orienteering without Little Runner. LR’s on a little summer vacation with her Grandma this week, so I was on my own. Karin, the Juniors coordinator recommended I stick to a Level 2 map (the Level 3 looked really hard). Mardy and Marian, a couple of Roadrunners I know from the cross-countries, coached me through the course symbols before I headed out.

I found the first flag in 35 seconds; piece of cake. I thought I would take a short-cut to the second flag, and ended up bushwhacking up a very steep, heavily wooded hill because I couldn’t find the path I was looking for and I was too stubborn to go back and start over. I did find the pathway it was supposed to be near, but couldn’t remember for the life of me what an “earthbank” was (it’s a small cliff). After the tough bush-climb and 18 minutes of not finding control #2, I gave up and carried on to the third one.

According to the symbols, control #3 was supposed to be near a “distinctive tree”. I laughed. I was surrounded by dense bush! No matter, in a few minutes I found a huge conifer towering over the deciduous forest, and there was the flag.

I went on to find the rest of the controls, for a total of 9 widely-spaced ones throughout the park. I mostly had to just count pathways and junctions for the rest, though #7 was hiding in very deep grass in a “re-entrance” (a fissure on a hill side). It was a good 40 minute hike/run/treasure hunt.

When I got back, Mardy came out with me and helped me find the second tricky control. It’s taking me a while, it’s not as easy as I thought it would be, but I’m learning.