All Downhill From Here

I must say I love the Tuesday night group run. Last night Gord started us off with the usual Zen quote, which I actually remember, as it was funny. A Zen monk walked up to a hot dog stand and said “Make me one with everything.”

The sun shone and the wind blew and we took a different hilly route than usual. Krista’s away, but Tim stayed back with me and I worked hard, to not hold him back too much. Kelly ran with us too, but sometimes she would get ahead and then wait for us to catch up. I can never figure out how Kelly can look so relaxed and hardly pick up her feet, and yet cruise along so much faster than me.

 We went part way down Centre Street (easy), east up Samis Road (ran it), down the dirt path beside the Holly Park hill (wheeeeee) in front of the Ukrainian church, and along Memorial Drive west to 10th Street (flat). Kelly and Tim talked about how they really don’t like running downhill because they have to hold back, and I mentioned that I LOVE running down trails because it really focuses my attention right into the moment. 

There was a doggie obedience class walking along the pathway by the river, and it was fun to see all the dogs and owners learning to heel.  Kelly managed to say hello to every dog (there must have been 20) and still end up waiting for us before the 10th Street pedestrian ramp.

She ran with us over Memorial and up along the C-train tracks past a blooming mayday tree to show us the “Goat trail”, a little dirt path that goes down and up the escarpment below the Crescent Heights ridge. I was breathless and slowing down as we got up to the start of it, but then we went dow-w-wn (wheeeee!) and I passed them both. I kept my momentum on going at the bottom, because I knew they’d catch up, and I wanted to see how far I could get before they did. I made it almost back up to the top before Kelly passed me with some great encouraging words, and Tim was right there, too.

As I plummeted down over roots and rocks, I thought “stay really focused, Karen, you don’t need to be one with everything right now – your buddies don’t want to have to peel you off the bottom.” But as I worked my way back up I thought “oh yeah, Moose Mountain this September, baby!”

We took a little breather at the top and lo and behold, found Dawn, Kris and Brian on the ridge behind us. Dawn was snapping butt shots with her camera, so Kelly and I posed in our matching Police Half shirts. We jogged back to the store and slapped the No Parking sign (Gord’s Run ritual) with big smiles on our faces.

These are buffalo beans. I don’t know what they’re called elsewhere, but here they grow wild on prairie hills in the spring, just as the wild crocuses (a.k.a. prairie wind flowers)?are fading.

?I brought them home from my run a) because I like them, b) they’re resilient travellers, and c) I knew everyone would ask me when I gushed about seeing them, “What’s a buffalo bean?”

My son is very happy I brought them back, so I don’t have to drag him to the hill and show him (lazy teenager…).

Oh, and a BIG THANKS to Dawn, for posting very specific instructions on how to put this picture up the way I want it 🙂

Today I wasn’t sure of what route to take on my long run, but Dawn suggested that I just go run through some neighbourhoods I hadn’t done before, and just enjoy the spring flowers.  My body was still pretty tired from the Police Half last week, but that race wasn’t the end of training, I’m only half way through my marathon plan. Just to let my legs know that, I headed up the hill through Hawkwood and Edgemont. Up, up up and over, all the way to Nose Hill Park.

It felt like forever before I felt like I was doing something other than plodding baby-steps, but somewhere around 30-40 minutes I found my stride. I walked several times in that first half hour, but I’m glad I kept trying to run. By the time I got to the highest elevation in my run at about 9 km, I was quite happy to turn around and bound on home.

 I found some buffalo beans (little yellow flowers that look like snapdragons) and brought some home in a baggie in my running belt. I also saw lots of fuzzy crocuses/prairie wind flowers, but they don’t travel well, so I just left them there and thought of my mom. Mom loves crocuses.

I had 19 km on the calendar, and probably would have covered that if I’d run a flat route. I think the hills definitely make up for 3 missed km. It wasn’t a pretty run from a performance point of view (took me 2:19), but the day was lovely, flowers were blooming, I had the time to get out and experience it and it’s tough to complain about that.

After I got back and had a bath, I made omelettes for the kids and myself. Then we went over to feed Henrik’s cat and I fell asleep on the couch there while the cat purred and Little Runner watched Pocoyo.

Today the sun came out, the wind died down, and hundreds of leaves popped open. I could smell a gentle sweetness as my run took me off the sidewalks and onto the wildness of the dirt trails in my local park. No heady, heavy smells, like lilac or mayday or wolfswhatever that makes my eyes run, just tender, fresh newness. 

I was surprised to see there were still a few crocuses left like this one Loubob took at Easter. I also saw lots of new, tiny buttercuppy type flowers and one little sprig of buffalo beans. Mostly I just enjoyed the freshness of the air and the little surprises of colour.

I didn’t really run that hard tonight. I was out for almost an hour, but after about 30 minutes of running, 10 of it hills, I mostly walked and jogged a little. I didn’t feel any pain, just gave myself a little break because I felt like it.

Our small office’s women’s bathroom (1 toilet) has no windows. It also has a single fluorescent light, which is now dying a strobe-like death. It’s a good thing I’m not prone to seizures, or violent outbursts of disco…

Yesterday was a very blustery, cold spring day, and I wasn’t looking forward to running in such strong winds. I showed up at Gord’s anyway, dressed in leggings, my new Police Half long sleeved tech shirt, and my lined windbreaker. Hey, if I can race in nasty weather for over 2.5 hours, I can train in it for a little Tuesday run. It had crossed my mind that I had raced quite a long way two days ago, and maybe I could justify a staying home, but then I remembered that there is less than 10 weeks to my marathon, and I’m only half way through training. On with it, then!

By the time we got going, the wind had died down some, and it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t even need mitts. Dawn and her crew headed out for a 40 minute out and back, and Tim and I made up the back of the regular pack. We kept up a fair pace as I worked out the kinks in my muscles from Sunday’s race. Although my quads had been stiff since the race, they rather enjoyed the run. My calves objected in the first mile, but everything had loosened up nicely by the time we got down to the LRT bridge over the river. I had enough breath to talk, but not much.

As we got to the south, downtown side of the river it started to drizzle a bit. Tim complained that if we were going to have rain, it should really rain, and water the grass, eh? I told Tim to hush. Then rain came down harder. I laughed and looked at Tim, “Is this good enough for you?!” and he said “We-e-e-lllll…” Rain was dripping off my cap and I zipped up my jacket as I picked up the pace. I grinned and told Tim to shut UP.

At least it was rain and not snow. And the wind wasn’t that strong. And I was only out for a short run anyway. We took a short walk break as we headed back up over the Centre Street bridge, and then ran all the way back up to 8th Ave. 41 minutes of decent recovery running. Nice of Tim to stay back with me. I have to admit, the rain smelled lovely.

Dawn and I had talked about having coffee after our run, but neither of us wanted to sit soaking wet in the coffee shop, so we headed home. I realized on the way home that my new Bone Dri tech shirt was already dry where my coat wasn’t touching it, so took off the coat, turned up the heat in the car, and felt much better. The quads complained as I walked back into the house, but they’ll be better tomorrow. I watched American Idol, had a nice, warm bath, and did a little stretching before heading for bed.