I Remember Why . . .

I like to run outdoors.

I enjoy the sounds of feet on pavement, on dirt, in puddles, over woodland paths and tree trunks. I enjoy the sounds and feelings of cars whooshing by with the wind either in my face or at my back.

I don't even mind exhaust fumes.

So much.

I grew up running on suburban streets and the campus of my alma mater long before it became the place I would cram 4 years into 5 for "higher education".

I like hills.

Real hills.

Not some mechanically induced, computer-generated fake hill that's supposed to make me thing I'm gradually ascending farther (further - which is it?) above sea level in hopes of finding some wonderful realm which I've either never seen before or have seen before and revel in the hopes of seeing it differently this time.

Sheesh!

Now, I remember why I run out-of doors!!!!





I do not like treadmills.

At all.

Any more than I like tracks.

Running without going someplace just seems to detract from the whole reason to me. If I see the same scenery the entire time, I get bored.

Which makes running a drudgery.

I hate drudgery.

Passionately.

I live enough in the shadow of helotry at my daily routine that I don't need any more of it in the rest of life.

Certainly not in something as freeing as running has been for me over the last 30+ years.

I really can't remember when I started running for enjoyment.

I mean, not just as a kid who ran to get someplace fast or because a friend or twenty wanted to race.

I mean running because it is a wonderful way to see the world around me in a way very different than that which I'm accustomed to seeing the world.

Running because I appreciated the feeling of my lungs working to take in enough air to keep my body functioning well enough to maintain my pace while I was enjoying the sights and sounds of the world around me.

Running because it took me someplace, even if that place was a complete circuit and I ended up where I started.

We don't see much when we travel down roadways at 35mph or faster. It's much easier to see the birds and the trash left by others and the grass that needs cutting and the roadkill or to smell the fresh flowers and the winter onions or the burning leaves when you're goading yourself along to get away from that mean dog or to discover what's up around that bend you've never rounded or when you know the water-stop is coming up at that fountain ahead.

Life is much more fascinating at 6-10mph and you don't have windows or doors or seats barring you from interacting with the world around you.

It's just you and your own two feet, running.

All that said, I got on a treadmill last night.

For the first time in eons.

The kids wanted to swim.

I wanted to run.

It's been a while, but the new pair of shoes and the no-longer-painful left knee just needed a good whirlwind tour of the cardio room at the local "Y".

I also did something else I've never done.

I used an MP3 player.

While running.

On a treadmill.

Made me remember even more why I don't like treadmills.

Or MP3 players.

I felt like the treadmill would be a decent compromise that might allow me to find a pace, be close enough to know the kids could come find me if they really needed anything, and I would have an evaluation of just where to start on my running game over the next few weeks.

Music does strange things to my pace.

Staring through a doorway into an empty foyer of some minor annex at a rural YMCA does very poor things to my pace.

I felt like if I could've just closed my eyes and ran, things would've been much better.

Really hard to do.

Without stumbling.

Or completely falling down.

No, I didn't do anything of the sort.

My eyes remained open the entire time.

Which was longer than I thought it should take me to run 2.5 miles, because I was barely even winded and my heart rate never made it to my 80% goal.

Labor Day

Most of the U.S. looks forward to the first Monday in September because it's a day of vacation. For me, I take it at face value - I labor.

You see, my everyday job involves sitting behind a desk 95% of the time. I do not do manual labor to earn my paycheck. It's not that I mind earning my paycheck with the sweat of my brow, just that I don't have to at this juncture in life.

I do however, own 5 acres in the country - with 3 outbuildings and a pond.

I have a burn/brush pile about 10' in diameter and about 6' tall - and growing. My woodpile (to keep us warm this winter) is a very amorphous shape that looks roughly like overlapping circles approximately 15' in diameter and about 4' tall. They are both growing significantly. One due to the recent weather activity that has induced all sorts of limbfalls around the yard. The other due to me agreeing to take a fallen 36" diameter white oak out of someone's yard (sight unseen!!!).

The white oak is going to cost me 2 full days labor, a couple of lunchtime trips and a lot of backache. Oh yeah, and about $500 for a chainsaw that will actually be a lasting investment. The FIL's Stihl just ain't doin' the trick on the trunk. I have to cut wedges out of it since the 18" bar isn't enough to make a through-cut.

I may actually give in and borrow/rent/buy an hydraulic log-splitter since my 12 and 14 yr old log splitters (my sons) probably won't get it all done before it rots. There's still last summer's wood waiting for them.

The pond normally receives a raking swath with the weedeater twice a summer; but due to the drought, I got away with using the push mower to cut about 1/2 the circumference yesterday afternoon. The kids loved it because they were able to get some cool pics (they took nearly 800 over the weekend, so there oughta be something worthwhile) of the critters that live around the pond since I (temporarily) decimated the micro-environment of the pond bank.

We also hauled about 500 bricks to the lean-to on the workshop in hopes of one day using them to install a somewhat solid floor.

That said, Tuesday was a welcome respite to be back in the office. It allowed my muscles to recuperate in anticipation of my next day away. My joints, however, didn't fare so well. They creaked and cracked at every move.