A week at the lake

Lots of reading, several 20-30 min jogs, a few teeth-clenching swims, some pushups and situps.  Mostly reading.  Not even a terrible amount of eating and/or drinking because I'm starting to feel "off" in that special gluten fashion.

Hence the piss-poor use of the trails.  Also affected by the threat of bears.  My husband accompanied me on two or three of the runs, but I had no other takers, and without human companionship, my sympathetic nervous system totally belies that adjective.  Who named this thing?  Who picked that word?  It's not sympathetic. It's jacked to the skies.  Every large shadow becomes a menace, every fallen branch an untimely, unpretty dispatch, every oddly musky smell or piece of fresh poop a warning: claws and jaws AHEAD.  The resulting elevated pulse is tolerable for about an hour, when excitement cedes to fatigue.  Some years are better than others.  This year, I just wasn't into it.

I was more in the mood for tearing through heaps of paperbacks. I can't even blame the weather.  There were non-rainy stretches.  It was actually near-perfect running weather.  I could blame the noise in the bunkhouse at night, especially the card games running into the wee hours, and, oh gods, the three or four dependable snorers, but I brought ear plugs.

Anyway, I'm now in the 'wa, oh running mecca of my enfance.  My departure was delayed this morning due to gluten-related issues, so I missed run club.  Two hours later, I returned home.  My radar was off.  I couldn't find the group.  I don't know what routes the group does nowadays, nor who is in it...maybe I passed it without recognizing it.  I didn't check what they were running, and I wasn't sure if I could keep up anyway.  At any rate, about 1:40 of running time got me about 11.5 miles.

The pace was admittedly pushed a few times because running with people--or, rather, in front and in behind people, is rather more exciting than running on my own.  Can I catch him/her?  Will they catch me?

Footfalls from behind growing louder can offer an interesting proposition.  Occasionally, the pursuit is so quick and decisively out-of-league that there is no question of if, not even of when, just an inarguable soon, quickly followed by awe in the face--rather, the rear--of superior form and fitness.  But sometimes it isn't as clean-cut.  Someone who is just a hair faster sometimes becomes the unwitting victim of a certain athletic vampirism.  It isn't drafting, it isn't as close as that.  Rather, a mental motivational tether.  Hey, maybe I can (almost?) keep up with this guy for a km.  And then another.  Just one more.

Running up to someone is simpler at first, but what if they pick up their pace?  Then it becomes interesting.

Today, my pace edged up fraction by fraction, person by person.  I trailed one guy for about a mile at an almost no-longer-easy run pace, and then he stopped running.  Shortly after, another guy passed me, and I picked it up further and almost stuck with him for perhaps another mile...and then he quit too!  Those were the most memorable encounters of many.  I easily passed hundreds of people.  Usually I see only a handful of runners and cyclists per week.  Solitude and nature have their charms, but I'm more appreciative of the crammed urban environment.  It's nice having some company.