For the past two days, we've run in what will be our local forest. I will be describing it more in the future, but my first impression was reassuring: it smells nice. This region has sandy soil and lots of long-leaf pines and I've been told that the pine pollen is horrible in the spring, but I like it for the time being. Especially the smell!
When we left the Outer Banks a couple of days ago, a whole different world than the mainland, we'd also left the ocean and tidal marsh smells behind, which were replaced by chicken excrement and rotten fruit--the predominant smells at our two pitstops on the way here. Not promising! But we'd come here in October, and I knew about the pines. I'm still coming to grips with being plunked back in Dixie or whatever, and I'm trying not to count down yet (730ish days to go), and I'm pinning my hopes on these pines! I hope they ward off the skank, horrible bugs, and stifling humidity that we lived with in Virginia.
We drove to the forest (it's just over a mile from our future home, and it has an "annex" just 0.13 of a mile away--actually, the whole neighbourhood is piney). We stepped out of the car and I smelt pine. The forest looks somewhat un-diverse and uniform, mainly pines and a thick layer of pine needles choking out most undergrowth, and it smells predictably light and uncomplicated.
I love the smell of pine. When I first moved to Bucheon-Seoul, pine smelling soap was popular. I happily lathered up for many months, and then the smell fell out of favour, replaced by aloe or something like that. Pine resurfaced about a year later, but as a yogurt flavour (!!! it was too reminiscent of cleanliness), subsequently replaced by pomegranate. Occasionally, I find soap that has accents of pine, but tempered with other scents. I'm sure the "pine" I smelled in this forest is also a complex goulash of different plants, but I obliviously and happily smelled simply "pine".
Today, we'd intended to run around a local reservoir--the path around it is flat, paved, and just over two miles. This place has been recommended to us by several people. Word is definitely out because, on this fine Sunday morning (sunny, 75F or so), it was packed. The parking lot was close to full, and there were people all over. It was like the Canal back home during the tulip festival.
We decided to dodge tree roots rather than people and so we returned to the forest. I tripped only twice today.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Friday, January 11, 2013
~
1.5 miles barefoot on the sand yesterday. Nothing today but we left the beach.
I was hoping for a run evocative of a futuristic wasteland, lots of empty sand and sun with distant explosions. Our sojourn was close to Camp Lejeune, and for the last few days someone has been conducting training or testing. A few evenings ago, we thought it was just waves from the redoubled winds, but we realized the next day that we were hearing explosions. The day after that, the single explosions became series of explosions. I haven't heard explosions since we moved from Aberdeen Proving Ground. Truly a blast from the past!
I was sad to leave the beach even though the tides have shifted against my schedule: high waters and fluffy soft sands in the morning. My calves are a bit sore from the barefoot running and when I started sinking into the sand too deelply, I decided to walk instead.
We are now in the town we'll be living in, but in a hotel for the next several days. I'm not sure how this will impact running, but there are supposedly trails close to our new home. Maybe even a trail right behind the house, apparently (fingers crossed). I have become spoiled with the beach at my doorstep the last two weeks: less laundry. Is this too gross? Without ordinary passerby in close quarters, I don't feel that an absolutely fresh set of clothes is as necessary; airing out the clothes between workouts is good enough for several days.
Meanwhile, here at this hotel, this probably won't fly!
I was hoping for a run evocative of a futuristic wasteland, lots of empty sand and sun with distant explosions. Our sojourn was close to Camp Lejeune, and for the last few days someone has been conducting training or testing. A few evenings ago, we thought it was just waves from the redoubled winds, but we realized the next day that we were hearing explosions. The day after that, the single explosions became series of explosions. I haven't heard explosions since we moved from Aberdeen Proving Ground. Truly a blast from the past!
I was sad to leave the beach even though the tides have shifted against my schedule: high waters and fluffy soft sands in the morning. My calves are a bit sore from the barefoot running and when I started sinking into the sand too deelply, I decided to walk instead.
We are now in the town we'll be living in, but in a hotel for the next several days. I'm not sure how this will impact running, but there are supposedly trails close to our new home. Maybe even a trail right behind the house, apparently (fingers crossed). I have become spoiled with the beach at my doorstep the last two weeks: less laundry. Is this too gross? Without ordinary passerby in close quarters, I don't feel that an absolutely fresh set of clothes is as necessary; airing out the clothes between workouts is good enough for several days.
Meanwhile, here at this hotel, this probably won't fly!
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
~
It was warm enough to run barefoot today, so I did. First barefoot run in a long time and my feet are out of shape, so I ran only about a mile.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
good sand
Yesterday, the sand was really good. We ran past the 90's neon pink house and I was surprised to find out how large it really is, and that it doesn't sit further out on the sand than the other houses. 3.5 miles away, it looks like it's the same size, and half a house length or so in front of the surrounding houses. Marveling at the visual distortion caused by wide and relatively featureless expanses has become a hobby of mine.
It was sunny too, which is also visual appealing because it reminds me of these post-apocalyptic dreams (not quite nightmares) that I used to have regularly when I was younger, before I knew the meaning of post-apocalyptic. I knew only that most of the people on Earth were dead for some reason, and I was stuck alone with miles of sand and sun and sky (strangely, I don't remember any water). I'd been to very few beaches as a child, and all of them had been river or lake beaches, and I didn't particularly like going to the beach anyway; my beach dreams were a mix of initial horror and growing contentment and all kinds of awe. Usually when I run on a wide empty beach on a sunny day, I remember falling in love with void.
Total run: 7ish miles.
Today, the sand was still good and the run started off sunny but with a huge dark front looming. It looked like a wall, as if there was a limit to the ocean, a backdrop or something like that and something else, goodness knows what, maybe a bunch of ropes and black paint, behind it. The radiance of the sun was squeezed and condensed, the light sharpened. I had a minute or so to remember the scene before the cloud banks covered the sun and turned everything into just another overcast day. And of course this distraction obscured the lack of poop bags, and the dog had to go five or so minutes later, so we ran back, and back out.....so, 1.5 miles. Later on, when the sky was still merely overcast and not portentous at all, I jogged with my husband and the dog for about 3 miles, and there were dolphins again, but further away and less flashy than they or their relatives had been two days ago.
We also got some bad news regarding the place we were supposed to move into on the 4th, then on the 6th, then on the 11th, now the 15th or so? Originally we were supposed to be moving into another place (2 or 3 places ago) on the 18th of December; fortunately, this has extended our beach vacation enough that I can't be entirely fed up with North Carolina so far. I'm beginning to learn that the only way to get into a house or place by the agreed upon date is to rent from a housing manager somewhere off-post. The two times we had no issues moving in, that was the situation. All the other times, there have been delays upon delays. Not so bad now because we're at the beach--another time, we were living on a boat in Baltimore's inner harbour, which ROCKED--but we will have to move from here into a motel for some indeterminate while, instead of straight into a house. I'd better watch dolphins some more but, meanwhile, I will view a threatening sky as a warning in the future.
It was sunny too, which is also visual appealing because it reminds me of these post-apocalyptic dreams (not quite nightmares) that I used to have regularly when I was younger, before I knew the meaning of post-apocalyptic. I knew only that most of the people on Earth were dead for some reason, and I was stuck alone with miles of sand and sun and sky (strangely, I don't remember any water). I'd been to very few beaches as a child, and all of them had been river or lake beaches, and I didn't particularly like going to the beach anyway; my beach dreams were a mix of initial horror and growing contentment and all kinds of awe. Usually when I run on a wide empty beach on a sunny day, I remember falling in love with void.
Total run: 7ish miles.
Today, the sand was still good and the run started off sunny but with a huge dark front looming. It looked like a wall, as if there was a limit to the ocean, a backdrop or something like that and something else, goodness knows what, maybe a bunch of ropes and black paint, behind it. The radiance of the sun was squeezed and condensed, the light sharpened. I had a minute or so to remember the scene before the cloud banks covered the sun and turned everything into just another overcast day. And of course this distraction obscured the lack of poop bags, and the dog had to go five or so minutes later, so we ran back, and back out.....so, 1.5 miles. Later on, when the sky was still merely overcast and not portentous at all, I jogged with my husband and the dog for about 3 miles, and there were dolphins again, but further away and less flashy than they or their relatives had been two days ago.
We also got some bad news regarding the place we were supposed to move into on the 4th, then on the 6th, then on the 11th, now the 15th or so? Originally we were supposed to be moving into another place (2 or 3 places ago) on the 18th of December; fortunately, this has extended our beach vacation enough that I can't be entirely fed up with North Carolina so far. I'm beginning to learn that the only way to get into a house or place by the agreed upon date is to rent from a housing manager somewhere off-post. The two times we had no issues moving in, that was the situation. All the other times, there have been delays upon delays. Not so bad now because we're at the beach--another time, we were living on a boat in Baltimore's inner harbour, which ROCKED--but we will have to move from here into a motel for some indeterminate while, instead of straight into a house. I'd better watch dolphins some more but, meanwhile, I will view a threatening sky as a warning in the future.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
never the same as the day before
Yesterday, I jogged 15 minutes with the dog, then 15 more minutes with the dog and my husband. The sand was too soft; longer runs would have been too tiring.
The sand was firmer and better today, but I ran less than yesterday. I slept in today until nine and then prepared my exterior for a run more convincingly than my interior. The temptation to just walk the dog was great, but once I felt the firmness of the sand, I started jogging.
Further ahead, I saw a small pod of dolphins. I watched them for 5-6 minutes; the pod split into two, one group going out, and four dolphins coming closer to shore. After 5-6 minutes, I caught up to them, and I am a poor judge of distance but I think they were just a bus length away (probably that of an articulated bus). They were closer to me than any wild dolphins had ever been before. I could see their blowholes and even their eyes, and after a minute, one of them paused, holding his/her head above water and we exchanged a glance.
I'd read somewhere an account of someone locking eyes with a whale underwater, and since it was described as a pretty monumental experience, I've wondered what would make it so. I look into the eyes of animals pretty regularly, often meeting with simple blank wariness, if not fear, sometimes with what looks like curiosity, and regularly with a predictable palette of concern and hope and pleading (from my dog). Occasionally rather human-like, but nothing monumental so far.
When I exchanged a glance with the dolphin, it wasn't monumental--I think I had led myself to expect to see the wisdom of the ages or something absurd like that--but it was shocking in that it was not. It wasn't friendly. It was merely acknowledgement. Perhaps of relatively equivalent intelligence, but that's probably too much of a stretch of such a brief glance. It reminded me of being at work, not in one place in particular but in various places with halls that were a mix of people who worked there and people who did not, resulting in two veins of reception: A, ranging from bland pleasantness sometimes veering into helpfulness when someone looked lost, and B---well, actually, there was B1, ranging from joviality to awkwardness (if not contrived obliviousness), for familiar coworkers, and B2, acknowledgment, for unknown coworkers. A quick scan for ID badges, uniforms, purposed stride, whatever, and then an exchanged glance of acknowledgment. So, you're in this building too. Ok. Maybe a smile, maybe not until next time, not a whole lot of time to react because there are other things to get to.
The thing is, I was standing on the beach exchanging this glance not with someone in a suit in an office building, or in scrubs in a hospital, but with a naked glistening finned creature that then plunged back into the ocean. So, you're on this coast too. Ok.
A few of the other dolphins then quickly lifted their heads above water to look at me (before then, they were exposing just their blowholes), and then they started slapping the water with their tails, and a few of them started to roll, exposing pale underbelly. I watched them for several minutes, and I tried to get the dog to notice them, and he did, but there was no mutual recognition there. I have no idea what he thought of them, or vice versus. After a while, they stopped the tail slapping and moved away from the coast, stripping the fanfare from their feeding. I jogged alongside for a bit, back towards the house, but they were moving more slowly than I, and eventually I went into the house and fed the dog, and then we went up to the bedroom to see my husband. I told him about the dolphins and we talked a bit, then the dog suddenly sat up and looked outside. The bedroom has a patio window/door and a nice view.
There was a lady walking two dogs on the beach--I looked past her and saw the dolphins again.
My husband pulled on his running clothes and we ran out to watch them. They weren't as close as to the shore before, but the pod had acquired a fifth member. As we approached them, one of them rose out of the water vertically, half a body length out of the water. I'd never seen a dolphin in the wild do this before. We jogged closer to them and they were slapping the water and rolling again, and then one of them jumped clear out of the water. We got as close as possible and stopped running to watch them. I told my husband that maybe they could hear our voices and that might interest them; I felt obliged to reciprocate exhibitionism. How boring it must be to watch people who are silently standing motionless. Another one jumped out of the water, I yelled reflexively (something terribly erudite such as "whoa!") and a split second later, another one was in full air, a sleek question mark, muscles momentarily contracted into illusionary stockiness. I cheered and clapped this time, but that was perhaps gauche but I'd lost most of my wits by this point. With a few more slaps and rolls and partial breaches, they gradually settled back into feeding. We resumed our jog and when we passed the dolphins on the way back, they were further out still, and further increased in number (7 or so) and building a circular bubble net/fish trap. Another new sight for my bare eyes. I have seen countless dolphins during umpteen trips to the coast, but always at more of a distance, and always partially submersed, plenty of obscuring water between us.
Total jogged today: 10 + 15 minutes.
The sand was firmer and better today, but I ran less than yesterday. I slept in today until nine and then prepared my exterior for a run more convincingly than my interior. The temptation to just walk the dog was great, but once I felt the firmness of the sand, I started jogging.
Further ahead, I saw a small pod of dolphins. I watched them for 5-6 minutes; the pod split into two, one group going out, and four dolphins coming closer to shore. After 5-6 minutes, I caught up to them, and I am a poor judge of distance but I think they were just a bus length away (probably that of an articulated bus). They were closer to me than any wild dolphins had ever been before. I could see their blowholes and even their eyes, and after a minute, one of them paused, holding his/her head above water and we exchanged a glance.
I'd read somewhere an account of someone locking eyes with a whale underwater, and since it was described as a pretty monumental experience, I've wondered what would make it so. I look into the eyes of animals pretty regularly, often meeting with simple blank wariness, if not fear, sometimes with what looks like curiosity, and regularly with a predictable palette of concern and hope and pleading (from my dog). Occasionally rather human-like, but nothing monumental so far.
When I exchanged a glance with the dolphin, it wasn't monumental--I think I had led myself to expect to see the wisdom of the ages or something absurd like that--but it was shocking in that it was not. It wasn't friendly. It was merely acknowledgement. Perhaps of relatively equivalent intelligence, but that's probably too much of a stretch of such a brief glance. It reminded me of being at work, not in one place in particular but in various places with halls that were a mix of people who worked there and people who did not, resulting in two veins of reception: A, ranging from bland pleasantness sometimes veering into helpfulness when someone looked lost, and B---well, actually, there was B1, ranging from joviality to awkwardness (if not contrived obliviousness), for familiar coworkers, and B2, acknowledgment, for unknown coworkers. A quick scan for ID badges, uniforms, purposed stride, whatever, and then an exchanged glance of acknowledgment. So, you're in this building too. Ok. Maybe a smile, maybe not until next time, not a whole lot of time to react because there are other things to get to.
The thing is, I was standing on the beach exchanging this glance not with someone in a suit in an office building, or in scrubs in a hospital, but with a naked glistening finned creature that then plunged back into the ocean. So, you're on this coast too. Ok.
A few of the other dolphins then quickly lifted their heads above water to look at me (before then, they were exposing just their blowholes), and then they started slapping the water with their tails, and a few of them started to roll, exposing pale underbelly. I watched them for several minutes, and I tried to get the dog to notice them, and he did, but there was no mutual recognition there. I have no idea what he thought of them, or vice versus. After a while, they stopped the tail slapping and moved away from the coast, stripping the fanfare from their feeding. I jogged alongside for a bit, back towards the house, but they were moving more slowly than I, and eventually I went into the house and fed the dog, and then we went up to the bedroom to see my husband. I told him about the dolphins and we talked a bit, then the dog suddenly sat up and looked outside. The bedroom has a patio window/door and a nice view.
There was a lady walking two dogs on the beach--I looked past her and saw the dolphins again.
My husband pulled on his running clothes and we ran out to watch them. They weren't as close as to the shore before, but the pod had acquired a fifth member. As we approached them, one of them rose out of the water vertically, half a body length out of the water. I'd never seen a dolphin in the wild do this before. We jogged closer to them and they were slapping the water and rolling again, and then one of them jumped clear out of the water. We got as close as possible and stopped running to watch them. I told my husband that maybe they could hear our voices and that might interest them; I felt obliged to reciprocate exhibitionism. How boring it must be to watch people who are silently standing motionless. Another one jumped out of the water, I yelled reflexively (something terribly erudite such as "whoa!") and a split second later, another one was in full air, a sleek question mark, muscles momentarily contracted into illusionary stockiness. I cheered and clapped this time, but that was perhaps gauche but I'd lost most of my wits by this point. With a few more slaps and rolls and partial breaches, they gradually settled back into feeding. We resumed our jog and when we passed the dolphins on the way back, they were further out still, and further increased in number (7 or so) and building a circular bubble net/fish trap. Another new sight for my bare eyes. I have seen countless dolphins during umpteen trips to the coast, but always at more of a distance, and always partially submersed, plenty of obscuring water between us.
Total jogged today: 10 + 15 minutes.
Friday, January 4, 2013
superior beach run
Yesterday: rainy, windy, 2-ish mile jog with the dog while a fishing boat slowly swept the ocean in the distance. There was nobody else out.
Today: sunny, cold, but no wind and the lowest tide I've seen here so far. The beach was especially wide and flat and firm, and the suitable path was generous. It depends on the time and on the beach, but sometimes it's tricky finding the right vein to run on, the delicate point between wet and dry, new and old, spongy and flaky, where the sand retains just the right amount of moisture to stick together and support footfalls soundly. Sometimes the right vein zigzags around small water-sculpted mounds and dips, or disappears altogether. Sometimes the right vein stretches straight for miles and miles of pool-table texture, soft but unyielding. I've never actually run on a pool-table; I imagine it to feel like stiff velvet.
We had miles, or at least three. My half-hour run turned into an hour thanks to the superior sand conditions. Shortly after realizing the rarity of the footing available, I noticed something bright pink in the distance. It looked like faded fluorescent pink, like something left over from another decade. Was it a person, sign, or house? Distance had distorted it; I couldn't tell how large it was nor where it sat in relation to the equally blurred and stretched objects around it. We'd have to get closer to see. Might as well run for an hour--or at least, run out for a half-hour and see how close I got to it.
Extending a run from 30 to 60 minutes, especially after a lazy spell, seems radical but it's actually sensible for me. Runs that are between 30 and 60 minutes are usually unsatisfying. They're long enough to feel fatiguing, but too short for sufficient endorphin release. ~8 miles is usually the best distance for me, but since I'm still sort of out of shape (and possibly still lung-gunked, although I feel that things have cleared up a LOT), I stuck to a half-hour, confirmed that the bright light pink object was a house, and turned back.
It has been a while since I've had such an easy hour-long run.
Today: sunny, cold, but no wind and the lowest tide I've seen here so far. The beach was especially wide and flat and firm, and the suitable path was generous. It depends on the time and on the beach, but sometimes it's tricky finding the right vein to run on, the delicate point between wet and dry, new and old, spongy and flaky, where the sand retains just the right amount of moisture to stick together and support footfalls soundly. Sometimes the right vein zigzags around small water-sculpted mounds and dips, or disappears altogether. Sometimes the right vein stretches straight for miles and miles of pool-table texture, soft but unyielding. I've never actually run on a pool-table; I imagine it to feel like stiff velvet.
We had miles, or at least three. My half-hour run turned into an hour thanks to the superior sand conditions. Shortly after realizing the rarity of the footing available, I noticed something bright pink in the distance. It looked like faded fluorescent pink, like something left over from another decade. Was it a person, sign, or house? Distance had distorted it; I couldn't tell how large it was nor where it sat in relation to the equally blurred and stretched objects around it. We'd have to get closer to see. Might as well run for an hour--or at least, run out for a half-hour and see how close I got to it.
Extending a run from 30 to 60 minutes, especially after a lazy spell, seems radical but it's actually sensible for me. Runs that are between 30 and 60 minutes are usually unsatisfying. They're long enough to feel fatiguing, but too short for sufficient endorphin release. ~8 miles is usually the best distance for me, but since I'm still sort of out of shape (and possibly still lung-gunked, although I feel that things have cleared up a LOT), I stuck to a half-hour, confirmed that the bright light pink object was a house, and turned back.
It has been a while since I've had such an easy hour-long run.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Resolution #1
Don't eat a large meal right before a run. The dog and I jogged 3ish miles, then I ate breakfast (oatmeal), then a few hours later, I ate second breakfast, which was two bowls of spaghetti and sauce. Originally, I'd decided not to join my husband for his run because I was full of spaghetti and sauce, but the mass dropped to what I thought was a safe low, and out I went, but up it went gradually, until after about a mile when I decided to walk and finish digesting my meal properly before it took the wrong exit. I am not unaccustomed to running right after eating, but the portion size this time was simply too large.
This was yesterday. My first run of 2013! We didn't wake up early enough for the dawn, but I think it was too cloudy for a proper one.
This morning was less chromatic still. I woke up to a dark heavy blue which gradually became a light grey. The most memorable part of today's run was that the wind has finally shifted direction: until today, it has always blown from the south when I've been out. I didn't notice at first, it was a very gentle breeze, and so I ran into what I thought was it, but it was against me on the way out. Fortunately, the temperatures were warm enough that this wasn't an issue, even though we were getting rained on. 3ish miles again, and I walked for about 15 minutes afterward.
The dog did not appreciate the walk back because it was in the rain and wind, and it delayed his breakfast.
I may run again today, probably not if it's still raining.
This was yesterday. My first run of 2013! We didn't wake up early enough for the dawn, but I think it was too cloudy for a proper one.
This morning was less chromatic still. I woke up to a dark heavy blue which gradually became a light grey. The most memorable part of today's run was that the wind has finally shifted direction: until today, it has always blown from the south when I've been out. I didn't notice at first, it was a very gentle breeze, and so I ran into what I thought was it, but it was against me on the way out. Fortunately, the temperatures were warm enough that this wasn't an issue, even though we were getting rained on. 3ish miles again, and I walked for about 15 minutes afterward.
The dog did not appreciate the walk back because it was in the rain and wind, and it delayed his breakfast.
I may run again today, probably not if it's still raining.
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