Being a middle school English teacher allows me to enjoy 'tweens 9 months of the year but it also gives me a few months to do something else - something that makes others grimace, if they weren't grimacing already.
I started my summer vacation promptly with a family trip to the Washington DC area. Mom was celebrating her 7th decade of a fruitful life and all the family was descending on the house of my brother and his greyhound rescue dog. We spent the week taking in the sights and teaching my 5 and 3 year old daughters the finer points of mass transit during rush hour: You'll never be standing far enough away from the tracks for me when a metro train arrives at the station. Being wiggly on the escalator may not be appreciated by all those in suits standing nearby. And, anyone telling you a "short walk" to the metro station has not walked home from one at the end of the day with pre-schoolers.
We did enjoy our time there tremendously. The birthday party was a huge success. Aunts and uncles arrived from near and far to make it special. During the party, I ate my first serving of Maryland Soft Shell Blue Crab. While some complained about the work it took to find the meat, I managed to enlarge my serving to 5 crabs during the meal.
After a week there, Lydia, the girls and I drove to Virginia to stay with my former college roommate, Bert, on his organic farm outside Blacksburg. Bert and his wife Gwynn, and their daughter Zoe were excellent hosts and kept our bellies filled with fresh fruits and veggies like snap peas, raspberries, cherries, lettuce, and fresh sweet herbal tea.
Unfortunately, during our visit there, Robert's grandfather passed away and there was a memorial service for him at our college town in Hanover, Indiana. I had actually sung in the church choir with his grandfather during college and knew him well and decided to drive back with Bert for the service. The family was very welcoming to me and I enjoyed learning more about their history.
Being there gave me time to go for a few runs in the area - something I hadn't been able to do since college 15 years ago. I ran an abandoned road along a ridge overlooking the Ohio River. It was a 15 mile loop and had been one of the cross country team's favorite runs. I headed down the path once more and smiled as I realized how little had changed over the years. I came across four deer and five wild turkeys, as it's a protected corridor for wildlife. As the old road brought me into lower Madison, Indiana I realized there was a change to the route. The end of the road was washed out and had been replaced by a tangle of waist high poison ivy. I eventually had to detour over a metal fence with "pointy things" on top but was able to avoid the ivy. Soon after I came to the entrance to Clifty Falls State Park and the ranger let me use his water to wash off any ivy oils that I may have picked up.
While washing off, he told me about an area of interest in Nebraska worth checking out. Several years ago he helped salvage a Civil War cargo ship on the Missouri River. It had sunk near the time Lincoln was shot. Buried in mud for almost 150 years, the crew uncovered ammunition, jars, and metal cans with their paper labels still intact. The items now rest in a nice museum just east of Omaha.
The remaining ten miles of the run were beautiful as I ran through the shady park and then the sunny highway to return to campus. I was relieved to note that the run didn't seem to hurt me much and I could certainly see doing it twice a day in the coming weeks.
Back on the farm in Virginia, we helped as best we could while entertaining our two kids and their one. We weeded, picked vegetables for the upcoming farmer's market: lettuce, basil, snap peas, beets, fava beans, and spring onions. I helped remove three yellow jacket nests. We stained a large wall of the home they recently built completely on their own. And our impression of the experience? Farming is, as we've all been told, a very hard lifestyle. Physically, we were both drained after a few days of walking the 1/4 mile hill from the house to the terraced farm beds several times a day. Mentally, I don't know how I'd cope knowing that the bulk of my own food as well as my total income depended on the weather and my ability to get water to my investment. But it became readily apparent that these are three people who are living life to a higher standard. Their values truly are an inspiration to us.
Two weeks of my precious summer vacation have now slipped away but the next main attraction is just around the corner.
On Tuesday, I fly into Omaha, Nebraska and begin running across my 28th state, in an effort to cross all 50 states on foot on trails. I've been talking to a worker at Gallup and some runners from that organization may join me for a run across part of the city on Wednesday. I'd welcome anyone that wants to run with me for any part of the trip. Finding the route I'm on can be a bit tricky. I'm following the American Discovery Trail. A description of the route can be found here: www.discoverytrail.org Click on Nebraska and you'll get an idea of where it goes. For the most part, I'll be paralleling the Platte River and back roads and rail trails across the state west to Colorado.
I had intended to stop running when I get to the Colorado state line, but that would leave a section of trail in north eastern Colorado that I wouldn't get to run. The American Discovery Trail goes coast to coast. But in Ohio, it splits into two routes and then rejoins in Denver. I've already done the entire southern route when I ran across the country. Now I'm tackling the northern section and running all the way to Denver would mean I will have traveled nearly every section (excepting northern IL, northern IN and northwestern OH).
My training has been about average for the buildup to these kinds of trips for me. I have done a few long runs in the last couple of months. A 50 miler, several marathon-plus distances, and frequent 30-40 minute jaunts. I've tried to increase the regularity of my running the past few weeks. But I still stick with my philosophy that you don't need to be in peak shape at the start of a multi-day endurance run. If you are patient enough (and mechanically sound), the fitness will come with time. The only caveat to that is that in recent years my trips have gotten much shorter (relatively speaking) so I no longer have the luxury to allow my body to acclimate as it did over a 5 or 8 month period.
The good news is the pack is loaded, the shoes fit, the maps are in hand and I'm excited to run!
Brian
A week later,
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