Year: 2018

march 10/4 MILES

30 degrees
5% snow covered
mississippi river road path, north/south

A great run! Faster. Freer. More flying less plodding. A lot of runners out on the path, doing their long runs. Not me. I’m taking it easy this week, making sure my right knee is happy.

The favorite part of my run: 3 miles in, at the top of the hill that dips under the lake street bridge. Finding my rhythm. Pumping my arms perfectly in time with my feet. Left arm right foot. Right arm left foot. Not having to remember to move my legs, almost like they’re moving on their own. Flying through space. No effort. No attention to form or mechanics. Magically moving for almost a mile.

march 8/3.5 MILES

21 degrees
15% snow-covered
mississippi river road, north/south

Low wind. Bright sun. Clear path. Great run. My knee hurt a little as I was walking to the river, but once I started, it felt better. Focused on my form–keeping my chest out and my arms closer to my sides. Listened to my headphones and smiled a lot. Occasionally glanced over at the river and down into the gorge. So beautiful! Blue-gray river with white slopes and dark brown branches. I like being able to see everything. In a few months, all I will see is green. As I was breathing in the crisp, cold air I realized that these winter runs will be ending soon. As much as I am ready for spring and summer, I will miss the cold and winter running.

march 6/3 MILES

33 degrees
70% snow-covered
mississippi river road, north/greenway/mississippi river road, south

It snowed yesterday. Almost 5 inches. Here in Minnesota, winter doesn’t end until April or May. The snow didn’t stop until early this morning. Of course, the awesome Minneapolis Parks and Rec had the path plowed in just a few hours. Being able to get outside in the winter makes all the difference. I’m still ready for spring, but I can endure the endless white and gray and cold and slippery sidewalks if I can run by the river. The snow today is heavy, dense and wet. When I walked on it, it didn’t make a sharp snap or a crackly crunch. It was more like a thick, heavy pressing down–what sound is that?–of the snow, the air, the moisture in the snow.

I only ran 3 miles because I’m trying to be gentle with my right knee. Lately, my kneecap likes to slide around and slip out just a little. So far these wanderings haven’t been a problem, except for some soreness. To keep it that way, I’m not running too much. The run felt good. Strong. My knee wasn’t perfect, but it also didn’t hurt and now, an hour after my run, I’m fine.

In the middle of the run, I felt dazed, transported somewhere else, almost blinded by the snow and the bright white, occasionally brilliant blue peeking through, sky. Pretty cool.

Walking back to my house after my run, the sky looked so heavy. A dull, dense grayish white–almost like the sky was a ceiling of snow looming, hovering. Not quite waiting to collapse. Weird.

march 3/4.5 MILES

40 degrees
18 mph wind/26 mph gusts
mississippi river road, north/franklin hill/washington bridge/franklin hill

Windy! Was planning to do 7 miles but made it to the Franklin Hill and thought that I better take it easy on my knee. It feels okay, but a little weird. So I stopped at 4.5 miles. The gorge was beautiful. Bright blue sky with white snow and bare trees. It was so windy that down in the flats the river had white caps! The path was wet but clear. Don’t remember much about the run except for the annoying runner who was slowly creeping on me. I could hear her feet crunching. She passed me on a hill and then stopped at the top, right in front of me. I kept going and she started running again. She passed me and then stopped again.

march 2/3 MILES

31 degrees
15% ice-covered
mississippi river road path, north/south

I ran today!
I ran outside today!
I ran outside today without my knee hurting!
I ran outside today without my right knee or my left thigh hurting!
I ran outside today without my right knee or my left thigh hurting in the sun!
I ran outside today without my right knee or my left thigh hurting in the sun and it felt good!

Well, mostly good. Not fantastic. But not like I was doing anything bad to my knee. Listened to my headphones, so I didn’t hear much on the run. Near the Lake Street bridge, I was wishing I didn’t have my headphones on. I thought I heard some birds–maybe some geese–making a lot of noise. The river was open. I wonder when the rowers will be out there?

I recorded myself walking home at the end of the run. A very different crunching of my feet, coming from the grit–the salt or sand or whatever they use to treat the road and the path to make them less slippery–was rubbing on the bare, slightly wet ground. Occasionally I walked over some crusty snow. Not sure the recording picks it all up but there were lots of sounds today: a wind chime, wind, a car driving by, birds, water dripping off the roof, a car starting.

march 1/BIKE

70 degrees
front room, bike stand
30 minutes

It’s hard not running, but I want to make sure that I don’t get into another cycle of subluxations, so I’m not out by the gorge today. It makes it a little easier that the sidewalk is covered in sheer ice which will soon turn into a puddle than a pool than a river or a lake all hoping to enter my boot and soak my socks. I wonder what the mississippi river road path looks like right now? Yuck. I despise the Great Melt that happens every almost-spring. Thawing. Dripping. Soaking. Oozing. Pooling. Freezing. Thawing. Dripping. Soaking. Oozing. Pooling. Freezing. When will it end? Not anytime soon. It’s supposed to snow again on Saturday.

It was last March that I (re?) discovered poetry in my first class at the Loft. To honor that discovery, I’ve decided to work through Bernadette Mayer’s list of writing experiments–the same list we used in class last year. Some of these will involve being by the gorge, running or walking, some of them will not. Today’s did not.

The assignment: Pick a work or phrase at random, let mind play freely around it until a few ideas have come up, then seize on one and begin to write. Try this with a non-connotative word, like “so” etc.

I settled on the phrase on my coffee mug, “Let it Be.” Quickly into the exercise I wondered, what is IT in this phrase? I turned IT into an acronym: information technologist, impending tests, icky tacos, incanting toads, inky trails, infinite troubles…I made a list of 25 or 30 nouns that IT stood for. Then I wrote a poem using some of them:

Let it Be

Let ink trails be the secret way
into a world waiting to save us
from ignorant tyrants.
Let those trails lead us to intelligent trees–
the ones that know better than us
with our immovable theories and our
irritating tantrums.

We–
the inexplicable termites
possessing indefatigable troubles
wasting all the important tissues
on our indigo tears.
Why can’t we be more like those indifferent trapezoids–
not interested in even, parallel lines
not caring to reach infinitely upwards?

Let incanting toads be what finally
sings us to sleep
so we can dream better dreams
imagining terrains that believe in us.

Let invisible threads reveal themselves
so we may see how we belong
connected, tethered to each other–
vulnerable to violence yet
also to the inviting touch of another.

feb 28/SWIM

ywca pool
water: 82 degrees
1 mile

In 3 and a half months I get to swim across Lake Nokomis three times a week!, but for now I’m at the pool, which is fine. Not as exciting as the lake, but still great to do. I love swimming. I’m hoping to write more about it this summer. Today I decided to swim a mile without stopping. To make it less tedious, I varied my breathing. Here’s how I broke it down: 8 x 200 yds (1st 50, breathe every 3 strokes/2nd, every 4/3rd, every 5; 4th, every 6). What did I think about while I was swimming? Is my knee okay? Why were my goggles leaking? Will they start leaking again? Is my nose plug going to fall off? Is this 550 yards or 600? Am I going to swim the mile or 2 mile race this summer? How long have I been swimming? Would this be more interesting if I could listen to music while I was swimming?

 

feb 27/BIKE

70 degrees
front room, bike stand
25 minutes

With my knee hurting a little, I decided to do an easy bike ride in the front room this morning. I also managed to take Delia the dog on two walks. The first was early, when over half the sidewalk was covered in a thin layer of ice. The second was later, when most of the sidewalk was covered with deep puddles. Snow melting. Dripping off the eaves and gutters. At the end of the second walk, I sat on my back deck and recorded the dripping:

Listening closely with my headphones, I think I hear at least three different speeds of drips. Yuck! I love the snow. I love when it warms up. But I despise when big mounds of snow melt, dripping off the roof, pooling in the yard, transforming the sidewalk into a lake. I’m sure the path is a mess right now. I wish my knee and I weren’t having a fight so I could go check it out.

feb 26/4 MILES

26 degrees
85% snow-covered
mississippi river road path, north/south

A beautiful day for a run by the river. Not too cold with abundant sun. But I should have listened to my body, especially my knee, and not run today. The path was very difficult, with only one narrow strip of bare pavement, and my knee was already a little swollen from hiking through the snow yesterday. It was difficult walking home with a slight limp. I must take a break from running for a few days. It’s probably a good time to take a break with the weather getting warmer then colder. “Thaw, freeze, repeat” is how MPR describes it. Yuck!

Even though I’m (only a little) worried about my knee and whether or not I’m entering another round of subluxations and swelling and even though there’s so much snow on the ground and covering the path and blocking the sidewalks, it’s hard not to think of spring with the warm sun shining on my face and the birds!! chirping. I recorded a little bit of it when I was almost home:

Birds!!

At some point in the year, I might take the birds for granted, hearing them only as background noise, but I couldn’t today. Such a glorious sound!

feb 24/5.5 MILES

22 degrees
20% snow-covered
mississippi river road, north/stone arch bridge

Thursday night we got 5 inches of snow. By Friday the path was already plowed. Minneapolis Parks are awesome! It’s supposed to snow another 5-8 inches this afternoon so I ran this morning while the path was still clear. Another great run. Steady and not too fast. I managed to run the entire steep hill near downtown without stopping to walk! In about a month, I’ll be running it again in a race.

The river was flowing–no ice or snow left. Will it freeze again or will I be seeing rowers on it soon?

Yesterday I finished a draft of a poem I’ve been working on for a few weeks. It’s an homage poem based on Alice Oswald’s beautiful “A Short Story of Falling Water.” Mine is about snow and my current fascination with the crunching noises it makes as I walk and run by the river.

A Short Story of Fallen Snow, audio

A Short Story of Fallen Snow
after Alice Oswald

It is the story of the fallen snow
to turn sharp and slick and force us to slow

it is the wonder of a winter storm
to start out as snowflakes but soon change form

from tiny puffed up pillows that cover the path
to crystals compressed, their size reduced by half

or to a smooth shining surface polished like glass
hidden in plain sight near the edge by the grass

if only you while heading to the river could make
the moment go numb and freeze like a snowflake

to absorb every sound in a blanket of air
releasing when pressed a kind of noisy prayer

then you might learn like snow how to balance
the light of attention against the weight of silence

snow which when cold is so brittle so strong
cracking and crunching a sharp steady song

compacted by cold, yielding to moving feet
compelling you to pause and listen to it creak

which is the story of the fallen snow
whose changing forms makes us slow.