4 miles
minnehaha falls and back
68 degrees
A late start (9:45 am). Warm, but lots of shade. Ran all 4 miles without stopping. Progress! I think I’ve figured out, after 8 years of trying, how to run slower. On my warm-up walk before I started a woman with a dog called out to me, I love your hat! It’s so bright and cheery! A wonderful start to the run. I was wearing a pinky-purply-swirly cap that I found in Scott’s mom’s drawer — with the tag still on — after she died. As I walked, I thought about color and how I see it and caring, kind gestures, and then a really BRIGHT hat that I’ve considered wearing before: a twins baseball cap, girls (because my had is that small!), with neon pink and orange and yellow that we bought for RJP and that she never wore. Maybe that will be my next hat when this one is worn out?!
10 Things
- acorn shells covering a neighbor’s driveway
- 2 runners ahead of me, one dressed just like me with black shorts and a teal tank top, illuminated by the light, glowing like ghosts
- a dirt trail near the ford bridge leading into a cool, mysterious wood
- a sidewalk above the creek half-covered in dirt, washed up from so many rains this summer
- no bike surreys lined up by the kiosk today
- the sweet smell of tall grass — a hint of cilantro
- trickling sewer pipe
- a slash of blue water through the trees — not sparkling or inviting but hot and harsh
- an animated conversation between 2 women walkers with laughter and hand gestures
- a for sale sign on a house near edmund — the house that had new owners a few years ago who moved a drain pipe so that it spills onto the sidewalk, creating puddles in the summer, ice in the winter. Will new owners move the drain?!
Before the run, reading old posts from 19 august, I re-discovered a wonderful poem about the wild girl the narrator used to be, Girl in the Woods / Alice Wright. I tried to think about the last lines as I ran:
Whever I think I’ve got hold of her,
she kicks my shin and wriggles from my grasp,
runs for the trees, calls back, Try and catch me —
I wanted to imagine that my wild girl, Sara age 8, was my shadow ahead of me, but it was difficult because I didn’t see my shadow that often. Maybe she was there, but hiding from me, daring me to try and find her?
uh oh
Just received an email from Open Swim:
Due to a sanitary sewer backup near Lake Nokomis this morning, August 19, all beaches at the lake are closed until further notice. The overflow has been stopped and cleanup has occurred. The MPRB will sample lake water at the beach locations and provide further updates when they are available.
We have to cancel Tuesday August 20th’s swim at Lake Nokomis. Thursday’s swim is TBD. Communication will be sent as soon as updated test results are known.
Cedar Lake is still happening on Monday and Wednesday, but open swim at Lake Nokomis might be over. It’s sad, but I’m okay. I have had a great season, swimming more loops than I ever have before! I should be able to get in some solo swims around the white buoys before the beach is completely closed.
Sanitary sewer backup? Yuck!
Sadly, many people are afraid of Minneapolis lakes and think they’re dirty and dangerous. While the lakes can have elevated E-coli levels and occasional sewer back-up issues, mostly they are fine to swim in. I’ve been swimming in Lake Nokomis for over 10 years, 3-4 times a week, and I’ve never gotten sick. Anecdotal, I know, but there’s also data to support my experience and management plans and daily/weekly work to ensure the water is safe to be in. Here’s a great resource I just found that I’d like to dig into — to learn more and get some poetry inspiration. It’s a white paper from 2019 called Lake Nokomis Area Groundwater and Surface Water Evaluation.
Another resource: Minneapolis Parks Lake Resources
swim: 4 nokomis loops
open swim cedar lake
80 degrees
Wonderful conditions! Buoyant, calm water. Hardly any wind. Strong legs and shoulders and lungs.
10 Things
- the light on the trees, giving off a hint of red, almost as if the leaves were whispering, fall is coming
- the light, lower in the sky, making everyone/everything give off a soft glow
- the surface of the water — smooth, sometimes blue, something army green, sometimes reflecting the fading light
- a paddle boarder moving through the course, standing straight on his board, looking very tall and upright — I think it was a lifeguard
- 2 swimmers treading water in the middle of the lake, chatting and catching each other up on their lives
- scratchy, insistent vines, wrapping around me each time I rounded the far buoy near hidden beach
- bubbles! barely seen in the opaque water
- mostly warm water with brief pockets of COLD
- talking with another swimmer after finishing, lamenting the nokomis closure and the end of another season — I said, we didn’t even get to say good-bye
- the lifeguards on kayaks were way out on the sides of the course, making the course much wider. I kept trying to go out farther to reach them but the lake kept wanting me to swim closer in — is it a current?