10 miles
east on Summit / west on Summit
60 degrees / 91% humidity
dew point: 59
A week from today, right now, at almost noon, I’ll be deep into the marathon. For my last long (ish) run before the race, I decided to run miles 20.5 – 25.75 of the course. The first half was almost all uphill — not steep, but steady. I didn’t mind it today, but I bet I’ll be feeling it next Sunday. It’s a beautiful and painful way to run the last 10k of a marathon.
I had two memorable animal encounters. The first one occurred about 2 miles in. Standing at a stoplight, waiting for the light to change, something fell on the bill of my hat. Was it drips from a big tree? I looked up to see. No tree, but a utility pole and on the wire, a single bird. Gross! I started running for about a minute and then thought, I better check to see if there’s bird poop all over my hat. Yep. Luckily the grass was wet and I could use it to “clean” off the poop.
The second encounter happened a few miles later. With no warning, a squirrel ran out from the trees on the edge of the sidewalk and ran straight into my ankle bone, then kept running. My feet banged into each other, but I didn’t need to do any stutter steps. The ankle bone burned for a few minutes, but I think I’m okay.
After this second encounter I thought about how bad things happen in threes and I wondered what my third thing would be. Thankfully, it never happened.
10 Things
- thick, foggy air
- wet leaves, in oranges and reds and yellows, squeaking under my feet
- the smell of cigarette smoke — passing a woman, watching her lift a cigarette to her mouth, then a puff of smoke
- bright pink and yellow flowers at the front gate of a fancy house
- crossing Ayd Mill Road, noticing a new bike path below
- passing the governor’s mansion, running beside the fence, orange cones in front, on the edge of the road
- the bells of St. Thomas ringing
- more splotches of yellow and red and orange in the trees — fall is here!
- having to wait through 2 cycles of lights at Lexington before I got a walk sign, hearing the recorded voice calling out, wait wait wait wait wait
- shadow falls creek was flowing steadily, the falls were falling
Crossing back over the bridge, a favorite image of the run: rowers! 6 or 7 single shells spread across the river, the strange, whiteish gray light, making the front end of each shell glow in silvery white. Wow!
Here’s an excerpt of poem that is the poem-of-the-day at Poetry Daily. I like the easy way the story unfolds:
July 19/ List Fishman
Here on a rock I see the loon
does not perceive me
as a threat. She ate her lunch
looning around
in circles, going under
& coming back, always within
12 feet of me
but in water if I approach
she goes under
& disappears
disliking
boat’s vibration
in her element
But on the ground a mother grouse
and 2 young freely walk
around the cabin—they’re not afraid
of people, said Gillian
that’s why they get hunted
but we don’t hunt them she said, &
I brought you some eggs
pullet eggs
and these purple flowers clustered
on spindly stems—fresh thyme
or is it
oregano