oct 1/RUN

4 miles
over ford bridge and back
57 degrees
wind: 9 mph / gusts: 19 mph

This might be my last run before the marathon on Sunday, although I might run a mile or two on Saturday. My feet and form felt very strange for the first mile. It might be all the foam in my shoes; I wish stacked shoes and more foam weren’t the trend in running shoes. I prefer feeling the ground. Since I’m complaining, another problem with my shoes for the past few years: the laces always loosen and my feet slide around. I had to stop less than 2 minutes into the run to tighten the laces. Something positive: I have done enough running for 3 minutes, walking for 1, that it feels like a habit now, something I’ll be able to do during the race, almost automatically, when things get harder.

Today’s beautiful color: more bright red leaves on several of the trees closes to the edge of the trail. Also: the feeling of changing leaves as I ran across the ford bridge. I write feeling, because I’m not sure I was actually seeing anything more than the slightest hint of reds and oranges and golds in the trees, but it felt like change was about the happen or, already happening but very slowly.

10 Things

  1. after the double bridge: brown and red leaves covering the paved path
  2. the sound of a frisbee hitting the chain as a man threw it in at the frisbee golf course in Wabun
  3. some sort of wake on the water: a thin trail, not too far from shore
  4. overheard, one biker to another: everyone has their subjective experience
  5. passing by a walker in a BRIGHT yellow jacket — I was heading up the hill to wabun, they were heading down
  6. the buzz of chainsaws in the oak savanna
  7. passing by a parks maintenance vehicle, parked on the path with their BRIGHT lights and very LOUD engine
  8. my shadow, faint, ghostly, off to the side of me
  9. empty benches
  10. the orange spray paint marking off the part of the path with a big crack looked even more orange-y today — I wonder when they’re planning to fix it?

Recited the poem I re-memorized this morning, “Rhyme for Halloween,” as I walked back to my house. I thought about its dark whimsy and wondered if I’ve managed to achieve any of that in my Haunt poems. I’d like to.

On my walk, I also noticed tons of wild mushrooms in yards and decided the next poem to re-memorize is Sylvia Plath’s “The Mushrooms.” Decided, too, that I should memorize Emily Dickinson’s mushroom poem: The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants — (1350)/ Emily Dickinson