Category: Running Log

oct 26/RUN

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
57 degrees / drizzle

Waited for the rain to stop, then went out for a late morning run. Listened to the squeaks of my feet on the wet leaves, the drips from the trees and the eaves, workers on a neighbor’s roof as I ran north. Listened to a playlist on the way back south. The sidewalks were slippery and covered with red and yellow leaves. The paved trail had some puddles. I remember looking at the river through the trees, but I can’t remember what it looked like. Probably gray.

The strangest moment of the run happened near the beginning as I ran through the neighborhood on my way to the river. The sidewalk was covered in intensely red and yellow leaves and so was the sky, from an orange tree. Everything glowed, even me in my bright orange sweatshirt. Wow! I decided that once I finished my run, I’d come back to this spot and take some video:

A sidewalk covered in red and yellow leaves. In person it glowed, but when I look at it on the screen, it is dull.

oct 25/RUN

3.3 miles
2 trails
51 degrees
humidity: 91%

Yesterday it rained all day. Today it was wet and gray and leaf-littered. For the first mile, I heard a squeak squeak each time I stepped on the wet leaves. Saw and good morninged a regular: Mr. Walker Sitter. Heard kids yelling at the school playground. Smelled the sewer gas. Avoided city workers and roofers and bikers almost over the white line. Admired the “edge of the world,” now open and looking even more edge-y. Worried about slipping on the wet leaves and falling down the steep slope. Dripped sweat in the humid air. Counted drops falling from the sewer pipe in the ravine. Wondered if the distance/pace was not working properly on my watch. Forgot about everything else.

The color of the day is YELLOW.

  1. tunnels of yellow leaves above me
  2. piles of yellowed leaves under me
  3. yellow cross walk signs glowing in the gloom
  4. a runner’s bright yellow running shirt
  5. (writing this entry): a neighbor’s yellow tree outside my window,
  6. yellow leaves on the hydrangea bush
  7. a stretch of yellow trees, just past their peak, beside me near Folwell
  8. a yellow entrance to the Winchell Trail

The yellow I see is mostly bright. Not gold, but with hints of orange and green.

Before I ran I memorized A Rhyme for Halloween. Then I recited lines from it as I moved. Never all at once, but every so often.

As I was searching for another poem to post I thought about how many poems I’ve already posted and why I keep posting more when I hardly have time to read the ones I’ve already posted. So today, I decided to revisit a poem that I posted on October 25th, 2020: Beginning/ JAMES WRIGHT. Beautiful. Reading it right now, I love the opening:

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.   
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.

I love the idea of the moon dropping feathers and the dark wheat listening. And now, as I read the third line, Be still. I’m thinking of it less as a command to not move (to be still), and more as an invitation or a plea to continue to exist (be, still). And then I’m connecting that idea to the last 2 lines of the poem:

The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.

Perhaps my darkness involves an impossible wish, that my mom and Scott’s parents were still alive.

oct 23/RUN

3.65 miles
turkey hollow
52 degrees

It felt good and necessary to run this morning. Yesterday I spent a lot of time on the couch reading and watching (or, more like listening to) my son play Earthbound, an old video game that Scott used to play when he was kid. Also watched a few episodes of FWA’s new (to him, but around for years) favorite anime, One Piece. I wish I could see it better with my bad eyes, because I was enjoying it. Anyway, I spent so much time sitting that my resting heart rate was at 45. I needed some exercise this morning.

added a minute later: Reading back through this entry and thinking about my need to run, I feel compelled to add that haunting this run (and also making it necessary) are what I read over coffee early this morning: horrifying headlines about the atrocities being committed against Palestinians in Gaza and the failure of the US government in not only refusing to condemn them but condoning them in their uncritical support of the Israel government. Heartbreaking.

For most of the run, I was rerouted by obstacles: city workers trimming trees — turn right, here! — trucks sweeping the streets — now left — a parks’ vehicle clearing off leaves on the path — better stay in the grass! — a few more parks’ trucks patching the path — time to cross back over to the road! — a young kid with an adult — no narrow Winchell Trail for me today. A meandering run.

I could make a list of things I noticed — shrieking squirrels, squeaking leaves, wet and sloppy mud, yellow and red and orange leaves, beeping trucks — but the thing I’d like to remember most is the circle of bright, burning light through the gap in the trees as I ran down the small hill just past the double bridge: the sun reflecting off the rough surface of the river. Wow! No color, just pure shine, burning bright through the trees.

Rust

Before I went out for a run, I began to gather words about rust and planned to think about rust as I moved. Maybe it was the distraction of all of the detours or my sore legs or the joy of being outside, but I forgot. Here are the words I gathered:

1 – from Leaves/ Lloyd Schwartz

You’ll be driving along depressed when suddenly
a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
won’t last. But for a moment the whole world
comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives—
red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion,
gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations
of burning.

2 — from 8 august 2023

Listening to the line in Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood”: 

Did you have to do this?
I was thinking that you could be trusted
Did you have to ruin what was shiny?
Now it’s all rusted

and thinking about shiny vs. rusted, and rust in the fall, then I noticed some rust on one of the big metal tubes all around the neighborhood that the city is using for their sewer work — Scott says these tubes get placed vertically in the ground and the workers stand in them as they do their work.

3 — from 18 april 2023

I’m very interested in rust as a color too. I last mentioned in on March 13, 2023 with Schuyler and ED’s “elemental Rust.” I’m thinking of it less as a color-as-noun (like brownish reddish orange), more as color-as-verb and in relation to erosion, decomposing, crumbling — this is where it connects with texture. Does this make any sense, even to me? Not sure, but it seems helpful to think of rust in relation to shiny. Are they in contrast to each other? Only if you imagine shiny and sparkling as new, which isn’t always the case.

4 — Crumbling is not an instant’s Act (1010)/ EMILY DICKINSON

Crumbling is not an instant’s Act
A fundamental pause
Dilapidation’s processes
Are organized Decays —

‘Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul
A Cuticle of Dust
A Borer in the Axis
An Elemental Rust —

Ruin is formal — Devil’s work
Consecutive and slow —
Fail in an instant, no man did
Slipping — is Crashe’s law —

5 — from 11 march 2023

The sky
Colors itself rosily behind gray-black and the rain falls through
The basketball hoop on a garage, streaking its backboard with further
Trails of rust, a lovely color to set with periwinkle violet-blue.

A rosy sky behind gray-black clouds? Not pure reddish-pink or pinkish-red but the hint of it behind something darker. The rust — did I see rust anywhere on my run? I don’t think so.

6 — from 8 march 2023

Before heading out for my run, I had started revising my “How to Sink” poem. Thought I might get some inspiration by the gorge. Later, as I ran, I realized that I should wait to finish this poem when it’s spring, or at least warmer, when everything is dripping and oozing and flowing down to the river. I thought of this as the sharp flurried stabbed my face. Was thinking that I should do a “How to” poem related to water through the seasons. 

Summer = How to Float

Spring = How to Sink

Winter = How to Settle? — something about snow that’s packed, layer, staying (not melting), compacting — How to be compact? or, How to Shrink?

Fall = I need to think about this one some more. What does water do in the fall? Maybe something related to decomposing — leaves falling, drying up, becoming brittle? water leaving — freezing — frost? fog? or, How to Rust?

7 — from 20 january 2023

Noticed all of the rusty orange leaves still on the trees near the tunnel of trees. 

8 — from 13 november 2022

rusty brownish red stain on the lake st bridge

9 — from Perennials/ Maggie Smith

You can hear 
the sound of wind, which isn’t
wind at all, but leaves touching. 
Wind itself can’t speak. It needs another
to chime against, knock around.
Again & again the wind finds its tongue,
but its tongue lives outside
of its rusted mouth.

9 — from 22 october 2021

As I was running through minnehaha regional park, I thought about the things that have stayed the same, the things that have changed, and what seems to still be present as living and vital, and what only remains in decay, or in the faintest traces of what it had been. I was thinking about this as I ran by the playground, which was redone five or so years ago, but still has some old equipment, like the creaky, rusty swings. Something about that reminded me of a few lines from Poe’s “The Bells,” especially the bit about the rust.

Hear the tolling of the bells—
                 Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
        In the silence of the night,
        How we shiver with affright
  At the melancholy menace of their tone!
        For every sound that floats
        From the rust within their throats
                 Is a groan.

10 — from 28 october 2021

Reading through Poe’s “The Bells” again, I’m thinking about how the bells in this verse are not clock bells, tracking the precise, steady passing of time (which reminds me of the lines about the blind, dumb clocks and no time for the martyr). These bells toll, groan, moan, roll, throb, sob, knell. The sound of the bells floats from rusty throats, is muffled, melancholy. When it is mentioned that they keep time, it is not the time of life, but of death.

oct 21/RUN

6.2 miles
minnehaha dog park and back
53 degrees
wind: 15 mph

Back on track with the weekly “long” run with Scott. Today we ran past the falls to the dog park, then turned around. Beautiful but windy. Not sure if this has ever happened before, but a gust of wind blew my cap off my head. I joked with Scott that the wind was mad at me for the bad poetry I was composing. Something about how the bright sunlight strobed through the trees while the leaves disrobed and the wind probed the empty space where red and gold and green had been. Pretty bad — I guess I deserved to get my hat knocked off. Thankfully I was able to catch the cap before it blew into the street.

After we passed the falls, which were in full flow, I recited Mary Oliver’s “Can You Imagine” to Scott as we followed the paved trail on the edge of the bluff, above Minnehaha creek as it travels to the Mississippi. When I was finished he admitted he had become distracted when I recited the line, Surely you can’t imagine they just stand there loving every minute of it” because he started thinking about the song with the lyrics, “loving every minute of it.” At the time I couldn’t remember who sang it or how it went, but I just looked it up. Loverboy. Excellent.

10 Things

  1. a bright yellow tree
  2. next to a fiery red one, both glowing from the sun
  3. my favorite orange tree near the double bridge, now bare and looking brittle
  4. 3 roller skiers! Before I saw them, I heard their poles click click clacking
  5. a pileated woodpecker laughing, somewhere in the trees
  6. another woodpecker tap tap tapping away at the roof of the kiosk
  7. May Swenson’s scarcely gliding stream from her poem “October”: Minnehaha Creek as seen from the tall bridge that crosses over the Veteran’s Home
  8. from the top of the bluff at Wabun Park, you have a clear view of the new development on the old Ford plant grounds
  9. the glitter effect: the sparkling water burning through a gap in the trees
  10. dodging walkers, a few with coffee cups, as we sprinted down the hill and through the tunnel of trees

oct 19/RUN

4.1 miles
minnehaha falls and back
51 degrees / light rain

Ran to the falls. Everything yellow, red, orange. Wow! Encountered some walkers as I got closer to the falls, one or two runners. Chanted triple berries — strawberry/ raspberry/ blueberry. Also recited Mary Oliver’s “Can You Imagine.” I remember starting it, but I don’t think I finished it, and I can’t remember where I stopped. The Minneapolis park workers were out again, patching up cracks in the asphalt with stinky, steaming tar. The falls were gushing. As I ran by them, 3 teenage boys sprinted past me, on their way to the steps. The mother in me hoped they didn’t fall down the slippery stairs. I stopped at my favorite spot on the other side of the park, near where Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” is etched into the limestone wall, to admire the falls. Today, before starting to run again, I decided to take some video of my view:

The view from my favorite spot of Minnehaha Falls

notes about what I saw: As I was taking this video I saw a flash of movement below: it was one of the teenage boys running over the bridge that crosses the creek after it’s fallen. I tried to pan down to capture him on video, but I can’t see him. Can you? Also, to the left of this frame, there was a person with an easel set up, painting this view from a different angle. When I had approached the spot, I knew there was something/someone else there but I couldn’t tell what/who it was and I didn’t want to stare. It was only after I started walking away and saw the person through my peripheral vision that I figured out what was there.

The rain came in the last mile of my run, right after I finished filming myself running up the edge of the world. (Oops. I screwed up the camera by not starting it when I thought I did. I’ll have to try filming this view some other day). Good timing! I didn’t mind getting wet — I already was, from sweat.

I listened to water dripping, kids yelling from across the road, a dog yipping, the falls rushing, leaves squeaking on the way to the falls. I put in Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” on the way back, but took it out and listened to more water and wheels and my own breathing while running on the Winchell Trail.

We’re getting closer to the end of October and the cold is coming. Looking back through old entries, it had already snowed by this day in past years. Here’s a poem I found in the New Yorker that gets me in the mood for that cold — and it features the color blue!

Childhood/ David Baker

I miss the cold, but not the cold breaking,
not the small limbs sheared, nor the icepick cold
white wind working its whole way through you
no matter your coat and gloves, and no matter
the blue scarf someone tied and tucked tight.

The same cold blue all day in the sky. Frozen
blue through limbs of the two standing elms.
Brilliant each blue. Blue the color of new
snow like wafers on the fields. Come in cold then,
and the dark comes with you, kick off your boots

and someone is rubbing your feet so they
sting, then stop stinging. Now the bruised-apple-
red bottle at the foot of your bed, steaming,
and come morning woodsmoke in the kitchen.
I miss the cold then, so cold there is singing.

oct 18/RUN

3.1 miles
2 trails
54 degrees / drizzle

Wow, so much yellow. Full fall color, I think. I was sore this morning from my run yesterday, but glad I went out to be with all of this beautiful color!

I listened to a playlist, then took out my headphones while I was on the Winchell Trail, then put the playlist back in for the last mile. Ended the run with the theme to Rocky — not on purpose; it happened to come up on shuffle.

Smelled the sewer, heard the limestone dripping, called out right behind you several times. Thought (again) about stopping at the overlook to take a picture of the wonderful view of the river, but didn’t. Instead, I stopped at the entrance to the Winchell Trail and took this shot:

At the top of some limestone steps, about to enter the Winchell Trail from the south end. In the lower right, a limestone wall. In the center, a black railing. More than half of the image is yellow leaves, mostly on trees, some on the dirt trail which used to be asphalt. On the right side, a stand of straight brown trunks.
entering the Winchell Trail from the south

10 Things

  1. 4 or 5 stones still stacked on the ancient boulder
  2. the floodplain forest is almost all yellow
  3. the sewer gas from below smelled sour and unpleasant
  4. a Minneapolis Park truck was parked in the grass above the gravel trail that descends through the ravine — are they planning to clear out more dead limbs below?
  5. encounter 1: 2 people with 2 big black dogs on the Winchell trail — right behind you / sorry / no worries. It’s a beautiful morning!
  6. encounter 2: a man with his dog — right behind you / no words, but he moved over slightly / thanks!
  7. the “edge of the world” was mostly bare, with only a few streaks of yellow left
  8. avoiding roots on the dirt trail next to edmund, imagining that I was doing agility drills
  9. taking off my pink jacket at the bottom of the 38th street steps
  10. encounter 3: 2 different people with dogs, or a dog?, bypassing the steps and continuing on the dirt trail to the oak savanna

oct 17/RUN

6.2 miles
ford loop
49 degrees

Overdressed. Didn’t need the tights under the shorts or the long-sleeved shirt under the sweat shirt. Made the run a little more difficult. Still, a good run on a beautiful fall morning. Lots of yellow today. Very fall-y.

10 Things

  1. St. Thomas bells chiming
  2. I could see my breath at the beginning of the run
  3. the light making the yellow leaves glow
  4. at least 4, maybe 5, stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  5. a biker calling out to me as I ran on the St. Paul side, good job! —Thanks!
  6. looking down at the river from up on the lake street bridge: a sandbar! I’ve read about the sandbars, and thought I saw one just below the surface, but today, there it was, fully exposed
  7. an inviting bench, perched above the gorge with an open view
  8. almost perfect moment: looking down at the water falling over the limestone ledge, sparkling in the sun, murmuring softly, framed by yellow leaves
  9. a west bound lane on the ford bridge closed off for construction, orange cones everywhere
  10. running up to the “edge of the world,” and stopping to admire the open view

I stopped on the bridge to take a picture of the sandbar:

A view from above the river, which is a blue-ish gray, with a white sandbar, strangely shaped, and a shiny circle of sun reflecting on the water. More on the strange shape of the sandbar: in its middle, where it is at its narrowest, the sandbar is covered over with water, making it look like 2 sandbars. Both above and below this spot the sandbar expands.
a sandbar in the Mississippi River below the lake street bridge

oct 13/RUN

3 miles
treadmill, basement
outside: rain, all day

My first treadmill run since last February. Wow. I listened to “Nobody Asked Us,” the podcast with Des Linden and Kara Goucher, and it helped make the time go by faster. Running inside is fine, but rarely inspiring. Sometimes a podcast or audiobook helps.

Can I possibly create a list of 10 things I noticed? I’ll try:

10 Things

  1. My treadmill faces a window that is covered over and under our deck, so no view, only dark emptiness — and the reflection of a lit bulb, looking like a full moon in a starless sky
  2. my feet hurt for the first mile; I think it might be my shoes
  3. I didn’t wear a hat or a headband and fine bits of my hair kept slipping out of my ponytail
  4. at one point these fine strands were standing straight up — static from running on the treadmill?
  5. later, these same strands were wet, dripping with sweat, and plastered against my neck
  6. hard to get into a rhythm at the start; my feet felt heavy
  7. 10 minutes into the run, everything lightened up and I felt like I was floating above the treadmill
  8. several times, my hand hit the front bar — I like to run close to the front
  9. my cheap treadmill works just enough, but not well. It won’t start until the speed is at almost 2, then it goes faster than the speed on the screen. If you adjust the speed too many times, the numbers on the screen get all scrambled. This happened today, and for over half of the run I was staring at strange, squiggly lines instead of numbers
  10. I didn’t hear or see it, but I thought about the mouse (or mice) that are probably sharing space with me down in the basement. I imagined one of them running across my feet

Did it! These things were not really about a place, but about my body. Maybe this winter, when it’s too dangerous to be outside, I should try some experiments with noticing and focusing on my body moving?

Discovered this poem the other day:

It Must Be Leaves/ Jane Hirshfield

Too slow for rain,
too large for tears,
and grief
cannot be seen.
It must be leaves.
but broken
ones, and brown,
not green.

Speaking of the phrase, it must be, I came up with a title for my poem about the color yellow, which ends with the idea that some things will always be yellow, even when I can’t see them. The title? If it’s a banana, it must be yellow. This title was inspired by a science article with the same name: If it’s a banana, it must be yellow: the role of memory colors in color constancy

oct 12/RUN

3.6 miles
locks and dam no. 1 hill
51 degrees
wind: 13 mph

My knees were sore last night and this morning and I wondered if I should go out for a run, but it’s supposed to rain later today and all of tomorrow, and I read an article that said sometimes running on sore legs is better than not running, so I ran. And I’m glad I did. My legs/knees feel better after than they did before.

Felt windier than 13 mph. It almost knocked my cap off.

I listened to beeping trucks and chainsaws and rushing wind as I ran south. When I got to the top of the hill at the locks and dam no 1 I stopped and put in a Bruno Mars playlist.

10 Things

  1. the dirt on the boulevard was sometimes dark brown, sometimes light brown
  2. more trees without leaves — have we passed peak leaf season?
  3. a parks’ truck blocking the entrance to the overlook and the winchell trail — no winchell trail for me today
  4. running up the hill, the sun came out briefly from behind the clouds, just enough for me to see the faint outline of my shadow. Hello friend!
  5. more crunching leaves in the grass — brittle, brown, formed into little mounds by the wind
  6. a rough trunk with lichen growing on it — on the north side — a faint, yellowish green
  7. several different versions of green on the tree trunk and the grass
  8. walking past a giant rectangular hole in the street — the spot where they busted open the street to work on the water pipes. Minutes before, workers had filled it with warm, bitter smelling tar (or asphalt?) Heat was coming off the filled hole, warming my legs
  9. a falling red leaf hit me on the shoulder
  10. color of the day: bright yellowish green. Not only was I wearing a shirt in that color, but I saw at least 3 other yellowish green shirts on a runner, a walker, and a biker

After staring at the yellowish greenish lichen, I took a picture of it:

A close-up image of tree bark that is rough and brownish gray (or grayish brown). There are streaks of greenish-yellow lichen on the bark. While taking this picture, with my face close to the trunk, I could see the lichen. And, if I put my face close to the screen while studying the picture, I can still see it. I can also see the lichen in the picture if I turn my head slightly and look at it through my peripheral vision. But at a normal (1 foot) distance, I can't see the lichen. It blends in, not looking yellow or green but light brown.
a close-up of a tree with lichen on its north side

oct 11/RUN

3 miles
2 trails
58 degrees

Ran in the afternoon. Much warmer. Too warm. Overdressed in my long-sleeved bright yellowish green 10 mile racing shirt. Listened to Olivia Rodrigo for the first mile, then took out my headphones for the rest. I heard trickling water, laughing and screaming kids making the kind of noise that’s on the edge between angry and joyful, wind rustling the leaves.

After I finished, walking on the grassy boulevard, dotted with dry leaves, I pulled out my phone and recording the sound:

crunching leaves / 11 oct

I started by walking through the leaves, kicking into them with my feet. Then I stepped on them. To my ears, the sound went from a crash to a crunch.

I ran the version of 2 trails in which I don’t take the 38th street steps but stay on the dirt trail through the oak savana then around the ravine. I thought about stopping to take a picture here — and many other places too, including the overlook near the southern entrance of the winchell trail — but I wanted to keep running. So I took a picture of the ravine from above and across the river road:

A road with tree shadows on it. Behind it, a split rail fence and some golden trees. Beyond it, but not pictured, is a ravine with a black wrought-iron fence and a metal slat walkway that I carefully ran over a few minutes before taking the picture. In the upper right corner, there is a yellow sign indicating a sharp curve. There are also 2 cars in the distance. When I was taking this picture, I only saw general forms: shadows trunks leaves road sky.
The split rail fence above the ravine from across the river road