Category: Running Log

july 4/RUN

5 miles
austin, mn
Hog Jog 5 mile race route
72 degrees
80% humidity/ dew point: 66

Out the door by 7. Still hot. We ran the route for the 5 mile race they usually have for the 4th here in Austin. Stopped for a few walk breaks. In the shade it was fine, in the sun it was not. Very hot. We started at east side lake and ran, mostly on a trail, to Todd Park.

things I remember

  • STA talking a lot, which was nice; I’m usually the one having to talk
  • The sound of the boards on the bridge banging as we ran over them
  • Trying to quicken my cadence to match STA’s. Not to go faster, just to lift my feet more
  • A runner greeting us as we passed–“Good morning! It sure is getting hot”
  • STA telling me a story about a pedestrian bridge that collapsed a few years ago in london
  • Hearing a few firecrackers (already, at 7 in the morning) and joking that someone was pre-partying before the parade. Then we talked about how rarely we have had a drink before noon
  • Remembering past years of running in the race on this trail, especially the people–the heavy breather, the girl who stopped to puke near the end, the guy who ran fast, then stopped, then ran fast, then stopped repeatedly, all the women wearing shorts/skirt combos

july 3/RUN

3.5 miles
2 trails
75 degrees

Crowded on the upper trail. Lots of bikers, runners, walker, often in pairs or packs. Running on a shared part of the trail, moving over to give an approaching runner some room, a passing biker called out repeatedly, “you’re fine. you’re fine.” At first I thought he meant I didn’t need to worry about running into him, but then I wondered, was that his way of saying, “stay where you are, you’re fine there, don’t move over anymore?” Descending the 4 stone steps to the start of the Winchell Trail, I heard a bullhorn call out, “Women’s quads start in 4 minutes.” “Yes!”–I called out. A rowing race! I heard the start, but couldn’t see any rowers through the thick trees. I thought I heard some sloshing as I ran north and imagined it was the racing rowers below me. Maybe they weren’t, but in my world, they were. Kept on the Winchell Trail past 38th, onto the dirt leading to the Oak Savanna. Ran past the ravine, over the metal grate, up the gravel. Thought: running up a somewhat steep, loose gravel hill is the worst! Greeted an older jogger, doing a half walk, half run–“Good morning!” He greeted me back then wished me a happy fourth. “You too!” A good run. Nice to be out with other people, early-ish on a Saturday morning.

Last night, walking Delia the dog with FWA, my kneecap slipped out of place. I wasn’t doing anything strange–no turns, or curbs, or quick stops then starts. I stopped, slid it back in place, and we kept walking. It felt a little sore, so I iced it. No big deal. It is still unsettling to have no warning, just a sudden slip, a sharp pain, a strange feeling that something isn’t quite right. But, it’s also not strange, but familiar, no big deal. The capacity of the human body/mind to adapt and adjust always amazes me!

july 2/SWIMBIKE

swim: 2 miles/ 2 loops
lake nokomis open swim
78 degrees

A wonderful open swim morning. I couldn’t see the backlit orange buoys at all, but that didn’t matter. No swimming off course today, or stopping. Powerful strokes cutting through smooth, calm, fast water. Excellent. Thought about how it’s hard to daydream while swimming across the lake because I need to focus on making sure I’m still going the right way. Will this change the more I swim? I could hear the water sloshing over me as I breathed every 5 strokes. I worked on pushing down more with my left hand as it cut in under my body. Noticed lots of splashing from other people and felt smug about how little splash I create. I am not proud of my smugness, just wanted to make note of it. I might have seen some fish. Noticed at least 3 different paddle boarders crossing the path just before I got there. What an amazing way to spend a Friday morning!

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis
85 degrees

STA came with me for open swim and we are so pleased to be by the lake on this summer morning that we drove home to get our work and then biked back for the afternoon. We sat at the same picnic table we had the night before, drank some beer, ate some fries, watched 3 cute french bulldogs at a nearby table, and did a little work (STA, emails to clients/ me, reviewing notes, writing in my plague notebook). What a day! Lots of paddle boarders, sail boats, swimmers, bikers, and runners.

Morning Swim/ Maxine Kumin

Into my empty head there come
a cotton beach, a dock wherefrom

I set out, oily and nude
through mist, in chilly solitude.

There was no line, no roof or floor
to tell the water from the air.

Night fog thick as terry cloth
closed me in its fuzzy growth.

I hung my bathrobe on two pegs.
I took the lake between my legs.

Invaded and invader, I
went overhand on that flat sky.

Fish twitched beneath me, quick and tame.
In their green zone they sang my name

and in the rhythm of the swim
I hummed a two-four-time slow hymn.

I hummed “Abide With Me.” The beat
rose in the fine thrash of my feet,

rose in the bubbles I put out
slantwise, trailing through my mouth.

My bones drank water; water fell
through all my doors. I was the well

that fed the lake that met my sea
in which I sang “Abide With Me.”

july 1/BIKESWIMBIKE

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
85 degrees

Biked with STA to the lake for open swim. Not too difficult. Again, it helped that I didn’t need to pass anyone and it wasn’t that crowded. After the swim, leaving the lake, it was a little crazier. Lots of walkers on the bike path, feral kids zig-zagging on the path, a stalled surrey stuck in the middle of the trail.

swim: 3 miles/ 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
85 degrees
partly sunny/slightly choppy

Wow, this was the most difficult open swim yet. I didn’t mind the swells near the big beach, but the placement of the green buoys so far from the beach, the bright sun draining them of color and shape, and the sneaky sailboats impersonating them, it was very hard to sight anything. When I stopped a few times to get my bearings, I still couldn’t see anything. Luckily, I never got off course too much and I kept swimming for 3 loops. After the swim, I met up with STA for a beer at Sandcastle. Very nice. It really felt like covid had never happened, which was mostly good. Saw lots of cute dogs and sailing boats. A beautiful night to be out in the world instead of holed up in the house.

july’s theme

It’s the first day of July, which means a new theme. Last month was water and stone. Up until a few hours ago, I was convinced that this month’s theme would be water, especially as it relates to my swimming. But I started thinking about open swim and then wrote in my almost finished Plague Notebook, Vol 8:

not wild or natural…not a wild swim, but an open swim…not pure adventure in unchartered territory but not really urban or tightly planned either…just off the beaten path…how do I describe where and what this is—this = being = running or walking or swimming or breathing outside?

And then, after walking Delia the dog:

Thinking about the “wild” and my neighborhood. Not wild, but messy, unkempt, order still there (or the trace of order) but yards/flowers left alone to roam or wander. Not rigid, tight control or the sharpness of a trimmed, edged lawn, approximate, not tidy but not chaos, a bit disheveled, off-track but cared for, attended to, intentional

I started thinking about centers and edges, which led me back to Emily Dickinson and her circumference, but also to Mary Oliver, and her devotion to things having a place in the world, in the family of things. And now I am wondering what to do with all of these ideas, what to spend time with this month? I think all of this wandering and wondering has to do with making sense of the place I’m recognizing (and creating) for myself, swimming in a swamp that was made into a lake 100 years ago and is carefully managed by a park system. Swimming across a lake in designated areas, with hundreds of others, watched over by lifeguards. It’s not the ocean or a remote lake or a secret swimming hole, but it’s also not a safe, chlorinated, regimented pool. There are bacteria and big fish and weeds that want to drag you to the bottom.

I’m listening to the latest Between the Covers podcast with Arthur Sze. Wow, he’s amazing. He read this poem midway through the episode.

The Unnamed River/ Arthur Sze

1

Is it in the anthracite face of a coal miner,
crystallized in the veins and lungs of a steel
worker, pulverized in the grimy hands of a railroad engineer?
Is it in a child naming a star, coconuts washing
ashore, dormant in a volcano along the Rio Grande?

You can travel the four thousand miles of the Nile
to its source and never find it.
You can climb the five highest peaks of the Himalayas
and never recognize it.
You can gaze though the largest telescope
and never see it.

But it’s in the capillaries of your lungs.
It’s in the space as you slice open a lemon.
It’s in a corpse burning on the Ganges,
in rain splashing on banana leaves.

Perhaps you have to know you are about to die
to hunger for it. Perhaps you have to go
alone in the jungle armed with a spear
to truly see it. Perhaps you have to
have pneumonia to sense its crush.

But it’s also in the scissor hands of a clock.
It’s in the precessing motion of a top
when a torque makes the axis of rotation describe a cone:
and the cone spinning on a point gathers
past, present, future.

2

In a crude theory of perception, the apple you
see is supposed to be a copy of the actual apple,
but who can step out of his body to compare the two?
Who can step out of his life and feel
the Milky Way flow out of his hands?

An unpicked apple dies on a branch:
that is all we know of it.
It turns black and hard, a corpse on the Ganges.
Then go ahead and map out three thousand mile of the Yantze;
walk each inch, feel its surge and
flow as you feel the surge and flow in your own body.

And the spinning cone of a precessing top
is a form of existence that gathers and spins death and life into one.
It is in the duration of words, but beyond words—
river river river, river river.
The coal miner may not know he has it.
The steel worker may not know he has it.
The railroad engineer may not know he has it.
But it is there. It is in the smell
of an avocado blossom, and in the true passion of a kiss.

june 30/BIKESWIMBIKE

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
80 degrees

Such a beautiful day! I’m getting used to biking again, and it’s not too bad. My biggest worries: having to pass other bikers and unexpected cracks or potholes. I’m able to bike when it’s not too crowded, so that helps. Averaged about 11.5 mph. That’s probably as fast as I should safely go. As I biked, I thought about how grateful I am still to be able to bike. Maybe I’ll always be able to bike, but probably, if/when I lose all of my central vision, it will be too difficult and unsafe.

swim: 1.7 miles
lake nokomis, big beach
80 degrees/ sunny/ calm

Another great swim. Pleased with myself for pushing through my inertia and biking over to swim again today. In “sara miles” (1 mile = 30 minutes), I swam 1.5 miles. I’m starting to think that I might actually be swimming more than 1 mile in 30 minutes. Trying to decide if I should recalibrate–1 mile = 25 minutes? Yes. So, I actually swam 1.7 miles. The water was smooth and not too warm or too cold. Actually, I don’t remember feeling the temperature of the water, so it must been just right.

Things I Remember From My Swim

  1. Heard and saw at least one more military plane roaring overhead
  2. Breathed every 5 strokes
  3. Concentrated on trying to shut my mouth as I went under–I don’t ever swallow the water, but I often have it in my mouth in-between breaths
  4. My goggles were slightly fogged up for the first 20 minutes
  5. I saw several flashes beneath me. Fish, I think. Not sure what kind or how big. It’s better I don’t know
  6. Had trouble keeping track of which loop I was on–was it 3 or 4, 5 or 6? I used to have this problem a lot swimming laps in a pool. I’d always think I had done more than I had. Today, as I tried to remember, I thought about how often I am thinking too far ahead. I was losing track of my loops because I kept thinking about the next one. I’m sure this is a common problem, or at least, losing track is a common problem. Do more people lose track because their mind is wandering, or because, like me they’re thinking too much about the laps and jump ahead to the next one in their mind?
  7. Listened to the water and the sounds it made as I moved through it–sloshing, not quite an echo–what words do people use for describing underwater sounds?
  8. Near the end of the swim, I suddenly noticed some spray, like someone/something was there. Had a fish jumped out of the water? Was it a shift in the wind? I’m not sure
  9. Was briefly freaked out by a piece of milfoil that crossed my path
  10. About 30 minutes in, I felt warmed up and stronger
  11. Thought about what it might feel like to try and swim across a bigger lake or a channel–how would my body feel being in the water moving for hours? I like the idea of the challenge of swimming a far distance in open water, but I don’t like what it might do to my body–especially calf cramps. I hate calf cramps

Found this poem on a cool open water swimmer’s blog (Swimming at Dawn):

SWIMMER (FEMALE)*/ Concha Méndez

My arms:
the oars.

The keel: 
my body.

Helm:
my thought.

(If I were a mermaid,
my songs
would be my verses.)

*Translation by Nancy FreyIncluded in the poetry collection of Concha Méndez titled Inquietudes(Concerns) from 1926. 

june 29/RUNSWIM

run: 3.3 miles
trestle turn around
70 degrees
humidity: 87% / dew point: 66

A birthday run after it rained. Not a downpour, just a light shower. Everything felt cool until the sun came out and my body warmed up. Saw Dave the Daily Walker and we talked about both feeling sick a year and a half ago and meeting on the trail (march 13, 2020). He wondered if we both might have had covid. I’ve wondered too. Probably not.

Tried to see the river, but couldn’t through the veil of green. Greeted the Welcoming Oaks and intended to count the stacked stones on the ancient boulder but somewhere between the last oak and the boulder, I forgot. What happened in those 5 or 10 seconds? I think I was distracted by the clanging of a dog’s collar down below. One of the reasons I decided to run this morning was to travel through the tunnel of trees right after it rained. Everything is dark green. But by the time I had reached this spot, it had lightened up too much. Still, it was peaceful and shaded and green. I quickly glanced down below me and thought about how not being able to see the forest floor (because of the leaves and vines) made me feel higher up–floating or flying in green air.

There’s another spot on the trail, not too far past the old stone steps but before Minnehaha Academy, where the trail splits: the bike path stays above next to the road, the running path drops slightly and hugs the side of the bluff. Any time of the year, the running path is narrow here, being so close to the edge and because of a big tree at one spot–what kind of tree? probably an oak–but it becomes even more narrow in the summer when the all the green comes. Today, it was a tight squeeze. Running through, I felt the dew from a few reaching leaves.

Found this poem on poetry foundation when I searched for “rock.” My family’s farm (sold in 2004) had lots of rock piles and they were part of the legend of our family as Puotinens who persist.

Rockpile/ Robert Morgan (1985)

Sprinkled with a luminous dust
of moss and algae, the rocks seem
alive in the sunken woods, bright
as Christmas balls or peeled and
rotting globes, their maps just rags
of lichens and their worlds oblong,
broken, dented eggs. And ferns feather
through the edges of the mound like
a circle of fire around the cairn
or fallen monument. But no
pagan elders worshipped here or
committed sacrifices on this altar.
Though five or six generations
of children carried the stones out
of a field, pried them up with picks
and poles, heaved and toted them
like curses to the edge of the woods
(what frost had worked to the surface
each year like tubers and bones)
until they had a chimney’s worth
and more, piled for snakes to thread
and poison oak to wind. Though fields
they cleared have been woods for a century
and the kids who struggled the weights
from clay are now grandfathers of
grandfathers, each with his own stone.

About 10 years, I created a digital story out of old footage STA took at the farm:

swim: 3 miles/ 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
82 degrees/sunny/calm

I felt strong and didn’t stop between loops–I paused a few times to clear my goggles or adjust my nose plug or try and see where the green buoys were. I would like to try for a 5k on Thursday.

It feels like it’s getting harder to see the orange buoys. I am not having any problems staying on course, but I’m relying more on other landmarks. Is this a sign that my vision is declining more? Or, is it just where the light is and how it hits the buoys?

Things I Remember From My Swim

  1. Someone was playing a drum somewhere and whenever I briefly paused at a white buoy near a beach, I could hear the thumping. I asked STA, and he said they were playing by the overlook way across the lake. Wow, that drum was loud!
  2. At least 2 military planes roared overhead in my 3rd loop. They were so loud that several other swimmers stopped to look up
  3. I never really saw the green buoys other than the idea of them being there–not a flash of green, but a quick knowing of where they were and a sudden surge in my stroke as I confidently swam towards them. Strange
  4. The green buoys were so far over that the course was more like a square than a triangle
  5. As I said to STA, it was a birthday miracle that I didn’t plow through a few swimmers. They were swimming backstroke which, for some reason, made it more difficult to see them. Why? Were their heads lower in the water that way?
  6. One of the backstrokers bumped into me
  7. I breathed every 5, with a few 5 then 6, and a couple every 3
  8. No fish or dragonflies, but some milfoil got stuck on my head, near my goggles for a while
  9. A few worries: will I be stuffed up after this? is my calf cramping up? why are my goggles leaking slightly?
  10. Near the end of my 3rd loop, as I approached the big beach, my shoulders felt strong and big and wonderful

After typing that last bullet point, I noticed a line from Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road” that I taped on my desk that seems fitting:

I am larger, better than I thought.
I did not know I held so much goodness.

What a great birthday!

june 27/BIKESWIMBIKE

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
75 degrees

Biked to Lake Nokomis for some swimming off of the big beach. There’s an open swim at Cedar Lake tonight, but it’s too far to go twice in one week, so I’ll go there on Wednesday, which is the other day there’s an open swim at Cedar. Biking wasn’t too bad. Not too crowded, which makes it easier. My biggest problem: unanticipated ruts or potholes. I can’t see them at all, or until I’m right on top of them. My poor tires. Lots of loud thuds and cracks and pops. But no crashes or falls off of my bike. The other big thing I remember: as I was powering up the hill between lake hiawatha and lake nokomis, I suddenly hear a loud pop and then crackling. Fireworks. At 10 am on a Monday. In the bright sun. Near a random green space between lakes. Why? Luckily I don’t startle easily, because something like that might have made me fall of my bike. So loud and unexpected. I hate fireworks.

The bike ride back, after my swim, was fine too. I encountered a biker who was biking with both of his hands by his sides, and not on the handlebars. How do people do this? I suppose, part of me is envious of someone that carefree, but most of me is incredulous. So dangerous on this cracked, curved, crowded trail.

swim: 1.55 miles/ 9 loops*
big beach, lake nokomis
75 degrees/ sunny
no chop

*since I’m not entirely sure of the distance, and my watch doesn’t seem to be accurate, I’m creating my own standard here, my Sara miles (similar to “jerry miles” from the bowerman track club). 30 minutes = 1 mile, or 6 loops = 1 mile. I added the extra .05 to the distance today, because I did swim a little more and to make my total distance a whole number.

Yes! I want to bike to the beach during the day and do a swim at least once every week. The water was a great tempature and calm. And no one else was swimming around the buoys. For the first half of the swim, I counted my strokes–1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left–and tried to stop thinking. Mostly it worked, although I do remember thinking about the water, how it felt as I glided through it, or as my arms pushed it past my body. Every so often, my buoy tugged at my waist–remember me, it seemed to say, I’m here too. The water was opaque; the only thing I remember seeing was bubbles below me from the water I pushed down at the end of each stroke. A kayak and a paddle board passed by me at some point. I briefly imagined what would happen if a fish bumped into me–not bit, just bumped me.

Earlier this morning, I was reading and ruminating over Bruno LaTour’s ideas about the two shores of a river as nature and culture or truth and the dream or what is real and what is described. A classic problem in philosophy is to find a way to bridge these distant shores, to see how they connect, to link the actual world with our perceptions of it. I’ve barely skimmed it so far, but LaTour is arguing that, instead of finding/creating a bridge, we should get in the river and learn how to navigate the water between these two shores. As I swam, I thought about what kind of reality swimming is–is it real? a dream? a distortion? Then I started thinking about classic philosophical approaches to this problem, and wondered, what if the idea that there is a distinct, sharp reality–a truth–was the illusion? What if the clear divisions we believe to exist between entities–fish, water, me– are our attempt to impose order where it doesn’t exist? Not sure if this is making sense, but it’s starting to sound a lot like a poem I wrote 2 or 3 years ago, Submerged. I think I’ll try to revisit/edit it.

what is poetry?

Found this collection of definitions of poetry in a sticky note that I created on sept 8, 2017–that was about 8 months after I started this log, about 6 months after I discovered I loved poetry, about a month and a half after I injured my knee, and 2 weeks before I could run again. I wish past Sara would have noted which awesome poetry person tweeted these definitions or where to find the essay they wrote, but she didn’t. Oh well.

Well, here is a list of how several poets have defined what a poem is (lifted from an essay I once wrote): What a poem is: “The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Wordsworth). “A small (or large) machine of words” (Williams). “Language that sounds better and means more” (C.D. Wright). “A verbal contraption” (Auden). “A form cut in time” (Pound). “At bottom, a criticism of life” (Matthew Arnold). “The journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air” (Carl Sandburg). “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off” (Emily Dickinson). “An empty basket; you put your life into it” (Mary Oliver). “Somebody standing up… and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment” (Galway Kinnell). “A holy thing” (Roethke). “A momentary stay against confusion” (Frost).

a poetry person on twitter/sept 2017

Erosion/ Eamon Grennan

What the sea does–coming, going–is mole beneath the
seeming solid earth
and keep eating at it until it gives over at last its stony hold
on things
and another chunk comes tumbling. What’s strange is, after
thirty years,
I’ve never seen this happen, never been there at the pivotal
single moment
when these two conditions, these major states of being
(solidity and flux,
the rooted and the foldaway ruthless rootless heart of the
matter) meet and
mate for an instant in which sea-roar and land-groan are one
gigantic sound
and then that jawing withdrawal, that collapse, that racing
after–so foam, stones,
churn of sand, swirl of search become a wrecked mouth
bulging with one
loud clamourtongue, which the rock you stood on plunges
into, dumbing it.

O, I love this poem and the single moment when sea roar and land groan meet and mate!

june 27/RUN

4.3 miles
minneahaha falls and back
66 degrees/ dew point: 62
light rain

Ran south on the river road trail past the falls and stopped at the big statue just past the pergola garden. When I would walk or bike the kids over here, about 10 years ago, we (or was it mostly me?) called this statue “big feet” because all the kids could see was his big feet. There was also a little feet (John Stevens)–a much smaller statue not too far way. Today I wanted to find out who Big Feet actually was. I assumed he might be someone connected to Fort Snelling–Zebulon Pike or Snelling or Franklin. Nope. Gunner Wennenberg, a Swedish composer, poet, and politician. This statue was erected on June 24th, 1914. Looking him up online, I am amused by this last paragraph in the wikipedia entry (originally found in an old Encyclopedia Britannica):

Wennerberg was a most remarkable type of the lyrical, ardent Swedish aristocrat, full of the joy of life and the beauty of it. In the long roll of his eighty-four years there was scarcely a crumpled rose-leaf. His poems, to which their musical accompaniment is almost essential, have not ceased, in half a century, to be universally pleasing to Swedish ears; outside Sweden it would be difficult to make their peculiarly local charm intelligible.

Difficult to make their peculiarly local charm intelligible? Ouch. I’m not sure if any part of my ears are Swedish–Finnish and Czech and Norwegian–but I listened to one of his hymns, and I thought it was nice (I don’t like the word nice here but I’m not sure I could go so far as to say it was beautiful).

During this run, I felt strong and relaxed and sweaty. So much sweat. The temp was 66, the dew point 62. Difficult for sweat to evaporate and cool me off. I listened to a playlist so I didn’t hear any trickling or gushing water. No rowers or birds or small bits of conversation. I did feel the light rain cooling me off sometimes.

For today’s water and stone poem, I decided to search for a Swedish poet. I found Tomas Tranströmer, the 2011 Nobel Prize Winner for Poetry.

excerpt from The Half Finished Heaven/ Tomas Tranströmer

Each man is a half-open door
leading to a room for everyone.

The endless ground under us.

The water is shining among the trees.

The lake is a window into the earth.

Under Pressure/ Tomas Tranströmer

The blue sky’s engine-drone is deafening.
We’re living here on a shuddering work-site
where the ocean depths can suddenly open up –
shells and telephones hiss.

You can see beauty only from the side, hastily,
The dense grain on the field, many colours in a yellow stream.
The restless shadows in my head are drawn there.
They want to creep into the grain and turn to gold.

Darkness falls. At midnight I go to bed.
The smaller boat puts out from the larger boat.
You are alone on the water.
Society’s dark hull drifts further and further away.

june 26/RUN

4 miles
marshall loop
71 degrees/ dew point: 64

It felt hot and humid this morning. Overcast. Ran up the marshall hill without stopping until I reached the bridge steps. It was hard, but I didn’t stop. A good mental victory. Heard some rowers on the river and the coxswain directing them. Crossing back over the bridge, I stopped to read a few small pink signs affixed to the bridge. One was about hope making anything possible, another about how one road block shouldn’t stop you. The other day, as STA and I crossed the bridge in the car, we noticed that the entire bridge was covered in these signs, now only these 2 are left. STA thinks the wind might have blown them off.

Near the start of my run, descending the hill and entering the tunnel of trees, it was a dark, impenetrable green, made darker by my vision. It looked like I was running into a lightless smudge. Very cool–not scary at all. Once I was in the dark green, there was light and trees and thick air. Noticed the 4 fences I’ve written about and the stone wall framed by trees, remembering the time I saw someone perched in one of these trees–hiding? spying?

Now, after the run, I feel sore. I often feel sore in the summer. Not injury-sore but doing-more-exercise-especially-swimming-sore.

Erosion/ Linda Pastan

We are slowly
undermined. Grain
by grain . . .
inch by inch . . .
slippage.
It happens as we watch.
The waves move their long row
of scythes over the beach.

It happens as we sleep,
the way the clock’s hands
move continuously
just out of sight,
but more like an hourglass
than a clock,
for here sand
is running out.

We wake to water.
Implacably lovely
is this view
though it will swallow
us whole, soon
there will be nothing left but view.

We have tried a seawall.
We have tried prayer.
We have planted grasses
on the bank, small tentacles,
hooks of green that catch
on nothing. For the wind
does its work, the water
does its use work.

One day the sea will simply
take us. The children
press their faces to the glass
as if the windows were portholes,
and the house fills
with animals: two dogs,
a bird, cats–we are becoming
an ark already.

The guess will follow
our wake.
We are made of water anyway,
I can field it in the yielding
of your flesh, though sometimes
I think that you are sand,
moving slowly, slowly
from under me.

june 25/SWIM

2 miles/ 2 loops
open swim lake nokomis
78 degrees/ sunny

Another open swim. Since I swam last night too, I only did 2 loops this morning. Over 7 miles of swimming this week so far. I can’t remember the last time I swam this many miles in one week. Excellent. It was sunny and warm and the orange buoys were invisible. No problem. I looked for the quick flash of the silver boat bottom at the little beach and knew I was on course. I didn’t see the buoys until they were right next to me. Decided to swim without my safety buoy today. Easier. I encountered–mostly passed, which is a lot of fun–other swimmers, but mostly felt alone. Me and blurs of green and blue. Below me, the water is completely opaque. I’ve never seen the bottom of this lake, except for right next to shore. A few times I felt some slimy vegetation wrapping around my shoulder, but not much else. No sloshing of water in my ears, no strange metallic sounds rising up from underneath. I saw a few paddle boarders crossing the lake–no motorized boats are allowed on this lake, which is wonderful.

Anything else? Oh–I felt happy and powerful and confident swimming without any problems across the lake. Some of this was because my shoulders are strong and I can swim fairly fast and steadily without getting too tired, but more of it is because I can swim across without being able to see much–just enough vision to keep me on track. In the water, I don’t doubt myself or second guess what I’m doing. I don’t want to be a fish but I wish I could take more of the water with me into the rest of my life. I wonder if I do better in the water because I can’t hear or see or feel anyone judging me or trying to encourage/force me to do things the way they think they should be done?

A Swim in Co. Wicklow/ DEREK MAHON

The only reality is the perpetual flow of vital energy.
                                                                           —Montale

Spindrift, crustacean patience
and a gust of ozone,
you come back once more
to this dazzling shore,
its warm uterine rinse,
heart-racing heave and groan.

A quick gasp as you slip
into the hissing wash,
star cluster, dulse and kelp,
slick algae, spittle, froth,
the intimate slash and dash,
hard-packed in the seething broth.

Soft water-lip, soft hand,
close tug of origin,
the sensual writhe and snore
of maidenhair and frond,
you swim here once more
smart as a rogue gene.

Spirits of lake, river
and woodland pond preside
mildly in water never
troubled by wind or tide;
and the quiet suburban pool
is only for the fearful —

no wind-wave energies
where no sea briar grips
and no freak breaker with
the violence of the ages
comes foaming at the mouth
to drown you in its depths.

Among pebbles a white conch
worn by the suck and crunch,
a sandy skull as old
as the centuries, in cold
and solitude reclines
where the moon-magnet shines;

but today you swirl and spin
in sea water as if,
creatures of salt and slime
and naked under the sun,
life were a waking dream
and this the only life.

There’s a lot I like about this poem and its vivid descriptions of swimming and the water. I don’t like the repeated use of and, joining two verbs: writhe and snore, slash and dash, suck and crunch, swirl and spin. I get why he’s doing it–reflecting the energy of the sea, but somehow it doesn’t fall right on my ears. Maybe I should read it a few more times.

Spirits of lake, river
and woodland pond preside
mildly in water never
troubled by wind or tide;
and the quiet suburban pool
is only for the fearful —

no wind-wave energies
where no sea briar grips
and no freak breaker with
the violence of the ages
comes foaming at the mouth
to drown you in its depths.

I have swam in the ocean (swum?) but never more than wading and playing in the waves, never far out for an open swim. I did snorkel at the great barrier reef, but that was different. The water was calm and I wasn’t swimming much freestyle or too far, just in circles, watching brightly colored fist. Even though it scares me–especially the idea of sharks (thanks, Steven Spielberg)– I’d like to try sometime. Probably with a few other people. The lake water I swim in is mostly calm, with some chop, and once in a while whitecaps. Swimming across Nokomis is not the same as swimming in the ocean, but it’s also not the same as a pool–which can have it’s share of foam and dangers if you’re swimming in a lane with lots of other people. Lake Nokomis is strange because it was originally a swampy area, only averaging 5 feet of depth. It was dredged out and turned into a lake in the 1910s. But, it’s lake water, and it’s packed with fish, and it’s not small.