Tag: headphones

june 1/RUNSWIM

run: 4.5 miles
swim: 680 yards
lake nokomis
67 degrees/80% humidity
water temp: 75.9 degrees

First, I ran around the lake (almost) twice. Slightly cooler today but still humid and very sunny. Ran without headphones, trying to work on rhythmic breathing and staying focused. Encountered lots of walkers with other walkers or strollers or dogs. Crowded. Almost all the way around for the first loop, I noticed a paddleboat hiding behind a tree on the shore. Was it abandoned or tucked away or just waiting for the paddlers to come back? Is this the same paddleboat that I saw on the grass near the fishing pier last week?  Is someone taking paddleboats from the rental place? Did the paddleboat manage to escape–seems like there’s a fun poem just waiting to be written about the bright yellow paddleboat that wanders the lake.

After finishing the run, I decided to swim. The water was warm which is amazing considering the lake still had ice at the end of April! Guess all those 90+ degree days really warmed it up fast. The water was also clear. Freak-me-out clear. I could see the bottom and the algae plants growing up from the bottom and the fish swimming below me. I have decided that it is better to swim without being able to see what I’m swimming with. If I can’t see it, I can pretend it’s not there, which is probably what it would like too. The coolest part of the clear water was seeing all the shafts of light piercing through the lake. 3, 4, maybe more. I also liked being able to look at the bottom in the beach area–I think I counted 5 or 6 hair bands, lost to their owners forever. I might have swam longer but there were a few school groups at the beach and I was concerned that some of the kids would mess with my stuff. I couldn’t tell if they were in elementary or middle school, but they sure knew how to yell out “fuck” at the top of their lungs. A kid that will brazenly yell out “fuck this” or “fuck you” or preface many words with “fucking” on a school trip might find it amusing to throw my towel in the water or take my sweatshirt. But getting back to how clear the water was, part of me wishes I had spent more time exploring underwater and studying the bottom–how deep it gets, what’s really down there. But, another part of me–perhaps a bigger part–likes the idea of keeping it a mystery. Knowing more might make me more anxious or disappointed in how un-mysterious it is.

Next time I swim, I’d like to pay attention to the sounds and sensations of swimming. What exactly do I hear besides sloshing?

may 26/RUN

2 miles
73 degrees/68% humidity/dewpoint: 62
dogwood run

Ran with Scott north on the river road to the greenway, through Brackett Park, over to Lake Street, then walked to Dogwood Coffee for an iced latte. Hot. Humid. But no swarming bugs and lots of shade. We talked most of the time. Scott about why “The Last Jedi” was a bad movie, me about a two different race disasters that I had watched on YouTube–one runner hitting the wall at the end of a 10K, another tripping over a hurdle. Noticed the tree that had blocked Scott’s path yesterday had been moved and cut up. As we ran by it I asked Scott, “I wonder how loud of a crack that tree made as it hit the ground?” I don’t think I’ve ever heard a tree fall to the ground but I bet it’s loud.

may 23/RUN

5.1 miles
67 degrees/81% humidity
the franklin loop

3 miles in, I decided to stop and walk on the franklin bridge. I’m glad I did. Looking out over the Mississippi, I saw one of the biggest birds I’ve ever seen. To me and my questionable vision, it looked almost like a mini-plane floating way up in the sky. Wow, what a wing span! Could it have been a broad-winged hawk or an eagle or a kestrel or a falcon? No idea, but it was cool to see. Tried rhythmic breathing while chanting in my head:

raspberry/coulis
strawberry/custard
mundane is/monday
terrible/tuesday
wonderful/wednesday
terrific/thursday
fabulous/friday
saturday/so so

Not sure how it works for me, but I’ll try it again next time I run. Didn’t see the Daily Walker but was able to greet a few other runners. Didn’t see many bikes or roller-skiers or dogs. Smelled some lilac bushes. Heard the hum of traffic and the shuffle shuffle scratch scratch of my feet on the gritty path. I finished at my favorite part of the path and before the mosquitoes found me, I enjoyed stopping and peering down into the gorge. And I realized: I’ve been writing about the gorge in the summer as having a thick, green veil that blocks your view. That’s not quite right. The trees are thick and you can’t see the river, that’s true, but they don’t totally block your view of what’s down below. Part of what makes it feel so mysterious is how the trees are spaced out, offering quick flashes of more than green. When I look closely, I can see the steep slope and the trunks of the trees reaching above and below me. Even as I can’t see the floor of the floodplain forest, I feel it and how high above it I am. I’d like to spend more time studying this spot and figuring out how to better describe it.

bonus: here’s a great list of the birds found near the Mississippi River Gorge. What’s a mergenser or a tern? I need to find out.

may 19/RUN

2 miles
59 degrees/79% humidity
mississippi river road path, north/brackett park

Overcast. Thick, heavy air. Buggy. Relentlessly green. Cool but clammy. Went on a quick run with Scott. Kept it nice and easy and talked most of the way about the book I’m reading on rhythmic breathing. Earlier today, while I was waiting for Scott to wake up, I did a writing experiment with rhythmic breathing:

For slow, easy runs breathe in for 3, out for 2. 

In 2 3.
Out 2.
Blueberry
crumble
Raspberry
tartlet
Vanilla
custard
Strawberry
ice cream
Beautiful
dreamer
Primary
colors
Mystery
novel
Forbidden
forest
Untimely
death — update, 19 may 2024: just noticed that this only has one syllable. How did I not notice that before?
Let it be
over
Long lost love
refound
Terrible
headache.

For fast runs, breathe in 2, out 1.

Refried
beans
Oven
fries
release
doubt
embrace
me
Sara
smile
Sunshine
bright
Flowers
bloom
Tempers
flare
Striking
feet
Flailing
arms
Yelling
font
Famous
fig
Noisy
bar
Smoky
room
Salty
beer
Bathroom
line
Early
heat
Maple
tree
Thunder
thighs
Coming
storm
Nervous
dog
Gangly
knee
Giving
up
Staring
out.

So much fun!

may 17/RUN

5.15 miles
67 degrees
52% humidity
franklin loop

A good run. Steady and slow. There was cool shade and when there wasn’t, my shadow kept me company. Glanced down at the gorge and all I could see was green and a few slashes of brown. No river. No sandy path. So much green–a sea of it. I kept thinking that it was hard to distinguish between shades of green and that maybe I should think about textures and shapes instead? Soft fuzzy greens. Sharp, spiky greens. Thick, heavy greens. Ran through some swarms of bugs on the way to the franklin bridge. They flew into my eyes and my mouth until I tipped my hat so low that all I could see was the ground. Scott had warned me about them, but I was already committed to my route and decided that experiencing the bugs might make for a good story or a good description. Does it? Not sure what to say about the bugs other than that they seemed determined to drown in the fluid in my eyes. Yuck. On the east side of the river, ended up following (not too closely) a runner ahead of me for a few miles. Would I have run faster if I hadn’t been trying to keep a big distance from her? Maybe. Towards the end of the run, I got to say, “good morning” to the Daily Walker. Always a great way to end my run.

Early on in the run, I remembered a poem I read this morning. It was about cottonwood trees. I wondered, when will the cottonwood trees start snowing cotton? Probably in June.

Cottonwood/Kathy Fagan/from Sycamore

The cottonwood pollen is flying again,
Adrift like snow or ash. It lines
The curbs, it sticks to my lips
Like down to a fox’s muzzle.
I made a poem about it years ago.
We were new then. We’d set fire
To our old lives and made love day
And night, mouths full of each other.
Back then, we were a match
For June: arrogant, promising, feverish.
For as long as we live, summer returns
To us. And snow, ash, they, too, return.

may 16/BIKERUN

bike to lake nokomis and back: 8.5 miles
run around lake nokomis: 2.5 miles
73 degrees

First bike of the season! Sunny. Not much wind. A great day for a ride even with my bad vision. Biking to the lake is fun but mentally exhausting as I struggle to stay on the path. My depth perception is bad and I have trouble distinguishing between the grayish road, the grayish curb and the grayish path. Occasionally, a strip of bright green grass sandwiched between the path and the road helped me to see–another reason to love green–the edge of the path. It was much easier seeing in the bright sunlight. In the shade the light filtered through the trees and created a dappled effect. I used to like this dappling, but now it makes it so much harder to see. Everything swims around even more than usual, especially when the leaves are swaying in the breeze. Most of my thinking was focused on not running into another biker, runner, walker, or car and trying to stay on the path, but I did have a few thoughts: 1. I want to write something–a poem, a line for a poem–about the green strip of grass that helps me to distinguish between the path and road. It will be part of my larger interest in green. Maybe it will turn into a chapbook? 2. I want to document the difficulties of exercising with Best’s disease, especially biking.

Once I arrived at the lake, I ran around it. A loop = 2.5 miles. It was hot and sunny with hardly any shade. I felt a breeze a few times, but mostly hot sun and sweat and a very flushed face. I used to run around lake nokomis all the time. Now that I live 4 miles away, I only do it on long runs or if I bike there, like today. Saw lots of walkers. A few runners. Strollers, Dogs. Ducks. A hissing goose. My shadow, first to the side, then in front leading me over the bridge. Saw the shimmering water and a man precariously perched on a wall on the edge of the lake, fishing. Noticed lots of people sitting on benches, enjoying the day and one woman peering into the marshy, wetlands on the edge of the path, near the bridge. Passed a runner who was running with her phone but no headphones listening to a podcast or the news or a running app? When I started my feet felt heavy and awkward. I wondered if I would be able to run the whole loop without feeling miserable. Soon, I felt better and even though it was hot, I mostly enjoyed it. Ended the run by wading in the water, which up until 2 weeks ago was still covered in ice. Instant ice bath for my knee! No profound thoughts. No runner’s high. No super fast splits. Just a few things remembered and some interesting moments to record. And a sense of joy that summer is coming and I get to spend it at this lake, swimming and biking and running and writing.

may 14/7 MILES

65 degrees
75% humidity
bohemian flats and back

Spring! A great run all the way to the flats and back. Was planning to stop and get water at the drinking fountain at the park, but it wasn’t turned on yet. Heard lots of birds, including a bunch of geese on the other side of the river. Enjoyed running on the sand on the edge of the path, making a great shuffling noise. Also ran in the dirt, right by the river and near a goose who appeared ready to hiss. Saw lots of strollers, a few runners, walkers, bikers. No rowers. Only a few dogs. Dodged some shoes and a jump rope blocking the path at the bottom of the Franklin bridge. Was able to greet the Daily Walker at the end of my run. Chanted “strawberry raspberry blueberry” and “I am flying, I am free. I am where I want to be.” Felt strong at the end of the run. Experienced a pang of doubt when I was almost finished, thinking about how today’s distance is barely half of what I will be running in a month and a half.

I know that running is all too often seen as an introspective activity, but running breaks down the barriers between what we think is inside us and what we see as being outside. Running unites us with places and creates emotional connections with them in ways that are not easily accounted for.

Runners know in their hearts that when thoughts move, we think them differently (Footnotes: How Running Makes Us Human, 84-85).

may 8/5.5 MILES

71 degrees
franklin hill turn around

Green. So green! Everywhere I ran, I saw light green. Maybe like the color of the inside of an avocado or the tips of asparagus or the skin of a pear? Running above the floodplain forest, I quickly glanced down. Almost all I could see were green leaves and just the faintest memory of a sandy path winding through the woods to the river. I think it looked even greener because rain was coming. Now, as I write this a few hours later, it is raining and will be for the rest of the day. I like how green looks when the sky is gray. Of course, it’s shimmers in the sunlight, which is beautiful, but the clouds do something special to the green–at least as I see it, with my diseased eyes. It’s more vibrant or deeper or melancholy or? I’m not sure, but I’ve always liked cloudy overcast rainy green best.

I ran down the Franklin hill and kept going for a few more tenths before turning around. Ran back up the hill for a little bit then walked for about 2 minutes. Then ran the rest of the way home. It didn’t feel easy, but I know it wasn’t that hard. But hard enough that I found it difficult to do much more than think about how much I had left to run. Tried chanting “raspberry strawberry blueberry” which helped keep me focused. Did I notice much else? Lots of cars driving on the river road–a steady stream. My pony-tail was dripping a lot of sweat on my shoulder. The wind felt good in my face. Saw the Daily Walker but wasn’t able to greet him. The river in the flats looked brownish-gray. When I got tired of running and wanted to be done, I paid attention to the white line on the path, dividing the bikers from the walkers. Mostly unbroken white with a few worn patches. I think they painted this line last spring. I wonder if they’ll repaint it this year?

In honor of so much green, I found a few green poems on Poetry Foundation that I like:

Green/D.H. Lawrence

The dawn was apple-green,
The sky was green wine held up in the sun,
The moon was a golden petal between.

She opened her eyes, and green
They shone, clear like flowers undone,
For the first time, now for the first time seen.

Answer in Green/Florence Dickinson Sterns

I spoke to the grass that brushed against my knees:
Are you the answer or Empedocles
Who gave to life a scientific core,
And thus proclaimed himself conspirator
With what a man can dedicate to reason?

Does science solve the problem of the season,
That gives a blossom to the bough or ice to the eaves,
Or brings a livelier color to the changing leaves?

We rustle pages of our Aristotle,
And keep the Hylozoists in a bottle.
Unlike the ancient Genji lost to view,
They claimed a philosophic residue
Persisting through a labyrinth of years.

A robin does not argue. It appears.
It lives its day and lets discussion pass.
“Perhaps you’ve solved the problem,” said the grass.

The Green Eye/James Merrill

Come, child, and with your sunbeam gaze assign
Green to the garden as a metaphor
For contemplation, seeking to declare
Whether by green you specify the green
Of orchard sunlight, blossom, bark, or leaf,
Or green of an imaginary life.

A mosaic of all possible greens becomes
A premise in your eye, whereby the limes
Are green as limes faintly by midnight known,
As foliage in a thunderstorm, as dreams
Of fruit in barren countries; claims
The orchard as a metaphor of green.

Aware of change as no barometer
You may determine climates at your will;
Spectrums of feeling are accessible
If orchards in the mind will persevere
On their hillsides original with joy.
Enter the orchard differently today:

When here you bring your earliest tragedy,
Your goldfish, upside-down and rigidly
Floating on weeds in the aquarium,
Green is no panorama for your grief
Whose raindrop smile, dissolving and aloof,
Ordains an unusual brightness as you come:

The brightness of a change outside the eye,
A question on the brim of what may be,
Attended by a new, impersonal green.
The goldfish dead where limes hang yellowing
Is metaphor for more incredible things,
Things you shall love among, things seen, things known.

may 5/7 MILES

58 degrees
mississippi river road path, south/minnehaha falls/minnehaha creek/lake nokomis/minnehaha parkway/falls/mississippi river road path, north

7 miles without stopping. I ran slow, but I still did it. A beautiful morning. Low humidity, slightly cloudy, light breeze. Everything had a hint of green. The lake was open–no more ice. The ice out (which is what they call it when the ice is completely off the lake) happened on April 30th. Last year: March 7th! Saw a rower at the lake. Heard some rowers on the river. Ran on my favorite part of the creek path. Encountered lots of bikers. A few groups of runners. Some serious rollerbladers. Heard lots of birds. People chatting, including a woman who exclaimed, “well, they shouldn’t have the job!”–whatever that means. Around mile 6 started to have that dazed feeling. Not quite a runner’s high, but a feeling of disconnection, like I was in a dream, just me and the path stretching out in front.

3 times I encountered people stopping on the path, slightly blocking it. First time: near my favorite part of the path 2 women stopped to admire some chalk drawings that were covering the entire path–I didn’t stop to read them. Who drew them? Second time: at Lake Hiawatha, right before the bridge. 2 bikers stopped on the edge of the path, right before the bridge, at a blind corner. Lamenting something that wasn’t there this year–not sure what. I was too distracted imagining a bike going 20 mph, rounding the corner and hitting them. Third time: almost to the top of the hill on the river road path between the locks and dam and 44th street. A shirtless runner was stretched out on the ground, blocking part of the path, holding up his phone to take a picture. Strange.

may 3/5.9 MILES

66 degrees
ford loop

Sunny. Low humidity. Low wind. Warm. Too warm. 55-60 would be perfect. Struggled with this run for the last several miles. Had to convince myself to keep going by chanting, “I am flying, I am free. (And) I am where I want to be.” It worked. I didn’t stop, but the run still felt difficult. Mainly, my legs hurt. Still, I did it. I kept running and I pushed through several moments when I really wanted to stop.

Things I remember? So many birds! The bright, light (almost lime) green of new leaves on the trees in the floodplain forest. My view of the river will be blocked too soon! My feet, sometimes shuffling, sometimes sizzling, on the gritty path as I crossed the lake street bridge. Hearing a sound near the Summit ravine and wondering, is that the rush of air or water gushing out of a pipe? After hearing more water gurgling under the path as I ran over a manhole, decided it was water. Looked down in the ravine and noticed only a trickle of water in the creek bed. Is this part of Bridal Falls–the waterfall that I wrote about last fall when I discovered east river flats? Running mostly on the dirt trail next to the path on the St. Paul side. Getting a quick glance at a runner just behind me, then looking again a few minutes later and not seeing them anymore. Where did they go? Running under the ford bridge and up on the other side–much easier, the hill isn’t as steep. Negotiating with myself: keep running until you get to folwell. now keep running until dowling. now keep running until the florescent crosswalk sign. now keep running until..no? okay stop (just short of 6 miles).

Started reading a new book about running, Footnotes: How Running Makes us Human. In the introduction, here’s how the author describes the runner’s high:

The sun warms the earth beneath my feet, everything looks saturated with pigments, and if I can keep going long and steady enough a wave of ecstasy will soon break over me. And when that comes, the burrs, the static and the clamor of the everyday will be washed clean from me. Virginia Woolf called them ‘moments of being’: those few seconds when we are only ourselves, and our senses reverberate with the pleasure of the present (xi-xii).

He uses words like immediate, raw, urgent, overwhelming, calm, invincible, super-sensitive. I have felt all of these things to some degree but also other things: grateful, at peace, removed, joyful, capacious, generous, open, machine-like. I did not feel any of these things today. Today, I was too focused on keeping going to feel much of anything.