Slick and sweaty with Anne Sexton on the Lost Lake Trail

Today I ran the Lost Lake Trail with my faithful and limpy dog, The Beester. She doesn't limp during the runs, but after we get home the poor girl often can't get out of bed without a push. But she loves to run! She scolds me with little yipes whenever I pause or slow down (she's 11 this year, a lab and husky mix).

The run was awesome. It was overcast and humid, and I veered off on the winter trail, which is steep with killer hills as it heads up the mountain. I was wet with sweat after the first half mile and for some reason, and maybe it was the green of the new leaves, I couldn't stop reciting lines from that Anne Sexton poem as the trail became steeper and steeper: "I know well the grass blades you mention, the furniture you have placed under the sun." I repeated that to myself over and over until it found a cadence with my breathing.

How odd that I would repeat lines from a poem titled "Wanting to Die" when I felt so very much alive. But poetry can do that to you, get inside your blood and swim up when you least expect it.

The trail was muddy. I didn't have my camera with me but here are my shoes after I got home:

I almost lost my shoes in a couple of spots. I love running in mud. It makes me feel tough and gritty to finish streaked and dirty.

I clogged the drain when I took a shower, I was THAT muddy, hee, hee.

Unfortunately, when I got up higher on the mountain there was still snow, and I mean deep snow. I postholed up to my hips a couple of times. That was miserable, since I had on shorts and a tank. I thought about turning around but Beebs yiped so I kept on until we reached the cabin.

Coming back down was fast and furious after we cleared the snowy spots. Think running down a mountain for 2.5 miles and you've kinda got the picture. Mud sucked at my shoes and Anne Sexton cleared out of my head and instead I sang this refrain, over and over: "Turn the beat around, turn it up, turn it up, turn it upside down."

What a glorious thing, to run down and down after killing yourself struggling up and up.

My time sucked, since I had to walk through the deep snowy parts, but no matter. It was an easy run day and I had a blast, and except for the first 500 yards by the parking lot, I passed no one. I had the mountain to myself, just me and The Beebster.

Later, after I got home, I thought about Anne Sexton and wondered if she would have been a runner, if she had been born a little bit later, in a little bit different time. I can imagine her digging in deep and running a marathon. I wish I could have run trails with her. I like to think of her running beside me and singing out poems as we wind through mountain trails. (Anne, wherever you are, today's run was for you.)

My very favorite Sexton poem.

Her Kind

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.

Memorial Day Weekend Run

Memorial Day weekend is probably my favorite holiday, and not because it usually falls on my birthday but because it reminds me of my father. He died when I was six and sometimes I think I've been missing him my whole life. When we were young, my mother and grandmother would take us to the cemetery and my sisters and I hopped from gravestone to gravestone, trying not to touch the grass as my mom and gramma fixed up their husbands' graves. It's a happy and comforting memory.

So today as I ran 13.3 miles in the sunshine I thought of many things: Life and death and choices and how random it all is, how the fact that we are all alive and breathing in such a small miracle. Because when you think about it, there is so much damned beauty in the world.

Here are a few pieces of beauty from today's run along Resurrection Bay:

And the loonnggg hill, which was so fun to run down and so not-so-fun to run back up on the way home:

The run went well. I ate organic cereal two hours prior and then half of a Shot Blok every 20-30 minutes during the run. Nutritionally, I felt strong.

The problem was the traffic. Since it's a holiday weekend Seward is packed with tourists, cruise ship passengers and Alaskans driving down from other parts of the state. I'm used to running in the middle of the road and alas, I had to run on the shoulder, which was narrow and sloped. Plus all of those RVs and rental cars zooming past--ugh!

Still, it was an awesome run and after I finished, I grabbed the dog and headed out to Fourth of July Beach, which is tucked away in a secret area that most tourists don't know about, and we like it that way just fine, thank you very much. I'll post pics of the beach later. It's incredible, like something out of a travel poster.

Running: 13.3 miles, 2 hours, 2 minutes 9:10 pace
Reading: "Fear of Flying," by Erica Jong  (Oh Erica, how I admire thee)
Writing: Almost finished with Chapter Four of my very, very final novel edits

My Sucky 10K Race

I ran a really sucky 10K race last weekend, the kind where you feel like crap from the very first step and want to quit the whole way and wonder why in the hell you paid money to do something so stupid as to run down a road in the middle of nowhere in Alaska for a lousy tee-shirt that probably won't fit.

That was me. I signed up for the Exit Glacier Run the day before the race, and forget the fact that I had just run a hard 12.5 miles, I was sure I would hit a 48:40 or, the worst case scenario, a 49:20.

I finished in 50:21. Worst yet they typed in my results wrong and credited me with 50:31.

Ouch!

I don't think I've ever felt so crappy during a race. I truly wanted to quit, and I never quit, not even in practice runs.


The race was over Exit Glacier Road (duh!), and they bussed us out to the start and let us loose to run back, which meant that we ran into a strong wind the whole way. But that wasn't the problem. It was me. I felt heavy and fatigued.

The course was marked in kilometers and by the time I reached the first, I was ready to quit. By the second, I was thinking of outs: I could pretend to fall and twist my ankle; I could fake an asthma attack.

The fourth kilometer was unspeakable, it was THAT bad. Luckily I was running with a woman named Jen from Anchorage (thanks, Jen!), and if not for her, I think I would have curled up on the side of the road and died.

When I hit the fifth kilometer marker, though, I knew I could finish. Three miles was the middle of a tempo run or a segment of a pace run. I could suffer that long. I even managed to pick it up the last mile and run a fairly decent 7:30 pace. But it was, as the old saying goes, too little too late.

It was a humbling experience and whacked my confidence a bit. I suppose it's good to get whacked every once in a while, though. It keeps one hungry for better things.

Running: Exit Glacier 10K: 50:21
Reading: "Slow Motion" Dani Shapiro

Tonsina Point Run

Tonsina Point! This is fast becoming one of my favorite runs. The trail is quirky and runs through creek runoff, making for steep and slick footing. Then, just when you're becoming impatient, it evens out to spruce forests and later, birch trees with soft, even footing.

The trail isn't very long but there are enough hills and switchbacks to give it a bit of heft. I went at low tide and was able to run on the beach.

The forest section on the way back (please excuse my dog's rump. She likes to show off sometimes).

Seward is a paradise when the sun shines. Unfortunately, it rains most of the time.

Last week it rained every day. Every. Day. Running in rain in 42 degrees temps is NOT pleasant. It's difficult to stay warm, impossible to stay dry. But as they say in 17th century novels: One must endure.

Running: 5 miles, today
7.4 miles pace yesterday, 60.23, 8:09 pace

Writing: Chapter Four final edit is NOT going well, sigh, sigh

Moose kickin' day

Swamped with work but saw this and I HAD to share. A woman up in Anchorage tried to pet a moose (pet a moose, for Christ sake) and was kicked.

What was she thinking?

Read about it here.

More slumpy, slippery joy

I was supposed to support my team at the Iditarow this afternoon but the sun was shining and I didn't want to be stuck inside a stuffy gym behind a rowing machine. So I pulled on my tights and running shoes, called for The Beebs and hit the Iditarod Trail to Bear Lake. The sun was shining and it was 43 degrees, practically a heat wave.

Oh, the glory of running in the sun!

We saw a youngish musher fly by with his sled team about a half mile from the trailhead, wish I could have gotten a picture but I think it was this guy:

Travis Beals, who came in second in the Junior Iditarod two years ago. It's his dream to run the regular Iditarod race (I did a story on him and he's a really cool kid). Didn't have a chance to yell hello because he was mushing his dogs toward the river and I was trying to hold back Beebs, who wanted to run with those sled dogs more than anything, bless her poor, old 11-year-old heart.

After Beebs calmed down, we continued running toward Bear Lake, an 8 mile RT run. What a gorgeous day.

It was a slumpy and slippery run, with mushy snow up to my ankles in places while sunny areas were packed and slick. I slid and tripped and ran like heck, slid, tripped and ran like heck.

The way back was faster, why is that? Why is the return run always easier and faster?

As I ran I thought of the charactes in my new novel, I thought about problems I'm having at work, I thought about how wonderful it is to have 8 miles of nothing in my head but my own thoughts: No iPod or computer or email or Facebook or phone calls or text messages, nothing but the dog and the silence and the mountains and the trees and the luxury of my own selfish mind.

After I got back to the house and changed my clothes, I had to drive to the gym and do this:

Yep, I had to row for 30 minutes so that I wouldn't embarrass my team by slacking off on the first day of the Iditarow (We're the Rowbuts, get it? We're sponsored by a fishing company--Halibut, Rowbuts?).

The Beebs is collapsed on the floor, dreaming doggy dreams after a nice supper of brown rice and tuna. And me, I'm gonna curl up with a book and read for a few hours before buckling down and getting some much-needed work done.

Running: Saturday: 5.5 miles; Sunday, 8 miles

Reading: "The Girl Who Could Fly" by Victoria Forester. I'm kinda stuck in a young adult novel mode.

Writing: First chapter of my second novel rough-draft finished (yipppeee!!)

Joy!

My Internet connection went out today so I packed up my laptop and headed to the Sea Bean Cafe, only to find that their Internet was also down.

I took this as a sign to take the day off from work and hit the trails.

And what a day: The sun was shining, the winds were gone, and it was warm enough for just a long tech shirt. I loaded up my faithful dog, The Beebs, and headed to the historic Iditarod trail (not the race trail but the "real" trail).

The conditions were awesome. Hard packed snow that was fast, fast, fast. I planned on six slow miles, to recover from last night's tempo run, but killed the first mile in just over 8 minutes, and the second one not much slower. I finally had to force (force!) myself to slow down.

It was an awesome run, a magical run through douglas fur forest, so much silence, and flashes of sunlight through the trees. In the clearing the mountains were visible, rising up snow-covered and fierce. I love that the mountains appear so impersonal, that they don't give a damn about us, that they offer beauty and silence but no promises. They are like God: They're just there. They just are.

On the way back, I picked up the pace again and oh, the joy of running hard and fast in the cold air, the sun warm on my head, my sleeves pushed up so that my arms chapped red from the cold. Running behind the dog, no one else around but birds and squirrels. Such joy!

I finished 6.5 miles in just over 56 minutes, way too fast for a recovery run. I'm going to have to run super slow tomorrow to make up for it.

Now I'm going to make my guility pleasure food: Amy's organic mac and cheese, with lots of garlic, veggies and hot sauce.

Running: Thursday, 6 miles: One mile warm-up, four miles tempo, one mile warm-down; Friday, 6 fastish and glorious trail miles.

Reading: "Lucy the Giant," by Sherri L. Smith. I met Sherri at Hedgebrook, and she writes awesome YA novels (You go, Sherri!)

Writing: Yes, yes, and oh yes!