Kissing trees

Oh, I had a really bad run on Wednesday. And yet it was also a really great run. Let me explain.

I'm tentatively thinking of running the Resurrection Ultra 50-miler this year and have been doing back-to-back trail runs, not really long distance at this point so much as agonized distance, you know, a lot of gnarly hills and bad trails conditions: mud, rocks, roots higher than my ankle. And did I mention hills?

Tuesday I tackled Turnagain Arm Trail, in all of its muddy glory, and felt strong most of the way, even on the steep and frequent hills. So I went back on Wednesday and did it all over again, and I just wasn't feeling it, you know? My legs were heavy and my back sore from lifting weights the evening before and I mistakenly wore a new pair of shoes without the proper lacing, and they flopped against my ankles with each leap over each rock, and I was soon irritated and hungry and discouraged and muttering to myself... you get the picture.

My floppy-laced new shoes! Don't they look embarrassingly clean and tidy?

Mostly, though, I was disappointed to realize that I wasn't in as good as shape as I had assumed. Running for two weeks on mostly paved trails and streets in Philly and then last week on paved Coastal Trail, I had deceived myself into thinking I was stronger and faster than I actually am.

Then I hit the trails and the frequent and never-ending hills and bad footing put me in my place.

Yes, this is part of the trail.

On the way back, after straggling up the Rainbow hill (over a 1.25 miles of relentless incline and switchbacks), I seriously thought of stopping and calling MM to pick me up. But I knew I'd hate myself for quitting so I struggled on and then, I don't know, I somehow ran right past that shitty mood and started feeling happy and glorious and oh-I'm-running-on-beautiful-trails-and-everything-is-perfect. And it got so bad that I stopped to kiss a few trees, just because I could (and because no one else was around).

I felt so thankful to be back running, you see. Last year I barely hit the trails, due to a combination of a fall that messed up my knee and a brutal work schedule, and the year before I injured my foot mid-summer and was out through winter. So yes, even a tortured and agonizing run is better than sitting on my ass, watching movies and feeling terribly sorry for myself, which I'm ashamed to say I happened more than I'd like to admit.

But being injured makes a person really, really thankful to be running again, and times be damned, just putting one foot in front of the other and gliding over a trail can be enough to bring tears (the good, happy kind of tears) to the eyes. And maybe, just maybe, stop along the way and kiss a few sturdy (and sexy!) spruce and birch trees.

Running while traveling: Philly editon

When I arrived in Tucson 10 weeks ago, the first thing I did was get on blogs and map out running routes, and I found them, too, everything from paved bike paths along dried river washes to canyon and mountain trails. Discovering places to run in Tucson was easy.

Then I flew out to the Philly suburbs to visit with my sister and mother, and the running got a little bit more complicated.

I'm not a city person. My ideal view is of mountains. Yet, surprisingly, I found running through the city to be exotic. Weaving in and out of crowds, with buildings on one side and the Schuylkill River on the other, was a blast. And thanks to Google map, I found more than enough running routes including everything from flat and paved bike paths to wooded trails and out-of-the-way hilly trails tucked around a college campus. Below are a few of my favorites.

Kelly Drive: A paved and flat bike trail winding around the Schuylkill River, past boat houses (on weekends you can often catch the regattas). The path leads past the Philadelphia Museum of Art, also (sadly) known as the "Rocky" museum, which features the steps that Sylvester Stallone ran up in the movie. An interesting note: My sister is friends with a man who was one of the kids running with Stallone in the movie and, according to him, they had to do numerous takes because the kids kept beating Stallone to the top of the steps, hee, hee).

Haverford Nature Trail: This 2.5 mile wooded loop spanning Haverford College in Ardmore, outside of Philly, was a welcome surprise. The surface is packed dirt, with just enough rutted areas to keep it interesting. It also varied enough in scenery that multiple loops didn't become boring. An added plus: Afternoons often included yummy college guys running shirtless.

Forbidden Drive Trail: Oh, I loved this trail! Wide packed dirt, smooth surface, lots of trees, and Wissahickon Creek running alongside. A good place to pack on the miles, though according to my sister, it isn't always a safe area for a woman running alone, there have been numerous rapes plus an area by the covered bridge without cell phone reception. My advice: Run on weekends during peak times or with a running buddy.

Cynwyd Heritage Trail and West Laurel Hill Cemetery: The Cynwyd Trail is only a couple of miles from my sister's house and offered two miles of paved and dirty trail (four miles out and back). A nice place for a quick run and to get away from traffic. The bordering West Laurel Hill Cemetery offers great hills and a relaxing place to zone out and pick up a few extra miles.

The most surprising thing about running in Philly, though, was how much I enjoyed it. The weather was warm, and as long as I stuck to side streets there was little problem with traffic.

I've always believed that I could never be happy without mountains or quick access to wilderness area. But walking and running through Philly, alone and with my sister, offered me a different perspective, and I soon understood that happiness comes from within, and that as long as I have places to run, places that offer long, uninterrupted miles, I can be momentarily and spontaneously content.

A quick cheer: A big yippee (yippee!!) to Karen Kidwell, who PRed in Boston Marathon on Monday with a killer time of 3:30. I've been following Karen's blog for years and had the opportunity to meet her last year, which was a welcomed pleasure. Way to go, Karen! You are awesome and madly fast. P.S. Her hubby Matt also PRed.

Rock the Boston hills, okay, Karen? P.S. I "borrowed" this pic from your blog, hee, hee.

Mileage last week:
Monday: 10 miles (last Philly run)
Tuesday; Traveling
Wednesday: 7.5 miles, Coastal Trail
Thursday: 11 miles, Chester Creek Trail
Friday: Rest day: Weights and bike plus power walking Kincaid Park hills
Saturday: 6.5 miles, Turnagain Arm Trail
Sunday:  5 miles w/ surges, Campbell Tract Trail
Total: 40 miles

Bliss

I must admit that I had a bit of a time adjusting to Alaska. After seven glorious weeks in Tucson and two in Philly, Anchorage felt gloomy and cloudy and cold.

Probably because it was gloomy and cloudy and cold.

Still, once I hit the trails I felt better. I ran the first couple of days back on the Coastal and Chester Creek Trails, which are paved bike trails through wooded areas and along the inlet. The views are beautiful and while I enjoy running these, I couldn't wait to revisit my beloved and rugged "real" trails.

I don't know why I love trail running so much, if it's the rough footing, which forces me to use more of my senses, or the feeling of being surrounded by trees and mountains and water, which makes me feel smaller and less significant but also part of a larger whole.

All I know is that the longer I run, the louder my heart sings.

I can't wait for the snow to clear in the higher elevations so that I can hit the mountain trails. Until then, I've been loving the Turnagain Arm Trail, which is south facing and filled with steep hills and roots and rocks and all manner of wild and wonderful things.

Bye, bye Tucson (and visits by two rattlesnakes)

A week and a half ago I left Tucson. It was 85 degrees and I had a twisted ankle, bad cold and a heavy heart. I didn't want to leave. Living for so long in Alaska, I had forgotten what a gift it is to wake up to warm temperatures and sunshine. It made me realize that I'm more of a warm weather person than an Alaska person, though I do love Alaska dearly and madly, especially in the summer when the twilight spreads out over the land and I run Flattop after midnight, no one else around, and all of that silence.

Trail to Seven Falls

Catalina State Park

Phoneline Trail, Sabino Canyon

Black Bear Trail.

My last week in Tucson MM arrived and we moved from the beloved house I had sublet for six weeks (hopefully I'll be back there again in December and January) to a week-long vacation rental with a very tiny kitchen and very lovable dog, Ben. After losing Beebs earlier this year, it was nice having a dog to pet and hug, nice having the smell of dog in my nose, nice curling up with his head pressed against my leg.

Ben!

I ran a lot while in Tucson, averaging about 40-45 miles a week, and most of it on trails during the weekend, when I rented a car and headed to Sabino Canyon or Catalina State Park. During the week I ran at Reid Park or around the side streets. What I love about Tucson is the low-keyed atmosphere of the side streets. Third Avenue is a designated bicycle route and cars aren't allowed access off main streets, which keeps the traffic down. Riding a bike and running through Tucson, with the heat pressing down on my shoulders and the sky blue and nothing but the sound of my feet over the pavement and birds singing (the birds there sing all day, not just morning and evening) felt so peaceful and serene that I often couldn't stop smiling.

The second to last week I twisted my ankle and stupidly kept running. Why do I never learn? Why can't I accept the fact that when something hurts, it's probably time to stop running and start walking to the trailhead?

View from Blackett's Ridge.

Sabino Canyon

I bought a cheapo ankle brace at Target and MM and I ran lightly and hiked for the rest of the week. Okay, maybe I didn't exactly run lightly but I did try and keep my mileage down. We hiked Blackett's Ridge and ran (lightly!) all over Sabino and Ventana Canyon.

Top of Blackett's Ridge

One of the most memorable times was running up Phoneline Trail at dusk and then down to upper Sabino Canyon Road. We crossed the creek and lay in the sand, staring up at the sky. Then we ran to the top of the canyon and back in the moonlight, no on else around, the canyon gleaming white in the moonlight. It's something I'll never forget.

Two days later, we returned. It had become hotter in that short amount of time, with temps rising from the 70s to the high 80s, and we started off right before dusk, to escape the worst of the heat. A half mile up the trail we heard a rattle and both jumped back. "Rattlesnake," I yelled, but I wasn't too worried. The snake was off the trail in the brush and basically saying, "Hey, I'm here, just let me be, okay?"

Our friend, the snake

Later, we lay on a large rock stretching out over the canyon and watched the sun set, the sky glowing pink and darkness falling around us.

Halfway down, in the dark, we heard it again, another rattlesnake (what are the chances of coming across two different snakes in one evening?), this one louder, more persistent. We jumped back and rummaged in our packs for our headlamps. We didn't see the snake in the trail but we could hear it, and it was close. I led, since I knew the trail, with MM close behind me. We had to walk past where we knew the rattlesnake was, and we had to do so in the dark, with the puny glow of our headlamps. There was no other way, since directly to our right the trail dropped down to the canyon and to our left was the ridge.

So we moved forward and really, it wasn't that bad. Right when I rounded the bend, right when I thought we had made it, there was the rattle again, and it was loud and fierce and angry sounding. MM pushed me and I ran like hell, stumbling through the dark until the rattle died down.

We had to walk the rest of the way (about two miles) down to the bottom of the canyon in the dark, with every step wondering if we'd encounter another snake. We sang dumb songs and laughed, the way you always laugh when you're on edge and trying to distract yourself from your own precarious vulnerabilities.

When we reached the creek we lay in the sand again and stared up at the sky. There was a large ring circling the moon and it felt like such an undeniably perfect moment, the warm darkness and the sound of the creek and memory of the rattlesnakes leading us in and out of danger.

Birthday memorial run

Yesterday was my dead sister's birthday.

I used to set out food for her each year, since she died of complications of an eating disorder and I figured that her ghost must be hungry, but a few years ago I began running instead.

My sister, Cathie, and her dog Barney.

This year I'm in Tucson, the last place that we lived in the same city together, years and years ago, and I'm also finishing up a memoir about her life, and mine, and the ways in which her stuff fed my stuff and my stuff fed her stuff.

I thought I'd wake up sad on her birth memorial day. Yet I didn't. I work up energized and alert. I felt unexpectedly happy all day. I cleaned the house. I wrote. Mid-afternoon, I picked up a rental car and drove out to Sabino Canyon for a run.

I ran up the Phoneline Trail, which is one of my favorites and includes a grueling and rocky incline for the first couple of miles, and then the path runs alongside of the mountain ridge. The views are amazing, and since I had already gotten in my miles for the week, I took it slow. I savored.

And I felt so happy the whole time the I couldn't stop smiling. I talked to my sister, too, and maybe it was my imagination or maybe I was able to pick up on tiny leftover bits of her energy, but it's as if I could feel her there beside me and it all came back, all of those years we used to run through the pastures out on the farm. We were always together back then. We were inseparable.

I ran until sunset, when the light reflected off the canyon walls turned the most marvelous reddish tint. I can't remember when I've felt so alive, so free and happy. I stopped a couple of times and just wept from happiness. And it doesn't make sense and yet it makes all of the sense in the world, how I could feel so happy and alive on my dead sister's birthday.

I miscalculated the time and the last half mile off the mountain was in the near darkness. I didn't turn on my headlamp, though. I liked the idea of stumbling my way through the dark. It seemed an adequate metaphor.

By the time I hit the paved trail, it was pitch dark and raining. The rain came suddenly, like a gift, and the wind picked up and the tree branches swirled and danced. The last half mile is over a sandy path and as I ran I could smell the sharp, oily scent off the chaparral shrubs, and I slowed down, breathed deep. There was something almost mystical about running alone through the dark on a sandy path as rain beat down upon my head and the air smelled fresh and new and wild.

When I pulled up in the driveway of the house I'm renting, an 80s song was playing on the radio. I sat there, all sweaty and tired, and I felt so happy that I began to laugh and cry at the same time, and soon I was crying, sobbing the type of unabashed tears that come from deep, deep inside. It's not that I was particularly sad but only that on the other side of happiness always, always lies grief.

 What I'm reading: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?  by Jeanette Winterson. A wonderful, beautifully written memoir of a woman growing up in an odd and destructive household.

Hello, hello, I'm back

Yes, I'm resurrecting my blog from the dead. It's been a bit, no? And there's so much to catch up.

And the big news: I'm running again.

Well, I never really quit but I slacked. I slacked big-time. I got stuck in a ridiculously demanding job and, when people around me quit and I found myself the only one on the payroll for that particular publication, I knew that my days were numbered.

Still, I buckled down. I pulled all-nighters. I worked seven days a week. I had no time to run,or at least run far, and no time to write, or at least write intently.

Basically, for over a year, I had no life.

Sunset across the inlet sometime in December, when I still had no life.

It's a wonder that MM didn't pack my bags and boot me out the door because trust me on this: I was not in a good way for a good part of the time.

Finally, I had a bit of a breakdown, started to cry and couldn't stop. My teeth chattered and my body shook and I realized that if I didn't start taking care of myself, I was going to wind up sick.So I put in my notice, and as soon as I did, it was as if a weight had been lifted. I began sleeping better, and eating better, and running more seriously. Like over 20 miles a week. Like double digits again.

Then my dog died. This wasn't unexpected, since she was almost 15 years-old. But still, how can one ever anticipate the death of one's dog? I still can't believe that she's gone, that she won't be waiting for me to wake up and pet her each morning, that she won't follow me downstairs to my writing room and sleep by my chair each evening. How can she be gone?

Still, it was a good death, or as good as a death can be. We made sure of that; we insisted on that because for all of the many things she was and the many things she brought to our lives, Beebs was always, always, always a good dog, the best of dogs, a dog of all dogs, at least in our minds, and in my life.

Oh, Beebs, oh honey-there will never, ever be a dog like you.

After that, I couldn't stick around the house, not in the middle of the winter, not without a job to occupy my time. How could I stick around the house without the Beebs?

So I sublet a house in Tucson and headed down for six weeks of sunshine, writing and good runs in the mountains. Mostly, though, this has been a time of healing, a time of taking it easy and reading and sitting in the sun and daydreaming and riding the bike along the washes and eating good food and writing half the night. And did I mention running in the mountains and desert trails?

All week I stay in the rental house and read in the sun, ride the bike, swim at Reid Park and run around the local parks, streets and paved bike paths along the dried river washes. On weekends, I reward myself with a rental car and escape to Sabino Canyon or Catalina State Park for wonderfully grueling trail runs with a lot of incline, a lot of rough footing and a lot of sweat.

Running in the desert is so different than running in Alaska. For one thing, I need to drink water, and a lot of it. Another thing is I have to make sure I always carry a headlamp because when it gets dark, it gets dark fast, not like Alaska where even in the winter the twilight stretches out for a good hour before darkness descends. Here, the sun sets and then, wham!, it's dark.

Sun starting to set in Sabino Canyon, though I'm still a few miles from the trailhead, hee, hee.

Yesterday, during my long run, I saw a coyote running through the dried river wash and almost wondered if it were Beebs' spirit greeting me. It ran through the sand, neck stretched out, moving with a stride so wild and free that something inside of me longed to jump the fence and run behind it. I didn't, of course. Still, it's nice to feel a bit of wildness in the city. It reminded me of Anchorage, of home.

Last week's stats:
Monday: Rest day (lots 'o biking)
Tuesday: 11 miles
Wednesday: 5 miles
Thursday: Rest day (more biking)
Friday: 5.5 miles, trail, lots of incline
Saturday: 6.5 miles, trails, rough footing and oh my, the inclines!
Sunday: 6.5 miles, trails, more tough incline
Total: 34.5 miles

What I'm reading:
OMG, such a good book, and I highly recommend: Swimming Studies, by Leanne Shapton. The winner of the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award, this memoir is so dreamy and lyrical, so honest and quirky that reading feels buoyant, like swimming underwater,

Nineteen cold and slow miles, and two moose

The last two miles were unspeakable.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I missed my long run on Sunday due to a last minute work situation so I shuffled my schedule and ran Monday evening instead (i.e., since the sun sets at 3:30 p.m. now, evening here is actually mid-afternoon).

This is where I was Sunday, out at the Eagle River Nature Center covering a story. This is the view from the backside of the center, mountains all around. It's quite breathtaking.

It was a sultry 9 degrees when I set off and I waited to warm up but never really did. That was the least of it, though. Because it turned out to be one of those runs, you know? The kind where you never quite get in the rhythm, where you feel a little off, where you put forth more effort than normal and still struggle to maintain a decent pace.

I ran on the Coastal Trail up to Kincaid Park and back, which is about 19.25 miles from our house. The trail was packed snow and there were very few people out, probably because they had the good sense to stay indoors. My face was numb, my hair and eyelashes froze and the hose on my hydration system iced up (the bladder is insulated and stayed warm but I forgot to insulate the hose, damn it).

But there were good points: I witnessed one of the most awesome sunsets (unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me). The sky blared pink and orange and red, and the colors held for about a half hour before the sun sank below the horizon. It was amazing and surreal, like running inside a movie set.

I also ate snow, since my water hose froze, and I had forgotten how good it tastes. Remember eating snow as a child and how cold and full it felt in your mouth? Yes, it's still the same..

The first 9.5 miles were manageable, even with the last one-mile ginormous hill that always, always kicks my butt. I stopped and warmed up in the chalet, which is the halfway point. They had the heater cranked up high and it was so warm, so cozy that I had to force myself to step back outside. (Oh, heaters are so wonderful!)

The way back wasn't as pleasant. Yet it was dark and I love running through wooded trails guided by nothing but the circle of light from my headlamp. It felt so snug and nestled. 

Until I hit mile 17 and bonked, big time. I hadn't eaten much and had had no water and I was cold and miserable and this little voice inside my head said, "Cinthia, let's stop and walk a bit, okay? Just a bit, that's all. Just a few steps."

It took everything to ignore that voice. I struggled and shuffled and put one doomed foot in front of another and slowly, slowly ran myself home.

When I finished it was 7 degrees. I staggered inside and collapsed on the floor. Okay, that's a lie but it sounded dramatic, didn't it? Actually, I staggered inside and ate all of the dinner MM had cooked. I had three servings. And then I had a big bowl of Soy Dream ice cream and a whole batch of popcorn. Then I had another big bowl of Soy Dream.  

But enough of running and food. Two days ago a mother moose and her calf visited our house and stuck around for most of the afternoon, tearing up our apple tree and pooping in our yard. It was nice to see them. I hope they come back soon.