Back East

I’m home, well sort of at home, where I grew up anyway. I’ve been back quite a bit this year, most, actually all of my trips back this year have been associated with bad events. The first was for my grandfathers funeral, the second was because my Mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor, the third trip was to hang out with her until she passed away, the fourth trip was to handle some stuff from her estate. I spent that entire trip running a fever and dealing with a sore throat. This trip is to unwind most of the rest of her estate.

I also managed to run today. In the rain. On my favorite trails, in the world. Hyde Park or the 3 park loop in London? Sorry not as good. Parc de Bruxelles? Nope not there either. Antwerp, Amsterdam, Rome, Sydney or the beach in New Zealand. No, no, no, no and again no. Although it was nice being able to jump into the ocean after the beach run in NZ. But it’s still a no.

It’s been over 15 years since I first ran these trails. Little trees that were blazed with a red rectangle marking the trail have grown up twisting as they grew, pointing the blaze off into the brush. Logs that were imbedded to be erosion controls have now decomposed to earthen berms. Branches that used to rip the hat off my head are now out of reach of my vertical jump. Park benches have been replaced, thrice. The muddy areas are still muddy, the clay areas still clay. Things change and they stay the same.

It was very enjoyable to run in the rain. Listening to the rain hit the canopy of leaves that are in the process of turning from green to golden. The occasional huge raindrop dropped from the trees exploding on one spot of my face drenching it. You could feel the mud clumping in the grooves of your shoes then breaking off as you ran down the next few feet of trail. Roots snagging the tips of your shoes as you toed off, reminding you that misplacing your feet could send you failing down the trail to a crash landing. Your feet sliding sideways on wet roots as you surfed around a bend in the trail. The quietness, just you, the rain, squirrels dashing out of the rain. No car noises, no people noises, no plane noises. Only the quietness of nature and you running.

This Sucks Ass

I’m back in NC for a bit. Since I’m a bit on the chunky side for me, but still a slim MFer compared to most people, I was looking forward to getting in some miles around the Piedmont Environmental Center’s trail network. It’s my favorite place in the world to run. London, Brussels, Prague, Antwerp, Venia, Sydney, Melk, Auckland and several other little towns across Europe, while nice to run in, for some reason to me, just don’t quite match up. Maybe it’s the lack of people I see, maybe it’s the wildlife, maybe it’s because they remind me of a time long ago. What ever it is, whenever I’m back, I seem to head straight there first thing every morning to run.

Last time I was home, I didn’t get much running in, seems there were a few more things going on that required my attention. This time though, the first thing I packed in my bag were two pair of running shoes and four days of running clothes. Then I strapped on my Garmin watch and only then did I get dressed and pack the rest of my stuff.
I arrived Saturday evening, hung out with Dad, watch ECU take an early lead to #12 ranked South Carolina, only to forget how to play defense (again) and get outscored by a lot (again). Sigh, some things never change. Head to bed excited to run the next morning.

Sunday I wake up only to feel like crap. Sore throat, small fever. WTF? Really? Unf*cking believable. Maybe it will go away. Wake up today, Monday and guess what? Still feel like shit. In fact I woke up at 8am and by 9am, I had to go take a 90 minute nap. Talked about bummed out. I’ve got post nasal drip dripping on my parade. Totally sucks. On the optimistic side of view, I’m hoping that maybe Tuesday or at worst Wednesday I’ll be able to go log a few miles on the trails.