I have a major (for me anyway) 10 mile “race” coming up the last weekend in July.  Not that I race, but I used to be able to run most of this race, and I did it every year, a sort of tradition for me and many of my friends.  Anyway, in years past I’d have been training all winter, all spring, and certainly all summer for this 10 miler. This year’s Crim  will be the first race I do since I was injured in 2008 while training for a half marathon.   And frankly even before that I’ve been somewhat of a slacker in the running department which is probably why I got injured in the first place.   So I’m very worried about being able to complete 10 hilly, hot, humid miles in approximately 27 days.

When the trip to Alabama came about I thought I’d at least run the 1/2 mile out to the main road and 1/2 mile back to the house every day.  Right.  There are three huge hills between the house and the main road, and all I managed was to walk it every day for the first week.  And that was the end of that.  I blame humidity, but really it was that slacker thing overcoming me again.

So this week I decided I needed to make an informed decision about whether to do this race or not.  I went out on Thursday to run/walk 4 miles, just to see how it felt.  I was near the end of mile 1, running up a short, steep hill when a little red car popped over the top, headed down my side of the hill.  I instinctively moved to the edge of the road, which unfortunately, or fortunately as it turned out, was soft sand, where recent rains had run, filled with some large stones.  My toe caught on something and I started to go down.  Somehow I saved my hands, head and knees and did a giant, undignified belly flop into the sand.  The car stopped to make sure I was fine.  I was, just embarrassed.  But my 4 miler turned into a two miler as I walked to determine if that twinge in my left ankle was really anything.

Saturday morning I headed out to Kensington, my favorite park that has an 8+ mile paved bike trail around a big lake.  I decided that if I drove 30 minutes I needed to do at least 5 miles…but I’d see how I felt.  The left ankle twinged again when I  put my running shoes on, so I didn’t know how it would all turn out.  l have to admit that most of my work out there was walking with a bit of running thrown in.  At worst case I needed to know if I could walk the 10 mile race.

At the end of two miles I wanted to go back to the car, but I convinced myself that I didn’t drive all the way out there just to do 4 mile – I could have done at home.  I’m glad I made that decision because around the next corner, walking about 3 feet off the path were two sand-hill cranes!  I didn’t have my camera (more weight I didn’t want to carry on this official “run”!) but you might remember from a previous post that I took pictures back in October of 2006 for you of these beautiful birds.   (If you click on the October link, scroll down to Oct 5 to see the birds.)   I stopped to watch them, and noticed the woman running up behind me never saw them, she was so focused on the two feet of pavement in front of her.  Neither did the group of four women walking the other way and talking furiously.  Nor the bike riding couple, intent on speed.  People miss the best stuff when they aren’t paying attention to where they’re going!

I kept walking, throwing in some running as I went.  I tried, during mile 6, 7 and 8 to run a quarter of a mile without stopping, but nothing doing.  Legs just aren’t there.  Plus it was HOT, but it’s going to be hot here at the end of August.  I remember running this race in prior years when the temps and the humidity were over 90.   Saturday I finished the 8 miles, enjoying memories of other times I’d run around the lake, the big tree that used to stand there, the running partner’s funny story that she told here, the time I got stung by a bee as I rounded that corner.  I saw bits of people I know, the eyes of my runner friend Cheryl in the eyes of a woman running toward me, the stance of my runner friend Jane coming over a hill, the face of a blogger friend Melanie in someone’s  face.  It was like running down memory lane.

I don’t have any pictures for you today, they’re all stored in my mind.  Maybe someday I’ll go out there and walk the 8 with a camera.  I wish you could all see this wonderful park.  There is a millage election this Tuesday to renew the park millage.  As I looked around and saw the park, packed with picnicking families, runners,walkers, people on bikes and roller blades, the swans sharing the lake with people fishing in boats, those in canoes, on pontoons, rowing, I thought; “How can we NOT agree to renew the park millage.   How can we not.”

Now I’m going to go register for that 10 miler coming up the end of this month.