Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.


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Like I promised

I know you don’t need three posts from me in one day, but I’m so excited that I can’t wait to show you! Remember in a previous post when I described running (almost literally) into a pair of sandhill cranes while training and how I wished I had my camera? I vowed to go back to the park someday and walk around until I found them again. Well, today being such a sad day, missing the opportunity to run the half marathon, I went to a place that always makes me smile: Kensington Metro Park. I wasn’t really expecting to find the cranes as I had seen a flock of over twenty of them this week in a field near my home and I figured they were getting ready to fly away for the winter. I thought that the ones at the park would probably be gone. But I went out there anyway, to find some solace. After a couple of hours I had given up finding them, and was headed for home when I caught a glimpse of these two by the road. If I had been walking I wouldn’t have seen them; they were in a section of the park where the bike path had been taken up and moved. I had to park about a mile away and walk back and I was glad they were still there when I finally arrived. This picture shows their size; the split rail fence is about two and a half feet tall, maybe three feet at most.

But I also know I promised to get you an up close and personal picture of these beautiful birds. So, though they were more skittish today than the time I ran by them a couple of weeks ago, they did let me get pretty close, and you can see their rust feathers in a couple of these pictures.

I can say that the day turned out not to be a total waste. Finding these birds and them allowing me to get so close makes up for missing the race. 🙂


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Drats!

I got up this morning without the alarm way before sunrise. I had my stuff all organized in the breakfast room, I ate breakfast, stretched, drank water, worried, and got on the road for the 8 a.m. race by 6:00. I was ready for the Brooksie! But you know how on your way to the airport you compulsively check that you have your tickets, your ID? OK, maybe you don’t, but I do. I’m about 20 minutes into my 30-40 minute drive to the race start when I reach over into the passenger seat to check. Hat? Got it. Gloves? Got ’em. Race number to be pinned on the front of my shirt? ? ? Race number? RACE NUMBER??? My fingers couldn’t confirm it was there, yet I know it was in the pile of stuff I dumped on the passenger seat when I left the house. Wasn’t it? I stopped at the next exit, pulled into a gas station and searched the car. No race number.

I had time, if I hurried to drive back, grab it off of the table where I was sure it was, and get back to the parking lot before they closed it and make the race. Maybe. So I headed back home, speeding all the way. Ran into the house, startling husband who was just up to get ready to go to work, and the race number was NOT ON THE TABLE! We searched the car again. We searched the house. The whole house, even places I hadn’t been this morning. No number. Eventually it got to be too late for me to even make the start of the race. So sadly, at 8:00 a.m., when the race began I was watching the sun tip my trees in golden light and feeling very sad.


In retrospect I know I could have run without the number. The paper timing chip attached to my shoe had my number on it. And if I hadn’t checked the seat while driving I would have arrived at the race, not found my number, and run anyway. But I really thought I had time to scoop it up and still get back. On the other hand, maybe this was a way to make me not run the race which might have done additional damage to my foot. Once I sat down I realized it still hurts. Tomorrow I will call my doctor and make an appointment to see if it has a stress fracture. Meanwhile I am very very disappointed. I have never not run a race after training so hard. It was a beautiful day for a race (despite the cool start temperatures) and a beautiful course. And it was the inaugural race, which is always cool to be involved with.

Double drats!


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OK, I'm awake

The Brooksie Way half marathon is this morning. It starts at 8, I’ve been awake since 4. Not that unusual for race morning, to be awake early like this. I have my morning routine figured out, what to eat, what to wear. Did I mention it’s 36 degrees out? And I’m wearing shorts and a long sleeved technical shirt, designed to wick away sweat? What sweat? Wish me luck…

More later.


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56th Wedding Anniversary

We woke to frost on the ground today, seems too early, but maybe not. It would have been my parents’ 56th wedding anniversary, if they were still living. They spent their honeymoon camping at Point Betsie up near Traverse City…in a tent. I was thinking about camping in a tent on a frosty morning up north as I took the dog out this morning, while bundled up in a heavy coat and gloves. And just because I’m thinking about them, I’ll show you a few pictures:

This is their wedding day in 1952, at Mom’s childhood home in Ann Arbor…

…and in front of their first home in the mid 50’s.

It’s hard to find a picture of just them together in the 60’s; there always seems to be a few kids around!

The whole family in the 70’s…

…and just them at the lake in the mid 80’s.

At my house in 1993…

…in their own yard later in the 90’s…

…and heading off to church circa 2002.

I didn’t see much aging in them, and looking at these pictures I can see why…it was so gradual. When I think that I am already as old as my mother was when they moved so far away to Alabama, I am surprised. Back then, in the early 80’s, I thought she was pretty old…but yet today I don’t feel old at all. Most of the time anyway. I sure wish they were still around so that I could call them and say “Happy Anniversary!” I have to believe they are celebrating their anniversary privately…and together. But probably not in a tent.


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Just a bunch of thoughts

To borrow a theme from a few blogger friends here are some unrelated thoughts, in no particular order:

Today I attended a half day seminar on oral histories put on by the Michigan Historical Society. It’s a concept I’m very interested in, and I thought the $10.00 fee to attend was reasonable for an unemployed librarian. I learned a lot, and am somewhat overwhelmed. Now I need to figure out what to do with the information and how to get more involved. I hope that, aside from enjoying working with oral histories, this may be a step to differentiate me from other library candidates when a position opens up somewhere near home. Plus it was fun to be in a library (it was held at a library not to far away) and be sitting with librarians!

**

Last night was week five of intermediate obedience. Katie and I had a good time, and we got to practice heeling OFF LEASH for the very first time! Good thing we were indoors! Still, it was stressful for me to think I didn’t have total control over her. But to be honest she did pretty darn good, except when she’d find a fallen treat along the way and stop to gobble it down. For a dog that initially wasn’t interested in treats while we were in school, she has certainly come out of her shell! I don’t think she even realized she wasn’t on the leash most of the time. And to top off our evening the instructor actually used her as a demonstration about a new skill because she knew that Katie already knew how to do a right finish (walking around me and sitting on my left side). So I got to watch Katie work from a ways away, which was enlightening. When I’m not concentrating so hard on getting her to do stuff, and when she isn’t sitting right next to me, with me looking down at her, I can see that she is a very pretty little girl! Rather than thinking how irritating she is when she won’t sit, or won’t stay, or won’t…well you know. And I know I’m still her favorite; when she got her treat from the instructor for doing the right finish, she glanced over, realized I wasn’t next to her and ran at top speed back to me. I could she in her face that she was saying “MAMA! MAMA! I got a TREAT!”

**

I haven’t finished staining the deck. It’s been too rainy. Oh darn.

**

I have started picking up “stuff” around the house. There is so much stuff it’s been overwhelming. So I decided to just work on one little part each night. Tonight while cleaning up a part of the closet I found a photograph of Bonnie, our previous sheltie, taken before she was so old. Gosh she was a cute dog! I showed the picture to Katie but I don’t think she cared.

**

I also found some lyrics to a song that I wrote down while I was in Alabama. The first evening I was there I sat at my mother’s piano. Randomly I opened a song book (Alfred’s Basic Adult All-Time Favorites) that she used to use when she went to senior housing to play for sing-a-longs. I slowly picked the melody out, then tried to play it with the chords. (I had piano lessons when I was ten, for one very long year.) I could sort of play this simple song. Then I went back and read the lyrics and wondered how I had come to open this particular book to this particular song out of all the music piled on her piano:

There’s a Long Long Trail, by Stoddard King, music by Zo Elliot

Theres a long, long trail awinding into the land of my dreams,

Where the nightingales are singing and a white moon beams

There’s a long long night of waiting

Until my dreams all come true,

Till the day when I’ll be going

Down that long, long trail to you.

I wonder how I came to play this piece, because sometimes I think it’s a long long time until I get to see her again.


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Worried about my foot

The half marathon is this Sunday. Five days away. I think I may have broken something in my foot. Great. It started bothering me after my 12.5 mile training run, and now it aches all the time (except when I run?!). It especially hurts when I carry the dog, or put any extra weight on it, like standing on the toes of that foot. Why would I stand on one foot anyway? But you know what I mean. If I turn quickly and put more weight on that foot I know it’s hurting. At night just lying in bed it hurts. I need to get it looked at, but the thing is, if I do that I’m pretty sure I’m going to be told not to do the race Sunday. So I’m thinking about making an appointment for after the weekend. How stupid is that?


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My last "long" training run before the half marathon–completed!

This morning I did the last long training run before the Brooksie half marathon (13.1 miles) which is a week from tomorrow. Today’s run was only 4 miles, so I elected to do it here at home rather than drive somewhere. I just had too much stuff to do around here to spend time (and gas) driving somewhere else to run. I could do a sort of flat (nothing around here is really flat) 4 miler that is two miles out and two miles back, or do my favorite, but very hilly four mile loop. Since the beginning of each of them heads out in the same direction I figured I’d let my feet decide which route when I got to the deciding corner. Turns out my feet wanted to do flat. So I did the run on a curving mostly paved course, but it had lots of traffic which is never very fun.

Mile one was mostly downhill. As I passed a local lake I could hear, but not see Canadian geese honking as they flew. The lake was shrouded in mist, with the morning sun trying to peek through. It was a pretty cool, literally, as it was only in the upper 50’s this morning. I did this mile in 4/1’s, running 4 minutes then walking a minute, then repeating.

Mile two was mostly uphill. It was on the part of the road that is paved, and more heavily traveled. I ran 3/1’s here, and spent a great deal of time on the gravel shoulder getting out of the way of traffic. On one curve I ended up getting even further from the road as a truck approaching not only wasn’t moving over, it was drifting toward the shoulder. As it got near me it’s right tire dropped down off the pavement onto the gravel and I scrambled for the hill. I saw the driver sort of grin at me as he went by, and I used a not politically correct term to describe him as I moved back onto the pavement after he was gone. As I was reaching the end of mile two, getting ready to turn around at the junction of another road I saw eight bicyclists coming toward me out of the fog. They whirred by and disappeared in the next bank of fog almost silently. As I turned around I realized there were four golfers on a green very near me. I hadn’t seen them as I was running. The fog made everything more silent, and things seemed to move almost in slow motion. I realized, however, that my white shirt and black shorts probably didn’t make me very visible in the fog, so I started mile three more vigilant. Maybe that grin on the truck driver’s face wasn’t really malicious, maybe it was shock and fear when he saw me. Might as well give him the benefit of the doubt.

Mile three was the reverse of mile 2, going downhill now, so I was back to 4/1’s. I still stayed mostly on the shoulder because I couldn’t see whether there were cars coming toward me. As I headed up the hill to the freeway overpass I saw three runners coming out of the fog toward me. They were running three abreast, talking and laughing, not paying attention. I waved, they waved back. I hope they had a safe run.

Mile four was totally uphill, so I did a 4/1, then a 3/1 and then a few minutes to complete the mile. I was almost home, about four houses away when a big dog leaped off of his porch and bounded toward me, growling and snarling. Fearful, I stopped running. Usually that gets them to stop, but not this one. He was circling me with his head down, still barking when I asked him rather loudly where the H&%* his people were. Turns out his person was about five feet away from me at the mailbox. She hadn’t noticed me, nor me her. She said SORRY about a hundred times, but GEEZE…she didn’t notice when her dog left the porch barking viciously? She couldn’t have called him off before I began to fear for my knees? Must have been something really interesting in the newspaper she was reading.

So anyway, the four miles are done. I’m worried about doing 13.1 next weekend. My right arch hurts. My left knee hurts. But it was a pretty good run, one of my best ones so far this comeback year. Guess it really does help to keep training. And to run in cool weather. But next time I’m running where there are no cars and no dogs. Fog is OK though.


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It's a mad mad world

I’m sitting this afternoon on my beautiful deck, reading email, investigating retirement communities, checking favorite blogs. I’m also digesting the latest news about the financial mess, the potential bailout, fears of losing retirement opportunities, craziness here in the US and everywhere else. It’s a wonderful thing having wireless, access to the world from a comfortable chair. But the news is not good from anywhere. Ah yes, there is the news that GM will build a small plant in Flint Michigan. That’s good news for a town that has been depressed for several decades. And the weather is still good. So there are two positive stories. But the overwhelming feeling I get is that I want to curl up in a small, warm, safe spot and wait it out. Preferably with my head in the sand. Maybe in warm beach sand on a far away island.

Not having a job has exacerbated my fearful feelings. I am beginning to believe that I need to make the smallest possible financial footprint right now. Similar to making a small carbon footprint in an effort to cause no harm to the environment, I feel like I need to hole up and not spend anything at all. Not drive the car. Not shop for groceries. Certainly not purchase anything remotely frivolous. Like books. Or underwear. Dog food is on the potentially frivolous list, but don’t tell Katie.

I know I am probably reacting foolishly, but I feel like I need to find a job now. Any job. That I need to work to replace the funds lost in the crazy market because I don’t have years to wait for the market to correct. My hairdresser (yes there is another frivolous expense that needs reconsideration) said that maybe I could get a job at Borders. Probably could. Good thing I went to school for all those advanced degrees.

Wait a minute; note to self. Remember that you LOVED going to school, and that in itself was reason enough to spend the money. In those days. Maybe not in these.


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The long run

Today I did my last scheduled long run out at Kensington metropark prior to the Brooksie half marathon which will happen at the beginning of October. Though the training schedule said we were to do 14 miles, our trainers said that 10 would be plenty. Thank goodness! I had all sorts of plans about doing 12 or even 13.1, the actual distance of a half marathon. But I didn’t plan well enough and didn’t eat enough to go longer than 10. Getting 10 done was a major undertaking and by the time I got 9 miles in the rumbling of my stomach was louder than the plodding of my feet.

During the fifth mile I was trying to decide whether I should just turn around at the end of the 5th mile and run back to the car in order to get the 10 miles in, or whether I should head down Turtlehead Point, which would add 2 miles to the 8 mile loop around the lake. In the end I went out to Turtlehead, a peninsula that juts out into the lake. Out and back on that road gives you an additional 2 miles, but it’s very hilly. In order to get the total 2 additional miles you have to go out to the end of the point and then also take a quick jog up another hill and around a flagpole. The hills on Turtlehead point had already beaten the stuffing out of me and I almost skipped the additional little run around the pole. I’m glad I didn’t, because up at the top of that hill were the two sandhill cranes again! I got to within 5 feet, close enough to see the rust colored feathers in among their gray feathered backs. They are truly beautiful birds…and of course I didn’t have my camera! I swear, on Wednesday I am going back out there and WALK the entire 10 miles with my camera and see if I can find them again! Having gotten so close to them the last two times I’ve been there at the park, but not having a camera is very frustrating. Of course you know that if I go out there specifically looking for them they won’t be anywhere to be seen. But it’s worth a try. If I can walk by Wednesday that is. I’m already feeling the effects of the 10 mile run tonight. By Wednesday walking will be an adventure in itself.

So..since I don’t have any up close and personal pictures of the sandhill cranes at the park, here’s a couple pictures of Katie at a park this evening. We went out to work on our dog obedience (doggie school is tomorrow, have to get that homework done!). We also walked along a mowed path way back in the fields behind the path. We had fun. She’s so good when she wants to be. Here she is sitting patiently, waiting for me to call her:

And here she is after I called her…

…which is sort of equivalent to HER long run!

I was trying to get some photos of the sun shining on the high grasses this evening, but we were a few minutes too late. Another photo project to work on some other day. Meanwhile, Katie and I enjoyed our walk through the fields.

Till then, hope you are all enjoying the wonderful fall weather…