Training Log Archive: bl

From Higgs beach by Casa Marina - sluggish, got over 'motion' d/o only to suffer 'lassitude of latitude'! Brief swim after which was nice enough - but breezy - and sun in & out of cloud.

Jog from Old Wooden Bridge at end of day, mostly just to have done it - to run in dark shirtless, to keep some momentum. Day was just too busy, incl. 32 mile drive (64RT) from Big Pine to Key West. Have been quite stiff since flight & drives, CME sitting etc. Headed off over bridge toward No Name Key, no lights except 6 bright ones a mile or so away on another key. Stars, still water, some distant flashing buoys - then water ended, replaced with fairly high, thick vegetation on both sides. Darkness made it seem like I went alot further than the 305 indicated when I could finally see it. Heard a mile alarm, thought it might have been the second, first unnoticed. The road lured me onward but not a single light or building or any structure, unusual (from my brief Keys perspective). A few distant cars lit an occasional sign ahead but did not come as far as I was. Spooky. Finally time to return - had savoured enough of night (and likely heard as many insects as I saw stars). Was way hot by time I got back. Hosed down on dock, a key deer (about 1/3rd size of a NH deer) sauntering off not 15' away. Tried barefoot across the dirt lot, got 10' & winced back. Seems I could run on such surfaces when I was under 20. Either been there done that or softer with age, believe the latter (maybe two ways of saying the same thing). All in all, a nice change-of-pace day.

C • E.H. 2

Travelogue blither (something to read in a year or two)

Little sleep with P's midnight return with Nero (who sauntered in front of a car around 6pm and was lucky to get away with nothing more than head stitches and observation time), later intermittent barking dogs over a several hour period, one crying baby session, still later panting & tail thumping on floor by Cimba resulting in my throwing a pillow at her around 0300. Up before 0445 alarm, out into pre-dawn moonlight. 117E thru familiar towns, by Drumlin Farm and a flashing bicyclist at 0513, T27F. Onto 95 & then the Pike by/thru old haunts. Into huge Logan, dropped Beth off at US Air, off to search for parking, feeling like I'd soon be the man who never returned. Finally found a terminal B parking space (some $24/day), returning but not really making note of where the car was. Then into thin air over Boston Harbor islands and shoals, red & green buoys, Marblehead, C. Ann, Gloucester, then inland but soon, from 32,000', Fisher's? yes!, Fisher's, LI, Plum Gut, Orient, Montauk, New London, Gardiner's, LIS, viewing across it and LI to the Atlantic, perhaps Thimble Islands, definitely Milton Harbor, even Hen I.!, Mamaroneck harbor, LIS narrowing to resemble a Chesapeake tributary, then the Hudson, Manhattan's concrete and glass clustered rectangles, NY harbor, Sandy Point, Verrazano Narrows, all the white/snow covered roofs (not present to the NE), then vagueness, maybe the Delaware and definitely the Chesapeake stretching to the Atlantic, sprinkled with islands in a stream of gold light. Maybe the Choptank, Smith I, then Bay Bridge & Annapolis, then more unfamiliarity. Flat land laced with serpentine waters, rivulets of gold in the morning sun. Asked Beth if she had a camera as the clock was striking twelve. And when will I learn to travel with a pen? Then tendrils of cloud, a ribbon of platinum climbing to the clouds, the few rectangular spires of Charlotte, greening grass, snow and ice a distant memory. All in all, Act 1, scene 1, of a window seat's cornucopia.

Golden rivulet


Steam of platinum


Ascent to the clouds


Charlotte cubism


Scene 2 was fairly simple: window seat, exit row, a wing (and engine) and no prayer of seeing much of anything. More flat terrain riddled with serpentine waters and some ocean coastline then a layer of cloud hiding everything. Probably for the better.

Scene 3 to Big Pine: 846W, 826S to the commercial nightmare of US1 which mellowed before Homestead. Then the Keys themselves, views of open water gradually dominating. There was the ghostly remains of Flagler's old RR route to Key West, once one of America's busier seaports. A mackerel sunset faded before we arrived. Finally, a warm breeze, rustling palms by the Gulf Coast shore of Big Pine under an infrequently viewed winter sky constellations. Some 14 hours door to door. Too tired for running. Did see a sweating shirtless runner roadside in the dark, another sure sign that it's not NH.

DP, 19F, kept to the sun, quiet. Lots of moonlight last night.

After work, gray, 35F seemed raw, sun had disappeared.

March-like temp, wind & colors. Tired for no good reason or still fm
Sunday. South, Iron Works, Clinton. Full moon! (the "snow moon" fm the FA)

Picked up the laptop from recent debacle of spilling liquid on it - got to see what's inside - not many parts but, one, the logic board was not pleased to get wet. The computer shut down instantly. Dried it & it worked but would not charge. A visit to the local shop has it charging and, for the time being, working. A pledge not to repeat the behavior....

DP: sun-seeking, icy-patch avoiding, cold am - two in a row.

At the TI, weights & watching=weight watchers...always something to look at esp. when one continually forgets the iTouch for intelligent entertainment.

Mellow day, a noon hour surprise and rose sky after gym with big white moon as well.

Faraway series, photos from elsewhere, #94

"Green Mansions", Saba, D.W.I., 1985

To slough, keeping to sun along forest boundary. Ice was making scary sounds decided Mocha once she got on far side. Had walked 150m away in returning to car - hear whining. Had to go back & escort her trembling bod/splayed toes/scratchy nails back to the time-to-go-home side. Then all was well and immediately forgotten.

Purgatory Brook Loop, CCW, on SBS. Blue, bright, calm, OK temp in sun. Too much hardtop pounding - need better soles in shoes which are new but not cushioned enough. Pretty devoid of energy by end. Had a coke & was walking on road opening it when a fellow driving a big, old truck full of garbage (and w/ an oxygen cannula in his nose) asked if I was broken down - answered to the effect that it was I & not the car which appeared a bit puzzling at first but he smiled & drove away. Would do well to set HR zones - intensity would fall in place.

King of the Hill

always inquisitive re passers-by

Note
SBS weekend, spent with Janelle who called from school 25 mi north & wanted out for the weekend. Last thing we did was to watch a movie at Red River. The list of Super Bowl Sunday movies (10 years+), not entirely recoverable and probably out of order:

1 Titanic (first for sure and was the movie to see c. '97)
2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
3. The Thin Red Line
4. A Beautiful Mind
5. Lord of the Rings
6. one eve we stayed home
4 Girl with the Pearl Earring
5. Saving Private Ryan
7. the year we went the wrong weekend...
8. Million Dollar Baby
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. The King's Speech
11. The Descendants ('12)

SBS weekend, spent with Janelle who called from school 25 mi north & wanted out for the weekend. Last thing we did was to watch a movie at Red River. The list of Super Bowl Sunday movies (10 years+), not entirely recoverable and probably out of order:

1 Titanic (first for sure and was the movie to see c. '97)
2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
3. The Thin Red Line
4. A Beautiful Mind
5. Lord of the Rings
6. one eve we stayed home
4 Girl with the Pearl Earring
5. Saving Private Ryan
7. the year we went the wrong weekend...
8. Million Dollar Baby
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. The King's Speech
11. The Descendants ('12)