Tunnel of Stars

For the last few months I have been very involved in big project at work. As things get closer and closer to our deadline for the project, I find myself working some very long days. This has caused me to miss a few karate classes and it makes it very hard to get my runs in. The job is very interesting and I am working with a great team of people but

I need to do what I can for myself as well.

A couple of days ago I got home just after 9:00 p.m. It had been a very long and very busy day. I was taking my breaks out on the production line, lunch was get-a-bite-when-you-can and dinner was going to be just before bedtime. Not that healthy, I know. That night I just had to go out and run. Why not? I had run in the dark a number of times during the winter, including being out on the road New Years Eve at midnight to bring in the new year. But this would be different.

The night was warm and humid. There was a strong southerly breeze blowing, the moon had still not risen but the sky was clear. So as soon as I came in the door, I changed into my running gear which included my reflective vest, my hat light and a red flashing light I wear on the back of my vest. In 15 minutes, I was geared up and heading for the door.

As soon as I was outside, I did my usual thing, I started up my Garmin watch and turned on my iPod. I thought I would listen to some old-time jazz for this run. I walked down to the end of my driveway, turned on my lights and headed down the road.

It didn't take long for me to realize just how dark it was. To compound this, the stiff breeze that was blowing was kicking up dust along the dirt road. My vision was not only limited by this little LED light on my cap, it was confounded by all the dust in the air. My eyes kept trying to focus on the dust particles that were right it front of me, glowing from the light on my cap. I could hardly even see my feet, never mind the road. But that wasn't going to stop me that night. I needed that run. Just 5K. It would feel good.

As I progressed, my eyes started to adjust to the conditions. After about 1.5 kilometres, I turned onto the paved road. The dust seemed to dissipate. My vision was getting clearer. At least I could see my feet and see the road under them reasonably well.

At 2 kilometres I began to feel a bit like I was running in a tunnel. The bush on both sides of the road was fairly thick but now it seemed like the walls of a tunnel. I looked up and saw that the tunnel had a beautiful starlit ceiling.

At this point, I thought there was no point in listening to my iPod. It was beginning to seem like a distraction, so I turned it off. I was just coming up to a spot along the road where there is small marsh. I could hardly believe my ears. The din from who-knows-how-many frogs filled the air. It seemed almost deafening. I was tempted to hold my hands over my ears. It was amazing. How many frogs could there possibly be in that little patch of wetland?

As I continued on and went around a turn, just about all of the meager light in the sky was gone. There are very few streetlights out here; during this run I would pass only two. To compound this, at this time of year there is no snow to reflect and spread any of what little light there was. Now, no snow and no moon, no streetlight, no light. The ground around me just seemed to absorb even the light from my LED cap light. I turned off my cap light for just a couple of steps to see what it would look like. Total darkness.

I pictured this section of road in the daytime. Yes, no wonder it seemed so dark now. The road was almost completely canopied by trees. The only light left in the world was coming from that little LED light on my hat. Nothing else. But then I heard something moving towards me from behind. It was moving fast, very fast. It was the sound of the wind coming up to catch me. It rushed around me in waves. What an amazing sound. No doubt I have heard it many times before, probably in this very spot. It just had never been amplified like that by my diminished sense of sight.

I continued around the curve and the tree-tops separated. There at the top of hill I could see the stars again. And about half way up in the sky was Mars, a beautiful little red-orange pinprick in the sky. I am an amateur astronomer so this scene just kind of jumped out at me. As I approached the top of hill, the sky just unfolded in all its beauty right there in front of me. It made me wish I could have run with binoculars. Wouldn't that have looked silly? Not that there is anyone out and about to see me.

It was about this time I noticed my Garmin vibrating. I looked down at my watch and had to shake myself a bit. I looked around at where I was and realized I was now just over 4K out on my 5K run. What the heck, I was enjoying the run and the next K would be open to the sky as well. So I looked up at Mars and kept going for another kilometre before starting back.

As soon as I turned around, there in the sky to my left was the constellation Orion and just off to the right was the brightest star in the sky. Not really a star though, it was Venus. Quite beautiful. The skies up where we live are very dark and on clear nights like this, it can be breathtaking.

As I continued back, I went back down into the area that was heavily treed. The stars began to disappear as the walls of the tunnel came back up. The other senses seemed to take over. Again, I could hear the onrush of the wind coming toword me in waves like giant waves of an ocean. The sound of frogs and insects was everywhere. It was so different from when I had run at night in the winter. There was so much life all around me, not just the sound of crunching snow and ice. At this point I was very aware of the fact that all my senses had turned on and were working. I felt like I could almost feel my surroundings because I could see very little of them.

With less than 2K to go before I reached my driveway, another sense was trying to show me somthing. There was an odour that came at me with such force. It was strong and foul like something rotting. What was it? It was so strong that it was alarming. Why hadn't I noticed this on my way out? I couldn't figure it out, I just knew I would be glad to outrun that smell. On my daytime run the following day I looked for the source of it and easily found it. There in a ditch was a dead porcupine. It looked like it was killed some time ago and certainly smelled like it.

I don't too often run without all the little bells and whistles I like to have with me and I doubt I will become a minimalist runner. I like my toys too much for that. But it was quite an enjoyable experience to be out there in the dark surrounded by the life - and death - of the area I call home. It totally cleared my mind and let me focus on the here and now and enjoy the simplicity of it. I will do this night running thing again.

Running Scared

It has been eight months now since my first (and so far, my only) half marathon. At the end of that race, I did cross the finish line running, I even beat my projected time by 12 minutes. But because of the extreme pain I was in, it took everything I had to actually be running when I crossed that finish line. My knees felt like they were ready to give out any second.

Right after I crossed the finish line I found myself caught up in the crush of people who had crossed just before me. I had to walk around the outside of this little park carried forward by the crush of people making their way out of the area.  I felt like I was going to fall to the ground any second. When I finally got to a spot where I could sit down, I collapsed. After lying there for about 20 minutes, it was all I could do to get back to my feet and hobble out of the rest area.

My injured knees affected my running and my karate for at least six months after this race. It was extremely frustrating. Part of the frustration came from the fact that I felt I was well-prepared and ready for that race. I had actually run 20K three times that summer before the race. I felt quite sure I could do it. My main challenge was going to be achieving a time that I would be happy with.

Now here I am again, only a few weeks away from my next official half marathon race, the Ottawa Race Weekend, and I am running scared. My preparation has been carefully thought out. My training program has been going well; I am actually a bit ahead of my plan. I have been seeing a sports medicine specialist and she tells me that I am ready. My knee x-rays show some arthritis but nothing else. So everything physical looks good. Now I need to deal with the mental aspect of it.

As the race gets closer, I find myself almost looking for something to wrong. At karate class, standing in shikodachi, I find myself examining every little muscle twitch. During any of my runs I am hyper alert about how my knees and hips feel. Every time I feel anything I find myself almost holding my breath for a heartbeat or two thinking, am I about to drop to the ground? So far, not yet.

I guess my biggest fear is doing something to myself that will stop or even end all of my training. I work very hard at my karate training and I am now slowly getting back into Iaido, and of course my running - I love the simplicity of it. A long run is like an out of body experience. There are days that I just can't get home fast enough to jump into my running gear and get out on the road, to just leave everything else behind, hit the road and let it clear my mind. On my short runs I usually listen to music. Lately, on my long runs, I listen to audio books. But sometimes I don't even hear them, I just run and unwind.

This past Saturday, I went into the dojo early, donned my new training gear for Iaido, spent time swinging a sword, changed into my karate gi and spent an hour training and practicing my kata, then went home, changed into my running gear, downloaded a new book on my iPod and spent two hours on the road. It was a GREAT day. I don't want to lose this by injuring myself. But, I also don't want to give up on the challenge of the race.

Yes, I am scared by it. Am I going to do it? Yes. I have signed up for two half marathons this year and I even have dreams of running a full marathon. Crazy, I know but I have to do this.

First, I wanted to be able to call myself a runner and now I am. Next, I want to be able to call myself a marathon runner. Eventually, I want to be able to look at myself as a black belt marathon runner. What is wrong with that? When I lay it all out, it seems both a bit crazy and at the same time achievable.

I am 56 years old this year. I know I started late into this kind of thing. I am not sure in my own mind if I am pushing harder than I should to try and make up for lost and wasted time (there's that word again, TIME) or if I am just looking for the next challenge. At any rate, the result right now is that I am running scared.

I need to make it through this next race, healthy. I need this badly. So, scared or not, here I go, once more into the breech!

TIME

One of my least liked terms has to do with time. Time is precious. It only happens once and that's it. You can't get it back and you can't change it. So when someone says to me "make the time" I just want to scream! It is not possible.  Yes, we need to make the best use of the time we have but that is it. Nothing left to do. The time has passed. If only I could 'make time' or go back and change time. Man, the things I would do differently and things I would have time to do in the first place that I just couldn't find the for. But alas, this can not be done. (At least not in our time). 

Time and experience are the greatest teachers. Hopefully, we have learned by what we have done in the past. If you could go back and redo something you had done wrong, you then loose the lesson you learned from the experience and quite probably end up doing that wrong thing anyway. Now wasn't that a waste of time.

The challenge is to make the best of the time we have. How do you do that? We don't have a crystal ball to look into future to show us what the best way is. We just have to make the best choices we can and deal with it. No we can't make time, we can't go back and change time, we can't even slow it down. Time is time.

We do tend to measure so many things by time. For someone like myself, a person very time aware, the clock measures life it self. Weather we are successful or not all boils down to time, or maybe not.

I have been trying to free myself a bit from that yoke I wear on my wrist. I have taken it off, even at work. About the only time I have a watch on anymore is when I am running. Maybe that is a mistake as well.

Recently I participated in my first running race of the season. The running club I belong to put it on. It was a 5K prediction race. You won by being the closest to your predicted time for the race. You were not allowed to carry a watch. I put in an estimated time for myself of 31:15.

Come race day, I had decided that I wasn't really going to worry about the time. I am the photographer for our running club so I decided that I was going to concentrate on getting photos and video clips during the race while participating in it. I stopped a number of times, I spent time running backwards, I slowed a certain points to get what looked like good shots. I didn't really worry about making time until the last 1.5K. At that point I thought I should get a little more into the race part and start running.

When I crossed the finish line I was very surprised to see that my time was 30:33! This is actually my best time for 5K so far this year. How the heck did that happen?? Maybe I should leave the watch behind more often. Don't know if I can go that far.

I have decided that time is what we make of it. Sometimes we need to be aware of it. People may be counting on you being somewhere at a specific time or having something ready to go at a set time. But maybe, just sometimes, it doesn't matter. Time will happen no mater what we do. And maybe sometimes we just need to let it happen and let the chips fall where they may.