7 Miles Alone in the Rain

Since we're going away tonight for the weekend, I'm not able to run with the group tomorrow morning. This weekend is a drop back week so we're scheduled to do seven miles and I decided that I'd rather get it out of the way so I ran them this morning.

I was worried about how long it would take me to run 7 miles by myself so I kept waking up throughout the night. Finally, I got out of bed at 4:50. As I stood in the kitchen getting my workout clothes out of the dryer, I could hear the steady sound of rain. I checked the radar on the computer and saw a huge blob of precipitation covering our area. If this had been in the beginning of training, I might have gone back to bed but by now I've run in the rain so many times that I knew it wouldn't be so bad once I got started. So I got my things ready and was out the door by 5:20.

Now sunrise in our area wasn't until about 5:57 today so the first 40 minutes of my run were in the dark. While my sneakers have reflective bits, I think it may be time to invest in a full reflective vest to wear on these pre-dawn outings. I will eventually be running up to ten miles by myself, sunrise is getting later by about a minute every day, and I don't seem to be getting much faster so I will have to be getting up earlier and earlier.

Since this was a new distance for me running In Interlaken, I ran a new route which we had mapped out last night on a computer program. I started out runnning a few blocks in the village, then down the main street and out of the village a little ways, turned right down toward Cayuga Lake and then ran all the way down to the lake. Followed the lake for a while and then started the long ascent back up to the village where I had to run along a few more streets before going home in order to reach the seven miles.

If I can figure it out, I'll try to note the drop in elevation from our house to the lake. It wasn't so bad going down but it seems to go up very steadily for a long time on the way back.

I enjoyed being out in the early morning, running alone on the narrow country roads and seeing the mist rise off the lake. Wildlife was conspicuously absent this morning; I saw what I think was a frog hop in front of me in our driveway when I set out (it was still quite dark and hard to tell for sure), some ducks on the lake and a fat woodchuck run away across a field when I was on my uphill back home.

I'm currently trying to identify a purple wildflower that I think might be crown vetch so when I saw a patch of it down by the lake, I picked a section and carried it in my right hand for the rest of the run. I'd take a picture and post it but our digital camera is currently lost.

I got really wet but I ran the whole 7 miles without walking and finished in 1:20.

I'm almost finished with Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and don't think it will last for even the next three mile run so it's time to find another audio book. Simon Prebble, who reads this one, is so good I may just look for another book that he's done. Without a good narrator, even a great book sounds terrible.

Another 3 Miles Run

Not much to say this morning. I ran the three miles a little faster than on Tuesday, in 34:24.

At 6:40am, Braman's weather station reports that the temperature is already in the 70s and the humidity is 67%. It felt really humid, too, and started to rain just as I got back to the house.

Oh, I know I've mentioned before that I'm listening to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell as I run. Well, I'm nearing the end and it is getting very exciting. I highly recommend it.

Dogs and Their Irresponsible Owners

I ran 5 miles this morning and I was S-L-O-W, finishing in 59:10. In my defense, I had to stop to walk two times since this was the advice I received to protect myself from attacking dogs.

I met the first dog at about mile two and a half. It was a small, white and brown, sort of foxy-looking, farm dog who ran out to confront me as soon as it saw me approaching in the road. I stopped to walk, it kept barking and also vigorously sniffed me and bumped my leg several times with its head. Is this aggressive or friendly behavior? I didn't have to worry about it too long since it determined a sweaty, slow runner wasn't much of a threat and gave up on me to trot back to its farm.

The next two dogs were about a mile later. These dogs were smaller than the first, one also foxy and the other maybe a mini pug. They were in their front yard with another much larger (and evidently lazier since it never got up) dog and one of their owners in her bathrobe. The dogs came tearing out of their yard, barking loudly and showing me their teeth.

I stopped to walk and tried to ignore them but they were persistent. Their owner tried to call them back but they were so loud and determined that they either didn't hear her or didn't care. I made eye contact with her but she obviously wasn't able to control them. They followed me well past their own house and onto the neighboring farm, barking all the way on my heels. I yelled at them which didn't seem to do much. By this time I could see that someone else from their house had come out to call them, also ineffectively. Finally, I really yelled at them and started to chase them back to their own house which is what finally worked to get rid of them.

Dogs who are not tied up are one thing. People who choose not to tie their dogs up and then aren't able to control them when they menace passersby in the street are another. If I thought it would do any good I would call the local dog officer.

White Sweet Clover

I have, a time or two in this blog, mentioned a white flower I was trying to identify. After sitting down today for the second time and really examining Peterson's Field guide to Wildflowers of the Northeastern and North-central America, I found a drawing which led me to surf the web which ultimately resulted in an identification: White Sweet Clover (Melitotus alba).

It looks so graceful and delicate, swaying in the breeze, more so than these pictures can portray. And I have even seen one Yellow Sweet Clover plant (Melitotus officinalis), but only one so far.

Now you know what it's called, too. I would have included one of my own pictures but they were terrible.

(I think it's interesting when I go to check the web for pictures to verify or illustrate my sightings, how many links I find from places all over the country. These invasive plants/weeds/wildflowers have traveled quite far in some instances and are not just to be enjoyed/done battle with here in Upstate New York.)

More Wildflowers Gone

Got up this morning and was out the door by 5:45 for my 3-mile run. Maintained a moderate/slow pace and finished in 35 minutes even. (Sadly, a minute slower than last Tuesday.) Weather was a pleasant 68 degrees with a cool breeze.

I was disappointed to see another long stretch of wildflowers had been mown down, including a patch of that willowy white flower that I have been meaning to identify. While a large area had been cut, whoever was doing the mowing stopped a few yards before the corner and left a stand of wild daylilies untouched. Perhaps they spared the daylilies because these seem more beautiful or more like cultivated flowers than the others. But, having recently developed an appreciation for all the other "weeds", I was sad to see those go.

10 miles!

Today was The Longest I Have Ever Run. 10 miles.

It was yet another rainy Saturday and we all met early in Ithaca at 6:15 to beat the heat. (Beating the heat turned out not to be necessary since it was mostly in the 60s all day and kind of breezy but it was good to get an early start anyway.)

We started running. I remembered to start my watch. We all got soaked to the bone almost right away. (I wrung out my shorts and shirt a few times as we were running but soon gave this up since it was hopeless.) But I kept plodding along until we were finished. With the exception of the three water stops at which everyone stopped for a minute or two, I ran the whole time. No walking.

I was last but still felt good at the end, not winded at all just starting to feel a little sore in the joints. Since I also remembered to stop my watch this week, I know that I ran the 10 miles in 1 hour and 58 minutes. Not speedy but satisfying. And though it had stopped raining by this time my shorts were still so wet that they dripped on my sneakers as I walked back to the car.

Amazingly, I feel better today than I did last week when we only ran 9 miles. My right hip is a little sore but much better than last week. And, after a two-hour afternoon nap, I feel almost refreshed.

Nature sightings today included a possum (crossing the road as I was driving down to Ithaca), a mother deer and two spotted fawns (on the bike path we run on), a chipmunk (which I almost stepped on because it couldn't decide where to go) and a baby bunny.

I also was able to identify many of the weedy wildflowers that I saw on the roadside: old favorites birdsfoot trefoil, chicory, and wild carrot (did you know this is another name for Queen Anne's Lace?), as well as recently learned wild parsnip (which can give you a burn if you're exposed to the plant juice and then the sun), and bull thistle which I have just noticed with its beautiful pinky-purple flower.

Thanks again to Craig Cramer of Cornell who suggested that I take a look at Weeds of the Northeast by Richard Uva. I borrowed this fantastic book from our local library and, with the help of its great photographs, may soon (I hope) be able to name many more of the flowers that keep me occupied as I run along our country roads.

Kids

When it was time to go to bed last night Nora wasn't tired. After we read stories and turned out the light, I tried to nurse her to sleep like I usually do. But she squirmed and insisted on getting down and crawling all over the place in the dark, pulling things out and trying to read her board books even though there wasn't enough light to see the pictures. I continued to try to get her to relax and she continued to fight it. This went on for 45 minutes.

Eventually Braman came in and tried to hold her to get her to rest but, while she much prefers Dada in the daytime, at night she needs Mama and the thought of being kept from Mama at nighttime was so terrible that she cried ("Mama! Mama!") to get back to me. After a little more crying in my arms, she calmed down and went to sleep at about 10:15, about two hours later than her usual bedtime.

Which is why I was surprised this morning when we heard her crying in her crib at 4:30. Actually, this isn't a surprise. She usually cries in the wee hours of the morning and Braman will go get her out of her crib and bring her into bed with us. I nurse her and she falls asleep again. But this morning she came into bed and sat up. I nursed her but she wouldn't fall asleep again. She tossed, she turned, she tried to crawl down to the end of the bed. At 5:30, she did fall asleep again.

Just as I was going to try to get out of bed to start my run, I hear Larsson say "Mama, cuddle me." So I invited him into bed, too, and, sandwiched between two kids, thought for sure that my run was doomed.

But at 6:00, Braman said there was still time to run before he needed to be up, so I extricated myself. Larsson almost unconsciously flopped over to be cuddled by Braman and I left them all sleeping, just like this:



The run was uneventful and I finished the three miles in 33:24. Sometimes the biggest obstacle is just getting out of bed.

Horses, Wildflowers and Sleeping Dogs

I scared more animals today on my new 5-mile route.

After I run the mile uphill from my house, I turn right onto a country road. Maybe I'm noisier than the average runner or maybe these horses are more skittish than most but I had just started to near the field in which they were grazing when the herd of them--maybe 12 or so horses including several foals--took off and ran quickly to the other side of the field. I'm not really a horse person but these were beautiful animals and it was nice to see the babies prancing about with their mothers. Sorry the feeling wasn't mutual, horses.

Seeing the horses this morning reminded me how my vocabulary to describe scenes like this, and many of the other things I see while running, is really inadequate. As I ran by the horses, I was thinking how I would write about the encounter in my blog. But then I realized that I didn't know what kind of horses they were or what their different patterns and markings were called. Some were all brown, some were brown with white patches on their foreheads, some were dappled brown and white. Some of the foals had matching patterns to what I assume were their mothers. Which made me wonder if this is usual for horses or not.

And then there were all the wildflowers I saw on this route. Red clover (Trifolium pratense) seemed to be most common on the horse road, although there were lots of other kinds blooming there, too. While I'm happy to be able to latch onto a few flowers that I can identify, I've got to admit that seeing so many other flowers that I don't know the names of is starting to get to me. I'd love to be able to extoll the beauty of this dainty yellow flower and that star-shaped white flower and that delicate purple flower but I don't know their names and don't really have the right words to describe them. Plus I can't quite remember what they look like when I get home and I don't usually take a camera with me when I go out.
Who knew marathon training was going to lead to this? There is a lot to learn in this world.

And you will, I hope, be glad to know that I was not menaced by any dogs this morning. I crossed to the other side of the street when I ran by the houses where I've been harassed by these dogs before and would have held my breath except I needed it for running. Running in shorts with calves exposed makes you feel very vulnerable when you think a dog may be lurking nearby ready to take a chunk out of you. But all was well.

The run was fine. I finished the five miles in 54:35 and felt good. It helped that it was 64 degress and a little breezy when I started out at 5:30am. although I passed three farms on this route, I didn't see any farmers. Maybe I will next week when I run this route again.

6:00am Isn't Early Enough

I woke up at 5:15 to Nora's crying in my ear, nursed her, then fell asleep until 5:45. By the time I was ready to go, it was almost 6:00. And in the middle of the summer, this doesn't seem early enough for running. The thermometer already said 77 degrees and it felt really humid, although I think the humidity was only about 61%.

(I should add that I was tired from waiting up last night until 11:30 for Braman and Larsson to come home from the Celtic Woman concert. Larsson is a huge Celtic Woman fan and has seen them in concert three times now. After each concert he has been able to meet with some of the performers. Last night he visited with Orla and Mairead. He drew pictures for all of them which he hand-delivered and showed Mairead, the fiddler, how he is learning to hold the bow in violin class.)

I ran three miles and felt creaky and awkward, like I usually do on a Tuesday after taking two days off from running. My time was 34 minutes even.

Sadly, the big government lawn mowers were out recently and mowed down my favorite stretch of wildflowers/weeds. I don't know why they have to mow this spot and I felt sad that the wildflowers that I just learned like birdfoot trefoil and chicory, the ones I already knew like Queen's Anne Lace and milkweed, plus the ones I had hoped to identify soon had been cut down by the mower and were all lying there in a rotting pile.

Of course, the mowers can't go everywhere so there still are wildflowers to see. Maybe I'll go for a walk with the kids and take my camera. There was a beautiful tall plant with delicate white flowers that I'd like to learn the name of...

After I finish my three miles, I have a short walk through the village back to our house. On the way there, I pass an Ithaca Journal newspaper vending box outside the local diner. One of the front-page items this morning declared "Heat, Humidity and Smog Stifle Upstate" with a companion piece on how people exercising in this weather need to stay hydrated. I'll definitely have to set the alarm to get up earlier tomorrow. And I better go start drinking my water.

5 miles tomorrow! I'm taking a route where several dogs are known to roam freely so I'm hoping that those same dogs are not early risers.

9 miles! (And fundraising update)

I ran 9 miles with the group yesterday and now, more than 24 hours later, I feel sufficiently recovered to write about it.

I don't know how long it took because I forgot to start my watch in the beginning, started it a few minutes into the run but then stopped it well after I had started driving home. So all I can say is that it was less than 2 hours but more than an hour and a half (the last time I remember looking at my watch.)

9 miles is a long way. I almost ran the whole route but not quite, needing to walk the last bit of an uphill toward the end. And I felt tired and sore after I was done. But I feel better today, which is promising.

The schedule for this week is 3-5-3 miles (Tues-Wed-Thurs) and then 10 miles on Saturday which will be The Longest I Have Ever Run.

As for fundraising, yesterday July 15th was the goal I set in most of the letters I sent out. I am pleased to say that, through the generosity of friends, family, Braman's co-workers and BorgWarner, I have raised almost $3500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society so far. (My donation website http://www.active.com/donate/tntcny/maureen hasn't been updated yet to reflect the most recent gifts.) This is a little short of my target of $4,000 so, if I haven't heard from you yet, I may be sending out a reminder postcard to beg for your donation.

Thank you to everyone who has been so kind (and quick!) to donate. You have all made this fundraising process much less scary than it seemed in the beginning and I really appreciate it.

What a Morning!

I left the house this morning about 5:45 for my 4-mile run. Weather was cool and humid but breezy. This route goes steadily uphill for about a mile, across and still slightly uphill for another mile, downhill for a mile and then across for the last mile.

The first mile was fine but boring. I kept trudging and made it up to the top.

The second mile began to get interesting. On this section I pass two farms. The first is a sort of gentleman's farm with a few draft horses, a handful of cows and some chickens that I sometimes see wandering about the farmhouse lawn. The draft horses were out and close to the road. I called to them but they were determinedly walking up the path to the field and didn't pay me any attention. One stopped to scratch his leg on the wheel of a wagon in the field.

About 1/4 mile later, more horses (of the non-work variety) were out. These ones all perked up when they saw me coming and one even came running towards the road from deep within the field. I bid them good morning and kept on going.

About halfway on this road I passed the first of three Amish farms on this route. The horse poop that usually covers this section of road had been washed away in yesterday's heavy rains. The dog that sometimes barks and runs threateningly at me must have been relaxing in the house. And I heard a rooster crow loudly at 6:15. I passed a friendly young Amish girl all dressed in black right before I turned the corner to go downhill. I'd seen her when I ran this route last week, too. We waved to each other.

The beginning of mile three is also the beginning of the second Amish farm. Here growing in a small field on the corner are different varieties of daylilies for sale. I'm anxious to get some new daylilies for my garden and, while I didn't see any here that interested me, it reminded me how I'd like to make a trip to Olallie Daylily Garden in Vermont to try to find a few. I thought about my garden for a while, especially how exciting it is that the recently planted canna bulbs and sunflower seeds are just sprouting.

After the daylily plot there's a fenced off field where baby cows were grazing. Then there's a small pond where I've seen cows wading and drinking. Set back from this there are several barns and then a bit further down the road there's the farmhouse.

As I passed the cow pond, I saw it: a great blue heron! (At least I think it was a great blue heron. Once I got home I tried to verify the sighting with an online photo. The bird was indeed big and gray like the great blue heron but I don't remember the white stripe on the head. Maybe it was a juvenile.) When the bird saw me coming it flew gracefully to the other end of the pond. And when I approached that end, it flew back to the side I had seen it at originally. So beautiful and exciting.

That (and hearing the rooster crow) were really the highlights of my morning. I continued down the hill past a small iris farm, turned onto the main road and kept jogging along, re-entering the village, getting back on sidewalks again. I stopped at exactly the 4-mile point and walked the half-block back home.

My time was 42:46 so I was fairly speedy, for me. What a great morning!

Sweaty and Tired

I was feeling better today but didn't manage to get up early enough to run before Braman left for work. Once I did get up it was raining, and raining, and raining.

About 11 o'clock it stopped raining and the radar looked pretty clear so I packed up the kids (which took some time) and we eventually headed out for our run. (We only ran three miles today instead of the scheduled four because I was just trying to get back in the routine again.)

While the rain had brought the temperature down (the thermometer said it was 75 degrees), it had done nothing for the humidity. (We've been back from our run for only about 15 minutes and wunderground.com says the humidity is currently 84%!)

It was like running in the shower. My shirt got instantly soaked and I had sweat dripping off my elbows. Gross, I know.

Add that to the fact that Braman let some air out of the stroller tires so the kids would have a smoother ride (think pushing a cement truck uphill) and that I'm still a little tired from being sick and you don't have the most successful outing ever.

But I finished the run and only had to answer minimal questions and respond to a few comments from Larsson. ("Will we see anything interesting?" "What is milkweed?" "Where do groundhogs live?" "Where do raccoons live?" "What do you think the farmer will do with all of this corn?" "This road needs to be repaired. There are CRACKS in it!")

Nora fell asleep early on and then, surprisingly for a morning run, Larsson fell asleep, too. So here they are relaxing in the yard while I stretched on the porch.


We finished in 37:36, not my worse time but close to it. I think I'm going to ask Braman to pump the tires back up. And I don't plan to run close to noontime again.

No Running Today

I am under the weather. If I feel better tomorrow, I'll be back at it.

5-mile Group Run

I left the house at 6:20 this morning to drive down to Ithaca for the group run. I am a devoted NPR listener and was able to enjoy Soundprint on WRVO until I lost signal in Ithaca. I was disappointed not to be able to hear the end of the segment on the couple who competed in ballroom dancing at the International Gay Games but I may still listen to it on the Soundprint website.

I have to drive down to Ithaca again later this morning and I'm looking forward to listening to one of my favorite programs, Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me (the oddly informative news quiz.)

The run was fine. We only did 5 miles today, maybe to rest up for the 9 miles we're going to do next weekend. We maintained a steady pace and finished the run in about 55 minutes. (I keep forgetting to stop my watch when we actually stop running so I can't say exactly how long it was.)

We were a small group (4 participants and the assistant coach) but we all managed to stay together, the weather was pleasantly cool, and it was a productive way to start off the weekend.

Running

In case you think this has ceased being a running blog and has become dedicated to wildflower identification, I want to report that I ran 4 miles yesterday and three miles today.

The new four-mile route is more agricultural than the three-mile one and I pass three different farms on my way. Since two of the farms belong to Amish families and Amish families farm with horse-driven plows, I dodged a lot of horse poop on this route.

I also found a small, light-blue, speckled bird's egg (hatched) on the road at about mile 1 which I picked up and carried gingerly in my left hand for the remainder of the run. I presented it as a prize to Larsson once I got home. He now asks me everyday if I found anything interesting for him and I was glad to be able to give him such a treat. It's currently sitting outside in his "basket of special things" in a bird's nest that we found on one of our walks together.

My time was 44:02.

Today I was back to the familiar 3-mile route. I was grateful to be able to name birdsfoot trefoil as I ran by it but saw a few other flowers that I might need to investigate. The wildflowers are blooming in force now.

Although I thought I might be my fastest yet on this course, I ran it in 32:05 which is 3 seconds slower than one of the days last week. Oh well.

(And as much I try to constrain this blog to running, it is amazing how natural observations creep their way in.)

And Thank You, Craig Cramer!

Before I realized I had the answer to my wildflower question on my own bookshelf, I emailed two different departments at Cornell University with my question. Two days after I sent in my query (and one of those days was a holiday), I received a friendly, informative, correct response from Craig Cramer of the Department of Horticulture. He emailed me directly and also posted his answer in the comments section of my blog for July 3rd so all can benefit.

Thanks, Craig, for taking the time and care to respond so thoughtfully to my question. You're great!

Thank you, Roger Tory Peterson

After trying to determine the name of the yellow flowers through repeated web surfing of wildflower identification sites with no success, I remembered that we had an old copy of A Field Guide to Wildflowers of Northeastern and North-central North America by Roger Tory Peterson and Margaret McKenny (acquired from Braman's grandparents when we helped clean out their house.)

Looking through the Yellow flowers section, I saw something that looked like our flower but it was a line-drawing not an actual photograph and I wasn't sure. So I looked up the name on Google and, lo and behold, our flower is Birdfoot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), which grows on roadsides, waste areas and fields.

See the Connecticut Botanical Society's site and the UMass Cooperative Extension site for better pictures than my own and more information.

Just goes to show that old-fashioned books can still be superior as a fast source of accurate and valuable information. (But I'll admit that I was glad to have the computer to verify my guess.)

Fourth of July

We were up late last night watching the fireworks in Ithaca so I didn't get up as early as I wanted. When I did get up, at 7:00, it was raining hard so I decided to put my run off until a little later in the day.

I left the house about 10:45 and it took a while to feel comfortable. But I eventually developed a rhythm and finished the 3 miles without stopping in 33:54. Not too bad.

It was hot and humid and there's not much to report. Masses of those yellow flowers everywhere. Cows were out. I saw a big caterpillar on the road.

Tomorrow is the first mid-week mileage increase; I'm to run 4 miles instead of three which means that I have to allow a little more time and I have to find a new route. Then it's back to 3 miles again on Thursday.

Can you Identify Them?

Here they are growing by the road (right in front of our house!):



And here's a close-up:


After some preliminary web-searching still have no idea what they are.

7 miles!

I drove down to Ithaca this morning for the weekly group run. Today we did seven miles and it wasn't too bad. It definitely helps that there is someone in my group who runs at the same pace that I do and she's also a mom with two kids about the same ages as Larsson and Nora so we have things in common to talk about. The miles seem to go faster this way.

Part of our course this morning was on the East Hill Recreation Way which is shady and scenic. We saw two deer right on the path as well as some baby bunnies.

I set my watch when we started out but forgot to stop it right away so I think we did the seven miles in about an hour and 23 minutes.

Almost as soon as I finished running I had to get in my car and drive to Larsson's group violin lesson where Braman was already waiting with the kids. I picked up Nora (who would be disruptive in the class) and Braman took Larsson in for his lesson. Since I could barely make it there in time after running seven miles, I'll never make it there in time once we're doing more than that so I think that Nora may be joining me on the Saturday morning runs. Single jogger here we come.

And those pesky yellow flowers were all over the place. I've got to find out what they are.