Nearly every post on this blog begins by noting that it’s
been a while since the last post. At least I’m consistent in that way.
My husband celebrated a birthday this week, and I remembered
how much life has changed in since his last birthday: a year ago, a late spring
12 mile run at Eno River State Park left me completely exhausted. Sure, the
trail was rough in places, the humidity was high, and I wasn’t in the best
shape, still having a less-than-perfect hamstring. But, all of that considered,
it was still a surprise that a two hour trail run would leave me crashed on the
couch for much of the afternoon. I couldn’t remember a time I’d felt so
exhausted, except for when…(the previous post has a photo related to how this part of the story ends)
Fast forward to this May, when my husband’s birthday
coincided with our baby hitting the four month mark. They say that, when one’s
children are small, the days are long but the years are short. I often agree.
But the last twelve months has had lots packed into it, not least welcoming a
little boy to our family.
There was also the usual travel mixed in, affording
opportunities to sneak in runs in new places. In addition to always-lovely
Moran State Park and Turtleback Mountain last summer, the fall brought trips to
(and runs in) San Diego and Claremont; Trento, Italy; and Portsmouth, New Hampshire
(plus more urban running destinations, like Chicago, Providence and New
Haven). The visit to Trento, while
short, took me very close to the home of La Sportiva – although the quick trip
and the conference schedule meant no time to venture into the nearby
mountains.
I ran the majority of my fall miles – road or trail – in the La Sportiva Helios, after discovering last summer that it has plenty of cushion for
roads (at least, for me), and that it’s therefore a great shoe for runs that
cover a variety of surfaces (and for trail-only runs, for that matter. For people who pay attention to such things, it's got a 4mm drop).
In 2014, I was happy to make it to the 9th Annual
Little River Trail Runs, for which I was co-race director. The race was two
days after my due date, but my body cooperated: I went into labor (fittingly,
it started on a run) two days after the race. With a record number of runners
and a stellar effort from our race volunteers, we managed to raise $10,000 this
year for Little River Regional Park (more here).
In the four months since, life - running included - has been (understatement)
different. The third baby has been more exhausting
than the first two. There are good reasons for this, not least the fact that
we’ve transitioned from playing man to man to playing zone defense (obligatory
basketball reference, since I’m a Duke Ph.D. and a UNC professor).
We have two
girls who are very excited for a new sibling, but who also have their own activities
and demands. Add to that a baby who much preferred to eat rather than sleep at
night for the first few months; and parents who are trying to maintain some semblance of their
professional lives (but we academics do get great parental leave benefits,
relative to most in the US economy). The result was lots of groggy morning
runs. (We could add in the fact that I’m
older with this baby, or the weeklong trip to Dublin that baby and I made in April, but who wants to go there?).
Pushing through an hour’s run has often seemed like
enough – enough to reset me mentally, and enough to feel like I was getting
back into shape. The nice thing about this state, beyond the incredibly cute
baby who has caused it (and who is now getting better at that sleeping thing),
has been running for the sake of running. While I like having events to train
for and look forward to, there’s also freedom that comes with running for its
own sake. Sure, I did a 25k in March (couldn’t resist the chance to run from
Chapel Hill to Durham, in celebration of Merge Records’ 25 years). And I’m very
excited about another chance to run on the trails of Orcas Island this summer. And
I’m thinking about what race I should do in the fall.
 |
| Moran State Park, home of the best trails on Orcas. |
But, for now, I’m running because I like to run.
And this brings me back to a run on my husband’s birthday.
We planned to run together in the afternoon, something we hadn’t done in
months. Of course, this included pushing the baby in the stroller, in 90
degree temps, but it was still fun to get in time on the double track trail
together. I started a few minutes early and, in my six outbound minutes on the trail, I ran into two
different TrailHead friends (and one dog), both of whom were nearing the ends of their
runs. We joined together and turned back, three women, one stroller and one dog
greeting my husband when he approached. The four of us had a nice run together,
talking of all sorts of things. After a couple miles, one of the women headed home;
another mile later, the second one also left us. My husband headed for the car
after a couple more, and the baby and I finished out our run alone.
This run made me happy (although it also nearly made me
melt), not only because it was a rare date run for us, but also because I love
running into people in the woods. We have a great running community in Chapel
Hill/Carrboro, and there are a lot of folks with flexible work schedules, so
one often bumps into familiar face on a run -- although it's often hard to predict *whom* one will encounter.
And, as the heat began to really get to me, the run seemed a nice analogy for life – I had started alone. Along the way, I found a
friend. And then another friend. I hadn’t planned on running with either one of
them, but that surprise made it more fun. And then there was my husband, of
course (and our youngest child), who was there as promised. And, at the end of
it all (and, at that point, I did feel like I might be close to death, via heat
exhaustion), I was back to running on my own. It might be a nice analogy for
life – we start alone, we leave alone, but in between, we meet folks along the
way, sometimes in unexpected ways, but often in ways that bring us joy. Or,
that could all have been the heat talking…
