Fog and Gray and Rain

Sorting through pictures today on my hard-drive; a few favorites of the Gettysburg battlefield in the rain and fog.  Seemed appropriate for a very gray February day.

Image of Cowan’s New York Battery near the Angle in the rain.  Taken in December 2007. Visible beyond the cannon is the Codori Barn.

(These are far from my best pictures in most cases, but they have a certain dark and forlorn beauty that I can appreciate and I hope you enjoy them too.  The field takes on a ghostly appearance in the fog and rain.)

Set one, from upper left.  The Codori Farm from the Wheatfield Road, rain beaded like droplets of sweat on the bust of Patrick O’Rourke on Little Round Top, Warren in the fog on Little Round Top, view towards newly cleared Devil’s Den from the 140th New York monument

 

Set two, from upper left. The Bushman farm from Seminary Ridge near the position of the Texas Brigade, Meade at the Angle, the Trostle Barn, view of the Peach Orchard in the rain from the Longstreet tower.

 

Set three from upper left. The 155th Pennsylvania Zouaves on Little Round Top, Culp’s Hill near position of the 123rd New York, the Masonic Monument - Armistead hands his effects to Capt. Bingham of Hancock’s staff, the High Water Mark Monument at the Angle.

Set four from upper left. Personal favorite series — shots of the Bushman and Slyder farms taken from South Confederate Avenue along Seminary Ridge.

Set four from upper left. Detail of the 2nd New York Cavalry horsehead, the Pennsylvania monument from the Emmitsburg Road, the 44th New York castle on Little Round Top, the Peace Light Monument.

more fall running pics

Autumn Running Pictures

In the interest of inspiring trail envy, here are some pictures from my running trail this week. Enjoy!

Jealous??? Now you understand why I run so much and enjoy running so much. :)

longsleeves

Longsleeves today.  Guess that makes it official.

Just as long as it doesn’t start snowing anytime soon, I’m good to go.

the white deer

I came around a curve into the last mile my run on Saturday morning. This last mile is straight and goes along a fairly busy 35 MPH road. I run this section on the sidewalk.

It was overcast and fairly warm (warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt), but I also put on my windproof/waterproof vest because it was drizzling and very windy (24 MPH sustained, 32 MPH gusts). Other than the wind and the fact I didn’t get much sleep again because of that darned pinched nerve in my shoulder / elbow, the run was fine and uneventful.

As I start down this straight stretch, I look ahead about oh say a third of a mile or so and I see the large white hindquarters of an animal. Now at first I think “is that a DOG?” I sure hope it isn’t, because if its is, I’m in trouble, that’s one big pooch. Then I saw a tail swish and I thought “is that a pony??” Now I live in the suburbs so people here don’t have ponies. As I came a little closer, now maybe a quarter mile away, whatever it was entered a backyard behind a house and left my view.

I got a little closer — 200 yards away probably — and then I spotted two white-tail deer in the backyard near where I had seen the white critter. It was a doe and a pretty nice sized buck. Now, I live half a mile from a very large park so deer are real common (although bucks are fairly rare). Ah, I thought. My eyes — and tired brain — must have been playing tricks on me; what I saw must have been the underside of one of those deers tails.

Mildly disappointed that there was no pony (hey I’m a girl, we ALL love horses), I entered the last half mile of my run.

It was then I saw the “ghost deer.”

Just 50 yards from me was a pure white buck with a nice set of antlers. And he was pretty big. He was all white — very white, not gray — except for a small patch of brown on his shoulders.

I about did a doubletake and almost tripped over the sidewalk. I see deer probably on 4 out of 5 runs, but never in my life had I seen a white one. They are always brown or tan or gray. Not WHITE. I don’t think I have ever even seen one with white patches or spots (other than the small spots on a fawn of course).

But there it was: a white deer.

The two bucks — the brown and the white — must have been pursuing the doe because they now engaged in some really crazy behavior. They dashed right into that busy 35 MPH road three or four times, bounding from one side of the street to the other. Luckily after an initial near miss, traffic stopped and as I continued to run I could see the astonishment on faces and people pointing at the white deer.

Eventually the deer (now only maybe 30 yards from me) dashed back into the woods and disappeared. The encounter lasted maybe a minute.

And people ask me why I run. <!–graemlin::)–>

(On this same run, I also saw a pair of barn owls which was very cool too.)

the gray period

Baseball is over. (Whoo hoo Cardinals!). Most of the trees have been stripped of their colorful coat of leaves. I have had on winter running gear nearly every morning for the past few weeks. Too soon I have been needing the vest, beanie hat, and gloves. Cleveland has entered the gray period.

October used to be my favorite month for running — its a lot cooler (but not cold) and the weather is often gorgeous, particulalry when you couple the pretty fall foliage with a bright crisp blue sky. This month, though, it has just been gray and cold and extremely rainy. I even took to calling it Octmember — its a lot more like November than it is October outside.

Depressing in a way. After all, who wants potentially EIGHT months of winter? (Winter may not end here until late May it seems like. If it starts in October that’s EIGHT months!)

I do not enjoy the gray period, though running in colder weather seems to be oh so much easier than hot weather. Give me 45 instead of 65. Heck, I’d take -10 over 70 any day.

But what gets me is how it is always just so gray. Sure we see the sun — sometimes. But mostly its just dark and gray.

Makes it hard to get up in the morning. Makes it hard to get outside in run. Makes it hard not to eat everything in sight. (I feel like a squirrel trying to build up a food reserve or something).

Ending daylight savings time helped some, but its still really dark in the morning for runs. Which means running isn’t as much fun and its sometimes downright dangerous.

But what can you do?

cold, wind, rain

Cold, wind, and rain. That was the “story” behind today’s run.

I woke up about 4:30 to the sound of rain hitting the house — hard. It was pouring. Of course, being 4:30 AM, I rolled over and went back to sleep for awhile.

When I finally did drag my sorry self out of bed, I got dressed to go running. It was very dark and gray. I put on a blue longsleeve New Balance tech shirt and a pair of Mizuno running shorts. From the forecasts, I knew it probably wasn’t a glove and hat day (as yesterday was). I walked downstairs. Flipped on the Weather Channel. Confirmed that it was warm enough to do without hat and gloves: pouring rain, 51 degrees, wind sustained at 21 mph gusting up to 28. What wonderful weather.

I had planned to do some fartleks (haha) but decided due to the chilly temps and the strong winds that speedwork — even of the informal variety — was out of the question. With all the leaves getting blown off the trees it was rather slick anyway. So I just ran the usual course at the usual pace.

I was soaked when I got home, although the free running cap I got from Road Runner Sports did seem to do a decent job of keeping my head dry. There is a sort of feeling of triumph that you get from completing a run under ugly conditions. I was most certainly the only runner out. I imagine most people who ran in the Cleveland area today did so on treadmills, not outside in the elements.

As much as today’s weather was gross, cold, wet, and bone-chilling, I still think I prefer it to running when its above around 65 degrees.

the GRAY period

Cleveland has, I think, officially entered the gray period.

Monday was a sunny day — around 50 degrees. Yesterday it rained all day but it was nearly 70. Last night, the wind howled, it rained, and it got COLD. From 68 degrees at 9:30 PM the temp has fallen to 42, but it feels like 30 because of the wind. Ah yes, the wind. Its gusting from the south west right now up to 41 miles per hour. I’m really not quite sure how I’m going to run today in THAT.

I hate winter. Not so much the cold but the gray. I miss the sun. I miss being able to simply wear a t-shirt and a pair of shorts and be comfortable running like yesterday (my guess is that may have been the last day for 2005 I can get away with that). I don’t particularly like snow and ice is downright dangerous. There’s no baseball. The trees have no leaves. Its ugly.

The only people out now are the REAL runners. The fair-weather runners are on the treadmills or have packed it away until spring. The walkers are gone too.

I guess this teaches dedication. Anyone can run when its 60 and sunny; it takes guts to go out and duke it out with mother nature when its downright cold and she is throwing 40 mile per hour winds back into your face.

Murray Ridge

Murray Ridge was one for the ages. The grizzled veteran runners even said that they’ll be talking about THIS one for 20 years.

I was worried about the weather, as you can see from my prior blog entries. The weather forecast as the days went by went from so-so to progressively worse. But, I woke up Sunday morning and my legs — after a horrible run the day before — felt good. Springy. Fast. When I dragged myself out of bed, the weather wasn’t THAT bad and upon checking the Weather Channel it looked like there would be a window to run the race — most of the rain was past. Plus it was warm — probably around 60. I think I run best around 50-60 degrees and I knew I won’t get another crack at temps like that this year. So I decided to go.

The race was really out in the sticks, farm country. But I didn’t have much trouble finding it. So I get to the race. Do some warm up. Decide for some reason to try the New Balance 901s even though I haven’t really done any training in them. The runners all line up for the 9AM start — the half marathon and 5K go off together, then split after half a mile. At this point an anemic sun is peaking through the cloud, but it is rather dark and threatening to the southwest. After remarks from the Race Director, we’re off at 9:11 AM.

I started up towards the front, for once. The faster runners carried me out, and I was running along great. They had no one calling times, but I did wear my watch and they did have mileage markers along the course. I hit the first mile in 7:52. I’m right on target for my sub-25. Whoa. AWESOME! I tried to slow down a little so I wouldn’t totally crash and burn. I hit the turn-around point and still was feeling pretty good. I hit mile marker 2 in 16:08. Perfect. Sub-25 is ACTUALLY in sight. I feel good enough that its possible — or at least I think I can come close. The goal I thought I’d get NEXT year is actually in sight.

Then it lightnings. A rumble. Then it lightnings again. This time it was one of those really dangerous bolts that jumps from the clouds to the ground. And then the wind starts to blows through at SIXTY MILES PER HOUR. The man in front of me asked — and I think he was serious — if this was a tornado. I look at my watch — the storm hit at 18 minutes. If the race director had started right at 9, I’d be done by now (even if I completely fell apart). C’est la vie. Then the rain started. It rained SIDEWAYS. With the wind, the rain was blowing over my head, swirling around me, blowing into my face. I have lived in Cleveland my whole life and I played soccer growing up in some awful conditions, but this was by far the absolute worse. It rained so hard I could not see. The wind blew water into my mouth and I had to spit it out. My shoes were quickly soaked so badly that they squished (ew). I kept trying to run but I had to keep my head turned to the side because the wind was blowing so powerfully. It began to hail (someone else I talked to later thought it was sleet but I think it was too warm so it must have been hail) and it HURT. I had red marks on my face and legs from it pelting me. The temp began to drop quickly. My shirt was so wet I could have wringed it out. At 23 minutes into the race, nearly blind and thoroughly depressed, I walked for a minute. Then I got mad at myself and started running (head turned sideways) again.

There were no other runners around. No one close behind me, no one close in front of me.

Final time for this fiasco: 26:48. Not bad, considering in perfect weather I ran 26:22 the weekend before. But I think this was MY day. :( You know, those elusive days when you can run fast and effortlessly. And nature completely and totally conspired against me.

I finished third overall for women. I have to go pick up my trophy. I was too wet and cold to stick around. When I took off my 901s, water poured out.

Many of the half-marathoners came back. I don’t blame them. A lot finished, though.

So Murray Ridge was one for the Ages. “the witch of November” had definitely “come stealing.”

today’s run

oday’s run was just BAD. I mean, this was probably my worst run since I began running. OK, maybe except Murray Ridge (yes, a report is coming). This run was that bad.My wisdom teeth have been slowly coming in over the past year. Every couple months or so, I go through a week or two period where, like clockwork, around 4PM I start feeling sick. My head starts to ache and I get a low grade fever alternating with chills. Also, my neck hurts and sometimes my jaw. Its usually gone by morning. I’ve decided these spats of illness are my wisdom teeth, because, inevitably, soon after they end, lo and behold, my teeth are further in. Anyway, as you might guess, I’m having this problem right now. I last had it in July during the bar exam (which of course only added to my misery during that time). I usually feel better in the morning; the cycle starts again late afternoon the next day.

This morning, though, I felt really tired. Just kind of bleh. Even though I went to bed very early (9PM!). Still, I got dressed to go running. It was 61 degrees this morning (that’s going to change tomorrow), but I can’t really use the warm weather as an excuse, its been warm the last few days though I don’t think its ever been quite THAT warm lately in the morning.

I drove down to the park and found I lost my hubcap at some point. Great. I walked up to the all-purpose path and began running. I knew pretty fast that this run was not going to be a very good one. A stiff head-wind was blowing for the first mile. I felt kind of winded after the first half-mile. I’m not sure what was wrong with me. I kept plugging away, though. My legs began to tighten a bit. I saw a doe, then a buck. As I hit the 2 mile point, my calves were feeling really tight. I ran to the 2.5 mile point and I stopped to stretch. They were that tight and I felt that bad.

Now, I never stop on a run. Never. But today I stopped. I stretched for a couple minutes (using a tree to stretch the old calves) and it began to pour (just a very brief passing cloudburst thankfully). I then began running again. But I had lost my groove and my legs were ticked off. I ran a quarter mile, had to stop and stretch. Run another quarter mile, stop and stretch. You get the idea. Part of the problem was I just didn’t feel like running today. Maybe I needed a day off. Anyway, I did run the whole five miles, I just stopped repeatedly. And, I’m kind of mad at myself for doing that.

Hopefully tomorrow’s run will be a better run. Monday and Tuesday’s runs were good. I think MAYBE I need new shoes, but who knows. More on that later.