Month: September 2020

I paint in spurts. During the summer I don’t paint much. Between torturing my children at the “cabin” and working outside, I just can’t make myself sit still long enough to paint. I carry paint with me places but don’t usually do any real work.

As soon as there is a whiff of fall in the air, my brushes come out. I can feel the days getting shorter and the darkness starts to descend on me. Painting is a coping mechanism for me. I am used to having a day or two of quiet during the week but with this virtual school thing, I am never alone.

I painted a few of these wave painting as a way to practice some ocean watercolor techniques I picked up from you tube. Though they are technically not very difficult, they are fun to make and visually interesting. These paintings have been my only sellers on Etsy!

Had I thought of it, I would have “unmasked” this painting in a video. I will do that next time! Instead, I created an animation through Google photos, not quite the same thing!

Perhaps my favorite things about these type of watercolor paintings is that they don’t have to be perfect. Having a job that requires pretty much constant perfection, I appreciate the “happy accidents” that watercolor allows.

The mess behind the madness

Though I can’t quit my day job, I have enjoyed having an Etsy shop. It’s nice to share my artwork with people who don’t have to like it!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/RestingLaurels?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

I usually run significantly faster during a race than I do on my own. Adreneline is probably a factor as is peer pressure and being in a new location. There is a joy and energy that pushes you to perform.

Yesterday our family participated in an 8k/5k, the crowd was larger than other post-Covid races and seemed a little loosely organized for such a large event. The teenagers handing out the race bibs weren’t especially friendly, there were 2 bathroom stalls (only one with toilet paper) and the weather turned for the worse.

The vibe was off and it never felt “right.” I struggled after 3 miles ( I was running the 8k), I probably haven’t trained for 5 miles enough, I should have been running 6 miles to be ready for 5 miles. Humidity was at 100% and the light rain turned into a downpour. At the 3 miles mark, I looked longingly at the 5k finish line. Instead, I trudged on, quite literally through the remaining 2 miles.

The last 2 miles were off the pavement and onto a muddy and rocky fire road. The fourth mile was downhill, leading to the inevitable, soggy and muddy turnaround. I began the slog up the hill, through the mud for the last mile. I finished, it wasn’t pretty and I didn’t have that, “let’s do it again!” feeling. The joy was missing.

After the race, too many people were crammed into the the too tiny pavilion in an attempt to avoid the torrential downpour. We didn’t stay. The parking lot was a half mile back down the road, we headed to our car and changed into dry shirts. It was so muddy that several people were stuck in the mud, their wheels spinning.

The perfect metaphor for how I felt this race. Stuck in the mud with my wheels spinning. But just like my slog uphill, the unlucky motorists pushed and pulled themselves out and eventually found higher ground.

How could I have prepared for this race differently?

  • Train with enough distance running close to race speed. I needed to do some tempo runs in addition to some longer runs.
  • Look at the course map! I assumed I knew this course, I had run a 5k in this same park, I had no idea about the fire road and would have paced differently
  • Check more than one weather site, when I looked, there was a slight chance of rain. It poured.
  • Bring old shoes. Once I saw the course and how wet everything was, I would have opted to wear my older shoes. Instead, I wore my new Hokas which look pretty sad right now.

Not every race can be a good race. There were things I could have done to better prepare. Out and back courses are not my favorite and I don’t enjoy neighborhood loops. In the future, I should sign up for races that I will likely enjoy. Life is too short to feel pressured into running every local race!

Alphaville, great running music

I posted here about my reasons for listening to music while I run. When I want to do a slower placed but longer run, I try to tone down my 80’s music and mix it up with something a little more mellow.

When I feel like I am super fast ( even though evidence does not support this feeling.) My Spotify playlist titled, “Run Fast,” has the following hits:

  1. Lots of Offspring, specifically, “The Kids Aren’t Alright,” “Gone Away,” and most aptly, “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid.”
  2. “I Wanna Be Sedated,” by the Ramones.
  3. Kenny Loggins’ classic, “Footloose.”
  4. Several Green Day songs, “When I Come Around,” and “Basketcase” are highlights.
  5. “The Distance” by Cake is one of my families favorite songs to play before a race.
  6. I am not a very good parent and Eminem’s, “Lose Yourself” is also one of our family psych up songs. The kids will need something to talk about in therapy aside from the heatless shed-cabin labor camp.
  7. As a nod to my son taking German in school, I listen to Alphaville’s, “Forever Young” and “Big in Japan.“
  8. Having watched my husband play a lot of Grand Turismo early in out marriage, I fine the Cardigans, “My Favorite Game” an accelerator.
  9. Looking at this list, cursing appears to be directly proportional to speed in selecting running music, I have Rage Against the Machine, “Killing in the Name” on my race-day play list. I have to make sure I don’t sing along to this one inadvertently. Don’t listen to this one in delicate company.
  10. Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.. This band is my spirit animal. I don’t know how I lived so long without hearing them. They are a punk band covering popular songs, especially from the 80’s. It’s like my teeny bopper inner child ate 2 boxes of Nerds and Mountain Dew. High Energy. Favorite include:
    1. Wild World
    2. Jolene
    3. Nothing Compares 2U
    4. I Will Always Love You
    5. Country Roads

There is another creatively titled Run 2 and Mo Run, I will also share my slow and smooth collection.

The older I get (remember, I am still chilly!) the more I focus on doing things that make me happy. Why then am I cutting downs trees and sleepign in a shed without heat, it must make me happy on some strange, primal level.

I grew up in the 80s and as a child of this time period I am keenly aware of “stranger danger.” Having been fed a regular diet of “After School Specials” and “America’s Most Wanted,” I was keenly aware that I might be kidnapped at any time. Safety, or the illusion of safety is something we Gen X-ers prioritize.

where it all started

Growing up in the 80’s also meant listening to music was one of the most important things in my life. I listened at 9pm to the local “Top 9 tonight.” I never quite understood who was rating them and how it could change daily but I would record my favorite songs from the radio to my cassette player. I did my aerobic workouts listening to my walkman. I never liked the disc man as much, it skipped too much during my jump heavy dance routines. Without social media or in my case, cable television, music was my primary connection to the world around me.

When I began running in my 40’s, it made me feel like a kid again. Seriously, who other than elementary school kids takes off running at full speed (or any speed) for fun and not just to escape a predator? Runners, that’s who. We may look serious with our dri-weave running gear and our hideous Hokas but we really are just giddy kids. Happy to be outside, running into or around puddles, listening to the soundtrack of our youth.

In my neighborhood, where I have defined and regularly trafficked trails, I feel comfortable listening to my earbuds. If I am elsewhere, I may only use one earbud or none at all.

I know “serious” runners don’t listen to music while they run. It’s their loss. Running for me is basically an excuse to listen to music, especially cheesy 80’s music, though I also tend to sing which scares the people around me.

What do you like to listen to while you run?

As I write this, our fall came early. I have heard of false spring but around here, there isn’t usually a false fall. The irony is not lost on me that this would have been the perfect temperature for a cross country season. My poor teenage son ran every cross country meet at 90 degrees or above last fall, this is perfect running weather.

I made a batch of chili, no I will not post a recipe or a photo (unless something disastrous happens) but my soup-based meals are usually ok. I will attempt to make cornbread, without any buttermilk substitutions. God willing, it will not taste like a 6th grade science experiment volcano.

44. Forty-four. As an age, it sounds distinctly middle-aged. We were at the cabin this weekend. As it was my birthday, my request was to spend a night at the cabin. As the leaves are changing, our view is opening up even more and it had been couple of weeks since we last visited. I knew it was going to be cold. We plan to install a wood stove, we weren’t expecting this false fall. We packed warm clothing and brought our infrared space heater. The plan was to use the generator to warm up the cabin a bit and then stay chilly but cozy overnight. When we woke up it was 42 degrees in the cabin. Warmer than outside, but not by much. The moral of this story, other than my children will have something to tell their therapists when they are older, is that I was cold. It was in the 40’s and I was cold. When the generator was fired back up and the temperature started rising to 44 degrees my husband said, “It’s 44, your are 44, if you were a temperature you would only be getting warmed up.”

That hit me. If I were 98 years old, that is pretty hot. Even 50 is cold, I probably won’t be comfortable until my mid 60’s. This weekend I will run an 8k, in my new Hokas!

Age, like temperature, is just a number and I am just getting warmed up!

We did more clearing and now Peaky Mountain has a friend!

This is a cross-over post, like when the Cosbys visited the Keatons (pretty sure that never happened but there were a lot of these type of cross-over episodes in the 80s.)

Our original interntion with the off-grid cabin was to provide our family with an active project in the midst of a global melt-down in order to maintain what little sanity my genetic code can provide for us. It was also meant to be a handy sleeping spot for the many hikes and bike trails we enjoy, typically 3 ish hours away from our home. Up until recently, my children felt like it was the equivalent of a North Korean work camp and not so much the idyllic escape or homestead I envisioned. Most of our road races were cancelled or “postponed” indefinitely this summer so I was pleased to find an in person 10k trail race in West Virginia.

This would be my second ever 10k, my family’s first even 10k race. None of us had ever run a trail race before, certainly not up a mountain in West Virginia. The start time was 10 am, leaving us ample time to use our “facilities” and drive the nearly 2 hours to the New River Gorge.

A beautiful drive! Islands in the stream, that is what we are.

We arrived at the race and filled out the Covid-19 required forms, we had our temperature checked and wore masks up to the start line.

I have never run in a trail race before and there was also a half-marathon race at the same time. They did not start us by expected finish time. I learned the hard way that you want to be in the front if you are actually planning on running up the mountain. My daughter and I “ran” the first uphill mile on a single track behind people carrying walking sticks. And walking with walking sticks. I wish I had video of the awkward running in place behind these people. I tried desperately to get around them and not fall off of a cliff. I was hopeful that my son and husband had made it past this walking stick wielding group because I know they would opt to go over the cliff rather than run in place behind this group. Death before dishonor.

My daughter is a warrior, she is only 10 but always ready to try anything! We finished strong, the trail widened up once we neared the top of the trail and we were able to actually run, finishing in the middle of the pack. My son placed 3rd overall, husband was 6th, an overall success for all of us!

Did I mention the view?

Most importantly, our worksite had become not only a cabin but a getaway!