Wordless Wednesdays

Running lessons: There are times when I should know better

Shubie Duck Pond

It was a grim long (really long) slow run today. I probably should have known better than to attempt it. I awoke with a tight right hip and leg after too few hours of sleep and the weather was hot, humid and unsettled. To make matters worse, my knee is continuing to act up after its encounter with a rock a few months ago. Nonetheless, I changed into my running clothes and headed for Shubie Park intent on covering 18-20k. In the end, I settled for 15. Fifteen long, sweaty kilometres of dragging my sorry butt up and down hills. It wasn't pretty.

To make matters worse, it wasn't even a good day for taking photographs. The winds were so strong, it was hard to get a clear shot of anything.

Lake MicMac

But did I have the good sense to stay home and give my poor body a break? Of course not. By 50 years old, you'd think I'd have learned a thing or two but I guess not.

The trouble was I was tense and wound up after awakening at 4:00 in a cold sweat. You see, my laptop crashed yesterday afternoon. "Irritating", I thought at first, "but not a major disaster." After all, I hadn't used it for much besides surfing the internet the past couple of years.

Until 4:00 am, that is, when I awoke with the sickening realization that all my Garmin training files were on that laptop and I hadn't backed them up. To be clear, those files were my only record of where, when, and how fast I'd run for the past three and a half years.

I know. Dumb, eh? Why would any sensible grown-up woman store her only training records on a 5 year old laptop without making a backup. Good question.

To be fair, my laptop had always been completely reliable. Sure, it cranked more and more slowly over the years, but it always got where it needed to go - eventually.

I'm still hoping I'll be able to use a hard drive enclosure to recover the data (don't I sound techie?) but  I've no idea if it will work and it may take a week or more to get the enclosure I need. In the meantime, I'll be worrying and wondering why I sometimes do such really stupid things when I should know better.

Like forgetting to make a backup copy of all my training records.

Or going for a long run when what my body needs most is to rest.

Fortunately, the day turned out better than it started. When I finally stumbled back to the house, Husband was waiting with news that my brother and his boys were dropping by for a visit. Sweet! And, after hearing my tale of woe, he took pity on me and offered to make a toasted tomato sandwich that I could eat in the bath.  Double sweet!  Fed, watered and soaked, I even had time for a quick nap before the boys arrived. Good thing since the two littlest ones are astonishingly energetic!

The youngest impressed the heck out of us with his Spidey impersonation.

While his big brother showed off his extensive climbing and acrobatic skills.

After letting the boys burn off a little energy at a local playground, we wandered over to visit the ducks and geese at Sullivan's Pond, became acquainted with a neighbour's pet rabbit, hunted for horse chestnuts, and ate ice-cream before they headed home. In short, it was a perfect afternoon.

Now, time to quit feeling sorry for myself and tackle a few chores. There's nothing I can do about my laptop tonight and other projects await - like writing posts about our European adventures, for instance. I promise I'll get to them soon. In the meantime, here's one of my favourite shots from Paris.

Extra points if you know where it was taken! :-)

Sky paintings 8: Risser's Beach

It was another wonderful weekend at Risser's Beach - with sunny, warm days followed by beautiful sunsets and cool, clear nights.  I took this shot while the guys were cooking supper. My niece asked me to take a photo of her "rock climbing" while I was at it.  

When I asked her what colour the clouds were, she replied "Purple, pink, blue, grey and white." Clever girl.

I think seeing the world through the eyes of a 5 year old is good for the artistic soul. 

Home safe and sound!

It's been a month since my last post - longer than expected but it couldn't be helped. Life has been full, full, FULL of new places (Paris, Portsmouth, and Enkhuizen) and experiences (my first Bruce Springsteen concert!), time with friends and family, love, laughter and friendship.

I hope to find time to write about all my European adventures in the coming weeks but today I just want to say how good it felt to run familiar trails after being away so long. This morning I did a total of 17 kms beside the LaHave River and through Peace Park, where I stopped briefly to enjoy the quiet solitude before turning towards home. Though it was a sunny warm day, fresh breezes reminded me that autumn is right around the corner.

En route to the park, I was struck by how different everything looked since my last visit six or seven weeks ago when trees and lawns were lush and green, gardens were in full bloom, and the air was heavy with humidity. Today - after a long hot, dry spell - lawns and gardens were yellow and faded, a few leaves had begun to change colour (already!) and the air was cool, crisp and clear. It made me realize how much of our beautiful Nova Scotia summer I've missed!

Fortunately, the weather is glorious again this weekend - which is why blogging about our European adventures will have to wait a little longer. Husband and I are off to the beach to savour these last few days of summer.

Happy Labour Day weekend, everybody!

My big, fat week before vacation

Here is it Thursday and I have yet to post my weekly update. What can I say? Husband and I are frantically preparing to head off on a two week trip to Europe. We're scheduled to leave Saturday night and will spend time with friends in France and England, before heading to the Netherlands to attend a reunion of college classmates.

(For the criminally-minded amongst you, forget about breaking into our house while we're away! It's well-protected by an alarm system, a house sitter, a band of nosey neighbours, and a herd of vicious guard-cats who will lick the skin off ya. In any case, not counting my marathon finisher's medals, we don't own much worth stealing.)

I wish I had more time to write this evening because it feels like there's lots to write about. My runs went quite well again last week - the high point being a 7.5 km run with a local Running Room group on Tuesday. I had been asked to give a presentation to the group on chi running and they invited me along for their run afterwards. I enjoyed the chance to share my enthusiasm for "mindful" running and got some nice feedback on my presentation, so hopefully I'll be invited back soon.

My other runs were good too, though I had to call Husband to rescue me at the 14k mark of my LSR on Sunday when a bruised hip (the result of a boating mishap the day before) got too achy for me to continue. It was irritating that such a minor injury interfered my run on a beautiful summer morning, but it didn't make sense to keep going when I was so uncomfortable. After all, I still have plenty of time to prepare for the races I hope to run this fall.

The other high points of my week were non-running ones.

The first came last Friday when I learned that I'd been nominated for a "Very Inspiring Blogger" award by one of my favourite bloggers.

The Blonde is a Colorado gal who writes about training, travelling and racing in some truly gorgeous places and I've been reading her blog for some time now, so I was thrilled to get a "thumbs up" from her. I hoped to nominate my own favourite bloggers (including the Blonde, of course) for the same award this past weekend but wasn't home long enough. However, I'll be sure to get to it as soon as I'm back from vacation. In the meantime, check out The Blonde Runs - in particular, her posts on trail running and photos from a recent visit to Whistler, BC!

The second high point of the week was spending most of Saturday and Sunday at an annual family reunion held at my sister's place. She has a lovely home located on a nearby lake and roughly thirty of us spent the weekend laughing, talking, eating, swimming, boating, tubing and catching up. It was - as usual - a great joy spending time with everyone.

Since I'll be leaving my smart phone behind, the lights will dim on this blog while Husband and I are on the road - but perhaps that's not a bad thing. My recent reading included a very interesting book entitled The Narcissism Epidemic which has me thinking a lot about the ways I use social media (including this blog). More thoughts on that when I get home.

Finally, I want to share something Husband and I witnessed two days ago. After much soul-searching, our kind and gentle neighbour bowed to the inevitable and put his ailing 15 year old border collie to sleep. Watching our neighbour and his friends bring Boy home to bury him in the backyard was terribly sad, of course, but oddly uplifting as well. It seems to me one of life's great miracles that creatures as different as humans and dogs (and cats for that matter) are capable of forming such deep and lasting bonds of affection. And the fact that we're capable of it reinforce my faith (or hope, at least) that, however narcissistic and destructive our culture has become, we humans are capable of the wisdom, compassion and empathy necessary to tackle the serious social, environmental and economic challenges we face.

Thanks for reading, friends, and have a marvellous couple of weeks! I'll look forward to sharing our European adventures when I get back to my computer.