Running with Buggies

Three weeks in and still going strong. For the July 4th holiday we were in Holmes county Ohio spending a relaxing weekend with my family. This was the second annual family summer vacation. We have been picking midpoints between eastern Pennsylvania, central Virginia, and Detroit. Last year we met south of Pittsburgh.

The weekend runs were a 6 mile at pace and an 8 mile easy. This after a week where I dialed back a bit to see if my energy level returns. Only a softball game on Tuesday and a 3 mile run on Wednesday were the total of my training. I was feeling better going into the weekend and had little trouble getting up on Saturday morning. Amish country Ohio is considerably hillier than Detroit metro, and scenery of cows up their knees in mud and buggies displacing scattered road apples makes for an intriguing running dynamic. A light rain kept me cool as I coasted down the hill from our lodge and eased over the first two miles at a 7:50 pace. The rain smeared the horse terds across the road, causing difficulty to avoid mussing white shoes. A steep hill after the 2 mile mark took my wind, and pace; from that point I was solidly at 8:25 miles, fighting the hills to maintain. The sky drenched the dry corn and my shirt began to stick annoyingly in the heat on the return. And suddenly stopped, giving the horse flies permission to flock and pester me the remainder. Would have preferred the rain. Flies are persistent, clinging to shirt, divebombing hair, buzzing irritating. I finished strong and feel good about staying under 8:30 in the face of the hills.

After a pace run I am definitely in need of sleep, and fetl the effects when trying to wake on Sunday. The afternoon before, football toss with my brother turned into an impovised verision of ultimate frisbee with brother, dad, and bro-in-law. The heat/sun combo turned this into a sweatfest as we basically played team monkey-in-the-middle. So I was low on energy Sunday morning. I followed the same route, but continued further into the hills, with miles 3 to 5 continuously rising and falling with extended hills. I was running comfortably easy, feeling great through 4 miles at a 9:35 pace. Then the familiar intestinal monster rumbled, indicating an early, uninvited arrival. A country road with fields on all sides is the optimal place to face this monster, but I was cursing the current stretch of pavement with barns and houses spaced just so to eliminate any obscured land. A field of 3 foot corn almost became my place of relief, but after jogging into the mud the angle from the windows of a nearby house gave to clear a view for my liking, so I returned to the blacktop to battle the thunder head on. Further up a copse of trees behind barbed wire was more inviting and I diverted quickly between barb strands, descending below road height among the bushes. A quick release, monster stilled, and back on the road. The remainder was enjoyable, noting only the number of small animal carcasses that are crushed into a farm road. Mice, frogs, birds, all meet their demise in numbers on the roadside, lying in varying imprint states of bone, fur, feathers.