running the howl

A crazy weekend in our corner of the woods that is not quite half way gone. Friday was a big day as two members of our household flipped a year on the calendar and Sammy and Jo entered their fifth year of existence. We almost blew it in the morning too with Nik remembering halfway to work and calling home and me wishing them a happy birthday and the boys looking kind of stunned about the whole affair.

Sure they asked every day that week if it was their birthday yet but it still caught them completely off guard when the big day finally hit. Earlier in the week the boys and I had been listening to the good old CBC and a child psychologist talking about how 4 is the magic age in cognitive development and the boys cottoning on to this and pronouncing themselves magical and all this predicates Jonah’s response to turning five:

“Does this mean I’m not magic anymore?”

Nope, I suppose the magic is gone with a return to an odd number in the age column but Pop Up Pirate and Hungry Hungry Hippos were a hit so the lack of magic is forgotten or forgiven and onward.

Friday night takes us to the Calgary ski sale to try and kit out our kits for a season on the snow and success! We find gear to work and head over to the pay line only we can’t find the end. An actual 15 minute walk takes us once around the Max Bell Arena and up the stairs and half way across the second floor to the end of the line but thanks to a good friend (Peter, you are a hero) and some good humour and a very patient 8 year old who just really, really wants those super cool twin tip skis we wait the madness out and I guess we will be skiers once again.

Then a night with Nik’s sister so we can wake up in Calgary this morning because it is, once again, race day.

So I mentioned a few weeks ago (weeks! yup, it’s been that long) that the boys have been training up to join Nik and I on the starting line of a lovely little family race known as the Halloween Howl. It’s 3k (or a 5 or a 10 if you are bigger and faster) and flat and the boys have done 3k and hilly so we should manage and the horn goes and the 15 or so of us that remain behind for the 3k wander off down the course.

This is where things get cool because I learned something about my little Sam today. See, Sammy is the kid who runs for 15 or 20 meters and then his legs hurts or his back hurts or his tummy hurts and he makes little grunting noises of discomfort and generally pretends to be in some small agony until you tell him you will race him to the stop sign and then he’s off flying and you just try and catch him. So with that in mind I was worried about Sam.

Turns out that race day lights a fire that perhaps I should have seen coming under his skinny bum and he leads the charge down the river trail. There are moments where the whine monster surfaces briefly but he runs the bulk of it and walks the rest and as I approach the last corner with Jo and Sam and Erica (my lovely sister-in-law who recently had surgery on her wrist after attempting to lift one of my kids… yup, for real) we decide we will run from the last corner to the finish line but Sam can’t wait and ten steps before the corner he’s off and flying, his 3-sizes-too big event t-shirt that he insisted on wearing with the sleeves over his hands flapping madly in all directions as he flails his giddy little body toward the finish line and glory.

Nikki, who ran it in with Ben who couldn’t go little brother slow any longer cheers us in and we are all so proud at the finish line. Jonah and Ben ran like champs too and I’m so very proud of all three of them. A big win for all of us today.

They call my shoe color “apple green.” Would you eat an apple that color? They were on sale for a reason. Now focus on the cute pirates.

The rain waited until we had the finish line in our sites and the snow waited to start in earnest until we were inside and the boys want to go again next weekend. Oh, did I mention today was a costume event? We were pirates.

Next weekend’s race is the Rogue Race. Pirates are the theme. I guess since we already have our costumes…

Tomorrow has me speaking and the boys and Nikki making music with me at church and the big birthday party in the afternoon. It will be good, but part of me can’t wait until Monday when I can get some rest.

go for a run

The boys and I have been running a few times now to get ready for the Halloween Howl, a 3km race we entered as a family in late Ocotober. The plan is to be the characters from the Super Mario Brothers. Sam and Jonah as Luigi and Mario, Ben as bowser, me as a prize box or possibly Yoshi (Sam may need a lift) and Nik as one of those venus fly trap plants that come out of the warp tunnels.

So that sees us out the door and down the road about 1.7 km today. Jonah is off and running and Ben sails along without breaking a sweat but our Sam is another matter. Sam takes off running, hands flailing everywhere, sometimes held straight down on stiff arms and sometimes out with wrists bent and foppish and sometimes arms just shooting out at random intervals just to keep you honest and make sure you don’t run up too close beside. Then he grinds down and I hear little grunts of distress and soon his tummy hurts or his knee hurts or his back hurts or he has a headache so we walk for a while and then he expresses his conviction to destroy me in a race and he’s off again. For a while. Just don’t get too close to those arms.

Our Sam figures he wants to see this though and so when I ask if he’s sure and if he thinks he can run a little further and tell him I need to know he can run 3k if he means to do this thing then suddenly the knees and the tummy and the head and the back all seem to be doing fine and we’re off once again. For a while anyway. Mind the arms.

So the boys and I were on the road for a while and then I got them off to bed and then it was time for my turn.

I ran in the dark tonight. Figured I better get used to it as the sun comes crashing down by about 7:30 these days and it gets a lot worse before it gets better so on went the headlamp and the little blinking taillight and out the door.
The lights, in case you’re wondering, are more for the benefit of any motorists I may encounter and to give the wildlife a heads up that I am plodding down the road rather than for my own vision requirements because, as anyone who live in the country can tell you, you can usually see just fine if you give your eyes a minute to catch on.

And then it’s off into the night. I like running at night. This night is cool on my face and turns the tip of my nose red. Last night’s snow still lingers around the edges so with a hood and mittens I thump up the road, my breath coming in clouds that I slice through leaving swirls of vapor twirling behind me.

The one car I do see parked and idling by the bridge spooks as easily as the deer in the fields and takes off, gravel flying as I pound past, thump thump thump and a bobbing light in the dark, an intimidating sight I am sure.

I cross the river and begin the long grind up the other side and inhale the smell of dust and straw and harvest and the stars pop out of the night sky one by one in the wake of the retreating sun.

I wish I could show you the October sky here.

When I grew up in Pennsylvania I thought I knew the stars: all eight of them. When my family moved to Saskatchewan and I found the fall sky and, well, the words are hard to find. It’s a sky that sucks the air from your lungs with the it’s vastness. A sky so clear you can see into the heart of the galaxy.

I used to lay on the football field at my small town high school and just stare until I was shivering with cold and wet with dew and just be in awe. I wish with all my heart that I could share that with you my friends.

So that great piece of art twinkled over my head tonight and drew my eyes up in wonder and I almost drove it into the ditch a few times but I kept one foot landing in front of the other and kept it between the lines. As the great cowboy poet Doris Daley once penned (in a thank you card to me of all things) after a snowy Sunday speaking engagement “Always remember, for every mile of road there are two miles of ditch.” Wise words.

As I crested the hill back into camp I chased the harvest moon out of the trees in front of me and it popped out, spooked by the sight of a spandex clad man with a light on his head (what did I say about intimidating?) and rose above the trees to light my last steps home.

Running feels good right now. I don’t know why but it comes in stages of love and hate and indifference and right now the dial is on love. It refreshes me to trundle down the road and untether my mind for a while. I like the burn in my legs and the feeling of a body doing what it is made to do.

So I guess since it’s fun right now and there’s no hockey on I’ll go for a run.

10000 meters

 

A beautiful September day today after a week of beautiful September days that have made up this beautiful September. This happens to be a special late September day as Melissa’s Road Race runs today. Last winter we registered for the thing and Nik has been dutifully training and I have been dutifully avoiding training for months now.

We bumped down to the 10k from the half marathon last week, a decision I cheered as wise seeing as my running mileage had been a nice round zero in the summer months. This being Nik’s first race of any kind ever and my first running on the road we decided we would enjoy life more and maybe want to do it again if we stuck to the humble target of 10,000 meters.

The day dawned hazy and cool and loaded into the truck and headed west along with more than 3,000 others. Nikki’s sister kindly obliging to spend the morning in Banff with the boys and cheer us on.

We arrived to a town awash in spandex and neon running shoes and people with intimidating looking muscles doing intimidating looking warms ups all over town. Nik has been nervous for a week and the intimidating muscles weren’t helping. Not at all.

So finding parking and wandering towards the blaring race start and forgetting the running watch and me being a little disconcerted at how tired I was after running a few blocks back to the truck and then into the race grounds and so many people. Then the good samaritan with safety pins and hugs and good lucks from the boys and a last minute stop to pee in the trees because the port-a-potty line is 50 deep and then into the starting que.

Melissa’s is “self seeded” meaning you wander down the line and find the spot you think you should start. It’s based on your pace (minutes/kilometer) and we wander down the line and past the 5’s and 6’s and 7’s and to the kind young man bearing the 9+ sign and nearly all the way at the back. It feels better back here. There are fewer scary muscles back here and more wobbly bits and everyone seems to be a little more interested in making jokes about heart attacks than intimidating the opposition. There are kind smiles and words of support in response to self deprecating comments and a general spirit of “whatever happens just do your best” and that is comfortable for me.

The gun goes somewhere up ahead and out of earshot for those of us way at the back but three thousand runners begin to surge forward and it is actual minutes until we cross the starting line but we’re off! Across the bridge and into town and now behind the 90 minute pace bunny and then ahead and walking and running and upward all the while serenaded by the beep of heart rate monitors and timers and GPS watches that call out and announce as we draw another Kilometer closer to glory. Then down and down and into town and now two Kilometers to go and the temptation to open it up a little is resisted and then the last stretch and almost there. We move into earshot of the finish line announcer just in time to hear the announcement of the winner in the women’s 70+ category.

All I have to say about that is good for her. If I can only be so lucky/determined/driven/blessed.

We aren’t fast. Not even a little but we hit our targets and ran our race and you are looking at the proud owners of the 2393th and 2394th fastest time in Melissa’s and that’s out of 2881 you know;).

An afternoon in the afterglow and a lovely lunch in the sun in Canmore and then a long nap at home and a languorous evening. A good day.

We are already talking about next year. We talk about race savvyness and how to be faster and maybe training up our Ben who loves to run. Fifty-five kids under the age of 15 ran the course today and most of them beat me.

It helped that there was sunshine. It helped that there were good samaritans with safety pins and people to joke with at the starting line and people to cheer as we ran past. It helped that we had each other.

And this will, I hope, lead to more. We are registering for a three kilometer family halloween run and have been practicing. The boys can cover the bet at 3k with walking breaks of course and now we just need to settle on the costumes. The current plan is the Wizard of Oz but Sam figures he doesn’t want to be the lion so we’ll see where that goes. Then may be some fives and tens and maybe next year we revisit the half marathon idea. It’s always so much easier to plan the running you will do than it is to do the running you have planned.

I am proud of this. I am proud of Nikki and the time and work she has put into a sport that has been a challenge for her. I am proud that my kids see what we are doing and want to get involved with this. More than anything, I am proud that we crossed the finish line together.

keep on running

Running again tonight and just a little farther than last week. Just crossing the invisible but highly tangible 10 km mark that seems to separate the super casual from the ever so slightly less casual runner.

So out the door for 10 Kilometers on a cool and rainy evening in early May.

The neat part about running were I live is what you get to see. Tonight it was a herd of about 40 or so Elk just North and a bit West of us. They ran like fools from an old golden retriever who was trotting peacefully at my side but I suppose the long white flags fluttering from the rapidly retreating back ends of the whitetails keeping lookout might have spooked them.

And I saw sign of spring #432 – Mountain Blue Birds.

It was a pair of these little bird on the fenceline and like it always is, it was the male that caught my eye. If you’ve never had the pleasure, a male mountain bluebird is a piece of the clear July sky sitting on a fencepost on a grey May evening. A blue so true it seems it must have been worked on in photoshop or shot with a special filter to draw out the color.

This pair bumped along the fenceline in front of me for about a kilometer, keeping my mind occupied with a failed attempt tocapture the essence of that blue in our halting language.

Thankfully they joined me on the uphill to pull my mind away from the huffing of my lungs and the strange little fatigues that seem to find you on the long hills.

“Hmm,” goes my brain, “there seems to be some discomfort on the outside of our right shin. Yes, there definitely is something there! You should give ALL of your attention to that!”

“Shut up brain!” I cleverly reply and turn up my ipod.

…

My boys have decided to become runners. Ben has been out with Nikki once or twice and those crazy long legs of his can carry him a kilometer or two with what seems like no effort at all. Of course the boys want in so we went and got some little runners and they run down to camp and back and “train.” Sammy comes up to Nikki on the weekend after a few short laps and says: “Mom, when you’re running you have to listen to your heart.”

Why’s that Sammy?

“Because” comes the earnest reply “your head keeps telling you to stop, but your heart tells you to keep going.”

Smiled at that a little. Not sure where that bit of wisdom bubbled up from but the boy has a point.

So it’s about Kilometer four and a half when my brain gets after me to shut it down. See the downside of running where I live is that it’s all hills. Really, no matter which way you turn it’s hills and this means running uphill which is terrible but it also means running downhill which is great. It was at the tail end of the uphill that I forgot Sammy’s words of wisdom and my brain started getting the best of me.

“Uhg, just stop already, I mean really, what are you trying to prove?”

Fair point.

“I mean really, you could be eating yummy food, you could be doing things with your kids or any number of things that would be more evolutionary useful.”

Also a fair point.

And then the ol’ ticker throws in it’s two cents, “Just six and half kilometers.”

Nope, can’t do it, too far.

“Just six kilometers and four hundred and fifty meters”

Still too far.

“Just six kilomters and four hundred meters”

You’ve got to admire the heart, it isn’t clever but it is relentless.

I suppose one should be thankful for that, the relentlessness of one’s own heart. It keeps you going in many ways. Now, I am not a disciplined man but I have found some drive in this running business. It helps that Nikki reminds me to run. It helps that my children see what we are working towards and copy it. It helps that Sammy reminds me to listen to my heart.

So I will try to listen to Sammy. I will try to listen to my heart.

running just a little farther

Running is hard.

I can say this with a little bit of authority because I run now. At least a few times a week. For at least a month.

I wrote a while ago about how Nik and I are doing a half marathon in the fall and I am trying to get mostly prepared before summer because with summer comes camp and with camp comes very little interest in anything outside of camp and running is outside of camp so I won’t have much interest in running in summer.

But I am, despite my whiny tone, interested in doing a half marathon. Mostly because the money is paid and there is probably a free t shirt and camp guys like me will do just about anything for a free t shirt but also because I’ve kind of always wanted to run a marathon and this seems like a good step. I figure once you have run a marathon you can hang up your running shoes and when people talk about running marathons you can casually throw it out there something like “Yeah, I ran one of those once. It wasn’t too bad.” and just leave it at that.

The thing is running is hard. It makes your legs sore and tires you out and the hills take your breath away. It’s hard because you have to find the time and get your gear on and brave the weather. It’s hard because sometimes it gives you blisters and sometime you get frostbite on your tummy (true story) and sometimes it makes your joints ache.

Running is hard except when it’s easy.

Because sometimes it is easy. Sometimes you run on legs that feel strong and sometimes the right song comes on your ipod and you’re flying and the kilometers just tick past and the world seems to be lighter and smaller than usual or perhaps you have somehow gotten larger.

But usually it’s hard. Usually it’s pushing and sweating and thinking about turning around now and focussing too much on how your knees ache or your ankle hurts or how there is a stitch in your side. Mostly running is hard.

And this, I think, is a pretty clear and none-too-subtle metaphor for my life as a parent. I was watching some terrible movie with Nikki that was bad enough to not stick in my consciousness beyond the 2 hours of my life it consumed and stumbled across a gem. A friend asks his friend with children what being a dad is like. He responds something like “It’s awful. Awful, awful awful. And then something happens and it’s amazing! And then it’s back to awful.”

Some days this fits the bill. My kids wear me out. They are relentless. They wake up every morning and need me. They go through every day needing me and sometimes I feel all needed out. And then something happens and it’s amazing! Ben brings home a great report card. Jonah slaloms all the cones at the ski hill. Sammy gives me one of his patented hugs.

And then it’s back to awful.

It’s not awful. Not really. Usually it’s pretty great. But it is hard.

Except when it’s easy.

running pretty far

A marathon is a really long way to run.

I know this because I looked it up. It’s 42.195 kilometres and that’s pretty far. Marathons usually take between 2 hours, 6 minutes and 32 seconds if you happen to be Samuel Kamau Wanjiru (what did I tell you about looking stuff up?) and about 6 hours if you happen to be me. At least that’s how long I imagine it would take me considering that that is usually as long as they will let you be on the course and I have never tried to run that far.

So a marathon is pretty far and we run now (darn you Nikki and your active lifestyle) and so now we are doing one of those. Or rather, half of one of those and that is still 21.0975 kilometers and that is still, as far as I am concerned, pretty far.

I imagine it will take me four hours because again that is as long as they will let you be on the course and I have never tried to run that far before.

Back to the story part; we run now. Nikki is getting all fit and she left me in the dust in a workout the other week and that tickled her pretty good and now we run because it is easy to do and cheap and not too bad for you to boot.

Well not as cheap as I thought. Running shoes aren’t free and now we need fancy-dancy outfits to run in the cold and are all reflective and fast looking and those aren’t cheap either but it’s cheaper than, say, golf and not nearly as silly.

Mark Twain called golf “a good walk, spoiled” and that sounds about right and I’ll tell you a story about me and golf sometime but I digress and Nikki hates it when I do that.

But as far as a marathon is and as much as I imagine the half of one I am going to stagger through in September will hurt me it will still be over in four hours one way or the other and four hours is not, really, all that terribly much of my life.

Thinking about the relentlessness of life today and particularly about the relentlessness of parenting and the phrase “It’s a marathon, not a sprint” and how that doesn’t really apply in this case.

See, no matter how hard it happens to be or how long it takes you, a marathon has a finish line. Parenting doesn’t. I am thirty something and have kids of my own to worry about and my mom and dad are still my mom and dad. The demands may be less but they are still my parents and when my own kids are thirty something I’ll still be parenting them on some level.

Thankfully the demands change over time otherwise I would have walked away from the whole mess when Sam and Jo were in the baby phase. But these kids grow and when you don’t have to change diapers anymore you teach them manners and keep them from losing it at the grocery store and then you teach them about big things like friendship and getting along with people. And well, I have a guess there will be some stuff about girls in our future and maybe money and cars and school and eventually everything but we’re not there yet.

So yes, even a half marathon is a long way to run. But I’ll do it because Nikki will do it and she’s a sight tougher than me and because, as my brother-in-law so elegantly puts it, “Nothing can be THAT hard” and the man has a point. I’ll go out and put in my four hours or less and then it will be over and when it is I’ll still be a dad because that race doesn’t have a finish line.