Heartwarming Owl Story...and Ultrarunning

Image credit here.

Some of my regular reads are a few blogs that loosely could be categorized as feminist blogs, to include Echidne of the Snakes.  Miss Echidne picked up a cool story from Finland about an owl and a kayaker:

Pentti Taskinen, a 61-year-old experienced kayaker, was out on Tuusula lake and saw something splashing in the water, through a thick mist. When he got closer, he found that it was an owl, swimming, exhausted, near death. Owls are not water fowl. How that owl got into the water is a mystery. Some bird watchers think it got lost in the fog, others suggest crows which sometimes chase owls away as a group.

The animal had initially tried to swim away, but apparently soon realized that the kayak which appeared from nowhere might be its last chance. Water reached in all directions half a kilometer and its temperature was six degrees Celsius.

The owl started struggling towards Taskinen's kayak and tried to get into it, but was unable to do so on its own.

"What was fine was when I got it into the kayak and took a couple of pictures. It then crawled near me and put its head inside my life vest."

And there it remained. According to the Taskinen the owl was otherwise calm, but shook nervelessly. He suspects that the bird would not have survived much longer in the water.

Taskinen sought the nearest inhabited shore, the owl was given heat, shelter and food, and it flew away the following morning.

And that, my friends, is your feel-good story of the day.

I may have told here my favorite personal owl story, but here goes.  I was running on the C+O Canal, along the Potomac River a few miles upstream of Williamsport, MD (the finish line of November's JFK 50 Miler).  I needed to pee, so I just stopped at a convenient tree just off the edge of the towpath.

While in the middle of going, all of a sudden I hear a commotion directly above me--it was a pair of owls hurriedly leaving the tree I was peeing on.  Of all the trees in the forest, I pick the one with a pair of owls in it!  And they were big, and majestic: I am not sure of the species, but it definitely was one of the larger species in our neck of the woods.

I felt at that moment that the gods of nature had indeed smiled upon me to grant me that experience.  Had I picked any other tree, I would have run past these owls, oblivious to their presence, as they quietly looked down on the passing runner.

More "Thinking Thoughts"...and Ultrarunning

On Wed this week I posted this, in part:

The other day while I was driving and listening to National Public Radio. The host was interviewing a guest--I believe his name was Robert McFarlane, or something close to that, whose passion was walking--who offered the following gem of an observation:

There are some thoughts that can only be had while on foot.

Well, I have a corollary, occasioned by me running in the rain yesterday.  Oh, and it was deliberate; the bride was off to do some volunteer work at Mister Tristan's (the 5-year old human being, not the blog) school, so I had her drop me off for a one-way run home...in the rain.

Which leads to this:

There are some thoughts that can only be had while in the rain.

And I mean actually IN the rain: no ponchos, no umbrellas, just you in the rain.  And to be inclusive, I did not stipulate that one had to be running, just to be out in the rain.  Although in my case, the running is implied. 

See, when you run, you generate plenty of heat such that getting wet per se is usually no biggie.  Of course you must wear the proper clothing, to include synthetic "technical" shirts and shorts/tights (no cotton!) that keeps you warm even when it is wet. 

The payoff is this: we spend a lot of time trying to stay dry, such that few people actually have the experience of being wet, outside, on purpose.  It's kinda liberating, actually.

Mental health advocates tell us it's important as we age to exercise our brains.  This could include such techniques as putting on your pants or socks wrong-leg first, eating lefthanded if you are righthanded, doing puzzles and games, etc.  In short, doing things that may create or foster new neural pathways in your brain's wiring is thought to be beneficial in warding off decline of your mental faculties.

Thus running in the rain can have major mental health consequences...at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

My brainchild during yesterday's rainy run was to mentally work out the details of the treehouse I am planning for Mister Tristan.  Once I get the rest of my leaves gathered I expect to have a couple weeks of dead time outside during which I can get at least the framing done.

Knuckles That Promote Literacy

Via Boing Boing, the geeky site that if you do not visit at least a couple times a week, your life is poorer.

 

Image credit Boing Boing, with a reference to Flickr, here.

 

The bride is a (now retired) reading specialist, having worked in the public schools of PA for 30 years.

 

This photo is dedicated to her.

 

 

Thinking Thoughts...and Ultrarunning

The other day while I was driving and listening to National Public Radio.  The host was interviewing a guest--I believe his name was Robert McFarlane, or something close to that, whose passion was walking--who offered the following gem of an observation:

There are some thoughts that can only be had while on foot.

I thought, yippee!!  Somebody else gets it!

All of us get those blank stares or disbelief when it becomes known in conversation that we run long distances.  "Don't you get bored?" they say.

I politely answer some (usually longer) version of "No," but in my mind I'm thinking that my mind is so richly fertile while I am running that I can't wait to think those thoughts.

There are some thoughts that can only be had while on foot.

Primeval Hope, Vibrance, Optimism...and Ultrarunning

It's been awhile since I posted about something I saw on The Writer's Almanac.

This is a website that provides a free daily email about "things literary," but it's more, so much more.  It's nominally written by Garrison Keillor--at least it is he who reads the corresponding daily spot on National Public Radio that I sometimes catch. 

Today's feature, here, is a short poem from C. K. Williams, entitled Droplets.  It's often when people see poetry they can't hit that DELETE key fast enough.  But...if you like rain (and what Ultrarunner worth her or his salt doesn't?) you should click on over to read it, here.  It's short.

But today's focus isn't a Williams poem, it was a quote that he offered about his grandchildren that arrested me so:

I have three grandsons. Who, of course, are above average — way above average, needless to say. And when I'm with them I feel a sort of primeval hope, their vibrance, their optimism, the way they're so firmly in the world without thinking about it. When I'm not with them and I think about the world, I am not in a very hopeful mood. I'm in a very fearful mood.

Later today when I see Mister Tristan--the 5-year-old human being--I plan on loving the daylights out of him.  He won't know why, but I will.

There's the immortality that all of us somehow seek.

The link to Ultrarunning?  This sport is a long sojourn across many miles, sometimes vast distances, much like the journey of raising a child or grandchild.  The journey has highs and lows, times of triumph and times of disaster, physical depths and spiritual heights, all wrapped up in one neat little package.  Like the running philosopher Dr. George Sheehan used to say, sport--particularly running--is a metaphor for life.  All the elements are there.

Cats in Art: Gray Cat on a Cushion (Kirchner)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi. This is post 2 of 3 examining the cat works of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and, like last week, is a post-World War I work.

 

Image credit Art is Not for Sissies, here.  Gray Cat on a Cushion, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1919-20, oil on canvas, 31" x 27", held by Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund, Germany.

 

Zuffi comments: 

 

A comparison between Kirchner's works before and after the First World War highlights with dramatic effect the state of mind of a German intellectual.  The cat is tense, the forward-pointing whiskers a clear sign of nervousness; and its tail looks as it is about to beat against the cushion.  The animal's glaring eyes and the violent colors in the background, where the fabric seems to evoke explosive flashes of light, add to this painting's sense of tension.

 

In this image Zuffi descriptively nails it--the kitty is agitated, restless, ready to detonate.  One would try to pet this cat at one's own risk (I know this, for we have a similarly twitchy cat who can go from a hiss to a purr in less than 10 seconds).

 

I do love the background as well.  The colors are quite at odds with the central image of the cat, but contribute to the overall discordance of the scene.

 

In looking at the series of chronological works of Kirchner, I could see the light openness of his earlier works being supplanted by his somewhat darker post-war art.  He was quite changed by his experiences as a soldier in the war...and who could not be?

 

Here is a telling quote from Kirchner himself on the war (as found in The Art Story, here):

 

"The heaviest burden of all is the pressure of the war and the increasing superficiality. It gives me incessantly the impression of a bloody carnival. I feel as though the outcome is in the air and everything is topsy-turvy. All the same, I keep on trying to get some order in my thoughts and to create a picture of the age out of confusion, which is after all my function."

Through all the madness, Kirchner still knew what he had to do as an artist:

 "...I keep on trying to get some order in my thoughts and to create a picture of the age out of confusion, which is after all my function."

 

 

Tuscarora Trail Maintenance

I was over at the Tuscarora Trail on Thurs this week doing some weedwhacking of the rampant briars and weeds along the ridgetop trail.  Due to disease and insects, many of the trees along the crest have died (gypsy moth, oak leaf roller), letting more sunshine reach the ground, resulting in a veritable explosion of weedy understory growth.

The trail is barely passable in certain parts between PA 16 south to PA 456--long pants and long sleeves are a necessity or you'd be cut to ribbons by the briars.

So, although my official overseer duties are limited to the Reese Hollow Shelter and the Reese Hollow Trail, there's not much point in having "my" trail (which links the valley access point with the ridgetop Tuscarora Trail) be all spiffied up with nowhere to go after you reach the top.  So I pitched in.

Let me tell you, this type of weedwhacking is pretty arduous.  My objective was to cover the 3 miles between Hell's Hill Trail and Reese Hollow Trail, heading south to north.  However, due to me going off trail on my way up the poorly marked Hell's Hill Trail and veering south somewhat, I reached the Tuscarora perhaps a mile south of the Hell's Hill junction (towards the Yellow Trail).

Thinking the day would go faster, I just began my weedwhacking there.  Turns out in actual experience, my pace was about 1/2 mile per hour, so in 5 hours of work I was able to cover perhaps 2.5 miles...at best.  By the end of the time I was pretty much shaken to pieces from the incessant vibration. 

Left undone is approximately 2 miles of trail directly south of the Reese Hollow Trail junction heading towards the junction with Hell's Hill Trail.  So another trip is required, but this time hopefully the overseer for this section will be back from a trip and we'll be able to team up.

Fire on the Mountain: Lessons Learned

I ran the Fire on the Mountain 50K on Sunday.  As I posted earlier this week (here), I had some struggles in the race, so here in no particular order are some of my take-aways:

1. Don't drop unless continuing would create or exacerbate an injury.  In other words, if you can locomote forward, just keep doing it.  It doesn't always keep getting worse.  Were it not for my running companion, who encouraged me strongly (with an implied threat of bodily harm), I probably would have bailed at the half-way mark, when I was feeling quite low physically and mentally.  But I kept on going, and the second half actually was easier than the first.

2.  "Muscle Memory" is a poor theory on which to base running a race when you are seriously undertrained. 

3.  To me, the race ran long...meaning that each interval between aid stations felt much longer than expected.  Case in point: the first aid station was 5.5 miles in, but it felt like 7 or 8.  I chalk this up to simply running slower, as in the famous formula:

     distance = rate x time

And solving for time:

     time = distance/rate

Thus we see that over a fixed distance one's rate (pace) is the variable upon which elapsed time rests.  Or stated another way: Running slowly takes longer.  Duh.

4.  Despite being in the heart of a the vast near-wilderness that is western Maryland, I saw a grand total of zero vertebrate animals while running (except for runners and other humans).  No birds, no squirrels, no deer, no turkeys, no bear.  Nada.  Possible reason: the woods were too noisy and the critters vamoosed.  Conditions were dry with the trails covered by fallen leaves.  Also there was a 10 mph breeze out of the west, which also created some noise.

5.  Having a running companion is wonderful, especially if when you hit a rough patch.

6.  An iced vanilla frappe and a burger at the finish line tasted heavenly.

7.  I found myself a solidly back-of-the pack runner on Sunday, a position I am unfamiliar with. Most of my running career I've been a fairly successful recreational runner, usually finishing in the top third.  I gotta get used to being at that end of the pack, it's the new normal.

8.  This race did not have awards by age category (as most standard road races do), but if they did, I would have won the 60+ age group.  Go figure.