Neighborhood mushrooms

Bike ride: Aug. 5, 2010

40 Miles: Wausau -> Marathon -> Mosinee -> Wausau

Soybeans



Jesus




Tractor




Sunflowers




Ginseng




Hay



Christmas trees




Cow

Sentimental pain

For reasons that defy logic and I can't begin to explain, I decided to run the East Hill Loop this evening after work.

The East Hill Loop was the staple run of the Wausau Hill Runners, a dedicated group of harriers that consisted of three Wausau Daily Herald staffers, Dave, Kyle and Me. We would attempt to meet Wednesday mornings before work at the Y. From there we would run up winding city streets that climb the hill on the East Side of Wausau.

For those not familiar with our little slice of paradise in central Wisconsin, the hill is steep climb out of the Wisconsin River Valley. It's not the Rockies of Colorado or the Palisades of NYC, but it is a steep pitch, maybe three quarters of a mile long.

Dave picked the run because he liked pain. So he would look for running routes that featured the best and longest hills. At first I hated him for this, but then, I too, grew to love the hills. My resurgence as a runner began on that hill, what, five years ago now?

Today I ran the four mile route in 36 minutes and 11 seconds. Since I can barely remember my times from the Hillrunners era, I'm not sure this is a personal record, but I think it is.

Dave, do you read this? Let me know.

Dave marked all the routes, found out their distance and kept track of all our times. He wore this old-school LCD stopwatch around his neck, thinking that it made him some kind of Bill Bowerman.

Of course Dave and Kyle kicked my ass up and down that hill. But I still loved it, and I missed them as I felt that clawing feeling in my lungs as I plodded toward the top of the hill.

And I especially missed sitting in a booth at The Mint after our runs, swilling coffee and gulping down the best corned beef hash in the world while solving the problems of the world, the city and the newspaper for which we worked.

The art of relaxation

The goals of this six-day "staycation" was to run, bike and to make some progress on building that basement laundry cabinet that has been in the works for the last seven months.

Oh, and I was supposed to make the dinners this week, too.

Along the way I had hoped to quaff coffee in the downtown coffee shop, take naps, read books and eat some food that is high in sugar and fat content.

I can say, at the start of my third day of this bout of R&R, that I've been successful on all fronts. Even made a dinner or two. (Granted, throwing hamburgers on the grill is pretty easy, and opening a bag of chips is more so, and Kris still whipped up a tasty side dish, but still...)

All those undertakings, however, were secondary, surface activities meant to help me realize the ultimate goal: To relax and recharge.

It would seem simple to take it easy, but that's not exactly the way I'm wired. I've taken these stay-at-home vacations before, and they've gone badly. I end up on the couch flipping through channels, looking for gumption to do anything but sit on the couch and flip through channels. At that point I usually turn to cookies and chips. And then I start thinking about all the things I should be doing. Then I started thinking about my life, and my career, and all the things I wanted to do but never quite got around to completing, or even starting. Then I end up in a worry loop of misery, with my stomach churning and my heart skipping beats every now and then.

I got close to the worry loop a couple of times, especially on the rainy days. But then I got up, and went out into the garage, and started fooling around with plywood and tools.

And it made me feel better.

The key to this staycation, I've found, is to find activities that allow some freedom of thought, but also require a sort of concentration on the task at hand.

A good strong drink after a bout of strenuous exercise seems to help, too.

A breath of fresh air

There's an old hackneyed axiom about Wisconsin weather: Don't like it? It'll change in five minutes.

There's the old joke: "Ohh, my feet hurt," Man 1 says.

"Why is that?" Man 2 asks.

"I just bought these new shoes, and they're a size too small."

"Why did you do that?"

"Because it feels so good when I take them off."

Mix the two together, and you get one of life's greatest simple pleasure: The breaking of a a heat wave.

It's been warm here. Not oppressively hot like what you find in other parts of the country or world, but uncharacteristically humid and hot for Wisconsin this time of year. Ever since I nearly keeled over from heat exhaustion in a haymow the summer of 1983, I have not dealt well with the heat. I tend to get headaches and stomachaches and in general feel as if my cranium has become a cooking pot for my brains when temps climb higher than 86 or so.

But despite this discomfort, I still like it, because I know it'll be a matter of time before the heat gets broken. Sometimes it's with a violent storm, sometimes with gusts of cool air. But it always is interesting.

It was about 87 degrees yesterday, and for the most part it was OK. But in the late afternoon things started getting uncomfortable, with that sticky feeling that finds its way into the body's wedges. We decided to keep the air conditioning off, because a line of rain clouds were heading our way.

After the thunderstorms and rain of last night, I opened the back sliding door this morning and felt that cool, clear rush of fresh air. Ahhh.

That feeling reminded me of the two times before in my life that rainstorms provided a rush of relief.

The first time could actually have been in the aforementioned summer of 1983. I was working on a neighbor's farm, and the weather was brutal. Mom and Dad left for vacation, the first time I spent a significant amount of time home alone. The farmer, Chuck, sent me home early because the storms were building in the west, and there wasn't much to do without an open, clear day.

Man it was hot. The air was thick with moisture, and sun seemed to pierce my skull. It was as if God was steaming us for lunch.

I heard the rumble of thunder far off in the west, and when I went outside, I could see the wall of clouds heading our way, a cavalry charge of thunderheads. As it got closer, tension built. Birds got quiet, and what breeze there was died down.

I could hear the rain hitting the trees a half mile away first, then felt that first gust of cool wind. As the storm got closer, with flashed of lightning here and there, I could see the wall of rain come towards. I stood my ground, and when it hit, I was soaked and almost cold. It felt great.

The second time that happened, I was an intern in Tomahawk. It was a record-breaking hot and dry summer, and spent much of my free time sprawled on the living room floor of my rented-one bedroom under the ceiling fan.

Sometimes I went to a local resort, and swam across a lake. I had just finished such a swim, probably about a half mile, and was sitting on a picnic table when the clouds approached. Again I heard it before felt it. The rain drops created this crackling sound on the lake, nature's snare drum beat. I watched the line of rain roughen the lake's surface, sat there as the line slowly came to me.

Then I was wet again, and cool.

Ahhhh.

Top (Biking) Gear

My favorite television show is "Top Gear," a British series about car, mostly high end cars. It's sort of "Car and Driver" meets "Mad" magazine.

One of the things that hooked me on the show was when when of the hosts tests a high-end Ferrari and is screaming down a track at 150 mph, there's a display of true joy.

I figured that I would probably never experience that sort of thrill. After all, these yahoos are driving Mercedes, Jaguars and BMWs, all powered by engines that could provide electricity for most medium-sized cities. The cost of these vehicles exceed the economies of most countries on this planet.

Unless there's some dramatic turn of fate, I'll never be able to afford such a vehicle, and until yesterday, I've resigned myself to never feeling that sort of rush. You, know, the feeling that you are in charge of machine that's at the cutting edge.

But yesterday I got a new bicycle. Sure, it sound ridiculous to compare a bike to a Ferrari, but as soon as I got on this machine, and rode it around the block, I understood why the Top Gear guys get carried away with their hooting and hollering and their twisted, over the top metaphors.

As I took this bike out for a shake down ride into the hills northeast of Wausau, I completely got it. I wanted to yell. It was like riding a rocket, and at the same time it was so comfortable and smooth that I felt like was flying. I'm not sure how this could be. But there it is.

So although I am trying to build my life on something other than things, this is one thing that has opened a new door to me. And wow, it felt good to go for a ride.

Trail fitness

I saw a couple of other runners out at Nine Mile County Forest and Recreational Area in Rib Mountain, which is rare.

This is the quiet time out there in the woods. The snow -- and even the wet -- from the cross country ski trails is long gone, but the area is still closed to mountain bikers. It's still open to hunters (it's turkey season, I think) and hikers, but for the most part, most people do that stuff in other parts of the county.

For me, it's my favorite time to go out there. The mosquitoes and ticks aren't overwhelming, and it's cool and the air has that spring dampness to it that feels good in the lungs. (I'll probably come down with blasto, though.)

So this is the time of year I like to ramp up my running, and the Nine Mile trails allow me to build up my legs without the pounding of pavement. Buddy loves it, because he can run off leash, sniffing and looking and running through the brush to his heart's delight.

I'm becoming increasingly addicted to trail running. I used to avoid it because it's slow. The uneven terrain means that my feet land in different positions, and the legs had to react in different ways. That's a sort of uncomfortable feeling. And the softness of the grass and dirt meant that muscles have to work harder.

It wasn't until earlier this year that the notion hit me that I should embrace trail running because of those things. That sore muscles and having to work harder would actually build strength, and make one faster on the roads. It's a testament to my own density that I hadn't made this obvious conclusion before.

So last week Buddy and I went out there on Saturday morning. Although I told myself that could go as slow as I wanted, and time didn't matter, I hit the stopwatch on the Timex anyway. I was sort of pleased that I finished the 10-k loop in a little over an hour. It wrecked me a bit. I was tired and sore when I got back, and both Buddy and I spent about two hours of recovery nap time on the couch.

We went back out there again yesterday, and soon into the run I felt kind of strange. It wasn't a slog like it usually is. I didn't feel heavy and slow. Instead I had the strange feeling of being quick and light. Was this a byproduct of blasto, I wondered?

Maybe it was. But as I clicked through kilometers, I noticed that I was going quite a bit faster than last week, on average, about a minute per mile.

I think I might be getting fitter. What a strange and wonderful feeling that is.