Arizona Running

I do love running here.  I often get comments from friends about running on vacation, but here in Arizona it is just plain fun.  

I did 4 miles along the rim of the Grand Canyon the day after arriving.  I started down in the gravel parking lot down below the Rim Village buildings near the old train depot.  I chugged up the steps and started off down the trail to the east.  After just a short ways I saw the PBS film maker Ken Burns walking the other direction by himself, perhaps something to do with his new series on National Parks.

The miles on this run just flew by.  I would have kept going but needed to head back where the family was passing time in gift shops.  But what a magical place and such a great experience.  The picture of Lynda and me was taken by Matthew right after I met back up with them.

  

The next couple of days we  were in Phoenix and staying in a hotel along I-17 in the middle of town.  We picked a place that was on a running trail so I was able to get a 5 and 6 mile runs in here.  The paths border a irrigation canal on both side and includes parks and a golf course so the sense of place was pretty good.  Tunnels, as I had found last year in a different part of town, run under the busy roads so you don't need to worry about cars.  So pretty good runs.  

Then today I ran along the Lost Dog Wash trail east of Scottsdale.  This was nearly perfect.  I love trail running I got jazzed as I finished the second half of this 4 miler.  I almost felt invincible.  For the first time since the first of the year, I just seemed to dominate and powered over this rough terrain.  Just an amazing experience.  I will go back to this trail system again before we leave -- but tomorrow may do the Westworld trail which is nearby.

Yep, running is a part of my vacation.  Plan around it and do it. It's just part of our day.   Plus I have got to counter all these extra calories I seem to be swallowing.  Oh well.  

My Crew

I spend a third of my life at another house.  At this other place, where I have been for the last 13 years, I do all the things that I do at my house in Sherwood.  Okay, not ALL the things, but most of them; such as shopping, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, paying bills, working in the yard, making my bed, brushing my teeth, watching TV, answering the phone and reading before I turn out my bedside light.  And just like my home in Sherwood, I live in the other house with other people.  

Living in a house with others creates all the fun, adventures and mishaps of any family sharing that small space.  Who is going to unload the dishwasher and take the recycling out to the curb?  Will the bathroom be available when I need it and will there be enough hot water when I take a shower.  If I make eggplant parmesan for dinner, will everybody eat it.  Will someone wake me at night by snoring or talking in their sleep?  And "oh my god", is someone going to watch Fox News!!!

Luckily for the me the answer to that last one is NO!!  I am lucky or blessed because I spend the other part of my life with amazing great people.  We call each other, kiddingly,  "my crew"  but they are really my other family.

One of the other things that we do at the firehouse is workout together.  For about an hour each day, usually late afternoon, we doff our black work pants and navy T's and sweats and dress down in shorts and tech shirts.  Most times in the winter we head down to the station's basement which has become our gym.  It has a bunch of cardio machines and plenty of weights for lifting.  Whenever  favorable weather allows, I'll go outside the fire station and run around the block to get outside.  I have a half-mile route mapped out and prefer that to running on the treadmill.  

Other times, especially in the summer, we'll take the fire engine down to Jackson Middle School where we can do a track workout or run cross country around the school yard.  But the cool thing about Jackson is the long set of steps that goes up a hill for two blocks away from the school.  Combining those stairs with the track is awesome. 

I am also lucky because this other family loves to stay active--which keeps me motivated at work.  

First there is Josh (on the bike, far left of the picture above).  Josh usually does this workout on his roller for an hour but it is usually AFTER he has ridden the same bike from home 60 MILES that morning-- and will ride it back in the morning!  And he does this in all weather, all winter.  It flirts with insane but he is my workout hero.  Josh trains for and rides in all types of bike races in the Portland area.  His VO2 max is in the 70's and he stays super thin despite eating anything he wants.  But he deserves it.  He is the the calorie burning machine.

Next in the picture is boring old me on the treadmill.  No surprise.  

Mike is the little diesel engine.  The first one down to the basement every day and he typically spends 20 minutes and every machine down there except the spin bike.  The picture shows him  on the elliptical and getting ready to hit the rowing machine.  He's an animal!!

And last, but not least, there is Mariya.  Yep, she loves the spin bike.  "Mod", as we call her, is not only a spinning instructor but is also a fire department fitness trainer.   Her biceps and calf muscles are way bigger than mine -- but I can usually take her in a foot race.  She's always in a good mood and it's fun to watch all the stares she gets when we're out in public as this very feminine woman is out keeping up with the boys in a physical job.  She is amazing!!

So this is my other family and the house we live in.  No dalmation, just the four of us.  But every third day when I walk in the back door to the my other house I am always greeted with their smiling faces and look forward to the adventures with them that lie ahead.  

The Brookman Route

The west end of Brookman road where the town of Middleton once stood

The rolling hills of this rural road give few clues to the nearby suburbia

The small town that I live in sits like an island surrounded by what I would call semi-rural countryside.  It's not a hardcore western experience, more like hobby farms and hillsides covered with Christmas trees than anything else.  Yet take a just a few steps beyond the cul-de-sacs crammed full of craftsman style super houses, and you quickly find yourself with a different sense of place.  In our little town of Sherwood, Oregon, you can find this by running in nearly any direction.  Everyone in town is but a few blocks from the country.  

This morning Randy and I once again took advantage of this unique layout.  Anytime we want to add a little grace and exchange bird songs for car exhaust, we head for Brookman road.  It might be needless to say but we add this extension to our runs together most of the time.  I'll sometimes go there by myself, but usually not.

The road itself is pretty old by Sherwood standards.  It intersects both the old west coast highway (99 West) and the old Southern Pacific railroad.  For short time a small town emerged near this junction when the tracks were first laid in the late 1880's.  Nothing remains of "Middleton" now,  although a modern grade school still bears it name.  Stop signs still interrupt the flow of cars although the train tracks there are no longer used.  

The part of the road we run adds two miles to whatever course we have laid out.  The road is generally straight along most of it's bulk although it does throw a pair of right angles at you on the east end.  At no place on Brookman will you find flat road, instead the course is undulating.  A few of the peaks are steep enough to be challenging, but they don't last long,  perfect really for working on strength and pushing yourself over the series of crests.  

There are some houses along the way but mostly you just run past stands of douglas fir trees, orchards, and some fenced pastures.  Some of these have horses.   On the west end of the road there are goats and some place in the middle has a few cows.  I wouldn't dare call them cattle.  If you just have a few of them and they're on Brookman road, they're just cows.  But they are fun to run past.  

Randy and I are not the only ones to run this road.  A quick scan of routes created on the popular "mapmyrun.com" website show many using Brookman.  The most organized and most widely run road race in Sherwood, the "Oregon Run for the Roses",  uses Brookman predominately in it's 10k event. This url shows the route on a map:  http://www.oregonsrunfortheroses.com/10k_run.htm.    But so far I have not seen any other runner out there except during that race.  Maybe because it's a little too dangerous for most folks with it's narrowness and poor line-of-sight visibility, or maybe it's just too remote and isolated for the lone runner.  But being alone can just add to the experience.

It's unclear what the future holds for this little road.  Clearly it is a stones throw from major development and it seems sure that it is just a matter of time before it is engulfed by the same fate as other nearby orchards and farms.  Most importantly Brookman Road is probably best known in Sherwood as the proposed route for a major bypass highway in an effort to ease traffic on other clogged streets.  Although it will likely be awhile before this happens, if it ever does, it can only be a matter of time before this landscape changes forever and the island of Sherwood pushes outward.  

But for now I feel lucky.  Lucky to have a place so close to home that for at least 15 minutes any day I choose, I can run outside of town and feel a little bit country. 

Happy New Year!

I have been really sick with the flu the last few days and so unable to run as I would like.  But I did go outside to get some fresh air sometimes and as I walked around the yard I noticed the first crocus buds poking their yellow or purple heads out of the ground.  After coming back inside,  I glanced at the calendar and was again reminded of our it's obvious imperfection.  I think that the New Year starts on the wrong date.

The new year should start at the beginning of spring when the north world awakens from it's long cold sleep.  It makes sense then to me to start the new year on March 1st.  This is when the days start to warm and when hope returns for the promise of summer.  New life emerges from the decay of autumn and the iciness of winter.  I see my neighbors venturing outdoors, perhaps in shirtsleeves and exchanging "hellos",  reconnoitering the lawn and pulling a few weeds along the way.

I was outside for only a short time.  The walk was a weak substitute for the run I wanted.   Inside, the calendar hanging on the wall seems strangely out of balance.  Surely this should  be the beginning.  Everything around me tells me that this is day one.  Even the calendar itself seems to demand a shift.

It's so simple and natural, move March to the front.  Let all the heavymonths with their long names and weighty suffixes  settle to the bottom of the calendar!  Starting with September and staying through to February, let these brutes provide the ballast to carry the rest of the year.   Let the lighter months rise to the top and start the year with aptly named March.  

But the calendar's face offers an even more compelling reason for this natural realignment,  and with no offense intended toward Pope Gregory,  one quick glance at our new structuring and it becomes so clear;  septem means seven and the month now sits in pristine place.  So too with October being the eight month and the rest, each now sitting naturally in their rightful spot.  Schoolboys across the globe, who now puzzle over our current anomalous  positioning of those four months, could stop scratching their heads and get back to work.

Are we done yet?  Not at all!  Leap Year!  Yes, along with this shift from our current imperfection comes the logical place to synchronize our calendar with the heavens every four years.  When you try to fit a round sun into square calendar something has to squeal and so what better day to do it than  on February 29th,  now the last day of the year!!  

These are all good reasons for making the change I think.  And with all the renovations that President Obama is making in Washington,  maybe I'll write and give him my suggestion.  Hell, crazy bastard might just do it!  But the best reason of all to start the new year on March 1st is what I saw when I walked outside and those little crocuses heads were bravely poking out of the ground.