All posts in category Travel USA

The Cabins at Madill

 

Horses in the pasture.

I had the opportunity to spend some time in what some refer to as flyover country. My wife and her sister share property bequeathed by her father in southeastern Oklahoma, a place very few people not from here would consider visiting. I would not say those people are missing out, as it would not be possible without the benefit of owning a chunk of this area to experience it like I did. But given the chance, it is a place of beauty, challenge and reward.

Early sunset with barns

My wife is investing a large amount of time and effort rehabilitating a house on the land that sits on a hill. We refer to it as the cabin, but it is really four old small houses and parts of houses stuck together at various times many years ago. This is why we are now calling it “The Cabins at Madill”, a fancy sounding name, like a resort in the woods. Madill is the nearest town, small and very “country”, nine miles away. The man doing the work is named Galen, and he is very talented at construction and hard-working. He grew up in the area, and knows its secrets, hidden roads, fishing spots and most of the locals.

The main part of the house has a bedroom, large living area, open kitchen and dining area. My son-in-law, Evan, and his friend Andy from Texas installed “mini-splits” two weeks ago, which are permanent HVAC units installed high on the walls. The units work great, and are necessary in a place where it is really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter. Galen reworked the ceiling in the living area, creating a high ceiling with cross beams, and installed a wood-burning fireplace. He put in new flooring all around, redid walls, rebuilt two bathrooms, installed new kitchen cabinets and appliances, and has replaced several windows. Rewiring required disturbing a skunk family and a snake under the house in the crawl space.

Early in the planning stages, the living area.

 

The living area with the new fireplace and the mini-split.

My wife and I arrived at DFW airport the night before July 4, following a three-hour delay for thunderstorms in Philadelphia. Fortunately, my rental pickup truck was still waiting in the lot for me, key on the seat, although the desk person for Budget was gone. We headed up to Denton, Texas and checked in to the Hampton Inn. Hampton Inns have great beds and always seem to be a delightful place to stay. The next morning at the breakfast buffet, we planned our day. It turns out, we had a lot of purchasing to do, at places like Home Depot and Lowe’s. First, though, we headed to the Guitar Center in Denton. After all, what good is a place in the country if you can’t sit on the front porch and strum your guitar? I found a nice acoustic, nylon string guitar to keep at the cabins. We then headed to Home Depot, where we bought a number of essentials, a shovel, some tools, a drill, a Weber grill, and a few other items. Back on the road, we reached Madill in an hour and a half, then went on to our house. It was warm, and as we stepped inside, the coolness told us the mini-splits were doing their job.

My new guitar. Galen brought his guitar over, and we sat in the living area playing music together.

We had plenty more to do to equip the house. We took a trip to town to the Walmart, to get groceries and household items. The grocery section of the Walmart is remarkably well stocked. They even had Mt. Rainier cherries, of which I am a huge fan. For dinner, we bought a roasted chicken and some broccoli. The Walmart also sells beer, nothing too exotic, but beer nonetheless. As we ate dinner, we were enjoying a marvelous sunset seen through our dining room window with the cows and a few horses in the near pasture, the subtle reds, oranges and purples of the sky and clouds, and the gentle hum of the mini-splits. After dinner with the darkness upon us, we sat on a tandem rocker on the front porch, playing the guitar and drinking a beer. Before long, the Independence day fireworks started, and we could see bits of four different displays, over Lake Texoma, in Madill, and in a couple other locations. Bugs were buzzing around us but were leaving us alone; we wisely had applied insect repellent.

Porch in daylight.

Galen had fixed plywood to the kitchen cabinets as a counter top until we could get our real counter tops installed. We had a working kitchen sink, and an unbelievably beautiful stove. We had a little old Sunbeam drip coffee maker that had one button, on/off, and made terrific coffee. Over the next couple of days we visited Lowe’s in Ardmore and Durant, buying a stackable washer and dryer and a dishwasher. These we hauled home in the back of our rental pickup truck, including bringing home the counter tops which had been previously custom ordered. We are not going too fancy with this place. We have vinyl flooring which has a wood look, and Linoleum counter tops.

Our bright red Ford four door F150, on a tour of the ranch.

Speaking of the kitchen, we, that is my wife Kathleen and I, love to cook.  There’s nothing quite like a gas stove to cook on, since one has complete control over the amount of heat applied to the pot.  So, what does one do when there is not a gas line to the house.  Yes, there is an old propane tank outside, but the idea of cooking on a propane stove was not very appealing.  Thermador makes a nice one for $5000 at the low-end of their range, but you’re still using propane, which is dangerous.  I talked my wife into going high-tech, still expensive, but much less than propane, and so much better than typical electric ranges which produce heat by heating a coil, or using radiant heat.  We got a beautiful induction range with a convection oven.  Briefly, induction ranges work by creating a magnetic field, which causes a current to form in a stainless steel pot set on the stove top.  The pot heats up, but the cook top only gets as hot as the pot sitting on it.  If one removes the pot, no heat is generated and in fact, the unit stops working until the pot is put back on the stove.  In our early experiments, it has functioned beautifully, heating quickly, easily controlled, and very similar to cooking with gas without heating up the house.

The amazing induction stove top.

This whole part of the country has been variably under shallow seas or dry over the last 550 million years.  It presents a great opportunity to go fossil hunting.  Galen showed us to a very special spot along the bank of lake Texoma, where many fossils can be found.  We piled into our pickup and headed down to the lake.  The roads we took would be impossible for a visitor to follow without a local to guide the way.  From two lane highway, to gravel road, to dirt road, to a track with overgrown grass and trees, we made it to the lake.  Here, we hiked down a steep embankment made up of broken up chunks of limestone, to start our fossil hunt.

Galen uses his keen eyes to hunt for fossils along the bank of Lake Texoma.

Every rock we looked at was packed with fossils.  Mostly, they were small shells, clams, scallops, and other bivalves.  With careful probing amongst the rocks, we found trilobites, ammonites, and clams.  I also found a fossilized bone.  Doing a little research, I found that trilobites and ammonites lived in different eras, so it is interesting and a bit puzzling that they should be found in the same vicinity.  Trilobites were incredibly long existing and diverse, with thousands of different subspecies.  They lived during the Paleozoic era, starting 542 million years ago, and lasting until the great Permian Extinction, 251 million years ago, or almost 300 million years.  Ammonites, a form of a cephalopod, lived mainly in the Cretaceous period, 200 million to 65 million years ago.  Lake Texoma is a large, man-made lake, so perhaps the rise and fall of the water has caused the various strata to wash up on shore, or fall down the side of the cliff, into the same location.  An interesting bit of information about the lake:  the dam to create it, Denison Dam, was started in 1939.  The last two years of construction, 1942 to 1944, German prisoners of war captured in North Africa were used as the labor.

Aside from creating one’s own entertainment, the big entertainment mecca here is the WinStar World Casino, located off Highway I35, one mile north of the Texas border.  By square area, it is the worlds largest casino, and boasts 7,400 electronic games (like slot machines).  We went to the casino on a Friday night to see Bill Maher, the comedian and talk show host from HBO.  While he is on the liberal side, and Oklahoma is a very conservative state, between North Texas and southern Oklahoma, and some from parts farther away, he packed the 3500 seat auditorium and gave a great show.  Typical of casinos, we had to walk past a mile or so of slots and blackjack tables to get to the event hall, and most of the machines were being used by hopeful gamblers.  When we left, around 11:00 PM, the place was even more crowded.  The casino is owned by the Chickasaw Nation, the tribe which is located in this area

Exploring the ranch on which our “cabins” are located, there are a number of barns, out buildings, fenced areas for cattle management, and a few structures for which the function was not immediately clear.  One barn has a bobcat living in it, which makes it a dangerous place to explore.  Another barn has an old pickup truck that was deeded to my daughter, for some odd reason.  The truck doesn’t run, but the tires are apparently in good shape.  It would take some significant expense to get the truck running again.  A big question for us is how to best utilize this property.  Cattle ranching requires a lot of attention and not insignificant risk.  Other ideas, however, include growing hops, creating a guest house experience for visitors who want to learn about the area, or several other ideas we are kicking around.  It will be a great family meeting place to have Thanksgiving together.

 

The barn with the bobcat as tenant.

 

This tree has clearly not let anything get in the way of its growth.

 

Livestock management areas.

 

This creature decided to take a ride with us on the windshield.

 

It is hard to say what he is thinking.

 

Every weed in this place has sharp thorns.

 

 

Galen’s coop of speckled Sussex hens provide him and his family with plenty of eggs.

 

A local denizen who wandered far from the pond down the hill.

 

Another local denizen, this one seen at Fort Washita, a fort built in 1842 to protect the Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians from the plains Indians, and now owned by the Chickasaw Nation.

I had to leave our beautiful ranch on Sunday, five days after arriving.  My wife stayed on to take care of some family business in West Texas.  I look forward to coming back soon, to play my guitar on the front porch, to grill on our Weber on the back slab of concrete, and to explore some more of this very fascinating and attractive place.

Looking forward to the next trip down to OK.

Kathleen has a soft spot for kittens.

4 Comments
by Frank K. on July 14, 2018  •  Permalink
Posted in Family, Oklahoma, Travel USA
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Posted by Frank K. on July 14, 2018

https://sjacmarathoners.com/2018/07/14/the-cabins-at-madill/

Multitudes

Portrait of Walt Whitman, by Thomas Eakins, 1887-1888, in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia

I was reading an article in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago, and came across a mention of a Walt Whitman quote, “I contain multitudes”.  I had to search a bit to find the whole quote.  It is from a long poem, “Song of Myself”, part of his work “Leaves of Grass”.  The full quote, from stanza 51 of the poem, “Do I contradict myself?, Very well then, I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes).”  I had not heard this before, and certainly had never taken on the daunting task of reading Leaves of Grass.

Finding it interesting to read a bit about Walt Whitman, I tucked this information away for later study.  Then, on Thanksgiving day, my son, who is well into adulthood, said, off the cuff, “I am multitudes”, while entertaining the rest of the family.  I was awestruck.  I just had read about this, and to my recollection, had not heard it before I read about it a couple of weeks earlier.  I asked him, “do you know where that comes from?”.  He wasn’t sure, but when I mentioned it is from Walt Whitman, he had some idea he had heard it before.

Way back in high school, some guy I didn’t know very well called me a cowboy jock.  I was taken completely off guard.  First of all, I didn’t see myself that way.  I never did rodeo, and while the people who compete in rodeo are terrific athletes, I was not one of them.  I think he meant I was a cowboy and a jock.  Again, completely not how I pictured myself.  True, we had horses.  We had three horses at one time in our backyard in Scottsdale, Arizona.  Where we lived, this was not unusual.  We lived on the edge of the wide open desert.  If we had the urge, we could have ridden from our house all the way to Flagstaff.  I was also on the swim team.  But, if you put together recreational horseback riding and a sport that was utterly not like football, it doesn’t add up to a cowboy jock.  Maybe he was jealous of something, but I don’t really know why.  Clearly it made an impression on me, since I remember it so many years later.  I’ve grown to accept it as who I am.  Sometimes.

Birthplace of Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819), Huntington, long Island, New York.

Clearly not my entirety, and not in complete agreement with the other parts of me.  Getting back to Walt Whitman though, what a fascinating and prolific person he was.  We live in his stomping ground.  It was his for part of his life, anyway.  He was born in Huntington, New York, an early town founded in the 1600’s 0n Long Island.  Anyone wishing to learn more about Mr. Whitman can find numerous biographies, telling of his life from multiple perspectives.  He really was multitudes.  I don’t wish to tell his life story here.  That the reader can do for them self.  But he spent his last years in Camden County, living in his brother’s house, later in his own house, in the city of Camden, New Jersey, while spending time in the bucolic countryside of Laurel Springs, from 1873 until his death in 1892.

I often have conflicting beliefs, although not as wide ranging as Mr. Whitman’s.  One of my favorite quotes comes from a sociology professor I had in college.  He said to the class, ‘the purpose of education is to make you confused when you were once certain.”  Perhaps this is the basis of being multitudes.  One must have an open mind, curious, intellectual, and aggressive in acquiring new knowledge, in order to become multitudes.

Two weekends ago, members of my running club were planning a great long run, which I call the Colonial Run.  It begins in my town of Haddonfield, New Jersey, goes through Camden, over the Ben Franklin Bridge, and then courses through colonial streets of Old City Philadelphia.  We run up Elfreth’s Alley, the oldest continuously inhabited residential street in the USA, built in 1702.  We run by Betsy Ross’ house, the Christ Church, Ben Franklin’s grave site, and of course, the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.  Then we continue on, through the famous Philadelphia City Hall, with William Penn’s statue on top, to the Ben Franklin Parkway, and finish up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum.  We were stymied, though.  It snowed the day before the run, and the pedestrian walkway on the Ben Franklin Bridge was closed.  We changed our plans, and ran the “drives”, the West River drive and Kelly drive, and were still able to finish on the steps of the museum.  However, after reading about Walt Whitman, when we do reschedule this epic, 14 mile run, I intend to take the course past the Walt Whitman house in Camden.  We may even run past his tomb in Harleigh Cemetery, also in Camden.

I came across another “multitudes” quote just recently.  In “Delusions of Gender, How our minds, society and neurosexism create difference,” by Cordelia Fine, Honorary Research Fellow in Psychology at the University of Melbourne, Australia, she writes, on page 7 (yes, early in the book),  “…even if your personality offers little to hold the interest of  a shrink, there is nonetheless plenty in there to fascinate the social psychologist.  This is because your self has multiple strings to its bow, it’s a rich complex web, it has a nuance for every occasion.  As Walt Whitman neatly put it, ‘I am large:  I contain multitudes’.”

The Walt Whitman House, 330 Martin Luther King Blvd., in Camden, NJ.

Walt Whitman (per Wikipedia) held opinions on many aspects of life, such as drink (against), slavery (against) and equal rights of men and women (for).  His Leaves of Grass, and in particular, Song of Myself, were harshly criticized for his expressions somewhat covert, of sexuality, including references to homosexuality.  He extolled the virtues of sunbathing nude.  He was nationalistic and patriotic, but wrote in a way to praise liberalism and democracy.  He wrote in a free form style, criticized by some, but praised by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  He respected all religions, but did not believe in them himself.  He is described variably as immanent (feeling that god is within everything), or transcendent (that god is external to everything), or more of a pantheist.

In spite of these views outside of mainstream, or socially acceptable thought, in spite of writing in free verse, of challenging the norms of religion, he is revered as the American Poet.  When he died more than one thousand people came to his home to pay their respects.  There is a bridge over the Delaware River named after him.  Being aware of the many works of Walt Whitman, knowing about his life, may come as no surprise to those who studied him in college, or just through curiosity.  But, I was not informed about his life and writings and will do my best to make up for that deficit.  First, though, I must sit down with Song of Myself, and see how much I can understand.  It is tough reading.

Walt Whitman Tomb, Harleigh Cemetery, Camden, NJ. Photo by iirraa on flickr

In the spirit of the season, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.  May 2018 be better than 2017.

2 Comments
by Frank K. on December 21, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Philadelphia, Poetry, Running, Walt Whitman, Winter Training
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Posted by Frank K. on December 21, 2017

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That Time Again

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Hi, Buckaroos.  Marathon training time again.  Gonna try to slide one by once more.

Yes, I got out early this morning.  I hit the pavement at 5:45 AM, to start my 20 miler today.  My plan was to get around seven miles in before our 7:00 AM group run, which is 12.5 miles, roughly, and have a half mile extra to do at the end.  I am training for the Twin Cities Marathon, Minneapolis and Saint Paul, October 1, 2017.

When one starts out that early on a Sunday in late August, the sun has not yet come up, and it is nice and peaceful.  No lawn crews with their gas-powered leaf blowers sending dust up into the air.  Very little traffic.  The houses are silent as the occupants slumber, completely unaware of the runner going by.  Even the locusts have dimmed their din.  A couple of crickets are still at the party.

What does occur is the senses, hearing, smelling and seeing, picking up little things that would ordinarily get missed.  As I stepped out on my front porch, I took a sip from my water bottle, set down my back pack and second running shirt on top, switched on my Garmin, waited for it to register the numerous satellites it follows, and headed out.  For the first mile and a half, things were very quiet.  At about that point, though, the first big olfactory hit came my way, which was the smell of someone starting up a barbecue.  I wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but guessed it must be someone planning to do some serious smoking, maybe beef brisket or a pork loin, and needed to get things going early.  It would be pretty nice to be around when the cooking is done.

I noticed a few birds and squirrels, but not the usual number one sees later in the morning.  Clearly, these were those looking for a competitive advantage.  I wondered if they also were selective favorites for procreation, or did the lazier of their ilk happen upon willing mates while the others were out foraging.  While the early bird gets the worm, the later bird may ultimately contribute more to the gene pool.

I could hear each foot strike on the pavement.  If one focuses too much on that, the monotony becomes mesmerizing, and takes one’s concentration away from important acts, such as looking for potholes in the road, and listening for the occasional car.  Should cops need an opportunity to fill their monthly ticket quota, I suggest they set up very early on Sunday.  While there are few cars on the road, to a one, they were all exceeding the speed limit by a hell of a lot.  I had on my reflective vest, with a blinking red light in the back, but when I heard a car coming from either direction I hopped on the sidewalk, since they invariably came speeding by, ignoring road signs and the double yellow line.  One car I saw this morning was a Corvette, driven by a guy with a reflective vest of his own on, but there our similarities ended.

I saw as I ran down Park Blvd. that the giant trees that had been uprooted by our last major storm, pulling the sidewalk to a 90 degree angle, had finally been removed.  Where they had been was now dirt, awaiting sidewalk repair.  This is a narrow street, with cars parked along the curb, and neat homes from the 1940’s and ’50’s.  Normally, I would need to run on the sidewalk since it is too narrow and busy to run in the street.  But this morning, I made it a full mile before a car approached.  I darted up on to the sidewalk as it passed, then got back into the street.  As one runs farther down the street, the houses get older, into the 1880’s and even earlier.  It is a measure of how the farmland got transformed into housing developments.  This part of the run is through Collingswood, a town named after the Collings family.  Collingswood was their farm.  Being Quakers, the town has always been dry.

Heading into Knight Park, I passed close to the Collings-Knight Homestead, the home of Edward C. Knight, benefactor who donated the land for Knight park.  One week earlier I ran through this park early Sunday morning, when a large dog, saliva dripping from his jaw, ran at me barking and snapping.  I turned and faced him, palms up and facing the dog.  Its owner was nearby, a woman standing with a couple of other dog owners, all of whom let their dogs run leash-less.  She called to the dog to “c’m’ere”, reassuring me that the dog was a friendly dog and would do me no harm.  The dog did stop a few feet from me, then turned and went back to her.  She repeated several times what a friendly dog it was, and how I shouldn’t worry.  So, this was on my mind this morning, and fortunately, I had arisen early enough to beat this woman and her “friendly” dog to the park.  I was certainly relieved.

Reaching the end of the park, I headed to Haddon Avenue, and started to run back towards my starting point.  For anyone not from this area, Haddon is a common name.  Elizabeth Haddon was the daughter of John Haddon a Quaker in London who purchased 500 acres in the area that is now Haddonfield and Haddon Township.  He bought the land to escape religious persecution, but due to ill health, could not make the journey.  He sent his daughter, Elizabeth, instead.  She arrived, a single, young woman, apparently confident, and in 1702 asked John Estaugh, a Quaker minister already in this colony, for his hand in marriage.  Elizabeth Haddon was the founder of the towns of Haddonfield and Haddon Township.

Running up Haddon Avenue, I passed the numerous shops and restaurants in Collingswood.  While a dry town, there is a very vibrant restaurant scene, since one can bring wine or beer to the restaurant.  The restaurants have turned Collingswood from an aging, decaying town, with out of date stores like vacuum cleaner repair and hardware stores, to a busy, hip place, especially on Friday and Saturday night.  I pass the parking spots.  These used to be meters, but now are marked with poles labeled with notices that one must pay at the pay station.  Parking is paid seven days a week.  This morning, there are no cars parked here.  Leaving Collingswood and entering Haddon Township and Westmont, one enters the bar scene.  Capturing the revelers which Collingswood missed, this stretch of Haddon Avenue has numerous bars which are busy usually every night.  Again, in the early morning, they are shuttered and quiet, awaiting the opening gong much later in the day.

I turned back into the neighborhood streets for the last mile or so of my run.  I was again aware of a strong olfactory stimulus, this time, bacon.  The smell of bacon cooking is, first of all, unmistakable.  We have two eyes which can see various colors.  We have two ears to hear a wide range of sound.  But we have about 800 genes in humans each coding for a different olfactory receptor.  Most scents stimulate multiple receptors, which is how we can be so discriminatory identifying different odors.  The smell of bacon also is a strong motivator.  It motivates one to eat bacon, which I was, unfortunately, not able to do at that moment.

By this point, the birds were starting to become active and sing to each other.  To us, it is an entertaining bird concert, with different songs coming from different directions.  To the birds, it is the result of sexual selection at work, a subset of Darwin’s natural selection, establishing the male’s dominance for his territory and mate.

I made it around the last corner back towards my house, the sky now a mix of grays and rosy pinks.  I stopped by my house briefly, to change to a dry shirt which I had left on my front porch, grab my backpack and water bottle, and head out to meet the usual Sunday morning runners at 7:00 for our 12.5 mile loop, with 7 miles in already.

By the finish of the morning run, I got my 20.2 miles in.  One of my good running friends, Kealan, ran the 12.5 miles with me, and even the extra half mile I needed to get to that 20 mile mark.  Our conversation the whole way made the run seem much shorter.

I’ll leave you with a link to the song running through my mind as I was running the dark streets in the early morning of last Sunday:

Frank relaxes at Starbucks with his running friends, 20.2 miles in the training bank.

4 Comments
by Frank K. on September 2, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Marathon Preparation, Marathon Race, Marathon Training, Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Running, Travel USA, Twin Cities Marathon
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Posted by Frank K. on September 2, 2017

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Arrivederci Winter

Moon, 4:30 AM, Friday, March 5, 2015.

Moon, 4:30 AM, Friday, March 6, 2015.

The whole eastern part of the U.S. was under the icy clutch of a band of frigid air the last two weeks. This air traveled from the Pacific, over the north pole, through the northern reaches of Canada, freezing Niagara Falls as it crossed the border and settled on our home. When winter comes upon us, everyone wonders, will this be another year of little snow and mild temperatures, or will we get hit with big snowstorms, creating scenes of pathways dug through backyards to driveways, snow piled high in parking lots, plows running up and down our roads, salt spray painting our cars gray-white, and people walking through the snow bundled with layers of clothing, knit caps, and big gloves.

While the weather forecasters got it mostly right this year, they did miss on a couple of occasions, when the snow hit Boston but pretty much missed us in South Jersey.  We managed to get a late winter snow three days ago, in the early days of March, while the temperatures were still in the frigid single and teen digits.  I went for an evening run the day of the latest snowfall.  It was only 7:00 PM, usually a time of the later rush hour crowd irritated and pushing to get home, but the roads were oddly quiet.  Since it had been snowing all day, it seems many businesses closed early.  The snow plows had passed through, but the snow kept falling, so the streets were covered with a thin layer of snow which had not turned to ice.  The combination of fresh snow everywhere, low clouds, and streetlights made for a very well-lit run in spite of the sun having disappeared an hour earlier.  There was a nice, faint crunch under foot as I ran, and the cold air felt good in my lungs.  My run took me past many local small shops and restaurants, all closed for the weather.  With one exception, that is.  The bars were hopping.  I think the bar owners get special attention from the snow plow drivers cleaning their parking areas.  Perhaps they need to pay a little extra for this but I’m sure it is worth it.  Teachers can’t get to the schools, but they make it to the bars.  Office workers get in late and sent home early, but they can make it to the bars.  Doctors, lawyers and dentists close early, no patients or clients are braving the slick roads to make their appointments, but they all make it to the bars.  The last few miles of my running route I pass about ten bars and every one of them was doing business like it was St. Patrick’s day already.  There is a quaintness about bars in the depths of winter.  It’s dark outside, the windows are frosted over, and one sees the profiles of the people inside all animated and lively.

In my house, we retreated to the front part of the house where the den with the fireplace is. The back half is beset with all sorts of problems. We live in an old Victorian, and the original design did not account for living in the 21st century. Bathrooms and appliances have been added over the years, and in spite of best intentions, cold air manages to sneak in like a cat burglar, freezing the water within. This past week, as the temperature dipped to a cruel zero, streams of that dense cold air moved in and around our old pipes, freezing some and leading to a couple of burst pipes.  This year, I had the foresight to at least turn off the inflow to these pipes so the damage was minimized, but we’ve had to wait until the thaw before we could fix them.

This weekend, though, brought a break in the icy pattern.  As we clicked over to daylight saving time, temperatures soared to 52 degrees.  The sun shone brilliantly, melting the patches of ice on the sidewalks.  Constant rivulets of water flowed down the street as the snow melted.  And people are out getting all their usual weekend errands in, not sure how to deal with a day when the only cover up needed is a light jacket.

Now we can start thinking about getting the garden ready for planting, cleaning up the debris that conveniently was covered up by the snow, and watch the road crews fixing all the treacherous potholes which have multiplied the last few weeks.  I’m sure in a couple of months we’ll be baking in premature heat, barely remembering how cold it got and stayed this winter.  Before that happens, I’d like to have a few more fires in the fireplace, have a reason to wear long tights and two layers on top when I run, and feel the cold air filling my lungs.

2 Comments
by Frank K. on February 21, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Family, Lifestyle, Marathon Preparation, Philadelphia, Running, Winter Training
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Posted by Frank K. on February 21, 2015

https://sjacmarathoners.com/2015/02/21/arrivederci-winter/

A Slog through the Slush

Here’s how the conversation, via text, went:

It’s all slush and big puddles out there do you think we should run?  And it is raining, too.

Sorry, just saw this.  Let’s go for it.  We won’t know till we try

Okay.  I am just getting ready now.

Take your time driving over.

That was at 6:45 this morning.  The snow, rain, freezing rain, and sleet had started the night before.  I was out with friends in Philly, and late at night, heading for the train, we marveled at the enormous size of the snow flakes falling steadily.  With the temperature close to freezing, they turned to slush as they hit the ground.  This morning, I stayed in bed as late as I could but still make a 7:00 AM start to my morning run.  My running partner and I had the above conversation and so I was committed to the run.  I was relieved, since I didn’t want to be the one to make the call, knowing this would not be our best run of the year.

We had to gingerly pick our way from his front door out to the street, not wanting to start running with cold, wet feet.  The road had not been plowed, and while the “inches” of snow were not that much, it was all wet and forming large pools of ice slurry.  We started off very slowly, running along areas cleared by tire tracks, being careful not to slip as we went downhill towards our loop around the park.  We had to run in the street rather than the multi-use path, which was completely covered by this slurry.  As we ran, we picked up the pace a bit.  Along the Cooper River, the geese were out in force, coping with the conditions without a problem, as far as I could see.  Approaching the far end of the loop around the park, the path was one large slush puddle, which we muddled through.  Now my shoes were wet, and my feet cold.  On the far side of the park, the road was narrowed by construction.  We had to run along on the road, with cars passing us closely and spraying ice and frozen water on our legs.  I think it was partially on purpose, since not all the cars came that close.  We moved over to the construction zone, running in ruts created by a truck that had gone through recently.  As we ran we were able to have a nice conversation, since the forced slow pace made talking that much easier.  We talked about running in the winter, and also about the play I saw last night at the Lantern Theater.  The play, called “Doubt, A Parable”, by John Patrick Shanley, takes place in a Catholic School in the Bronx, in 1964.  The story is that of an older nun, the principal of the school, suspecting the priest of having sexual relations with one of the boy students.  The story gets complicated when one hears the boy’s mother’s side of her son’s life.  The play takes only ninety minutes with a single act, and seems to leave out some crucial inner thoughts of the four characters.  One critic I read afterwards suggested the second act was when the audience discussed their feelings about the play.

Our run finished with a long uphill climb and then a flat last mile, still with the skies gray, and our feet cold and wet.  But accomplishing our seven miles, and then warming up with a change to dry socks and shoes, a dry shirt, and a hot cup of coffee was very satisfying.

A parable is a short narrative about individuals meant to be an example of a larger truth.  So, this narrative I relate to you shall also be short, and meant to convey that even when nature is uncooperative, getting out and doing is better than holing up and not doing.

 

2 Comments
by Frank K. on January 24, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Marathon Preparation, Marathon Training, Philadelphia, Running, Winter Training
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Posted by Frank K. on January 24, 2015

https://sjacmarathoners.com/2015/01/24/a-slog-through-the-slush/

It’s all about that pace.

It’s all about that pace, ’bout that pace, no hustle.

It’s taken a little time for me to settle after my last marathon experience.  The short of it is, I cramped up at mile 16.5, and after a brief rest and another half mile, I wasn’t able to continue.  This was to be my tenth marathon, and I hadn’t quit any before, even when suffering mightily.  So what was different this time, and what went wrong?

There are many marathon training programs out there.  Runner’s World Magazine, Jack Daniels, Hanson, Hal Higdon, and others specify when to start training, how often to run, how far to run, and at what pace for one’s abilities.  Generally, one starts about sixteen weeks ahead of M-day, progressing in miles and longest run as the weeks progress.  The basis for this is the way our muscles and heart accommodate to the demand of steady running for three to four hours.  That kind of endurance, unless one is particularly exceptional, requires a long build-up.  Things can go wrong the day of the marathon.  Weather can be awful, a virus can lay out a runner, but if one has not put in the training, a perfect day will not make up for that lack.

For me, the training for my latest marathon, Philadelphia, November 23, 2014, started on time and rather well.  I had a good base, coming off a half marathon in Nice, France, at decent time in late April, and the 10 mile Broad Street run in early May in Philadelphia.  I’ve always designed my own training program, since sticking with one of the popular plans is just impossible due to my work schedule.  I also was working with a new marathoner, helping her train for her first marathon.  We had our long runs planned out for every Sunday, a mid-week ten mile run, and other training runs in between.  Paces were mixed up, and routes changed so that we would not fall into automaton behavior that comes with repetition.  My first slip up came about seven weeks before the marathon.  We were doing one of my favorite long runs, 9 minutes at a 9 minute per mile pace, then 1 minute at a fast pace, generally about 7’45” per mile, for a total of 14 miles.  One does need to keep an eye on the watch, and the pace, to get things right.  Done well, the miles fly by, and the run is energizing.  I think my eyes were too closely focused on the watch.  At about eleven miles, along a dirt path being graded for paving, I hit a rock with my toe and fell hard and fast.  I came down on my right side, connecting my chest, shoulder and head to the ground.  Fortunately, nothing was broken…I think.  I may have broken a rib but it wasn’t displaced and so since nothing would be done about it, I didn’t have it x-rayed.  That little incident slowed my training down, and made the next couple of weeks a little difficult due to soreness.  About five weeks before the marathon, we had a 20 mile run planned. It actually went very well, and I think if I had to run the marathon that very day, it would have been a good run.  After that, two weeks of very busy late nights at work completely blew apart my final weeks of training.  With two weeks to go, we went out for a 21 miler.  The conditions were nearly perfect.  The temperature started in the mid 40’s (F) as we headed out in the pre-dawn light.  The first bothersome event was that my new Adidas shoe was causing a great deal of pain where the tongue of the shoe meets the foot.  The tongue on these shoes is minimal, and the underlying tendon in my foot was being rubbed, causing the pain.  At around the 10 mile mark, I ran to my house to change shoes, while my ingenue marathon training partner waited a few minutes.  That done, my foot felt better.  We continued on, but at 17 miles a familiar and very annoying feeling sprang up in my calves and quads.  I was starting to get cramps in my leg muscles.  I am quite a sight when this happens, taking on the stride of John Cleese of Monty Python fame doing his silly walks sketch.  Not so funny for me, though, and I could not continue.  My training partner was doing well, and continued on to finish her 21 miler, the longest she had ever gone in one run.  I, on the other hand, hobbled back to our home base, unable to run, and in pain.  After walking the mile back, my legs did start to calm down, but the day and the run was shot.  I was very concerned that this might be my fate at the marathon in two weeks time, and I seriously considered not starting.  I had a chat with one of my marathon advisers, an experienced marathoner named Brandon, with whom I regularly run Saturday mornings.  With one week to go, I really didn’t get in the usual taper, because the three weeks before were so poor.  Brandon said he felt I could slow the pace and make it through the race.  He said it would be a shame to not run after putting in the many weeks of preparation.  With that encouragement, I started the marathon the following Sunday.

I thought about just doing half.  The official half marathon had closed weeks earlier, so I couldn’t drop down as a registered runner.  I felt if I kept my pace reasonable, around a 9 minute mile, things would be okay.  I did feel quite fine through the first half, and the Philadelphia marathon route is a very nice one.  It starts along Ben Franklin Parkway, with thousands of spectators lining the start, and Mayor Nutter giving hi-fives to runners as they pass the start line.  The route goes through Old City to Delaware Avenue, down to South Philly, then up along South Street to Chestnut and through Center City.  Crowds with clever (or not-so-clever) signs cheer on the runners.  The frat boys at Drexel bang on pots and shout out to the runners.  The route winds along to the Belmont Plateau, and past the Please Touch museum, then down hill to West River Drive along the Schuykill river and back to the Philadelphia Art Museum at the half.  At this point, the runners doing the half peel off and head to their finish line along the Ben Franklin Parkway, which is where I should have headed.  Thinking I could muster on, and not feeling bad, plus averaging around 8’45” to that point, I kept going, making the turn around the front of the museum to head out Kelly Drive towards Manayunk.  It is a route I have done six times before, sometimes suffering with leg cramps and having to walk, sometimes cruising through, and once, doing well enough to make my Boston qualifier.  This time, at mile 16.5, the cramps set in.  I tried to slow down and keep running, but it was just impossible.  I moved off the course, and like some soldier going AWOL in an old movie, removed my number from my chest.  I started walking back towards the start line, which was about 3 miles away.  I should have quit as I turned in front of the museum, so the walk would have been much shorter.  After walking for 5 minutes, my legs felt better, and seeing all those other runners streaming by me I put on my number again, got back on the course, and started to run.  Well, that didn’t last very long.  I got about a half mile when my legs seized up again.  This time I decided to quit for good.  I moved off the course, this time leaving my number on, and walked back towards the start.  Shortly, a volunteer driving a golf cart-like vehicle, already carrying two other runners, stopped to pick me up.  I got in, and the young man next to me offered me the Mylar blanket he had around his shoulders.  He was very thin and fit-looking, not the kind to quit a marathon I thought.  But he had a similar problem to mine, and had to stop.  He insisted I take the blanket against my protests, as he appeared to have far less insulation than me.  He wouldn’t take it back, so I kept it.  Shortly after getting in the cart, I had to get right back out.  My legs were seizing up, and there was no way to stretch them out in the cramped seat.  So I was resigned to the long walk back.  Along the way, I passed another fellow DNFer, about my age, who had quit due to ankle pain.  As I walked I thought about my justification for stopping and not mustering on.  I felt that I had made the right decision, to not hurt myself further, recover, and live to run another marathon another day.

I got back to the art museum, and made my way around the outside of the course to the bag pickup.  Several people told me “way to go”, and “good job” as I made my way through the crowd, giving me the feeling of a complete charlatan.  It was crowded, and I didn’t want to take the time to explain, but I simply put my head down and decided it would be best to not recognize these well wishers.  I made it into the bag area having to enter through an exit guarded by police, since the security around marathons is way up these days.  Once I picked up my bag, I had my cell phone.  I phoned my wife, who had been monitoring my progress on her phone.  Up to that point, I was pretty calm and collected.  As I spoke to her, though, I completely broke down, as the emotion of quitting hit me.  The rational me had left as the feeling of failure overcame.  I like to be seen as the invincible warrior, not the vulnerable person I am.

Since then, I have recovered, both my body and my senses.  I have heard many stories from my experienced marathoner friends of times they, too, have had to quit for various reasons.  I have plans for a half marathon in March, my annual shot at Caesar Rodney in Wilmington, and I am trying to decide which marathon to sign up for in the fall.  I think I want to do an early October marathon, since the training doesn’t run into the problem with short days and the conversion to standard time.  Of course, I may piggy back Philadelphia onto that, since I will have done the training after all….  In the end, it really wasn’t about the pace, it was about the training, and getting it right.  Yes, the pace is important, but not if the training is missing.

 

 

8 Comments
by Frank K. on January 3, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Marathon Preparation, Marathon Race, Marathon Training, Philadelphia, Running
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Posted by Frank K. on January 3, 2015

https://sjacmarathoners.com/2015/01/03/its-all-about-that-pace/

Skyline Trail Ride, with Ride Noho

The brilliance of Aldo, is that he knows just how much to challenge his cycling guests without pushing them over the precipice.  He forewarned us that this ride was hard, but that we would have no trouble completing it.  Of course, this is all relative.  If you ride every day, and have a good climbing physique, well, it’s no hill for a climber, as they say.

We started the day as every day starts at this cycling camp, with breakfast at Sylvester’s in Northampton.  Keith, Dan and I walked down from our motel, the Quality Inn on the outskirts of Noho, and joined Aldo, Elaine and Jan at the restaurant.  Aldo and Elaine run Ride Noho.  Jan was a guest, who is a regular and one of the few who have ridden with Aldo every year since he started his cycling camp.  Jan is an automobile design engineer and a superb cyclist who races cyclocross, among other events.  Keith, my friend from college, is a primary care physician in the Boston area who cycles regularly and had recently completed the Pan-Mass challenge.  Dan, who flew in from San Francisco, is a researcher at the world’s most famous search engine, and besides riding regularly also races.  In fact, he has competed in the Green Mountain Stage Race.  These were the boys I was to join on this long, arduous ride through the Berkshires.  We engaged in our usual breakfast banter, talking about the ride, but also just chatting about the news of the day.  I had a single pancake for breakfast, loaded with blueberries, although the pancake was plate filling size.  After breakfast it was back to the motel to don our cycling clothes and meet up for the ride.

We met in the parking lot of the Hotel Northampton, also an option for camp riders.  Joining us was Bob Johnson, the ex-marine I mentioned in my previous blog.  He is a combination ride leader and tour guide, with detailed knowledge of the area in which we would be riding.  It’s basically his backyard, where he rides regularly.  Bob always shows great compassion for those of us who can’t ride like he can, which is everyone else.  This ride was to be a supported ride.  Either Aldo or Elaine would be driving the van while the other rode, to provide water and food as needed.  There were few options otherwise for us along the way.   It was also going to be a hot and steamy day, with temperatures into the high eighties and high humidity.  It’s not like running, though.  For one thing, it’s no problem to take a water bottle or two on the bike.  Also, after every climb, with the sun bearing down and sweat dripping into one’s eyes, there’s the marvelous relief of the fast downhill, with a cooling breeze in the face.

The route, from Northampton to Skyline Trail and back.

The route, from Northampton to Skyline Trail and back.

We checked tires and equipment, then hopped upon the bikes and headed out.  First thing I noticed was that my backside was still terribly sore, as it had not yet gotten used to the saddle.  This would be a problem the whole ride, but one I was willing to endure.  As we left Northampton, we traveled a familiar route for the first few miles, then started in to the mountains.  There really was no flat riding for most of the ride.  We were either climbing or descending.  Mostly we were climbing the first half, and some of the climbs were fairly challenging, getting over 10% grade in spots.  The descents proved to be fast and fun, with good pavement and no sharp turns.  Elaine rode the first half with Aldo driving the van.  They switched at midway along the route.

One of the remarkable aspects to Western Massachusetts is the number of small farms throughout the area.  One often hears how small farms are dying, that the cost of running the farm exceeds the returns, that big supermarkets and clubs like Costco have ruined things for the small farmer.  Running contrary to those trends, the small farmers of Western Massachusetts have strong support among people living in this area, who enjoy the benefits of locally grown, seasonal farm produce.  This is according to articles on the U Mass website and agriculture associations in the area.  One issue raised by a number of articles, that of the average age of farmers, and whether young people are willing to go into farming, seems to rely on the profitability of the farms.  For the last twenty years, the profits have been good, and young, sometimes inexperienced, farmers are willing to take over.  This is aided by government support, in terms of tax benefits if land is committed long-term to farming.  During our ride in this decidedly rural part of the state, we passed dozens of farms which, by appearance, seemed quite productive.  We also passed a unique instillation along Skyline Trail in Chester, a solar farm.  Doing a little research, it seems this very large instillation of solar panels covering many acres and capable of several megawatts of electricity production, is a project of Solectria Corporation, a subsidiary of Yaskawa America.  It is a subsidiary of Yaskawa Electric Company of Japan, a giant company started one hundred years ago as a motor manufacturer, and expanded globally into many businesses.  Apparently, they think it is a good idea to own solar electric production in rural areas.

Back to the ride, though.  As we tooled along Skyline Trail, the riding was very enjoyable, with rolling hills and a temperature definitely cooler at around 1800 feet elevation, than back in Northampton.

Beautiful view along the Skyline Trail in Western Massachusetts.

Beautiful view along the Skyline Trail in Western Massachusetts.

We got to the end of Skyline Trail and plummeted back down to Hinsdale, where we stopped for a bite and some water.  We then set out, at around mile 45, for the big climb of the day.  Starting in Hinsdale we rode up to Peru, a tiny postage stamp of a place along the road.  The climb was 4.8 miles long, started fairly steep, in the 12-14 % range the first half, then eased a bit to around 5% the rest of the way.  Since my climbing skills had suffered being off the bike for so long (since last year at this time), I was being given encouraging words, such as “you want a ride up in the van?”, and “shall I push you as we hit the steepest part?”.  Needless to say, this kind of encouragement, while said in earnest, can only be taken as reverse psychology.  No, I didn’t want to get in the van or have a hand on my back, but thanks anyway, I can handle it.  So, off we went.  The faster riders ascended quickly and I have no idea if they suffered a bit or a lot.  Any climb can be a killer if one races up.  I took my time and made it up very nicely, and was pleased to have done so.  I did stand a good part of the way, due to those old ischial tuberosities making themselves known.  We still had another 3o miles to go before getting back to Noho, including a few lesser climbs, but the hardest part was over.  In total, we went 79 miles and climbed around 6800 feet.

After our return, we all congratulated ourselves for a ride well done, and very enjoyable.  The van support was critical given the heat and humidity, although on a cooler, dryer day in the fall this would be doable without the van.  In fact, it would be quite stunning as the leaves turned colors.  Aldo, Elaine and Bob did a great job leading us.

Our group headed back to our respective hotel rooms for some rest and a shower.   That night we celebrated, not just this ride, but having the opportunity to enjoy escaping from work for four days and go cycling with good friends.  We went to the Sierra Grille in Northampton, had a fine meal, and after dinner and desert, even went to Herrel’s Ice Cream Parlor, ranked as the #1 restaurant in Northampton on TripAdvisor.com.  They don’t serve dinner, but they do desert very well.

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by Frank K. on September 1, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Cycling, Marathon Preparation, Road Cycling, Travel USA, Western Massachusetts
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Posted by Frank K. on September 1, 2014

https://sjacmarathoners.com/2014/09/01/skyline-trail-ride-with-ride-noho/

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