As I ran up the hill this morning, through the gentle rain, I pondered once more this amazing feat! An asthmatic who never ran in her life until the age of 54, now running up hills! Not easily, probably never easily, but I do it, I run up a steep hill five or six times nearly every day.
The first two km were very hard, and no matter how many warm-ups I do this often seems to be the case. The old body has to slowly urge itself forward, flinging each foot ahead, then catching itself as the next foot plods along, and then gradually the lungs get their rhythm from my counting or the song, and by the beginning of the third km I can push myself a bit harder, and by the fourth I am not even thinking of the feet running, and by the fifth hill it is almost comfortable, the breath whooshing in and out with the effort of the slope, the mind floating about with its thoughts, then the last rushing of blue-shod feet around the last meadow circuit, and hurtling down the home stretch.
I ran 5.24 km at a rate of 6.50 minutes per km, which is pretty fast, for me. I was soaking wet by the end of it, but warm, if soggy, because today we went back to autumn for some reason, and the rain was welcome on my hot face (and the rest of me)
Last night I went to the Beekeepers' Meeting, the last one in which I have to take minutes and produce a newsletter. Yay!
The regular speaker couldn't make it so two of our members who recently completed the Appalachian Trail, gave a wonderful talk on their experiences.
The Appalachian Trail runs from Georgia to Maine over a distance of 3500 km. About three million people hike parts of it every year, and some are "thru-hikers", who attempt the entire distance, usually in a period of about 6 months, beginning in early spring and ending in August.
Everyone on the trail gets a nickname, and these two became known as Cabana-Boy and Dutch-Tape. Cabana-Boy spoke of the general cynicism he had reached in his life, and how the experience of all the kindnesses on the trail restored his faith in humanity. And he emphasized that the people with the least are the ones who give the most. And even though he is pretty cynical about religion as well, he made specific mention of the churches, which do so much good work, not just for the hikers, but for people in general. The Baptist churches even have free veterinary services on certain days of the week!
He said that their goal, as they set out, was to spend six months together, the journey was the purpose, not necessarily the destination, so that although they did complete the trail in a sense, they skipped 600 miles, hitch-hiking, going off on tangents, etc. They said that you should only do something like this with your spouse if you really LIKE your spouse, there are countless tales of couples breaking up etc., because it is hard to slog along and also to spend every day and night with that one person.
Cabana-Boy mentioned that they heard so many amazing stories, as to why people were doing the trail. A 29 year old man's wife had just recently died of cancer, and she had made him promise to do the trail, as it was what they had wanted to do together. By the time he finished the trail he had met someone!
Another couple were in their late 40's, and he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's at the age of 40, so they had been doing all the things they had wanted to do before he got really bad, sailed around the Caribbean, etc., and this was their last hurrah because he was at the beginning of forgetting. But further down they trail they heard that she had left him and gone off with another hiker!
I have been waiting for my husband to return, after a whole week! I have been tracking his plane, that little white toy-plane shape making its way across the whole continent of North America, in a virtually straight line, until it reached Massachusetts, turned towards the sea, and stated that it had arrived! And now he is here, and must still get up early in the morning and begin work at the new offices, far away, a long commute, poor man! But my heart is singing!
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