The new normal

I went for a two mile walk today, the only excursion I undertook out of my yard in two days, along a route predicated to avoid contact with others as much as possible.  It's the new normal, certainly for the rest of the year at least.

The 40-mile long W&OD Trail is nearby but I kept off it as much as possible as it had too many knots of people on it and I didn't like plodding runners overtaking me and lumbering by on the confined pathway, some breathing heavily and sweating.  But the path intersects with many neighborhood streets which aren't too busy and those are more conducive to keeping isolated on a perambulation, including crossing the street to the other side upon the approach of others.  The only real annoyance was a man with a leaf blower busy blowing leaves off his driveway into the street, stirring up the dust all around with who knows what he was blowing into the air for passerbys to breath in.

My neighbors have a cherry tree in their yard so I started the walk with a viewing of its blooming beauty.  Along the way there were other beautiful spring flowers to view as well.

I ended the walk by cutting across the parking lot across the street where I saw a portentous harbinger of the near-term tragic consequences of the international pandemic which is out of control in our nation thanks to the reckless neglect of our "leader."  Five franchises in a row were tucked into block of the storefronts, four fast food shops and a vape outlet, with the four food concerns sporting new, identical "Grab and Go" signs signifying their recent closures except for takeout orders.  I have no doubt that four of the five shops, the sole exception being the Dominos pizzeria with its established delivery exercise, will be out of business permanently long before this national crisis has ameliorated, mirroring the short-term (12 months or more) devastating ruination of our hitherto robust economy inherited from the previous administration.

The good long run

Since May 1st, when I came back to running after two sedentary years due to injuries, because I run solo now now that all my former running buddies have moved away or else spun me out of their lives, I have laid down iron rules for myself about about coming back without injuring myself or getting discouraged because I can't do it and returning to the couch. Basically my plan called for running three times a week starting at half a mile a run and slowly, methodically, bumping up the mileage.

Four months later, now I can make ten miles a week.  My first run back I couldn't run half of half a mile without needing to walk.

This past week I ran three miles each on two runs plus a 3K distance time on a third day to make up for a run I missed earlier in the month due to a sore calf.  But I needed to do my "long" run for the week of four miles.

I decided to have a fun run and do two miles out and two miles back on the flat W&OD Trail and chat up everyone I could.  So many runners these days are in their own cocoon of isolation, fueled by their egos and abetted by their dangling white wires leading to their ear buds, that they don't acknowledge passing runners by returning a wave or answer anything (not even a glance) to a "Good morning."

I fulfilled my wish and had a very relaxed, fun run.  First I stopped at a spot just off the trail where two teen boys were doing watercolors of the trail and spent a couple of minutes talking to them about their landscapes.  Both had portrayed the dramatic sky over the trail in different fashions, one featuring white cumulous clouds against a pale blue sky backdrop and the other painting in the sky in a shifting, competing clash of bluish colors with the clouds in various shades of grey, not stark white structures.  Neither had drawn in any runners on the trail yet so I told them with tongue in cheek that I would pose for them on the trail on my way back but when I returned half an our later they were gone.

Next up was a elderly walker standing by a nearby milepost.  I stopped and asked him how far he was going and he looked at me suspiciously but answered, "A mile.  I am testing my distance recorder and have walked from milepost 8 to milepost 7 but my readout only says .997 of a mile."  He looked dismayed.  I said that the mile markers were known to be slightly off sometimes and it was a mile if he rounded it off.  He was obviously unconvinced.

Next I ran through an Arlington Fire Department Station parking lot on a detour from the trail where they are building an overpass over Route 29 and I encountered an on-duty fireman who was carrying dumbbells across the lot to simulate carrying heavy fire equipment, and I asked him for tips on how to properly lift dumbbells for the maximum effect since I have started doing reps of bicep curls before and after each run.  He gave me some good suggestions and I turned around at the halfway point and headed home, arriving at my house half an hour later after waving hello to everyone I  passed, runners and walkers alike and receiving a wave or greeting back in almost all instances.  I ignored bicyclists as they are all in their own world and never call out "Passing" as required, seeming to delight in whipping around runners as fast and as close and as silently as possible in the interest of startling plodding runners deigning to be in their kingly sphere.

It was a fun run, as I said.  I felt great about it when I finished, the feeling I used to get from running before I fell off the running wagon due to injuries a couple of years ago and got so hideously out of shape.

Four miles

I got out early this morning, before dawn, to do my "long" run for the week of four miles, choosing to do the hilly route I did on Saturday which proved to be beyond my current conditioning because I had to do two walking water breaks then when I reached the summit of the two long sharp hills on the route where the trail rises to an overpass over I-66.  Today I kept it slow and steady, with my eyes screwed into the ground as I ascended each hill, and completed the run without walking in about 51 minutes.

PDS (pretty damn slow) but I got 'er done.  I started at 5:55 am and was on my way back before the sun came up, and I was treated to a spectacular view from the top of the last hill of the ascending sun as it started to rise above the horizon.  I had to wait another twenty minutes till I got home to fetch my my camera to record it and by then the sky had lost its multihued coloring but it was still pretty even so.

I plan to do three miles on my next run so that will give me ten miles for this week.  My ankle hurts and my legs are  sore but I'm starting to feel fitter.  It's been three and a half months since I started coming back and I get more motivated to keep at it each week.

I'm going to stay at my current level for a couple of weeks to try to "lock in" my current, slightly improved conditioning and hopefully lose another couple of pounds to slowly make my running more nimble and less ponderous.  Better times will come.

It was hard, but boring for readers

I waited all day for it, to run my third time for the week to finish out my weekly running.  Four miles to top out the week at nine miles.  I went out at 4 pm when the sky was overcast and the breeze was up, hoping that would enable me to put in a sterling run.

I went out WB on the W&OD Trail where there are tough hills after the first mile surmounting the overpass bridge over I-66 (both directions).  No bicyclist whizzing by me, wandering in my 4-foot WB lane, ever announced their presence as they silently passed me, I hate that, at 25 MPH you could kill me if in my fog of fatigued flushed running, I lurched leftward two feet.  Going out the breeze was up and the sun was behind clouds and I reached the two-mile turnaround point feeling like I was coming back.

On the return trip the sky cleared and the sun beat down mercilessly upon this particular stretch of the 40-mile asphalt ribbon that is the W&OD Trail snaking through Northern Virginia because Asian invasive vines have killed every tree along its first 20 miles. These non-indigenous plants will kill all the shade along the trail's entire length in the next 10 years, a backward return for the Columbian Exchange.  It makes running on the W&OD in the summertime a real slog.

I surmounted the brisk hill coming back without reducing my slow shuffle to a walk, but then I partook in two 60 meter walking water breaks to quell my racing heart, and stopped for a minute to watch a taped-off crime scene just off the trail where the dozen Fairfax County police units I observed on my run, parked at vantage points along the way or cruising slowly through the area were obviously looking for someone in a vehicle.  I was exhausted coming back to my driveway after my "long run" of four miles, but felt that despite the glacial 13-minute per mile pace, I had proceeded apace in my comeback to running.  And I lost a pound overall.

Gobble gobble

I was stunned yesterday to pass by a wild turkey hiding in the scrub of the easement to the W&OD bike trail behind my house.  There's a feral cat that lives back there that I see occasionally, and a deer family that I have seen early in the morning, but I hadn't seen a wild turkey before.

It was not happy to be spotted and ran away.  As a matter of fact it ran into my yard to hide behind the evergreen tree in the corner of my front yard by the sidewalk.  The neighbors on one side of me asked if I had caught it and turned it into soup.

The neighbors on the other side of me ignored me when I called over the fence line to ask if they'd seen the wild turkey.  They live in an internet cocoon and aren't much use for anything to anyone in their constant fixation on their cell phones and their ear buds which shield them from prying voices and other-human contact.

After following the wild turkey long enough to get a few pictures of it and shoo it out of my yard, I let it skulk back into the brush beyond my back fence line.  Wild turkeys that get too used to contact with people or which get fed can become aggressive and bothersome, so my preferred wild turkey is found at the ABC.

a long run

Sunday morning presented itself as cold and raw as I lay deep under the covers of my warm bed, not conducive in the least to my planned LSD of four miles in my slow return running after a ten-month lay-off due to injuries.  My cell phone told me it was 39 degrees and it felt like 32 degrees with the steady wind gusting to 15 mph, which I could hear blowing outside as it rattled my bedroom windows.

I got up and went downstairs and had breakfast instead of heading outdoors for my planned run.  Tomorrow, I told myself, I'll run tomorrow instead and take my third day off today in a row instead.

My sloth, induced by a desire not to be cold for an hour as I ran, bothered me all day as I basically did nothing all day except mostly fret about so easily returning to my lethargic ways of the past year as I healed from my achilles strain and put on several dozen pounds.  Pulling invasive tree-killing clinging vines from high up in the top branches of the holly and evergreen trees in my yard in the progressing afternoon, I determined that it had warmed up to about 48 degrees with very little wind and a steady sunny sky just like the weather forecast had predicted, so I decided to put my long run for the week behind me and go out for four slow miles before the sun got too low and caused chilling shadows on the bike trail behind my house.

I put on my running togs and ankle braces, did my bicep curls with my twenty-five pound dumbbell, stretched my ankles and feet on the curb and set out up the street to burn a local mile in the neighborhood before I hit the W&OD Trail for a three mile out-and-back shuffle.  Before I knew it, I was on the trail, starting to sweat despite my minimal short-sleeve shirt and the chilly environment, feeling good about being out there and feeling alive and running again.

To be sure, several people passed me as I plodded along breathing heavily, but I didn't care because I was going to get my longest run since last spring done and it was going to go well, I could tell.  At the far end of my out-and-back I passed by my man Trevor, just coming off his duty soliciting money from passing motorists at the light on Lee Highway and the exit ramp from EB I-66 and we sat on a bench and talked for awhile while I cooled off and regained my breath and he waited for his Lyft ride to take him back to the homeless shelter for the night.

Our ketchup conversation over, I set out on the last mile and a half to finish my run and return home with a spring in my step, feeling rejuvenated by my ten-minute pause.  The period of ragged breathing as the first half-mile that passed under my feet came and went quickly, and the last mile thereupon of my four mile run went by quickly and easily, although I broke out in a sweat all over again.

I even started noticing the colorful vegetation along the trail, the native spring flowers along the paved pathway and the leaves starting to come out on trees lining the embankment.  I reflected wistfully on the many past running buddies I've had who have all moved away or moved on as mostly I run solo now, invisible mostly on the trail at my age, Rhea, Leah, David, John, Ashley, Markus and several others.   

It's a long trail to return to running after such a long layoff and so much weight gained as old as I have become, but I'm glad the first dreadful month of feeling like I'm dying every run is now behind me.  Eight pounds lighter and tons more determined to keep forging on, increasing my distance and pace slowly in a planned manner, things are definitely looking up as spring brings ever better weather for my return to health and running.

       

Yeow!

I'm stuck in mid-winter doldrums and I'm only doing short runs of one or two miles, even though the weather has been temperate.  Right now, early in the morning before sunup, it's above 60 degrees.  I still run five times each week though, that is my discipline.  I'm not in any kind of shape though and my conditioning has fallen through the floor.

I was into my first quarter mile on the W&OD Trail yesterday when, on a foot plant, I felt a nail dig into the bottom of my foot even though I was wearing running shoes and the blacktop path was clear of obstacles.  I immediately stopped, removed my shoe and felt the inside of it to see if there was a burr or a nail in there.  There was nothing in there, nor in my sock, so I inspected the bottom of the shoe.  What I found was shocking, something that hadn't happened to me before in almost two decades of running.

Upon close inspection, it looked like there were two nails driven into the bottom of the shoe, one where I had felt the prick and one further back towards the heel.  My other shoe had no seeming nails driven into its bottom.  I couldn't go on with a nail poking through the bottom of my shoe so I worked at removing the nail by pulling it back through the bottom of the shoe using my fingernails.  I got the two offending projectiles out after some effort and was stunned.

What had pierced my shoes were two hard-as-rocks, pointy-tipped, half-inch thorns, driven straight into the sole of the shoe from the bottom up as though a cobbler had hammered them home.  The back one hadn't pierced the sole of my foot yet but it was waiting to do so at any foot strike; the forward thorn had worked through the bottom of the shoe and its sharp point had stung the sole of my foot, thankfully I stopped immediately.  I was bewildered as to how these offending missiles had gotten into my shoe but later I realized I had cut through my neighbor's back yard to get to the trail on the path's right of way (he has no fence), walking through the vegetative stubble there and I must have walked on a long dead thorny branch lying under the surface of the weeds or tall grass that had imparted its lethal tendrils into my shoe at perfect right angles.  My neighbor would be glad to know I won't cut across the back fringe of his yard along the untended trail's ROW anymore, I'll be using the sidewalk out front to get to the W&OD from now on, but now I'm paranoid and inspect the bottoms of my running shoes every time I put them on.  (These spearlike thorns hurt!)

 

Thirty for the week.

Beautiful fall weather heralded the arrival of October and I took advantage of it by starting the month with a long run of 8 miles on the first day.  You might consider that runners tend to be obsessive because I ran five consecutive days, always starting eastbound on the W&OD Trail on an out-and-back, going 8, 7, 6, 5 and 4 miles to total 30 for the week.  (I voted!)

Always an adventure, the first day, a Saturday, I ran by two different 5K races getting underway and was mightily tempted to join in each time but I had to get back home to get ready to go sign up voters in a registration drive later that morning.  Although it was a non-partisan volunteer effort this presidential campaign season, you could imagine that it's Democrats who are signing up voters in Northern Virginia, and probably Republicans who are making the same effort further down south in Tidewater Virginia, and my two hours of effort garnered two new voters.  (Step up and get registered!)

I turned Sunday's run of seven miles into a mini-nature tour, photographing dollar webs on the damp grass (fungus spots), unsuccessfully trying to shoot an actual spider web on a light pole I went by and running along the banks of Four-Mile Run creek, which parallels the trail, as much as I could.  Monday's run of six miles wasn't much different from the day before, the same dollar webs were ever-present in the medium-tall grass alongside the trail, except that I ended up my run at the local McDonalds for a breakfast of a $1 sausage burrito and a 69c senior coffee, after which I went down to City Hall to vote early.  (A dollar spot early morning web.)

Tuesday's run of five miles was followed by a walk of two miles in the District with my currently-injured running buddy from work as she tries to resume her running regime, and Wednesday's run of four miles was followed by my 114th blood-products donation of whole blood.  I took the next seven days in a row off from running because my abdomen was still bothering me and I wanted to give it a good long healing period.  (Power walking at noon in the District with my running buddy as she convalesces, here stopping in to use the restrooms at the National Botanical Center.)

More miles

I finished up last week with five lumbering runs totaling 12 miles.  My "long" run was 3 miles, three weeks after surgery.  (Out at the crack of dawn.)

I took three days off and then started off the running week with a "long" run of 4 miles.  There followed a procession of four 3-milers to cap the week at five runs totaling 16 miles.  (In the heat of the day.)

Two runs were nice and easy lopes along the W&OD, and another run took me past the school up the hill, my first foray on a hill, where I saw all the excited schoolchildren piling off their school buses for the first day of being back at school.  (Running by pastoral settings.)

Four weeks after my procedure I am back to running, sort of.  The incisions are healed, although the  abdominal cut still bothers me sometimes but slowly and surely I'm coming back.  (This beautiful cat came out to greet me when I ran by her.)

A workweek of running

I got in 31 miles of running last week, the most in quite awhile; since I came back in 2011 from my lengthy injury layoff and reduced my running a little, I've only hit thirty miles in a week once or twice before.  As usual, I ran five days out of the seven but these were all six mile runs at least, with some being slightly longer, five days in a row, the last four were solitary runs and they all incorporated at least half a mile of significant hills, usually during the last mile.

These runs were in the heat of the summer, July in DC, some with the dew point over 70 so it felt like 100 degrees on several days.  At the end of the week my feet hurt, I had to discard a pair of size 12 1/2 running shoes which size has become too small for me anymore, and I was the lightest I have been since a few years before my forced layoff.

In other words, I got 'er done, just like in the days of old last decade.  The week got underway with a two and a half mile run with John on the W&OD Trail at Bluemont, except that John was late or I was early so I ran four miles of hills waiting for John because I went for a preliminary run to kill time, went off the trail in an exploratory mode, got lost and ran up and down several hills working my way back to where I was supposed to meet John, who was there waiting for me by then.

The next four runs were all variations on my longer (5-6 mile) runs around my house, two runs around the 5-mile loop embracing my greater neighborhood, after a preliminary neighborhood mile each day, during which I ran by a local Fourth of July parade, and two out and backs three miles each way on the W&OD, first a run east on the trail and on the fifth day a run west on the trail.  I finished the last four runs running over the extended hill north of MP 7.5 on the trail, finishing at the local McDonalds each morning where, dripping sweat in large drops all over their floor and handing the cashier soaked currency, I ordered my morning coffee and walked the last few blocks home.

Three recent falling ins

Since practically every runner is wearing headphones these days, I have been experimenting with speaking to runners I pass by with a "Good morning," or conversing with runners I catch up with, but the results are mixed.  Fully half of runners I call out a greeting to who are wearing ear phones ignore me.  It's not like the old days last decade where practically every runner greeted back.  And it takes effort to get runners to converse with you if they're wearing headphones, they're so wrapped up in the wonderfulness of their own selves.

There was Ron the other day.  I was running the hilly gravel path (for horses I think) that parallels the blacktop w&OD Trail when I came off the high trail onto the improved footpath right next to him.  I gave him a greeting, which he ignored.  I asked how far he was going to which he said, "What?"  I repeated myself, louder and slower.  He answered, "Not far."  I asked, "How far have you come?"  He said, "What?"  I repeated myself, louder and slower.  He ripped out his ear bud closest to me and said, "What did you say?"  I repeated myself.  "Two miles.  I'm just going to Lee Highway."  But then we had a fine conversation for a mile before he turned off at Lee Highway.  His wife started running five years ago and now is practically consumed with it and is prepping for the MCM, her first, in the fall.  He is a soccer player but runs sometimes so he can run races with her sometimes.  He last ran the Nashville HM with her and she slowed down and ran with him.  Isn't that nice?  We talked fast twitch, slow twitch muscles for awhile.  See what runners know about?

Then there was Bill.  He was about my age, and speed, and I had a hard time catching up to him from about forty yards back.  He wasn't wearing headphones and I got the impression he was trying to keep ahead of me as I came up upon him.  He wasn't real communicative when I fell in with him for awhile. He answered every general question I put to him with a precise, short answer, didn't extend any conversation and asked me no questions.  After a quarter mile I wished him well and ran on ahead of him.  I was faster than him, or so I thought.  But at my turnaround, coming back I saw that he was  only thirty yards back although I had been loping along at my fast relaxed speed to get as head of him.  I also saw that he made the same exact turnaround as I did.  Game on!  I switched gears to a higher speed and soon I had fifty yards on him and he was falling away.  But a mile later, after the sharp curving hill where the W&OD goes up and over I-66 and you can't see behind you very far, on the flat bridge on top I heard a noise behind me and there was Bill ten yards back.  I increased my speed and worked the downhill and I lost him.  I think he turned off onto the cul-de-sac just east of the bridge because I think that's where I had first noticed him thirty minutes before, probably coming out of that cup-de-sac on his run.  Bill was a sullen, competitive sort, but I caught him, then stayed ahead of him  Ha!

And finally there was Phil.  A bone-thin old-timer with a slow but steady gate, I had seen him from my back stoop or back window go by on the W&OD Trail several times before, always around 9 a.m.  I ran by him one day on the trail and circled back and caught up with him and politely asked his age after I asked his name.  I explained that I had recently retired, told him my age and said that I wanted to know how many more years of regular running I had to look forward to, with him as my model.  He was 79 he said as we shuffled along at his steady but inexorable pace.  Fifteen more years for me then at least, I told him happily.  Then I indicated that I was going to turn around and go back the way I had been going and I thanked him for his time.  He wished me well and said maybe we'll meet up on the trail in fifteen years again when I am his current age.  "If I'm still here," he added.

Falling In

I've been falling in with runners and chatting them up, even if they're wearing earbuds, like today with Kat on the W&OD.  I had six miles to go on a six mile run, the morning was already hot and getting hotter and I needed diversion.  Down the trail a couple hundred yards was a solitary female runner and I practiced my racing technique for overtaking the next runner ahead, slow and steady if they're a ways up there.  After a short while I caught her, fell in and asked, "How far you going?"  I couldn't tell how old she was, the younger they are, the less likely they are to talk to you, or even acknowledge that you're speaking to them.

"I'm just going down there," she said, vaguely pointing ahead.  I tried a different tack.  "How far have you gone?" I asked.  She removed her ear bud closest to me and said, "Oh, a mile."  She smiled, gave a short wave and put the piece back in.

I wasn't so easily deterred.  Pointing at her shoes, which contained tiny Mercury's wings sewn on each outside edge by the laces, I said,  "I been watching those wings on your shoes as I came up behind you and I thought they might give you a boost but I haven't seen them flap yet so I wonder if they're not an aerodynamic drag instead."  She said, "Oh I like them just fine!"

"What's your name?"  "Kat," she said, without asking mine.  "I'm Peter," I offered, at which point she figuratively sighed, removed both her ear buds and we had a nice conversation for the next mile and a half till her turnaround.  In a nutshell, she is the Breaking News editor for USA Today, we talked about the tragic shooting of an armed suspect by police in Baton Rouge yesterday, I gave her my perspective as a former state trooper (the two arresting officers in the videos weren't communicating calmly and clearly with each other) and then we talked about her upcoming marathon in Chicago.  I don't know how it went for Kat, I believe she found the conversation interesting enough, but for me it made at least the first quarter of my extremely hard six mile run (I dropped four pounds and felt exhausted by the end) go by quickly and easily.

I should have brought bread crumbs.

I arrived at Bluemont at 9 am for a 10 am hookup for a run with John.  Our schedules had gotten crossed.  Mine was written in ink in my weekly minder, his was entered in his outlook so his entry must have been correct, right?  By the magic of texting, I determined I had 35 minutes to wait so I went down the W&OD Trail EB to do a little exploring on side spurs.

I was lucky to get back 45 minutes later.  I'd headed off the trail NB on a little bridge over 4-Mile Run and was rewarded, as I expected, with a run up a steep hillside to a street at the south edge of an Arlington subdivision.  Running mostly NB on the curvy street, I expected it to intersect Wilson Boulevard shortly, which I would use to run directly back to Bluemont to complete my short warm-up run.  After many blocks, however, I asked a passing couple where Wilson was and they indicated it was still more than a mile away.  When I indicated I was trying to get back to Bluemont, they said I'd be far from there by the time I hit Wilson so they gave me a complicated set of directions which was a shortcut.

I was able to follow the directions, through a part of Arlington where I'd never been before, and emerged at Bluemont Corner, not Bluemont Park, which was still a mile away.  But at least I knew where I was now and I headed down a pathway that I knew would take me to the W&OD not far from where I'd parked my car.  But then I passed by another little side spur dirt trail that went down the hill into the woods sort of in the direction of the W&OD.  I couldn't resist.

The trail ran into the woods, past houses whose other sides must have been on a street not visible or accessible to me, deeper into the woods but always heading downhill so I figured I'd hit 4-Mile Run down there in the bottom of the gully somewhere.  Lost again.  I ran by a person walking a dog who indicated the W&OD was "just over there."  And it was.  I was still a mile away from my car, and I arrived back in the parking lot ten minutes later where John was waiting for me.  We went for our scheduled 2.5 mile run, which really was six and a half miles for me.  Running is such an adventure sometimes.

Final Dental Visit Post

Having fallen in on my 10 mile run home from the dentist's office on the W&OD Trail with a friend I hadn't seen for years, I passed by my house and went 2 miles further down the trail to retrieve my car.  Although I was sore all weekend long from the unfamiliar distance of running 12 miles, I was glad to get a long run of that distance in.

The weather (it was raining and windy) hadn't been a hindrance; I just determined when my dental appointment was over that morning to proceed with my plan and run home.  As my new-found friend, a personal trainer, said, You just put one foot in front of the other and you're on your way!

The ten (or twelve as it turned out) miles had been a time of reflection now that my series of dreaded dental visits was over and observation of natural beauty in rural Fairfax County.  The feeling of having the miles steadily pass under my feet made me feel invigorated and alive.

It had been a long journey from my my two-year hiatus in running due to injury till now, and now I was back to near my pre-injury weight and my former steady routine of running five times a week, albeit at reduced mileage and a slower pace.  I used to feel that running was life, although life is not running (life is more than just running, and it interferes with running sometimes), and I was back to that feeling again.

Final Dental Visit, Part Eight.

Having left the dentist's office on a rainy morning and started running ten miles home on the nearby W&OD Trail, I was passing through Vienna, the approximate halfway point.  I was getting tired, since I hadn't run more than six miles in quite awhile.

But the run was definitely clearing my head and I enjoyed the quietness on the mostly deserted trail.  The rain had let up so even that wasn't a hindrance anymore.

I passed Gallows Road where, the last time I ran seven miles, months ago, I had found the trail after getting lost on Gallows Road on that run last spring, and hoofed it home from there.  Next up for me, I knew, was the bridge over the Beltway (I-495) and shortly after that, the bridge over I-66.

I passed over each bridge in turn, now a mere two and a half miles from home.  Somebody was up ahead on the last bridge, taking an extended video selfie of her run in the raw elements, and I quickened my pace to catch up with her to see, if she wasn't tucked into her own cocoon of selfhood with earphones, whether she would be good company for a mile or two.

Final Dental Visit, Part Seven

I was running home 10 miles from a dentist's appointment in the rain and it felt liberating.  I was free from the anxiety of further dental work, alone on the W&OD Trail with the elements and my thoughts.

There was no turning back once I'd gone a mile because now the silver line Metro station was far behind me and I might as well go on.  Ten miles west of my house, the trail is much more rural with more natural growth, adjacent water and occasional wildlife.

I saw a crane fly by, its wings outstretched, as I traversed a bridge over a rushing stream.  The rain was pattering but not pouring, and it soon stopped, leaving behind puddles and a wet trail.

At Vienna, I was halfway home.  I could have veered off there to a nearby orange line Metro station, but although my legs were getting weary and heavy, I was enjoying the peace and solitude the outing was providing to me.

Final Dental Visit, Part Six.

Early last Friday morning I was inside the warm office of my dentist, while outside it was raining steadily with a raw wind, the precursor in our region to the landfall in the Carolinas of Hurricane Joaquin.  I would have much rather have been outside, however, in the wind and rain than inside at the moment getting permanent crowns cemented onto three sensitive teeth.

I was looking forward to being outside the moment the procedures were done so I could get on the nearby W&OD Trail, a 40-mile paved-over railroad bed that cuts straight and level across Northern Virginia from Alexandria to Leesburg.  I was going to run home from the dentist's office, a distance of exactly 10 miles, and thus put my dental woes to rest in my mind directly after this last of half a dozen visits to the dentist's office in a three month span.  (In my mind, I was already starting my trip home.)

After having to shoot up all three operative areas with Novocain so that I would sit still, the dentist finally had no further trouble, and I had no further zing moments, and the task was completed by 9 a.m.   A week later, the teeth are all doing fine, the doctor did beautiful work and I wish her a long, healthy and happy retirement.

By 9:05 a.m. I had paid the bill (rather, I had put the amount on a credit card) and I was hitting the trail at MP 17, headed east for MP 7 which is exactly where the trail passes by my house.  I felt liberated, footloose, happy and free, even though I hadn't run 10 miles in over a year and it was raining steadily with a westward sometimes-whipping wind.  (Rain?  What rain?)

Final Dental Visit, Part Three.

A little background on my final dental visit this year (hopefully).  In any case, come the thirty-first of this month, I'll have to find a new dentist if the need for further dental work comes up because that's when my dentist is retiring.

Friday was a miserable day, raining, with the DC area awaiting the possible approach or arrival of Hurricane Joachim, and did I mention that the dentist's office is at MP 17 of the W&OD Trail and my house is at MP 7?  Yes I did in a previous post about my dental visits, and I showed up for this final appointment in my running togs with a Metro card (I took Metro to the visit), a credit card (to put the couple thousand plus "change" charge on) and a bottle of water.

Back to the action in the dentist's chair--after a come-to-Jesus moment when the tech removed the first temporary crown with her prongee, she placed the permanent crown on and it fit in nicely.  Maybe it'd be alright after all, I thought.

I still hadn't found the rear exit in the back of the chair, though.  It turned out that I really should have known where it was.

Whirr!

It all started with a piece of baked stuffed salmon in the cafeteria.  It was even slightly undercooked so it was tender and moist.

I was enjoying it when somehow it wrenched a crown out.  Now salmon joins the list of taffy, licorice and clam chowder as things which have pulled crowns out, not to be confused with the list of cheez-its and life savers as things which have broken teeth, which results in root canals and crowns.

So the next day I called the dentist.  Unless it hurts, never do two things involving the dentist on the same day.

She urged me to come in immediately, so she could cement it back in.  Apparently bad things can happen if you leave a tooth stump exposed to the real world for a week or two.

I went in, she cemented the crown back in, announced to me that she was retiring this year and said, "You know, Peter, you haven't had your teeth cleaned or had an oral examination in eight years.  You view dentists as emergency stations.  Oh, by the way, you have a bad cavity I noticed in there which you really should get filled."

Hmm.  She's the best dentist I ever had.  "You're leaving?" I thought.  "But what about me?"

The reason she's the best dentist I ever had is because she's never hurt me, in addition to being a superlative dentist.  In 2011 she was rated one of the best dentists in the DC area by the Washingtonian magazine.  Plenty of dentists have hurt me, not on purpose of course, beginning with Dr. Lipscombe on Staten Island who drilled out seven probably shallow cavities when I waved off Novocain in a show of bravado as a young boy.

Ever since that day, I have always looked for the back door in any lay-down chair I put myself in, an escape route I can utilize when I hear that Whirrr!  So, what does this have to do with a running blog?  Well, more to come about my dental woes, it's part of how life intrudes, but also as I discovered today when I arrived early and explored a bit, her office is half a block off MP 17 on the W&OD Trail and my house is half a block off MP 7 on the W&OD Trail.  Hmm.

Palm Sunday

Yesterday was a full day.  I attended church and we conducted the early part of the service in the frigid cold outside before retiring inside after receiving a palm shoot, where we listened to readers reading a biblical passion passage in lieu of listening to a sermon.

Then I went home and disposed of a pile of Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure t-shirts I found on a shelf in my closet.  This outfit is merely a political anti-woman's choice campaign and not an actual charitable cause (I used to do a lot of these races before I discovered the organization's true purpose) so I slit the logo on each shirt, rendering it unwearable, and dropped the pile into the charity clothing bin nearby so the material can be sold by weight as mere rags.

After that I ran a virtual 5K race on the W&OD Trail behind my house, in simulation of a real race on the trail later that day that I was going to be absent for but which I had been running every year since my return to running in 2011, when I had sixty extra pounds to lose.  I ran the 3.1 miles hard and finished in 25:57, huffing and puffing in the biting morning air.

To cool down after the run I walked around the 'hood and saw to my chagrin that a neighbor's house is for sale, owned by a man in his late sixties who has lived in the house since the early seventies but can no longer afford the property tax in Falls Church of over $7,000 annually on his snug but small workman's home, in addition to storm water fees, an impervious surface fee, inspection fees and decal fees that amount to many hundreds more each year.  The Little City's war on seniors; I'll be following him out of town after I retire when I won't be able to afford on my diminished income the avaricious, always-growing local taxation.