Where I Go to Start Over

I love running on trails. I enjoy the challenge of the uneven ground, negotiating the rocks and roots and mud and the occasional snake. I love the varied scenery, surrounded by trees and weeds and boulders and wildlife, snakes included. For the past 2 1/2 years, this has been my preferred running environment.

But then I tore a tendon in my ankle and had to have surgery. Several months after that I had tendinitis in the same ankle. Most recently I sprained ligaments near that very same ankle. (My whole right ankle has become my Achilles heel.) It’s been a long slow road back to trail running.

That road has begun here after each injury. Pictured is a flat and friendly course at a local recreation area. It loops around a lake and passes ball fields. This is where I go to start over.

Incidentally, this picture is of a section of the park called “Fishermen’s Lane.” I did a little research to find out why it was name that. It turns out that it is named in memory of two local young men who were walking along the railroad tracks to go fishing when they were struck and killed by a train in 1989. (I found this information at this link.)

Starting over here, this road needs to take me to a 50K in Hyner, PA on April 21, 2018. That’s right, just two months from now. The cutoff date to drop out and get a refund on my registration fee is in two days. But I’ve made up my mind to attempt to go the distance. It might not be the smartest thing given the shape of my ankle. But this ankle is going to be with me every step for the rest of my life. I better get used to it if I want to run long races. I’m sure today isn’t the only time I’ll be starting over.

Super Moist Fat Tuesday

Let’s Make a Cake

I was going to post this picture and leave it at that. Fat Tuesday. Let’s eat cake. Ha ha. Super moist. Ha ha.

Then the universe tilted and things truly did become super moist. I spilled a nice, fresh, steaming hot mug of coffee all over half the kitchen.

#FAIL

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the coffee leaked through the chair and my baby beat me to the puddle.

#PARENTINGFAIL (Yes, that’s food on his sleeve. He sneezed out sweet potatoes shortly before the coffee fiasco.)

I chalked it up to FEELING LIKE THIS FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME. My head was no longer in the game by 3 PM. The gray matter had left the building.

But I managed to regroup. I made another cup of coffee and washed it down with this…

Cake Makes Everything Better

I’ll take a disasterous Fat Tuesday to be the harbinger of a meaningful Lenten season.

International Space Station Flyover – Feb. 13, 2018

This morning I was organizing bookmarks in Internet Explorer, something I rarely do, in a browser I never use but for work these days, and I came across a link to ISS sighting opportunities. I had forgotten all about it. As chance would have it, the Space Station was flying over my area in New Jersey just after sunset today!

Also as chance would have it, the sky was clear at that time of the day. I was able to go outside to view the flyover. I made a video.

It amazes me that there are people living up there 240 miles away from the Earth.

It amazes me that it is moving so fast:

The ISS circles the Earth every 90 minutes. It travels at about 17,500 miles (28,000 km) per hour, which gives the crew 16 sunrises and sunsets every day. In the more than 15 years that people have been living onboard, the Station has circumnavigated the Earth tens of thousands of times.

From https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/faq.cfm

Moving that quickly, they probably didn’t see me waving.

The speed is even more astounding when you realize that the Station is the size of a US football field.

That’s one big rig traveling at 17,500 mph!

Photo from https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/overview/index.html

I’ll have to keep an eye out for another good sighting. There’s just something fascinating about it.

Homer, The Stephen King of Classical Writers

Idomeneus speared Erymas in the mouth; the bronze point of the spear went clean through it beneath the brain, crashing in among the white bones and smashing them up. His teeth were all of them knocked out and the blood came gushing in a stream from both his eyes; it also came gurgling up from his mouth and nostrils, and the darkness of death enfolded him round about.

-The Iliad

That is some pretty gruesome stuff!