Yay, For My Legs!

If you were ever to ask me, what part of your body would you want to change, I would, without hesitation, say my legs. My legs are short and I have strong calves and chunky thighs. I'm kind of used to them, it started happening around 5th grade as I hit puberty. I always envy those people with sculpted legs;when they put their legs together, there are three perfect triangles between their ankles and calves, calves and knees, and thighs. That's not and is never going to be me. But today, I'm feeling very thankful for the strength of my legs. So thank you legs, for not letting me down. 

Sunday morning, we took our friends' dogs for a walk and snapped a beautiful photo of the clouds in the mountains. Thanks, legs, for being strong. 

Then we rode our bike 12 miles to a market and had coffee and pastries with our friends Sue and Steve. Again, my legs came through, pedaling hard, even when we had to go up a steep bit to check on another friends' house.

Saturday, I ran 7 miles! It wasn't fast but I didn't stop to walk, just kept moving, my legs churning and churning, out 3.5 miles and back 3.5 miles. (That's 11.2 kilometers total). It's probably been over a year since I've had a string of good runs, so I have been determined to get back on track, following a training schedule. I can't tell you the last time I ran 7 miles, but I owe it all to those sturdy legs (well, the lungs and heart helped too). 

Legs still climbing

Just a few weeks ago we climbed Mount Bugarach, again I owe a huge thanks to my legs, partially my arms too on those very rocky parts. 

The next time you think to complain about how a body part looks or how you wish it looked a different way, just think about what an amazing job it does. 

Tour de Columbus

In honor of the Tour de France (remember emphasis on France for July), I took a bike ride this morning.
I was sick yesterday, sore throat and aches, so when I tried to run this morning, I didn't get far. Instead, I walked to get coffee. I tried some P90x exercise. I made some French toast for Tucker before he went to work, still my mood was zooming south. I decided to try to pull up from my plunging mood with a bike ride.
I have to go about a mile on the road until I get to the bike path. Once on the path, I tried to live in the moment. I felt the cool wind on my arms and cheeks. I heard the sound of traffic in the bridges that passed over the path.
The sky was a beautiful blue, fighting the haze that will come as the temperatures rise today.

This is a shot across the Scioto River of an old high school that now houses our Science museum called COSI.

As I cycled down the trail, I smelled the earth and the trees damp still from last night's rain.
The sun was slowly rising from the east making shadows of trees on the black bike path.

I saw traffic standing still as the city closed streets in preparation for the July 4th celebration. I saw families camping out in their tents to save their spot for firework viewing. The temptature is supposed to be in the 90s the next week. I can't imagine the celebration is that appealing, to camp out for two days before the fireworks.
The families who were not camping had cordonned off spots in the grass with yellow and orange caution tape.

I swerved through a family of geese and they hissed at me.
I saw city worker after city worker preparing for the celebration.
Then I biked south of the city past the fountains

 to the Audubon center where the sounds of birds mingled with the far off drone of traffic.

Hoping to leave my bad mood behind, I biked home again.
No sprints. No mountains. No winners or losers.
 Just me and my bike on a lovely, breezy day.

Gravity

This morning, when the alarm went off at 5:40, I did not want to run. As I got dressed, I did not want to run. As I lay on the living room floor stretching my back, I did not want to run. As I checked my mileage for the day on the computer and the Weather Bug chirped about a heat advisory, I did not want to run. And as I walked out the back door, latching my water bottle belt, I did not want to run.
I moved slowly through the thick, humid air.
The breaths did not seem to fill up my lungs.
In grad school, I had a friend, who was probably depressed, but on some days she wouldn't get out of bed. She would say, "The gravity is simply too strong today."
That's how I felt. Gravity encouraged me to lie down and rest rather than running or working.
I walked to warm up and considered whether I could walk the entire route for today's schedule -- 4 miles. It would probably take me forever to walk 4 miles. I'd better run. So I did, but when the light changed and cars crossed at the half mile mark, I stood gratefully breathing. At the mile marker, I took another break and walked some. I ran most of the way interspersing some walks to catch my breath.
My running friend Pam pointed out that I "get into" running in the spring. She notices these kinds of things and I'm oblivious to fluctuations and schedules. I should ask her when I usually lose my enthusiasm. I'm guessing about July 11th.
My body does feel battered and bruised. Not just from the running and the new shoes that rubbed the wrong way.
Grace and I started doing P90X again, so, on many days, I have two work outs.
Last week, I rode my bike to work one day, and "laid it down" with me on it. It couldn't really count as a wreck because it was in slow motion. I forgot I had my foot clipped to one of the pedals and when an 18-wheeler turned right on red, I had to stop, not too quickly, but quickly enough to make me forget I couldn't put my left foot down. I ended up with some bruises and scrapes on my legs.
Getting in shape requires taking the road through battered and bruised while avoiding the turn off to broken.
So hopefully I'll keep running, and doing P90X, and occassionally, like today, riding my bike to work.
I'll try not let gravity win today.

Family Night Rides Again

With the temperature in the mid-80s rather than the mid-90s, we decided that a bike ride would be a perfect family night.
It was a little complicated with five people and five bikes. We ended up taking two cars because the bike carrier holds three bikes, so we put the top down on the convertible and stuck two bikes in the back of it. Of course, one of our bikes was missing because Tucker had ridden it to a friend's house and left it where it was locked in a garage. We borrowed a bike from Earl's sister's husband.
Spencer was focused on getting family night over with. "How many miles?" he asked.
Eleven there, eleven back with ice cream in between, I told him.
And he took off. The bike trail runs from Johnstown to Granville. The trail is shared with walkers and runners and crosses several roads, most of them not too busy.
As we started off, we came to a wooden bridge. A squirrel ran onto the bridge at the same time Spencer rode onto it. The bike scared him and he scurried across Spencer's path then ran and dove off the edge, hopefully onto a tree.
That was about the last we saw of Spencer as he decided to ride ahead. He later told us he managed the whole 11 miles in 35 minutes. He turned around and came back to find us since he didn't know where the ice cream shop was.
The path goes through woods and farm fields. It was full of strong odors, like skunk and cow manure. It also had butterflies and birdsong. The woods were protecting and ominous. The fields full of corn that stretched as high as an elephant's eye.
Tucker's bike has issues. Earl says it's because he throws it on the ground when he finishes using it. I say they should have put a kick stand on it if they didn't want kids throwing it to the ground. Nevertheless, he would be riding and the chain would just pop off and he would pedal going nowhere until it reattached.
I found this hilarious. Him, not so much.
Some swear words were thrown around when we left the flat path of the trail to climb the hill up to Granville. It's a steep hill and I called "every man for himself" before we got to it.
Earl and I rode on the street, but the kids all headed for the sidewalk, which meant they couldn't pass each other so were limited to the speed of the person in front of them. Anyway, they all made it to the top without stopping to push their bikes, which is more than I could say for myself the first time I did it.
The ice cream parlor in Granville served up floats and milk shakes that helped get us the 11 miles back to the cars.

This guy fed ice cream to his dogs. He made them take turns and share a spoon. He used a different spoon and somehow thought that was sanitary, even though they were all eating from the same bowl. Ick.
After ice cream, Tucker needed a grilled cheese.
Grace and I headed back to the trail while he waited for his food. We knew we would be slower than the guys. We rode steady for a total 64-minute ride on the way back, along with a few stops for photos. I figure less than a 6-minute mile isn't bad for us.
The boys stayed at the ice cream parlour to eat the grilled cheese sandwich then took off at a pace that might have done the peloton on the Tour de France proud. They shoulted a hello and Spencer's red shirt billowed in the wind as they passed and rode toward the lowering sun.

The sun was setting as we finished at the grain mill in Johnstown.
We were all pretty tired when we got home, except Spencer who of course ventured out to "hang" with his friends at "the turf" which is the high school football field.

Biking to the Birds

Today the weather turned cool after a week of mid-90 degree days. Earl and I decided to go for a bike ride. We realized that we didn't need to limit our bike rides to trips to Monet's Garden -- our last recreational bike ride. And, lest you forget, that trip was full of mistakes, like missing a train and following the wrong man down the road. You can read about it here: http://paulita-ponderings.blogspot.com/2010/04/jai-trompe.html (I don't know why my links won't work in my posts, but it is frustrating.) .
From our house we rode to the bike trail that follows the Olentangy River. Workers are fixing the highway over the trail and I caught a picture of the sparks cascading down the concrete.
The bike trail leads to the confluence of the Olentangy and the Scioto rivers before it heads toward downtown Columbus. The bike trail is like a tourist guide. It leads past COSI, the museum of Science and Industry. It also goes past the Santa Maria, a replica of the ship that Columbus took on his first trip to the New World. The trail also streaks past the Ohio Supreme Court building, which has some gorgeous painting and architecture.
Unfortunately, that's where we ran into trouble and had to take to the streets instead of the bike trail because the city is building a promenade along the river. We had to ride through a construction zone then a busy street in the brewery district before we got to the park.
Earl rode on to the Audubon building while I checked out the park. If my kids were still little and we were homeschooling, this place would be my new hangout. There are sand volleyball pits, a climbing wall and playgrounds over rubber surface. I walked up to the third stage of a tower to survey my kingdom, well, the park around me.
While Earl waited for me to catch up, he sat in a chair in front of the Audubon building. That is him waving wildly. I told him it looked as if he was being attacked by the giant bird statue.
The audubon building is full of photos of birds that have been spotted along the river, wetlands and fields of wildflowers in the area. This section of the river has been known by bird watchers for a long time because migrating birds stop here every spring and fall.
The park has started growing fields of wild flowers, and birds flitted among the plants. The park also had some more orderly flower gardens, again not quite rivaling Monet's Garden, but it is the first year for the metro park.

We found a less circuitous route home and managed to avoid much of the road construction. Here's the new Main Street bridge that is not open yet, but has a sleek look to it in front of the skyline.
Trying to keep the whole vacation motif going, we stopped at a coffee shop before we returned home. Earl had an iced tea and I had a lemonade, squeezed fresh and so bitter that it made me pucker.
It wasn't a vacation day for either of us, but I'm glad we got to snatch some of the enjoyment that we find as tourists in other cities.

Back to School

Last year when the kids went back to school, it was the first time all three of my children actually attended. My husband was still working a normal schedule so he left for work in the morning, and I wondered what mothers do when their kids are gone if they aren't working. I didn't have any classes that day, so I spent the hours cleaning the house. It seemed like a renewal kind of thing.
Yesterday, the kids headed back to school again. I'd spent hundreds of dollars on school supplies and clothes, and I got up at 5 to get to the grocery store to buy the requisite boxes of tissues for the teachers.
I had to teach a few hours and I took along my gym bag, planning to work out, but when I walked out of the building a little before noon, the sky was so blue and the air was crisp.
I called my husband, who is now on the crazy schedule with days off on Monday and Tuesday (?) and said, "Let's go for a bike ride."
So we did.
The bike trail is about a mile from our house and it winds along the Olentangy River. It has some definite flaws especially as it goes through Ohio State. It's under construction and the path goes up a hill right by the old student union where people are trying to walk.
But the air felt fresh, like the harbinger of fall. I loved the sound of the few crisp leave crunching under the tires, mixed with the steady chirp of the crickets. The buzz of cicadas in the trees seemed to herald the end of summer.
Along the river I saw an egret glide in for a landing, its white wings cocked above the greenish brown of the water. A great blue heron stood placidly in the water at another spot, ignoring the squawking of the geese.
My bike is smaller than my husband's and my legs are much shorter, so it seems like I pedal constantly but can't keep up with him. That was okay because I loved the whoosh of the wind in my ears.
We got home in time to take a nap before picking up the kids from school. And, although we had to ferry them to a nuber of places, like to the doctor to remove stitches, they were all enthusiastic about their first day, and about the milkshakes my husband had ready when they came in the door from that first day of school.

Time

What if you had one day left to live? How would you spend it?
Might you put the bikes on the back of the car and drive to a smooth bike path with some of the people you love?
That's what we did yesterday. We whizzed along the 11 miles, under shady trees and then beside tall corn fields. We watched the butterflies zig then zag to miss our zooming bikes and we saw the birds' shadows on the path as they soared overhead. We pretended we were the Pelloton and counted how long it would take to catch the breakaway leader. And at the end of the path, we pushed hard up a hill to get to the small town of Granville where an ice cream shop awaited. A glass of water with a lemon was the first relief, followed by a Coke float with the vanilla ice cream melting into the soda.
Then we turned around and glided down that same hill. We stopped at a wooden playground and pumped our legs on the swings until I knew my shoes would touch the clouds. I pushed Grace on a tire swing, her 5-foot, 9-inch body draped over the black rubber swing. Then we got on our bikes and continued the 11 miles back to the car. We sang songs from Disney movies and it was a real treat to hear Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious in French. The girls were moving at a snail's pace. I passed them for awhile and rode ahead. Earl had long since abandoned our slow ride and sped ahead of us.
The girls put on a burst of speed and caught up with me, panting and telling me that I was 2 minutes and 40 seconds ahead of the Pelloton before they caught me. We stopped for water and then they boxed me in, refusing to let me go ahead. So we sang songs from The Sound of Music and Beauty and the Beast.
The day was hot, high 80s, but as long as we were moving on our bikes we had a nice breeze. Earl turned around to look for us when we were about three miles from the end. The girls decided this was their chance to beat him to the finish line. They tried boxing him in, but got passed when they had to move to the right for an oncoming biker. In the end, they reached the parking lot first, and, amid much groaning and rubbing of butts, we drove home.
I picked up Tucker from his band practice for a taste test at the local research center. After I pocketed the $15, and he took the $10, I drove home again. My contacts were foggy and everything seemed blurry.
I took out my contacts and realized I was having a hard time focusing. It felt like I'd just looked into a camera flash. I tried to read my email but kept feeling like something was blocking my vision. I cut up some fresh tomatoes for a tomato and vinaigrette salad. Still, things danced in front of my eyes. Finally, I went to lie down.
Earl has had a similar experience twice. The doctors figured it was either a small piece of plaque that broke off and headed for his brain but instead went to his eye, or, their second opinion, was a visual migraine. So, I lay in bed, wondering if I was going to die. But, I didn't feel any pain. You can't really go to the emergency room when you aren't in any pain.
After awhile, I got up and my vision was better. I sat down in the living room where the girls had turned on the movie 17 Again. I watched and said, "Is that Zack Effron?" But the words felt funny coming from my mouth. Slurred almost. My brain felt fuzzy too. I looked at Matthew Perry and asked, "Is that the guy from friends?" But I really couldn't place him. Next, I felt a tingling in the fingers of my left hand. I kept moving my hand and trying to analyze with my fuzzy brain why my fingers would be feeling numb like they were falling asleep.
Finally, I sat by Grace. She leaned her head on me, and I thought if this is my last day, I just need to make sure my family knows I love them. So I kissed each of them. I told them to make good choices (well, I didn't tell Earl that).
"Is something wrong, Mom?" Spencer asked. And I just gave him an extra squeeze around his rock-hard middle.
Today, I feel fine. But, I might call my doctor just to see if she can fit me in. I'm not willing to go in for a bunch of tests, but I might sit down and write letters to the kids. Just in case. They'd start something like this: The most important thing you need to know is that I love you so much that my heart nearly bursts from it. It is so full with my love for you...
UPDATE: I went to the doctor this morning and she felt confident that what I had was a migraine with aura. The aura is the spots that blocked out my peripheral, and much of my straight ahead vision. She has these herself, although the aura usually precludes the onset of the migraine itself. She told me to get back to my vitamins and watch out for triggers. Thank God, I'm not going to die yet.
I told a friend that the doctor said it was a migraine with aura. She said, "Is that like a brain tumor with a free gift?" It's a different kind of benefit.