Thursday was a “celebration of me” (does rainbow hand gesture), but on Friday, it was back to reality and a 6-mile lumber through woods whilst hoping for good pics.
My trip to the trails was waylaid when I forgot my watch and had to turn around, all while dodging the tens of asphalt trucks that showed up in the neighborhood to repave our streets unannounced to anyone, including the guy who set the whole damn thing up, resulting in H.O.A. chaos. First-world problems, am I right?
On Wednesday, I got out for a low-key 4-mile lumber, mostly sticking to main paths, before coming home to cut the grass, which adds another 2 miles of walking behind a mower.
Despite the summer-like temps, the woods are becoming increasingly fall-like with each passing day, and while the fall colors are definitely better than the “brown season,” which lasts from November to May, I get a sick feeling in my stomach knowing the psychological torment that I’ll soon be putting myself through over the next few months as well as the omnipresent darkness that will spread over Michigan like a fat man’s nugget sack until the sun returns in May.
I ended my last post with this:
“I’ve got 8.9 miles to go to meet my 25-mile weekly goal, and IF I feel good in the morning, I might try to do a long lumber somewhere tomorrow and get it done early.”
Saying that I would attempt a 9-mile (minimum) lumber the next morning was a pretty ambitious statement written by a 53-year-old doofus who was still riding the high of his fastest 5-mile “run” ever earlier in the day. But I put it out there, and I somehow felt accountable for making it happen, even though I am the ONLY person in the world who would give a shit.
I took Wednesday off from Lumbering to cut the grass of the vast (not really) estate of the Cul-De-Sac-Shack, laundry duty, and my Wednesday appointment with the OG Mindbender.
With that, I was hopeful for good feetz during today’s “run” at Deerfield.
I only needed just 2.75 miles to hit my 25-mile goal for the week, so with no club football on,1Wifey and I went out to the Hall’s Lake Nature Preserve to stomp a few low-key miles.
Once again, I was on the trail as the sun rose this morning, this time for a 5-mile “run” on my original run loop to gauge progress.
The temps were in the high 40s, and I debated on whether to wear long sleeves or not, but then I looked at my hulking body in the mirror and remembered how much sweat I put out. I stuck with the short sleeves.
It seems like yesterday (or six days ago) when I was so overheated and drenched with sweat that I needed to stop by a trailside artesian well to douse myself with water to cool down, and today it was 45˚ when I got feetz on trail as the sun was rising. Shit.
After I was done spewing the decaying shit in my brain to the O.G. Mindbender last week, we were talking casually, and I mentioned my somewhat steady improved attempts at running and how much of a mental rub and a tug it’s been for me. She was complimentary, but as with many therapists, I could tell she wasn’t extremely impressed.
In my mind I planned to get out for a short lumber with my camera over the weekend, but it never really materialized.
Some of that was due to the fact that I had already hit my weekly mileage goal and lacked motivation, but the main issue was the fact that I was balls deep into the kickoff of the 2024/25 Premier League season (Nerd!). That means early weekend mornings filled with copious amounts of coffee and a big-as-your-head breakfast burrito and then an afternoon spent enjoying adult beverages and listening to music as I catch up on the rest of the European football action. Good times…. good times.
I was recently thinking (I know, I know, I shouldn’t) about this whole lumbering thing I’ve been doing for the past two years, which has sometimes morphed into attempts at trail running, especially recently, and why I have been enjoying it despite not being good at it.