Training Log Archive: dkp

In the middle of the woods, about at the spot that was equidistant from any trail I found a pair of nearly new sunglasses. They blended into the leaves and dirt almost to the point of invisibility. Somehow I found them. Putting them in the small hip bag I carry I started running again. I was, however, distracted by the circumstances of how those glasses ended up in such a remote place. Then I thought about those burial stones on the Laramie ridge, the ones that mark the resting place of a beloved family pet. then I thought about a friend who seeded the shore of a New Hampshire lake with the ashes of her father. Would my family set my remains way out here in the woods? I imagined a lot of complaints about how far they had to travel just to visit.

I was in the middle of the woods, far from the car parks when I smelled a city aroma. The first thought was someone was smoking pot at the trail ahead of me. I was about 50 meters away, but the smell reached through the woods to me. I decided it was not pot but tobacco. It was tobacco, but it was too sweet smelling for cigarettes. When I reach the trail the man standing there was smoking a pipe. I wonder if he was encased in the smoke and missed the aromas of the woods.
There is an orienteering area that has some evergreens. Whenever I go by those trees the smell of them sends me directly to Wyoming. Even though I had not thought of the west for weeks, that tree in Virginia was a worm hole to Wyoming. The hot dry smell of the needles and bark mixed with the dirt is strong.
It is amazing that running in the forest uses all the senses.

At first It was a struggle to get in to the run. Slowly, however, I dropped my worries about school and everything else. I finally reached a place in the forest where I began to noticed the small dot knolls on the floor of the forest. This place does have a lot of the knolls, many more than are ever mapped. They come from fallen trees, with the root stock pulling the dirt up then over time the dirt and roots crumble to settle into a mound. The dirt allows moss and plants to grow. at the end of a time span the trunk of the fallen tree seems to disappear and only a small mound of moss covered soil is left. Seeing them remind me of running in the woods as a kid with my brother. There were burial mounds scattered in the woods built by the first peoples. While we did visit them we did not climb on them or dig into them. I was under strict orders, passed down from our parents through my brother, to leave them untouched. nothing superstitious, just a simple act of respect.
I try to do the same for the fallen tree mounds, I sidestep them. usually I do not notice the tree trunk, only the mound. There are a lot of fallen trees in the woods, I have to jump over them all. They are merging with the ground as they get softer and flake apart. once they are absorbed by the ground any trace or outline disappears. I saw one tree that did something different. It had melted back into the ground but its outline was filled in with a nice soft moss. where the moss grows other plants will grow. If a fallen tree had consciousness it must have thought it would be nice to return to the earth from where it grew and lived. It must have thought it nice to provide itself as material for the next generation of forest.

I remember, from a long time ago, running in the fog. A white out in the forest forcing me to use a compass just to traverse an open field. I remember other times of running in the fog where I could see the trees, but between them was a curtain of white.
Today was like running in a fog, but a fog of green. The leaves are starting to come out. Only a few trees and only part way out for the leaves. It left a scene where I could see all the trees, the hills, and the re-entrants. They were, however, shrouded in spring green. Spring green has a brightness to that last only a few weeks when it fades into a summer long green. Spring green has all the promise of life, happiness, and yet it also has a fragility because it is so short lived.

In the middle of the run I was moving up a ridge from the lower end. I reached a plateau on the ridge and recovered from the first climb. I was moving slowly when I noticed a ball point pen on the ground. It was one of those cheap hotel room pens, white with green letters. I left it there but after a few strides I stopped and turned back. On the ground next to the pen was a plastic toy soldier and a small white stone. I picked up the stone and found that it was polished like the small stones that are sold in gift shops at tourist sites. I was trying to imagine how these things got to this place far from trail or parking lot. Then I noticed the base of the tree next to the items. It was a twined tree with the junction of the two trucks right at ground level. Inside the joint were a bunch of sticks, but they were all laying parallel to each other. I finally saw the answer to the three items. A small clear plastic box was tucked under the sticks. I pulled it out and opened it. There was water inside, but the log was inside a plastic bag. The last date on the log was August 2019. I put the three items inside the box, closed it, and put the box back under the sticks. I looked at my map and tried to memorize the location in case I had the opportunity to tell KB about it. In case she still looked for geocaches or still does letter boxing.
After that I resumed running up the ridge. It had a shallow slope and the woods were open. The running was good and I reached the top without trouble. over the top I crossed two old tracks that were covered with fallen trees. I made a detour around a green area marked on the map. At the edges of it the woods had scattered holly trees. I was able to slalom through the bushes. I could see far in front of me. This side of the hill was wide mostly flat with open woods. I ran perpendicular to the re-entrants jumping the small streams and finding the re-entrant sides had easy slopes. I was looking for a rock and on the downhill side it hidden by fallen trees. I ran around the trees and on the upside the woods were open and the rock stood out . I looked up the hill and saw that the huge hardwoods stood out from each other. It was like being in a cathedral with pillars along the center aisle The light rain had started again and I could feel it landing on me. I aimed for home and ran to the car.

When I arrived at the forest I was still thinking about what was happening in the world and at school. I want to start running, but I could not jump right into the woods because of the thick vegetation. I ran down the road for a few hundred meters and found a nice re-entrant to use as a pathway into the forest. It was a very open bit of forest with a few fallen trees, but it was okay to jump over them. To my right I could see the top of the ridge. There were thick trees and bushes up there. To my left the side of the re-entrant was clear and open. This re-entrant was about three hundred meters long, all of it was good for running. at the junction of it and the stream at the base of the valley, I crossed to reach the opposite side. This side was the flat part of the valley. I look down the valley and it was straight and open with mature trees. The afternoon light was shining on the green holly trees and the mountain laurel bushes. They were few and scattered across the valley floor. The green highlighted the gray tree trucks. The floor was covered by leaves, but with the light shining on them there was an echo of Autumn. I could see the gold and red left over from the fall season. Looking down the stream valley I saw the variety of colors and textures of the smooth green holly leaves, the jagged bark, and the bumpy browns reds and golds of the leaf ground cover.
I was now pre-occupied by the forest and by the time I returned to that pathway re-entrant I was bliss-ed out from the woods. Again, I drove home with the radio off, extending the silence of the out of doors.

C • Prose 1

Ran early in the morning. As I drove to the woods All I could think about was the school work I had to prepare for students in the coming week and things left undone from the previous week.
At the forest I parked the car along side the road and popped directly into the woods. I was trying to shake off the doubts I had about my answers to students questions. I ran on the east side of a wide stream valley. It was the flatten side of the valley and the ground was nearly devoid of leaves. The wind blew up the valley and swept them away. What a great start to a run, going along a plateau of bare ground with mature trees.
I crossed the stream to begin the climb up the first hill. I tack up the hill like a sail boat tacking into the wind. I kicked the leaves as I slowly moved uphill. I was trying to reduce the slope and for the most part I was able to run the whole way up. The ridge top was narrow and I started to descend. Again I was on the side of the hill where the wind had cleared away from the ground. The trees were tall, mature hardwoods. A few ground cover bushes were on the hill side but they were scattered. I moved through them like a skier s-turning down a mountain. I was focusing on where to put my feet and that squeezed out any remaining thoughts of school or work. By the time I reach the bottom I was dialed into the woods, the trees, and sunshine on my back as I headed west.
By the time I got back to the car the sun was up over the trees and there were two other cars next to mine. I got in and drove off. The radio turned off as I tried to extend for a few more minutes the silence of the forest.