Dear Patti, How About Antarctica In 3 Months?

I signed up for the Antarctica Marathon in January 2012 and the earliest spot they had available was for the March 2016 race; they wait-listed me for 2015 and assured me that people drop out and I could reasonably count on running it then. I've had 2015 in my mind ever since: 15 months from now, and hopefully two of my best marathons yet will be completed before then.

And then today, New Year's Eve, I got this email from the race organizers:

Dear Patti,

 

You currently have a deposit with us for a future Antarctica Marathon. We are sending this email since we just had a cancellation in a private cabin on the Vavilov for the 2014 adventure.

 

We know that this is short notice, but let us know if you are interested. 

 

Best regards for a healthy and joyous New Year.

I'm fairly confident that if I attempt this race in three months that my New year will not be healthy or joyous. That, and I'm looking at temps for tomorrow's 5K with trepidation....

San Diego: Unseasonably Awesome

Tell people you're from San Diego and their response is, "Wow, isn't the weather perfect there all the time?" When compared to most places, the answer is pretty much: yes. The winter, such as it is, usually has temps in the 60s, so I have a hard time hearing San Diegans (ahem, mom) insist that "it does get cold at night" (egads, 40 degrees!!) when in Vermont right now the temperature is 10 degrees and falling.

That said, Christmas week in San Diego this year was exceptional: 75 degrees every day, cerulean skies, Chamber of Commerce weather. On my last night there, the forecaster said, literally, "we don't see a change in this weather pattern till at least January 12th or 13th."  So there's that. I ran almost every day, taking advantage of beach views and a chance to wear t-shirts. A few highlights:

North Harbor Drive to Pt. Loma:
The quirky geography of San Diego is such that the airport is adjacent to downtown and both are right on the harbor. Even when you know this, you can still get caught by surprise seeing a a very large, very close plane enter your peripheral vision while jogging across Laurel Street heading to the harbor. Tuesday morning I returned a rental car at the airport and ran to my mom's house on Pt. Loma. Most of that run is along the northern part of San Diego Bay -- yachts, glassy water, palm trees, gorgeous skies... exactly the cliche you resent San Diego for. (Stay, classy.)

Torrey Pines:
Go north from La Jolla and there is a state preserve on the coast. While $15 is an extreme day use fee (I forgot California was broke...) I still love this state park: sandy trails run from the top of the cliffs, down through sandstone canyons to the beach and back up through the trees. From every direction there are commanding views of the coast and the wide open ocean. With zero humidity, the scent of sagebrush is pungent and just smells like California. (In the best way.)

Pt. Loma to Sunset Cliffs:
There are a million reasons to love Pt. Loma, but here's one drawback: it's extremely hilly. Pretty much a mountain peninsula with a bay on the south side and the ocean on the north. My mom lives near the crest of Pt. Loma, so every run from her house has a lot of steep inclines. This run went up to the top of Pt. Loma, then sharply downhill to the ocean, then straight back uphill to the top, with a descent back home. But coming down into Sunset Cliffs from the trails near Nazarene College is pretty spectacular.

Later that day, I walked another 4 miles at the San Diego Zoo with my mom and sister. Tip for zoo-goers: the koalas are crazy active after sunset!!




 
Morley Field Trails:
I have always associated Balboa Park with museums and the zoo, but huge areas of it are grassy open space and steep canyons. Meb Keflezghi writes about the Morley Field running trails (upper right on this map) from his days as a high school cross-country star.  Sadly, I didn't bump into Meb, but I did get to see parts of the park that I didn't realize existed. (Florida Canyon, who knew?)






Shelter Island to Liberty Station:

This awesome photo is from the USS Constellation reunion web site and shows how Shelter Island sits in San Diego Bay, hugging Pt. Loma. (I added the star where mom's house is.) Home to picnic-ers, joggers, fisherman, boaters and hotels, Shelter Island is a sweet run. On the far right in this photo, there is a neighborhood of pinkish-colored buildings near the water; that's Liberty Station. Formerly Navy housing and offices, now home to Trader Joe's, condos and restaurants. And also pretty parks and great walking trails on water.

Things I've Seen (and Smelled) On Recent Runs

Last weekend I ran 15 miles from Winooski through the Intervale to the New North End and back through Burlington. This weekend I ran 17 miles from Winooski to Colchester, down the bike path and around Winooski again. A few photos:

She looks lonely, but the rest of the cows were nearby on the riverbank.

What ARE these?!

The Intervale is an agricultural area in Burlington that takes advantage of the rich river-deposited soil. That said, I have never actually seen cows drinking from the river in all the times I've run through there. So cool!

Further along near the Ethan Allen Homestead, I stopped to loop at the trail map on the park bulletin board, when I noticed the sign posts were crawling with these red and black bugs. I didn't study the grass, but they were definitely coming up from the ground. Filed under "cool/gross."


And then I ran waaay out to Peninsula Point, an oxbow on the river that forms pretty field edged by trees. On the far side of the field -- the farthest point from the trail head -- I found this:

A monkey mascot carefully draped over a tree limb. At first I thought it was a eagle costume (not that that would make it more explainable...) but it was definitely a monkey. Someone would have had to walk a few miles in the monkey suit (or carry it) to get to this point. If not the sunny blue sky and the good mood radiating from all the people I passed on the trails, I would have found this scene... worrisome. Instead, I just want to know: who left the monkey suit in the woods?


I don't usually take photos while I'm running, but for various reasons I've been carrying my iPhone on long runs lately. What my phone can't capture is the smells I encounter. Farmland, at least at this time of year, does not smell like manure. In fact, it just smells like outdoors. Like Vermont. But the city offers a few distinct smells. Particularly on Riverside Driver, which is less river and more industrial park. Within about 100 yards, I pass the two most polar opposite smell locations in Burlington: the waste water treatment plant, and the Koffee Cup donut factory. One is awfully, olfactorily offensive; the other is deliciously sweet and hunger-inducing. Best to hit them in that order.




This weekend's long run has one picture to capture the weather: soft, gray everything. The sky, the horizon, the river, the lake. For long stretches on the bike path, I didn't see another person, but it didn't feel lonely or sad. The temperature was warm, and the air felt soft. Most of the leaves are on the ground now, but enough are still on the trees to give the bike path a foggy, quiet leaf-shroud.

From the Colchester-Winooski bridge, the lake was silent, and soft-gray.