Goodbyes

Goodbyes.

The days are still blessedly warm—some would say way too hot. But now in the early mornings the light arrives a little later and the air has taken on the dawn coolness that returns each August to remind us that the warm season is on the downhill run. I love summer, and it always makes me sad when I realize that it won’t go on forever.

Summer visits come to an end as well.  My grandson, Cougar, who lives in Tokyo, spent the month of July in the U.S. He went home this week and so did his dad, after a visit of nearly a whole week. It was hard to see them go. I know, these days, theoretically, they’re not much more than 12 hours away, but still, it feels like a long way.  Life is busy and visits are necessarily rare, making them treasured times.

There’s this myth that summer is time off time—less to do—more time to hang out, read, swim, do nothing.  I’m not convinced. The days are longer but they tend to get filled up with attention the garden demands—or I, at least, think it does.

In a week or so, school will crank up again and the grandkid generation in my family will scatter—to New York, Florida, Ohio, California, Spain, to work and to school. But not Adam, my mid-twenties grandson and Allison, his significant other, who are fulfilling a long-held dream of backpacking through the European continent for six months. For several years they worked hard and saved their money, then quit their jobs to make this trip of a lifetime. According to Instagram, they’re having a high old time. They promise to be home by Christmas. Even the best and longest of adventures come to an end. The important thing is to grab the window of opportunity when it emerges because it won’t be open forever.

I plan to make the the best of what remains of summer and keep in mind that fall is on the horizon with a whole new set of good fun things to do.  Already, the grass has quit growing so fast and the garden is offering up edibles unlike anything you can find at the supermarket.

The challenge of Pikes Peak

My friend Donna Messenger and her husband, Bill, came to visit last week. Now they live in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, but between 1969 and 1979, they lived in the hills north and west of Fort Collins and were teachers, coaches and stalwart members of the Fort Collins running community.

In 1972 Donna, who was 29 at the time, did the Pike’s Peak Ascent in Colorado Springs in a time of 3:28:26, placing first in her age group and beginning a tradition that continues to this day. On August 16, she’ll ascend Pikes Peak for the 17^th time, in 43 years, and she’ll race down the hill too, in an attempt to break her own 70-plus age group round trip record. Over time, she’s won the race 6 times and placed 10^th or higher 10 times.

Because she’s a multi-time overall Pikes Peak race winner, she’ll never again need to qualify or pay an entry fee for the race. Her fastest ascent , 3:02:24, came when she was 32.  Her fastest round trip, 5:05:40, she did the following year, 1976 at age 33.

We did a couple of training runs together last week, reminiscing about the time we ran the same mile together ten times, back and forth, getting in a 20-mile training run—a first for me—in preparation for the Denver Marathon. That year, 1976, a huge May snowstorm kept Donna from getting out of her mountain home and made it impossible for her to compete. She made up for it by winning the fall Denver Marathon that year.

All stats aside, why does Donna continue to run Pikes Peak? She’ll tell you that she loves the challenge of the altitude and the rugged trail. Being in the forest makes her happy. “I like working hard,” she says, “seeing if I can overcome the elements.”

She looks forward to the camaraderie of the trail and after so many years of running the race, she knows lots of the returning participants. For her, the hardest part of the race is between timberline and the A frame, three miles before the summit. “When that stretch is over you know you’re going to make it,” she said.

She doesn’t run as many shorter races as she once did, but her training is consistent and focused on being prepared for PP. “It’s a great goal for me,” she explains.

That 70-plus round trip record of hers she’s out to beat? 7:57:08 in 2013. Stay tuned and I’ll report.

Old friends gathered at Devils Backbone in Loveland

Getting together with old friends

In the last decade, we’ve gone our separate ways. We’ve retired, moved to sunnier climes, taken up heavy-duty hiking, biking and yoga, embarked on world-wide travels and done our share of volunteering. Most of us have left behind the days when we ran several times a week and participated in races, from 5ks to marathons, near home and as far away as The Big Apple. We no longer have a chance to share our lives on the weekend runs we took together for so many years.

Last Friday morning, the parking lot at Devil’s Backbone hiking area west of Loveland was filled with cars and knots of people getting ready to set out on the trails.  As soon as I pulled in, I saw them standing close together, clad in a rainbow of colorful t-shirts, already animated by each other’s conversation. Thanks to an especially thoughtful one of us, we’d been drawn together for a morning hike to be followed by lunch.

We hesitated for a few minutes, concerned by reports of a rattlesnake that had apparently taken up residence on the trail. But we soon forgot about him in our determination to get caught up. The rail was narrow enough that even walking two abreast was tough in places. And that was frustrating because we all wanted to interact with everyone in the group. We managed, switching off to chit chat with first one, then another, catching up on lives in a way that just isn’t possible via social media.

After a couple of hours, we found ourselves back at the parking lot, sweaty and ready to head toward our lunch spot, a popular Mexican restaurant west of Loveland. There we had a chance to relive some of our adventures; a trip to New York for a marathon, a biking adventure in Moab where rain turned the trail to mud and we had to carry our bikes to firmer ground, and a memorable hike and overnight stay at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Sometimes reliving an occasion is almost as much fun as doing it the first time.

Surely these events brought us closer to each other. Any time you bike, hike or run with someone for an extended period of time, you find yourself with your mouth open, sharing stuff you would never address in cocktail party conversation. In other words, the nitty-gritty stuff of life.

I’m so thankful for this brief opportunity to get together again. I’m thinking we’ll be in touch more frequently than we have been lately, and that makes me feel good.

Happy Birthday

10, 25, 56, 79, 22. What numbers should come next in the series? Just kidding. There’s no answer to that question. As what I call “the birthday clump” in my family ended this morning with a birthday phone call to a granddaughter. Between July 2 and 20, five female members of my family roll into a new year in their lives. I’m one of them.

My family has grown enough that it is sometimes a scramble to remember everyone’s birthday. So it’s convenient to have so many come all at once. No one in this group is likely to be forgotten.

It’s important. Every card, Facebook comment or phone call means a whole lot, I realized more than ever this year. I was grateful for every one. We all need acknowledgement on the day in which we came into the world, even if we don’t think we do.

I’m planning to do a better job with remembering the birthdays of family and friends. These days there are all kinds of ways to be gently reminded and to send good wishes. No excuses.

By the way, just in case I forget, here’s wishing you a Happy Birth-day whenever it may come during the next 365.

A trip to Red Feather Lakes Community Library

Last Wednesday afternoon I was allotted a whole hour to talk about writing at the Red Feather Lakes Community Library, in the foothills of Northern Colorado, about an hour from my house. Jeanette, the library lady, gave me free rein to talk about whatever I pleased. I brought along a few books—a couple of mine and several published by Penstemon Publications, aka my writing group of many years.

The drive into the hills was spectacular. There has been way more rain than usual in these parts and the countryside is various shades of luscious green.  High up you can see the charred trunks of trees burned in the High Park Fire of 2012 standing as dark sentinels on land now subject to flooding for lack of undergrowth.

Preparing this casual little talk gave me an opportunity to ponder my checkered writing life from a high school kid first enamored of the written word because of an English teacher in Philadelphia, then stymied by a journalism teacher in college and finally concluding that putting words on a page is something I gotta do regardless of the consequences. It’s been no way to earn a living, but it has and continues to bring me great pleasure.

I scrounged through my book shelves and found my masters thesis on western writer Dorothy Johnson. When I’d finished writing it, my husband called her up in Missoula, Montana and said, “My wife knows so much about you, I think you should meet her.” We flew to Missoula and I spent a whole day with a little lady, then in her 80s, who looked like she’d be right at home at a church bazaar and who had written A Man Called Horse and The Hanging Tree.

I remembered writing about my close group of college friends and bringing the Rev. Bob Geller’s story to life. More recently I’ve been doing middle school stories, Running Mates and Frisbee Dreams and a picture book, Muffin Magic. One of these days I’m going to revise White Shadow, the story of Janet Mondlane, “godmother of the (Mozambican) revolution.” I still think it is a story that needs to be told.

Meanwhile I’m having fun writing about the people in and around Wellington, Colorado who help make the world go round. I also spend some time writing about running for the Fort Collins Coloradoan and for Double Runner Magazine.

And I seem to be hooked on writing this blog every week. So it is with those of us who like to write—or maybe we just have to have some “homework” in our lives.