Better late than never

So I woke up this morning a little later than I usually do, and since I had to be work at the garden center at 9 a.m. I didn't have time to write in the wee small hours. I only work two days a week, and then only from 9 to 1 p.m. I know, it's tough. Heh.

Here's the view from inside the sales pavilion, looking out on the Greenbrier River:

Listening to the rushing water, seeing the beauty of the growing plants, dragging the water hose around moving my body in new and challenging ways – it's good to be back. I only wish the weather would catch up. Early spring at the garden center is always iffy and there always are a few days where layering is A Good Thing. But it was SLEETING when I got home an hour ago. I hope the pansies can handle a little frozen rain better than I could.

Anyway, I'd thought I would have the energy to both work and walk, and I actually might. But since it's precipitating and cold, I will opt to take a little restorative nap instead. I walked five miles yesterday after work, but I only worked two hours and it wasn't as physically taxing as it was today.

The good thing is – and I know this from experience – I'll get used to it. And the other good thing is, if the garden center's open, it must be SPRING!

I am, apparently, map-challenged

To be fair to myself, one of Hinton, West Virginia's claims to fame is that it was settled at the confluence of three rivers. There are, therefore, many bridges to navigate when you're looking at a map. I went one bridge too far when I calculated the distance on Willowwood Road yesterday. It is, indeed, eight miles round-trip, just as I thought.

You know what that means, don't you?

I DID IT!

The halfway point, looking
out over the Greenbrier River
from the middle of the bridge. 

On a whim, and because my phone was fully charged, I decided to take and post photos at the beginning and at each mile. If you're not my Facebook friend (search for Debbi Young McNeer) or if you don't follow me on Instagram (search for @shrinkingknitter), you can see my progress here. The first photo is today's photoaday attempt, and not part of the walk, obviously. The next eight are in reverse order.

I had to skip the seventh mile. Despite a fully charged phone, the battery was nearly drained by the time I got to within a couple miles of the finish. In order to have enough juice left to grab a final shot, I decided two pictures of a tunnel weren't really necessary. (The first- (and potentially seventh-) mile tunnel shot is my favorite; most people liked the bamboo, though.)

I guess running a GPS program for nearly three hours – yes, I was that slow – plus uploading a bunch of photos to Instagram will deplete a phone battery. Or at least it did mine. If I have one complaint about my Motorola Electrify it's the rapid battery drain.

ANYWAY. Taking the photos helped pass the time, and it took a LOT of time. Two hours and 49 minutes and 17 seconds of time, and I didn't begin until 3 p.m. The sun was slipping behind the mountain when I got home. Had I been running, I could have completed a half-marathon. (Insert sad face here – I wish I'd been running.)

The most interesting thing that happened is when I passed one small, narrow brown house that's been there a long time, by the looks of it. I've never seen a person or car there; when I trained on this road previously that place was always empty. And there was always music coming from it.

And there still is. Whoever owns it apparently has a radio on all. the. time, perhaps to deter intruders. I'd say about half the dwellings on Willowwood Road are summer homes – cabins or fishing shacks, many built on stilts to avoid the spring floods from the Greenbrier River. If I lived in the shack next door, I surely wouldn't appreciate the constant loud noise coming from my empty neighbor's house.

But I don't, and that's their problem.

My problem was getting in and out of the car. My right hip was so very stiff when I got done. It feels pretty good this morning though, thank goodness, because I have a 2 p.m. date with my walking buddy. I hope to blow the lid off my mileage for this year – never thought I'd be hitting the 200-mile mark this soon!

See that second word up there?

Run.

My husband was walking on our road and didn't need the car – being a one-car family takes a little strategizing sometimes – so I drove it to a two-mile stretch of flat road along a river for my walk yesterday afternoon. And then something CRA-ZEE got into me and I decided to run.

Well, jog. I don't know what tips the scale between jogging and running, but I know I wasn't going as fast as I would have if, say, a bear were chasing me.

This view of a reflected river birch made 

me pause my walking app for a few seconds.

After about five minutes of walking, I began alternating 30-second jogs with 90-seconds of fast walking. Then I lengthened the jogs and reduced the walks to 60 seconds each. Then I got tired of checking how many seconds I'd done on my phone, and just winged it.

At the turnaround, I decided to run jog until I needed to rest, at which time I would walk as fast as I could until I felt I could run again. I was able to keep the faster pace up for about five minutes at one point.

My customary four-mile time lately as been about 90 minutes. I'd like it to be 80, but it just hasn't happened. Yesterday I did 4.28 miles in 66 minutes – a 15:25 pace.

A starting point. And maybe it's not something I'll do every time I venture out, but it felt good – very good – to know that I can still pick up the pace. Even a little bit.