I’m in training

 

I decided to walk a marathon distance again.  The last time I did this was in 2013:

 

https://steveandjudystravels.com/marathon/

 

For the past several weeks I’ve been doing my normal walks during the week and a longer walk each Saturday for conditioning.  My longest walk so far has been 12 ½ miles, over a time of 4 ½ hours.  Last Saturday was scheduled for a 15 mile walk.  While I was out though, I got to thinking; half a day or more at a time is a lot to devote to slightly longer walks each week, creeping toward the ultimate goal.  Maybe completing a marathon at a walking pace might be more about determination than physical conditioning.  The conditions were perfect.  The weather wasn’t predicted to get too hot.  With these thoughts in mind, I just went ahead and walked the entire marathon distance; 26.2 miles.  10 hours and 1 minute.  26 miles; the distance from Long Beach, California to Catalina Island.  The distance from our house in Louisville, Colorado to our office in Denver; my daily commute for many years.

 

My last marathon walk; it wasn’t fun all the way.  The first 20 miles were a lark, but I was shocked when I hit the wall at 20 miles.  The last 6.2 miles were agonizing.  This time I put more thought into hydration and nutrition.  Hydration is the easy part; all it takes is water.  I scheduled a trip back past the car to replenish supplies every 8 miles or so.  Two new water bottles each time did the trick.  Nourishment is a little more difficult for me.  I often do a food-fade after lunch, so normally anything energetic has to be done in the morning.  I can’t limit an entire marathon to a single morning though, it’s an all-day affair, so I needed a food solution.  Last time I took a ham sandwich along, ate half of it about lunchtime and the other half later in the day.  Maybe less than optimal nutrition was what made me hit a wall.  I already know that energy bars are not good for me either; they sap my energy; I crash after.  There is something just right about an oat and honey granola bar though.  It must be just the right balance of protein, fat, and carbs for me.  So to keep my blood sugar stable for an entire day, I carried a handful of granola bars to munch throughout.  That strategy worked perfectly.  No wall.  The entire walk was fatiguing, but it was fun the whole time.

 

I did the entire distance within Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.  There is a 7-mile scenic loop.  I walked that a couple times, along with every other trail in the park a time or two, tracking my progress with GPS so I’d know when I got to the exact distance.  The last time I walked this distance I was still in my sixties.  Now I’ve walked a marathon distance while in my mid 70s!  I should probably do this every decade…  I’d better hurry up and turn 80.

 

 

 

We have a Ted Bundy story

 

We were living in Issaquah, outside Seattle, from 1972 to 1974.  Women were disappearing.  Young women with long brown hair parted in the middle, just like Judy.  We had noticed that similarity.  There were no bodies.  These were not known to be killings, there were just young women disappearing with no explanations.

 

We spent one afternoon at the beach at the south end of Lake Sammamish and left at dusk in our VW Bus.  Just outside the park we came across a guy hitchhiking.  It was common to hitchhike then.  Guys would hitchhike.  Girls would hitchhike.  I hitchhiked home from work in Seattle when I worked later than the bus ran.  We picked up hitchhikers.  We picked this guy up.  It was 1974.  I was driving and didn’t see all that much of him as he sat in the back seat in the dark, but he was a normal-looking guy about our age.  His arm was in a sling.  It was a pleasant ride; we all chatted while we drove out of our way to take him home.  He directed us all the way to the north end of Lake Sammamish where he was going and by now it was raining.  At a dark intersection just off the main road, he said you can let me out here.  I said no problem, we didn’t mind, we’d take him right to his door.  At that point he got insistent.  “No.  Just drop me here.”  That’s the only thing that seemed out of the ordinary.  He asked for a ride home, but then stopped us before we got all the way there and was going to walk the rest of the way in the rain.

 

It wasn’t until later we heard about the two women who went missing in one day from the beach at Lake Sammamish and the suspect was a good-looking young guy with his arm in a sling.  Did we give Ted Bundy a ride?

 

 

 

Brother David

 

Sent this great shot of a high-altitude observatory on a peak in Switzerland (Jungfraujoch).

 

Seeing that image sends me immediately back in time to my first sighting of NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research from below in Boulder in 1968.  (Not my photos.  These are collected from the web.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“What’s that?”

“NCAR.”

“What does it do?  How can I get a job there?  That’s where I want to work!”

 

I wasn’t an atmospheric scientist, so never got a job there, but I got to drive the winding road up from Table Mesa any time I needed an NCAR fix.  Now, NCAR is surrounded by open space and parklands with trails branching off in both directions along the Front Range and into the canyons and peaks.  The public is invited to park in their lot for free and enjoy the glory of the environs at their pleasure.

 

 

 

Judy’s flower baskets

 

Are doing well again this year.  The blooms have begun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the Lantana is still happy.

 

 

 

 

Football is easy

 

Once your team has been eliminated from the playoffs.

 

Our Broncos were eliminated before the season was even over.  This was a stress-free post-season for us.  We watched every playoff game.  We watched the SuperBowl.  All we had to do is cheer good play all the way through.  Yeaa football.

 

 

 

 

Hey look

 

SQUIRREL!!!

 

 

 

I’m still thinking about Harley

 

A heads-up.  This one is a little different.  There is repeated profanity.  You don’t have to go there.

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Harley is a young guy I met in Alaska; maybe 30 years old.  He was on his boat at the edge of a marina.  I was on shore on the berm slightly above him, leaning over a rail to talk to him.  I asked if I could take his picture.  He said “What the fuck for?”.  I said he had a boat like we weren’t used to seeing where I was from.  He said “Why the fuck not?”  I said, well, I was from Colorado and we didn’t have an ocean in Colorado.  “You don’t have a fucking ocean in fucking Colorado?”  (His words, not mine.)  The conversation went on like that as he sat in front of the pilot house of his fishing boat, painting the deck between his feet.

 

“What’s your name?”

 

“Steve.”

 

“Mine’s Harley.”

 

Harley talked freely.  Moods swung.  He grew up being passed back and forth between his mom and dad from Seattle to Alaska and back.  He has his own fishing boat.  It’s hand painted.  It’s a little rough.  He works it solo.  He can bring his catch in to the cannery on shore where everyone else does.  His dad had a fishing boat.  His mom is still in Seattle.  He likes it in Alaska.  He doesn’t want to work for anyone else.  He likes working alone.

 

“What’s your name again?”

 

“Steve.”

 

It turns out:  I’m always in fucking trouble and I don’t fucking know why.  I can’t even fucking go to fucking Canada just fucking because I have a couple fucking felony assault charges.  They fucking didn’t fucking even talk to the two fucking guys that fucking said I fucking assaulted them.  I could fucking go to fucking Japan, they don’t fucking care, but I fucking can’t fucking go to fucking Canada.”  (His words exactly.)

 

The conversation lasted half an hour.  It had its ups and downs, emotional highs and lows, Harley talking, me listening, and occasionally interjecting a question or trying to steer the conversation away from a particularly sensitive point for Harley.  It was heartbreaking.  He could use a friend, but his volatility would make it dangerous to get close to him.

 

Harley may not remember Steve now, these several months later, but Steve certainly remembers Harley.