Patience; the new endurance sport.

The powers that be, decided that internet access at the beach was no longer necessary after about Thursday. Somehow we lost access and everyone was to lazy to even look for the router or care anymore about the outside world.  I ran alright, but you didn’t miss much.  I would have blogged about my blister or how the sand made my runs so much harder and slower, or how the moisture made my sore toes rub against my shoes, or how that one time I stepped into the water and had to run 6 miles home with salt water shoes....However, I would like to say, that the first day I ran on asphalt once I was back again at the farm, I ran a mile at 7:48 without even noticing.  Those country roads deep in the heart of soybean and cotton fields make for beautiful, lonely running.    At the end of the week, I guess sand made for good resistance training – also my knees never felt better.  At this juncture, my Aunt wishes me to distinguish between Myrtle Beach, and Cherry Grove (North Myrtle Beach) which is 15 miles from Myrtle Beach proper.  We stayed in Cherry Grove–which apparently isn’t the even the trashiest part of the beach.  What do I know, I grew up in California.  That said, the beaches in the Carolinas are far superior to any on the Pacific Coast as far as I’m concerned (aside from some very pretty, but unswim-able, places in Oregon and Washington State).  However, I do prefer kayaking to surfing.  So don’t accuse me of recommending this place for surfers.  It’s for families, young people, and anyone who love fried shrimp (or you could say who ‘jes luvs frahyed shri-Ump) and swimmun (swimming).  Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m about as white trash as anybody else and so being here reacquaints me with my roots. But while I poke fun at the South, it is also the fountain from whence my loud-mouthed, know-it-all, story-loving, story writing-self was sprung. So as far as trash....takes one to know one I guess.  It was a great week. I loved that porch with white rockers looking over the beach.  I loved the air. I loved how much my kids loved playing with their cousins.  I loved the fresh farmers market food, and never ending swimming, and walks with my sis.  I now weigh 500 pounds and have melanoma,  but it was worth it.  I’m in the Atlanta Airport right now headed to Providence Rhode Island where I’ll meet my sister again for a week on Martha’s Vineyard before heading to Newport for the Music Festival on the weekend. Last year I went to Nantucket to visit a cousin.  I’ve been told that M.V. is pretty cool. We’ll just have to see about that, shall we?

From Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard  I ran to Oak Bluffs which is the most picturesque town of tiny victorian gingerbread clapboard houses clustered togther.  The place is cute made charming and adorable by lots money.   Parts of it look like main street in Disneyland, it's so quaint.  It's too adorable to be real, and yet it is.  The colors of the painted cut outs on the homes, and window sills, porches, and doos are all painted beautiful shades of periwinkles, purples, greens.  Every house is more artsy than the next. Evey house has clustered flower gardens with fat blue hydrangia, black eyed susans, purple sage, delphenium, tiger lilies in colors so vivid, it's obscene.  The natural flowers along the ran along a bike trail I ran were also gorgeous-- briar rose, pink thistle, blue cornflower.  The bike trail is along a long stretch of beach on one side, and a bay on the other.  I ran over two bridges where the ocean channeled into a sound/bay and the water was so clear, and thick I could see to the bottom. The water here is beautiful.  It's been overcast and misty since we've been here, but it's welcome, cool relief to the sauna of South Carolinda.  NE'ers think it's so humid and keep telling me HOW humid it is.  I can assure you, the breezes on Martha's Vineyard and the cool mist is nothing like the steamy, sulty, heat of Myrlte Beach.  This place is unbelievably quaint, and the beauty of the Island itself was worth the time to run it.  

8:21/8:38/8:17/8:42/9:17/9:10/9:35/9:42  

All those days of running on the sand has made running on the road easy. Also the beautiful running path settled between the "pond" (bay) and the ocean with a wonderful variety of dune growth (glossy beach grasses, Indian Paintbrush, Queen Anne's lace-- are ones I forgot to mention last time).  Anway as far as the easy/fast running,  I don't know how long it will last, but man it feels good.  It's taken a long time to find my stride again.  But it helps that I've been on vacation for almost 2 weeks; Good food, good sleep, good company.  My soul that has been emptied over the course of the last 12 months has been slowly refilling.  Yesterday, we went to Menemsha on the other side of island to Larsen's Fish Market were we sat on a dock watching the fisherman bring in enormous striped bass and lobster, and oysters.  So my sister and I ordered a 2 lb steamed lobster (one of the ones we had just seen thrown off the boat) and  then sat on oily wooden boxes watching the boats float up and down in the harbor, while tearing apart a lobster with our bear hands.  By the time we were done there was lobster schrapnel all over my knees and face.  Liking my fingers, I was breathing the deepest sigh of satisfaction and I turned to my sister and said "Isn't this just like Baja? It gives me that same feeling as eating fish tacos from the sandy floored taco shacks in San Felipe."  But then she looked at me and said "Yes it does give me that same feeling, excpet for one thing: We're on Martha's Vineyard eating lobsters....not tacos."   Ah, the Vinyud: Lobstah and Chowdah fah everyone.

Ran my last morning in the Vinyud.  Half way through my run I decided to take off my shoes and dive off a bridge I'd run over these past 3 days.  The water is so clear here, but also cold.  It's always such a shock to be suddenly immersed in cold water.  It's been overcast all days, except yesterday.  Not good beach weather.  But it was nice to have at least one swim.  Even if I did have to run back dripping wet.  What's weird is that I sweat so much here anyway, there was virtually no difference between the amount of sweat on my clothes vs. just getting out of the ocean.  We'll be on the ferry today to go Newport RI to meet my friends for the Folk Festival.  

Newport, RI.  Last year I anticipated this run so long before I got here, but I accidentally got up too late, ran facing the sun, and was dehydrated and miserable by the time I finished.  It's called Ocean Drive/Brenton Point.  It's it's a really pretty road that winds along beautiful old (palacial) homes & their manicured lawns, and the point where it smells like seaweed and brine.  This year I ran the opposite way, starting out on Bellevue (running in the shade of the trees plated along the roads of all those huge old mansions that belonged to the Vanderbilts, the Rockerfellers, the Astors, etc).  and ran the point, and back toward Ft. Adams (where the music will play all today and tommorrow), cut through the middle near the high school and then back over to Bellvue.  I started out at 6:00 a.m. (that's 4:00 am. for those of you in Utah) and when I got back a few hours later, my sister was waiting for me to take her on a walk.  So we went out the door again for another 5 mile walk along the Cliff Walk behind the mansions.  I usually love that walk, but there were too many people out  and it was already sweltering by 8:30 so it made the path crowded and not as pleasant. But still it is always wonderful to see the sufers and breath the ocean air, tinged with the smell of sweet honeysuckle while considering what life might have been like for a Rockerfeller in 1901.  I love this place.