Day Mardi

We bounced up before eight and noticed immediately that sunny France was not looking so sunny. The bike riding plans were put on hold. This was the Europe of my childhood and I wasn't going to let a little rain stop me. I left for a run immediately after breakfast and returned in the rain. Then came the thunderstorm. Maybe it was good we weren't riding, but I was still bummed. Arles is not big and we were reaching its activity/shopping/tourist attraction/Roman ruin capacity. We had lunch at a cafe. I chose the plat du jour which was fish. It was a risk, but I needed to take one. The fish was supposedly sweet. It wasn't candy fish, but it wasn't fishy-fish either. I'd write about the kind of fish, but I could neither understand the waiter nor read it on the chalked-in blackboard menu. Fish it is! I survived.

After some false starts, C and I made our way to Avignon by train. It turns out Avignon was a temporary Vatican City some time ago. The cool thing about Avignon was its wall. There's something about a town inside a wall. It seems important. Avignon was pleasant enough, pretty even, in its views of the Rhone river and the famous bridge that no longer spans the gap, Saint Benezet's Bridge. I took lots of pictures and am extremely pleased with my camera. Avignon tested my lens though, as much of the scenery was pretty far away and I needed a little more zoom, or a telephoto lens. I was prepared for my limitations though, so for now I'll return to the arty pictures and when that doesn't work I'll use one of the filters like fish-eye.

I stepped up my French game a bit today, in a sense. C burnt out at the train station and I could tell she'd had it. We couldn't figure out if the train was headed back to Arles or not and we weren't really in the mood to go to the wrong place. Finally after bouncing around between signs, I went up and asked the ticket agent if he spoke English. I asked in French. He responded in English, "very badly". We got through it and on to the right train. Later I snuck off to do a little shopping excursion. I knew what I wanted and said "I want" in French, but then had to resort to pointing. I had no idea what the clerk was asking me when she wondered if it was a gift. The French pretty much fell apart there and her English came through. She was extremely polite and switched back to French to complete our transaction. I mostly stood around bewildered.

Tonight, BC arrives by train (we hope). More adventures tomorrow.

Day lundi

Another lazy day for us. We meandered around town and passed by the ampitheater, the St. Triomphe church and Hotel de Ville. We ate couscous for lunch and meandered some more. We traveled through industrial Arles to try to find a bike rental shop, but came up empty. We ended up tossing the disc in a field nearby. On the way back through town, we shopped hungrily at the monoprix (Arles' answer to WalMart) and made dinner at home. Arles is the sausage capital of France and we added some sausage to pasta for dinner. It tasted great and we're turning in early to try to discover morning in Arles tomorrow.

Another day in Arles
We lost some time to daylight savings and some more time to a desperate need to sleep. By lunch time, we were ready for breakfast. C went out to get bread, jam, and Nutella to go with our tea. We spent the day meandering about town, past the arena where we'd later see the bullfight and through the forum/square/thing. We again had trouble finding a restaurant who wanted to serve us food on our schedule. We finally settled outside a cafe and proceeded to order every salade on the menu as we conversed away the afternoon. It was very French and relaxing, but for our English tongues. We went to the grocery store to gather dinner on our own terms and ended up with bags and cans of food, including steak in some very strange packaging, frozen legume mixtures, and a can of lentils. I designed that dinner, merci beaucoup.

I went for a run along the Rhone and felt great. I was bounding off rocks and hurdling gates as I ran past the sheep and the water treatment plant before turning around at the goats. The goats were loud and I was actually a little frightened of them. I was running on my toes as I think I'm gearing up to go barefoot. It may be a placebo effect, but I swear it engages the big muscles and makes me feel faster.

It took three of us and lots of effort to get the grill going on our rooftop terrace for dinner. I can't even blame the brie, wine, or darkness as a distraction. It was simply poor fire skill at work. We finally got things cooking and turned out a fine meal. Bed has come quickly, but then it would since I hadn't left it that long ago.

Vacation
The first few days of the trip were spent in full travel mode. I took those jet-lag pills, but I'm either too tired to notice them working or they didn't work. There was a trans-Atlantic flight to London. I actually did some sleeping since the entertainment system was on the fritz. In Heathrow, we hit up the yotel (probably pronounced like hotel, but I preferred the pronunciation that more closely mirrored the high pitched singing in the Alps). The yotel was the comforts of a cruise ship on dry land bathed in purple light. We were packed in like a can of those smelly fishes. As far as hotels connected to an airport go, the yotel is definitely the best (and only) one I've ever stayed in. From London, we flew to Barcelona. I have no idea what happened in Barcelona except that I vaguely recall some dinner, a hostel, a walk, and some attempts at Spanish that went nowhere. There was an Amazing Race-style event that C and I attempted at her urging. Somehow my train got walloped by her bus. I have to wonder if it was rigged.

To add to the international intrigue, my pocket was very nearly picked on the public transit system. Fortunately, I felt the shady fellow trying and failing to scratch my passport out of my pocket. It was pretty awkward and unnerving, but a good wake-up call.

Then came a new day with a lost lens cap and a train ride from Barcelona to Arles, France. I think the train ride in Norway spoiled me. There were some nice moments where green rolling hills dotted with country houses and towns were part of the vast landscape in front of the snow-capped Pyrenees, but there were also a fair number of industrial buildings with graffiti on their backsides. I mostly took to reading "The Yellow Jersey". The cover calls it the greatest cycling novel ever written. I'm afraid if that's true that I'm finished reading cycling novels.

That night, we lounged around our home for the week long enough to turn a leisurely dinner into a rush to get back to the train station to meet another reveler/traveler/our conversational sherpa. I ended up alone in the restaurant waiting for l'addition (the check) and alternately trying out half-remembered French phrases on my self and straining to hear the couple speaking at the nearest table. I may have napped too long today because as the clock rolled past bedtime, I got my second wind.

Shamrockin'

Thanks to public transportation, I was early to the St. Patrick's Day 8k. The city was relatively quiet and grey thanks to possible rain and the lost hour of daylight savings time. I considered a number of warm-up options, but finally settled on walking the course in reverse for a while and then starting my run in that direction before turning around to warm-up on the last mile to focus my finish. It was a perfect temperature for running, a bit cold for standing around, but just warm enough for the single layer during the race. I wasn't very nervous. I had a few flashes of pre-race jitters and I had to slow my warm-up down, but for the most part I was calm like Pennsylvania Avenue on this Sunday morning.

The race had a team element, like the 10k in December. Many participants from that group returned and we added in some new legs. We'd gone from Team Shiver to Shiver Me Shamrocks, ShiMeSham for short. People seemed genuinely excited to be together. I had trouble focusing on both racing and socializing, but I managed. MB helped me coax the team into a warm-up. I had us go through a similar route including the little out and back down 10th street that extended the finish just a bit. It was a strategic warm-up, but we didn't communicate it well enough and so still left a few people surprised.

The starting line was packed with green-clad runners. We stood and chatted as we waited for "Go". I again had trouble focusing on the race and the chatter, but found something soothing about being around so many familiar smiles. We were a ways back in the pack again, but it felt right, like we should stay with the team rather than forcing them out of their comfort zone or splitting apart.

Go. We went, slowly at first, weaving our way through green human traffic. There were four of us together who had similar goals. AS was the wild card, younger and faster than the rest of us, but he fell in with us for the early part of the race. MB, PJ, and I all had designs of running 5:50 miles and holding that over 8k. PJ moved first and we dodged and weaved trying to follow. He seemed to be moving fast and I worried that my pacing was poor or I wasn't having a good day. I had to let him go a little bit and found that I wasn't moving as well as I'd thought. I had a first mile split of 5:57. I was in a little hole, but I figured it was as much the slow start as anything. After we climbed the hill near Columbus Circle and turned back, the four of us began to bunch. MB and I traded the lead a few times while still passing people at a good clip. The advantage of starting back is that passing people goes on for long stretches. We chewed through another 9 minutes that I barely noticed or remembered. I didn't see a two mile marker or much else. Only the sounds of a few clapping hands and the light thunder of hundreds of shuffling feet remain in my memory. AS silently made a move. He looked silky smooth and was made smoother by my awareness of MB's labored breathing. I looked over at MB and offered up an encouraging word as I strode after AS. I crossed the 5k mark at 17:56 (18:03 by the officials). I tried to do calculations in my head, but had to settle for a general awareness that I was nearly on schedule and maybe a bit ahead. I was still near AS; MB and PJ weren't far behind. As we approached the four mile mark, AS began to pull away. I offered up some encouragement and lost a few steps, grabbed a drink and lost a few more. AS was out of reach with less than a mile to go.

In the territory I'd warmed up in, I looked at the 23:04 on my watch and called on the couple of mile-repeat workouts I had done. I knew I needed to run as I'd finished those, preferably in the low 5:40s and definitely under 6 minutes. I made my move, which after looking at some time charts, seems to mean I didn't slow down. We made the turn on 10th and I looked back to see MB gaining. After being unable to hang with him in the 10k, I really wanted to edge him out in the 8k. He propelled me forward. My other goal was trying to track down all the green. I wanted to beat everyone in that hue. I may not have succeeded, but I came very close. I chased a guy in a Clark jersey, but I couldn't quite catch him and finished in 28:41.

I pause from the narrative for a moment to try to determine how that could be. My original goal had been 29:30, just a few seconds per mile faster than my 10k time. My adjusted goal had become 29 to 29:10, about 10 seconds per mile faster. Here I was at nearly 13 seconds faster per mile. I believe there were a number of contributing factors, both the workouts of mile repeats and the presence of AS as well as the team, the temperature, and general success with my new eating plan and the use of an energy gel before the race to fight off hunger. Based on various race time calculators from the 10k, I should have run about 29 minutes*. I like to think it was more than just a good day.

Back in the race, MB came in ten seconds later and PJ soon after. We cheered on the others and returned to our chatting. I was pleased with the race and the results. We thought that third place as a team was a possibility after our fourth place finish in December. The decision to stay for the awards was made and it turned out to be a good one. Not only did we win prizes in the raffle, but we also picked up three age division awards; I snagged second (Update: Now third, apparently they lost somebody) in the 30-34 category (after removing the four who were in the top ten, so really I was sixth). That meant a gift certificate and a new green shirt! The winning wasn't over though, as they announced the team victor and that team was Shiver Me Shamrocks. Jubilation ensued. Our top four (including at least one of the other gender, our captain SM) averaged 30:06. The second place team averaged 30:45. We were in very good shape and quite pleased. We gladly accepted the trophy and vowed to take to the streets again.

*I've never used a calculator like this for anything but curiosity, but based on my times for various events last year the thing matches up well. Only that mile really throws it off. This 8k is a little off too. Maybe good things are coming.

What's green and awesome?

When I was talking about moving in to a new home with new roommates there were people that said I was silly. It was time to go from one roommate to none they implied. It was time to strike out on my own and find my own way. I admire and support independence, yet, I resisted. At the time, I thought it was a general resistance to change, but now I've come to believe that I understood something about me that I couldn't verbalize.

That something: Pickle jokes.

What's green and goes slam, slam, slam, slam?
A four-door pickle.

Not pickle jokes specifically, but the joy that comes from having someone there to laugh at pickle jokes. So much of day to day life ends up being about separation. Everybody has their own screen to watch their own shows or do their own work. In this big city, we pass by people without greeting because the greetings become too numerous or an invitation to unwanted attention. Even in a full world, community can be as hard to come by as parking.

Roommates are community. They'll sing commercial jingles on request. They'll make up religions or talk in the slow drawl of an unfamiliar America. They do this because time and triumph has accumulated. At first, it may have been a shared support of a team on Amazing Race or a book review. Then came the snow that wouldn't stop and then the Winter Olympics and Apolo Ohno-related screaming. It was trying new things in the kitchen- beef wellington, chopping the frickin' garlic, or the infamous melk turt through a straw. The victories would not win wars, the setbacks did not crush souls, and always their paths crossed unloading the dishwasher, watching TV, or calling it a night. Chatter turned to conversation; conversation turned to silliness; silliness turned serious; serious turned to reality. Television. And regular old reality. Still they were there. Floating in the brine of a three story town house, co-existing at unusual angles with too many futons.

What is green and awesome? Pickles. Roommates.

Some days happiness is so simple

My plan worked perfectly. If I announced to people that a group would be out throwing the disc, then people were bound to show up and throw, right? I didn't actually know for sure, but I was hoping and it worked today. It was a little chilly. The wind was blowing, sometimes even gusting, but people were throwing. I didn't need to be there. For a moment I wondered if I was even welcome. Throwing becomes a lot like practice when coach shows up. It's a bit like the boss ruining happy hour. I tried to blend in and stay quiet.

The numbers dwindled. Then there were four of us. Two pairs throwing as the light broke through the clouds for a bit and shone down on the lawn to be. At first, I just threw with my partner. She's been playing Ultimate for a semester, is fast, has good defensive instincts or at least a great reaction time and really seems into the game. She was throwing up wind and struggling some. I couldn't just sit quietly by any more. I started to to try to offer some tips that might help her throw, particularly in the wind. She took them and adjusted almost immediately. The results were startling. Within half an hour, we'd easily added ten yards to her forehand and backhand. Her throws looked smoother, flatter, and like an Ultimate player's. The evolution was so fast and made me so proud. We worked a little on her footwork and she was absorbing tips like a sponge. I tried not to get too giddy, but the reason that I keep showing up washed over me as the sun ducked back behind the clouds. Helping somebody get better at something is an awesome feeling. I don't know that I could have such an immediate impact on others, but I wonder if I need to find time for more individual attention for everyone. It might be worth it. Today, it was worth it many times over.