A Stranger in a Foreign Land

The royal paulownia shows just how difficult it can be to uproot an invasive species.

By Mark Caskie

On the main trail at Haw River State Park in North Carolina, there is a long-since-abandoned farmer’s field. Last winter, just as I came to the field on a rise at its edge, I noticed a bare tree with unusual clusters of almond-shaped seed pods. I was so taken with them that I broke off a branched loaded down with the pods. While their dirty-brown color wasn’t attractive, I thought the half-open pods had an interesting graphic quality that might a good subject for a drawing. And when I shook the branch, the remaining seeds within the pods made a maracas-like rattle. I was delighted with my “found” rhythm instrument and drawing subject. I had no idea what kind of tree it was.

I never got around to making that drawing. Instead the branch with the seed pods remained on my carport for several months before I unceremoniously dropped it in the trash. I soon forgot about my trail-side find.

This fall I came across a small tree with enormous leaves in a wooded area in my neighborhood. The leaves seemed way out of the proportion to the size of the sapling, whose trunk was about as thick as my pointer finger. I picked one of the enormous leaves and I took it home to see if I could identify it using my field guide.

Identify it I did, and much to my surprise, I found the seed pods that I had collected last winter belonged to the very same tree as the giant leaf–royal paulownia (Paulownia tomentosa), a tree that ranks alongside kudzu, multiflora rose and mimosa as a serious invasive threat.

The coincidence of finding this tree twice in a single year led me down the proverbial research rabbit hole. The results of that search proved more illuminating than I could have imagined.

A Case Study                                                       

Royal paulownia offers a case study of how an invasive species can thrive and spread as a result of its ecological role as a pioneer plant combined with cultural factors such as its popularity as a garden plant and its rise as an unlikely cash crop.

Named after Anna Paulowna (1795-1865), the queen consort of The Netherlands and the daughter of Tsar Paul I of Russia, the tree now goes by a variety of other monikers including the princess tree, empress tree and foxglove tree.

Virginia has, unfortunately, proven to be fertile ground for the royal paulownia. Ironically, “fertile ground” for this tree means sterile ground as the result of fire or recently disturbed land. Given those parameters, the tree has been found to flourish in a variety of Virginia landscapes. Studies following Hurricane Camille in central Virginia in the late 1960s showed the tree thriving in debris avalanche fields. In another central Virginia study, royal paulownia was found well-adapted to riparian areas. A third study found it prospering in disturbed upland areas along with early successional species at sites in the Blue River Gorge in the Blue Ridge Mountains. And while not technically an invasive because it was planted, the current champion royal paulownia tree, according to American Forests, is in a cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. That tree is 57 feet in height, has a 64-foot crown and a circumference of 213 inches.

In Gardens and Plantations

The royal paulownia got its start as an invasive as packing material for Chinese porcelain exporters in the 1800s. Its soft, lightweight seeds often spilled out of those packages while in transit and spread the seeds along railroads tracks. Also, in the mid-19th century, the royal paulownia, which originates in central and western China, was exported around the world as an ornamental. From gardens and parks, it often escaped into natural areas, including in the eastern United States where it’s now completely naturalized.

While the royal paulownia has panicles of fragrant lavender flowers that resemble foxglove, for many gardeners the tree’s leaves are its main appeal. Royal paulownia, especially when young, has giant elephantine leaves. Gardeners often pollard the trees – cutting the branches back to the trunk­ – to force new denser foliage. This process results in massive leaves that can measure 24 inches or more across. Highly prized in many gardening circles, the royal paulownia has even been awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit. The tree regularly appears in many gardening catalogs.

Royal paulownia is also highly prized in Japan for its wood. In earlier periods, a Japanese tradition encouraged families to plant a royal paulownia to mark the birth of a daughter. When the daughter grew up and was ready to marry, the tree was cut down and various items for her dowry were carved from the wood. The koto, the national instrument of Japan, is typically made from this wood because of its resonance and beautiful wood grain. Japanese craftsmen also use royal paulownia’s wood to create items such as gift boxes, bowls and furniture.

In the 1970s, a Japanese timber buyer took note of the naturalized royal paulownia growing in the United States, immediately recognizing an untapped timber market. This discovery led to a multimillion-dollar business because the slower-growing forest trees had growth rings that were close together, enhancing the wood grain. These older, naturalized trees in the forest were soon harvested but they left in their wake an interest in growing royal paulownia for profit. Agriculture Extensions in several states continue to promote the idea of growing royal paulownia on marginal land as a cash crop, even though there is virtually no domestic market for this wood.

Royal Paulownia as an Invasive

One of the qualities that draws the attention of would-be tree farmers to the royal paulownia is the same quality that makes it such a troublesome invasive. It’s the fastest-growing hardwood in the world, capable of growing as much as 20 feet in a single year. Theoretically, those would-be tree farmers can grow a harvestable crop suitable for some purposes in as little as 10 to 12 years. But as an invasive, this phenomenal growth means that this tree can outcompete most native plants.

That growth is just the beginning of its competitive advantages. Royal paulownia propagates through root sprouts, and a single tree can also produce as many as 20 million seeds a year, which are spread by wind and water. The tree’s ability to survive fire, cutting and bulldozing makes it difficult to control. Its tolerance of high soil acidity, drought and low soil fertility means it can find a foothold in just about any kind of marginal environment. Among those environments, it often colonizes rocky cliffs and disturbed riparian areas, where its aggressive spread and hyperactive growth may threaten rare and endangered native plants.

Royal Paulownia Revisited

I recently went back to Haw River State Park to take photos of the royal paulownia trees there for this article. I was a little concerned that I had waited too late and that the trees might again be bare. Instead, while many of the leaves were on the ground, there were still plenty on the branches and the seed pods were just beginning to form.

My first thought on seeing the three mature royal paulownia trees there was that they looked beleaguered. The crowns appeared ill-formed, and I found the thin bark at the base of one starting to come off in a sheet. I picked up a few branches from the ground, only to find them hollow at their core. I couldn’t help but wonder if this really was the same tree I had seen in a photo taken in an Asian city. In that photo, royal paulownias line both sides of a street and their beautiful lavender flowers are in full bloom.

I had to consider the sorry shape of the trees at the park, which gave me a different perspective on this invasive. Despite the well-known aggressive growth of this species when the trees are young, these mature trees were far from thriving. The phrase “Stranger in a foreign land” came to mind, including all its implications of hardship. It may well be that in the long run the eastern United States is no better for the royal paulownia that the royal paulownia is for the eastern United States. Ultimately, the two are not well suited for each other while many rare and endangered species are perfectly matched to this ecological environment.

Though we desperately need to control the royal paulownia, I realized that it isn’t the villain of this story. Neither are the gardeners who plant the tree for esthetic reasons or the farmers who may choose to grow royal paulownia in the hopes it may provide some cash when harvested. Like myself, when I once brought home a branch loaded with the seeds of this invasive and left it on my carport for months, unknowingly endangering my small but well-loved woods, they often simply don’t know better. The challenge of controlling the royal paulownia extends far beyond managing its physical presence. As much as the physical management of this tree is important, so too is education about its devastating potential as an invasive.  

Guilford County Cascades Preserve

 

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Located near Kernersville, North Carolina, the 130-acre Guilford County Cascades Preserve offers steep terrain and rocky streams with ledges and cascades. The approximately two-mile Fallingwater Trail begins with a brief section of small pines near the road before entering a hardwood forest. After about half of a mile, the trail divides forming a loop. If you want to reach the main cascades sooner, go right. The creek section lasts for about a quarter-mile with the largest cascades at its beginning and end.

I’d like to suggest that you take this hike after a heavy rain or, at least, during a period of extended wet weather so that you can see the creek at or near maximum flow, which gives it the unexpected appearance of a mountain steam.

–Mark Caskie

 

 

 

Prospector’s Trail, Breaks Interstate Park

 

Breaks Interstate Park, shared between the states of Virginia and Kentucky, is a five-mile gorge, which plunges up to 1,650 feet from its rim. The park has a number of overlooks that provide a variety of views of the gorge including the Russell Fork River and the rock formations of the Towers and the Chimney. However, for a different view of gorge consider taking the 1.5-mile-long Prospector’s Trail, which runs along the base of cliffs that line the top of the gorge.

The Prospector’s Trail is a moderately challenging trail that you can access from the Towers Tunnel Overlook trail. The trail will take you under several overhangs and through a small cave before ending at the Notches rock formation where you can take the Laurel Creek and Cold Spring Trails back to your car.

Large trees often press right up against the rock faces, giving a sense of scale and interesting juxtapositions between the rock and vegetation. The rocks were formed from sediments deposited in an inland sea millions of years ago, which were later carved into their current shape by the Russell Fork River.

—Mark Caskie

Summit View, Mount Craig

As I child, which was in the days before the Internet, I spent hours pouring over the World Book Encyclopedia. I suppose it was the closest thing we had to the web back then. One of my favorite pages was one filled with a colored illustration that juxtaposed all of the world’s tallest mountains on a single page. I went on to learn the names of most of them, and at a later age, I studied my Rand McNally Road Atlas with almost equal intensity. I inevitably looked for the tallest mountain or point in every state. These tall peaks fired my imagination and encouraged a love of the outdoors and travel.

While less well-known than other tall peaks in the Appalachian Mountains, Mount Craig at 6,647 feet is the second-highest peak east of the Mississippi River. Other eastern mountains are often much better known because they tower above their neighbors and/or because they are identified with a famous mountain range. Examples include Grandfather Mountain (5,946 feet) in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Mount Washington (6,288 feet) in the White Mountains, and Clingman’s Dome (6,643 feet) in the Great Smokies.

Mount Craig, in contrast to these mountains, is directly adjacent to Mount Mitchell which is the highest mountain in the Appalachians. Besides being in the shadow of its more famous counterpart, Mount Craig’s status as the second tallest peak is somewhat tentative; a 1993 GPS satellite measurement vaulted it ahead of Clingman’s Dome by a mere four feet. Because Clingman’s Dome’s height  is based on a conventional survey from 1920, it’s possible that one day Mount Craig may lose its status as the second-tallest peak when a more accurate measurement of Clingman’s Dome is made.

Measurements aside, Mount Craig, has an impressive view from its summit. I was especially struck by a dead, half-naked tree at its top because it provides such a stark contrast with the lushness all around it. As a result, I was inspired to paint a landscape of the view and tree. I’ve tried to recreate some of the feel of etchings or woodblock prints through my use of lines. While not a completely successful painting, I hope that it captures some of the wildness of this overlooked mountain.

—Mark Caskie

The Agrarian Ideal Revisited: Gary Snyder’s “Starting the Spring Garden and Thinking of Thomas Jefferson”

Thomas Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory and fascination with the potential of the western expansion of the United States  were closely tied to his vision of a democracy rooted in agriculture. He thought such a society would have a strong egalitarian basis, and he was wary of the effects of urbanization and industrialization.

In his poem “Starting the Spring Garden and Thinking of Thomas Jefferson,” Gary Snyder—prompted by having recently read a biography on Jefferson—takes stock of the current state of that vision and the blind spot in Jefferson’s own world view. The poem appears in Snyder’s 2015 collection, This Present Moment.

The Agrarian Dream Persists
According to the most recent U.S. census more than 80 percent of Americans live in urban areas, and the number of farmers continues to decline. In the most basic terms, Jefferson’s agrarian democracy failed to materialize as he envisioned. Nevertheless, the Jefferson ideal continues as an important thread in American thought that has periodically resulted in back-to-the-land movements, such as after WWII and the 1960s and 1970s.

Snyder is himself a modern-day example of someone who has gone back to the land. At the beginning of “Starting the Spring Garden and Thinking of Thomas Jefferson,” he describes himself as “Turning this cloddish soil still damp and cold / with a heavy curved crofters spade.”

The word “turn” takes on special resonance in this poem. In addition to turning over the garden soil, Snyder is also turning over his thoughts about Jefferson—and he is also having his turn at shaping the agrarian ideal that was initiated by Jefferson but which continues to evolve through the generations.

Two Visions of Democracy
In spelling out his agrarian ideas, Jefferson’s concept is that “true democracy is to help everyone do for themselves” but also “we must think with the help of the whole neighborhood.” In a democracy, individuals must temper their personal ambitions and wants with the needs of the community as a whole. “Give and take” is woven into the very fabric of society.

By contrast, Snyder’s version of the agrarian ideal has a decidedly  Buddhist turn. Living close to the land has spiritual as well as political benefits. It can lead to spiritual growth as well as political parity. “Everyone free to decide to join in on the work / and the play / empowered to be free of ‘me’ in a world which both has and has not hierarchy.”

Unfortunately, “hierarchy” is precisely what Jefferson benefits from with his “hundreds of workers / on the farm and fixing the house while he / mostly wrote letters letters and thinking. …” Jefferson’s ownership of slaves is clearly at odds with his egalitarian notions of democracy. Snyder is troubled by Jefferson’s hypocrisy of owning slaves while espousing democratic ideals.

Nevertheless, Snyder clearly feels an affinity with Jefferson, saying “here we are about the same age / —eighty—except I’m living along with my dog / and spading a tiny garden.” This sense of connections makes it all the harder for Snyder to resolve his contradictory feelings about the founding father.

Jefferson and his Slaves
Is it fair to judge historical figures based on modern ideals? Should Jefferson have been capable of doing better, or should we view him as a progressive figure for his time period and place? That’s the question Snyder addresses in the last couple of stanzas. Snyder writes “But he had slaves / and never thought that through. / & Tom had friends like Madison and Adams / to honestly argue him down and explain / the cracks in his dreams.” That is, even in Jefferson’s own time, the idea of emancipation was current. Jefferson should have known and done better than he did.

While in many ways, Snyder admires Jefferson, he also sees him as flawed and perhaps guilty of too much “selfish stubborn.” After all, it’s because of his slaves’ labor  that he is free to read and think so widely. Snyder would rather Jefferson “pick up a hoe” and he would encourage him to “let your people go,” if he could speak directly to him.

Ideals in Practice
In “Starting the Spring Garden and Thinking of Thomas Jefferson,” Snyder ultimately expands on the notion of freedom, adding a spiritual dimension to Jefferson’s original agrarian ideal. Snyder finds finds fault with Jefferson—who is in so many other ways admirable—for refusing to free his slaves. The poem also embraces the value of manual labor and living close to the land.

This reassessment of Jefferson and his dream of an agrarian democracy is both thought-provoking and accessible. The Present Moment provides many other illuminating moments that combine sharp sensory details, a desire for integrity of thought and action, and insights gained from Snyder’s long life and his deep sense of time.

—Mark Caskie

Thoughts from the Finish Line

When I arrived at the staging area for my first half-marathon early last month, I was immediately struck by the throngs of people and the pounding rock music. It was a familiar enough scene from other shorter races I’ve been in, except for the gargantuan size of the crowd. Once the race started, I found myself swept up in the energy and festival-like atmosphere of the event. With the near-perfect weather, the costumes and funny hats, and the ringing cowbells and high-fives at intersections along the way, the race had the vibe of a moving party, and I found myself buoyed by the current of the runners.

That said, I’d like to put in a good word for the training. After all, without it, I would never have been able to enjoy the race as much as I did. And let’s face it, you spend a lot more of your time training than racing. My suggestion is to make something special of your training runs so that it has as much importance as the race itself. Perhaps, it’s as simple as having good conversations with a training partner or re-listening to the entire discography of a favorite band you haven’t listened to in years. In my case, I decided to devote this blog to running for a few months and keep a journal of the sights and sounds of the natural world that I encountered during my training.

If you’ve followed my running blog entries these past few months, thank you! If you have just come across one of the entries for the first time and would like to read more of them, please see below. You might especially find them of interest if you are about to run a first half-marathon  and/or are an older recreational runner.—Mark Caskie

Other Running Blog Entries:

“Midpack, Midlife”

“A Tip for Running-Life Balance”

“The Rhythm of the Run”

“Micro-Terrains Make Hills Manageable”

“Age-Grading for Older Runners”

 

 

Age Grading for Older Runners

Blue herons are a common sight at Salem Lake.

The Dipsea Race, the oldest trail race in America, is legendary for its stairs and steep trails. Within a few blocks of the starting line in Mill Valley, California, runners confront three  flights of stairs that rise as tall as a 50-story building, and, by the time, they arrive at the finish line in Stinson Beach, they have run 7.4 miles for a total elevation gain and loss or 2,200 feet.

Given the challenges of the course, you might be surprised to learn that the 2015 winner was a 58-year-old by the name of Brian Pilcher.

How did a middle-age man beat his younger competitors in such a grueling race?

Besides Pilcher’s stellar performance,  the race’s format also had a role. The Dipsea Race is one of the few races that uses a handicapping system—in the form of a head start based on age and gender—that levels the playing field for older and very young runners. As a result, winners have included adults as old as 72 and children as young as eight.

A more common way of handicapping races is age-grading. It also levels the playing field for older runners.

Take Ed Whitlock, for instance, the first person over the age of 70 to run a marathon in less than three hours with a time of 2:59:10. That’s a strong  performance at any age, but with age grading it translates to a near world record time of 2:03:57. (Whitlock recently set a new master’s world record for 85-year-olds in the half-marathon with a time of 1:50:47, which translates to 1:00.23 as an age-graded time.)

How does it work? The explanation on the Runner’s World age-grade calculator says that it is a two-step process. First, the calculator derives your age-graded score by determining the ratio of the approximate world-record time for your age and gender and dividing it by your actual race time. The calculator then takes that score and converts it into a finish time for a runner in the open-division category by using a factor for age and gender. Whitlock, for instance, would have had to run a time of 1:47:06 to match the current world record in the half-marathon of 58:23.

While age-grading is not widely used to determine overall winners (nor should it), a few races do award age-graded winners in a separate category. More to the point, age-grading is a great motivator as it compensates for the diminishing abilities that come with age and allows older runners to compete with their younger selves.

I have to admit that I was skeptical at first. Then I plugged in my times and ages for two 5Ks runs that I ran more than 20 years apart. Much to my surprise, I found that my performances—once age grading took my different ages into account—were nearly identical. Relative to age-group records, I was at exactly the same percentile in both cases. Both times looked even better once they had been converted using the age-grading scale that showed what these times would have hypothetically been in my youth. When a few months later, I ran an even faster race, I found that I had jumped three percentile points in my age-group, and using the age-grading formula, I found that I had just run the best 5K of my life, which accorded well with my subjective experience of the race.

Running my best 5K at the age of 56—even if it was only an extrapolation—was very satisfying and it carried me through months of training.

If you’re an older running and  haven’t tried age-grading, I encourage you to give it a test run. You can find several age-grade calculators online, including Runner’s World and Heartbreak Hill Striders Boston. —Mark Caskie

Training Update:

Best Long Run 1: Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway (northern section)/Battleground Park/Country Park, 13.1 miles. Bright blue sky  etched with chalky contrails, four pines fallen in a clump across trail, had to climb over; mallard couple in pond; lily pads covering most of small pond; view of glistening Country Park lake from high on hill through trees;  30 small children’s tombstones in a row with just a few gaps in cemetery near Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway, each with a carved lamb on top, left me wondering about the local mortality rate of children in earlier times.

Best Long Run 2: Salem Lake, 13.25 miles. Saw two blue herons, one flying out of a cove  with its neck curved back, and the other right beside the trail, fully visible at about 10 feet, standing on a branch, stock-still; numerous butterflies including eastern tiger swallowtails and black swallowtails, some seemed to fly along with me for short distances as if they were drafting off on my pace; a small (3 inches or less), brownish lizard on the trail, lots of turtle sunning themselves on fallen trunks with one more than a foot above the water on a flat part of a branch; ferns on the bank in dappled sunlight; wave ripples passing through reed beds and heavy shade beneath trees creating striations of light and dark; and  a long train crossing the railroad bridge that is situated on  one of the arms of the lake with its graffiti from distant cities. Air moist and cool, more than once I could smell the water. Heard a woodpecker hammering away at a tree in the forest.

Race: Next week!

Other Running Blog Entries:

“Midpack, Midlife”

“A Tip for Running-Life Balance”

“The Rhythm of the Run”

“Micro-Terrains Make Hills Manageable”

“Thoughts from the Finish Line”

 

 

Micro-Terrains Make Hills Manageable

Hill on Bicentennial Greenway, Greensboro, N.C.

In light of some of the elevation changes of ultra-marathons, it’s fair to consider my anxiety over ordinary hills a bit misplaced. For example, the Western States 100 has a cumulative elevation gain of about 19,000 feet. The Badwater 135, which is known for its grueling passage through blazing hot Death Valley, also goes over two mountain ranges and ends at Whitney Portal in the Sierra Mountains of California for a total elevation gain of 13,000 feet. Next to these monumental heights, I doubt my hills would even form a line on a topographic map.

But even for very good runners hills can present serious challenges. Consider the famous Heartbreak Hill from the Boston Marathon. While the hill is a mere 90 feet in elevation gain over a half-mile, the incline has led many a runner to throw in the towel or at least give up on his or her time goal for the race. That hills just happens to come at a particularly difficult part of the course, at the 20.5 mile mark, just when many runners are hitting the wall, so that accounts for part of its legendary status for difficulty.

In Greensboro, North Carolina, where I live, we have a lot of hills, and I have developed a mental strategy that helps me when I’m running up the worst of them. I have from time to time gotten very discouraged by some of these hills. A few years ago, I even developed a mental block to one of the local behemoths, which goes at a fairly steady grade for at least three-quarters of a mile. I just couldn’t convince myself that I could make it up that hill, even though I had tackled similar hills on other routes. Perhaps, it was because the hill came so late in my run and at the end of a series of other difficult hills.

That’s when I developed the concept of micro-terrains. From its base, a huge hill can look positively monolithic, one unrelenting grade from top to bottom. But the reality is that under foot, when I pay close attention, I find that is almost never the case. Instead, the grade may slack a degree or two, flatten out for a few strides or even provide the occasional dip. At least, that is how the hills in North Carolina’s Piedmont tend to play out.

Micro-terrains  are a similar concept to the one the narrator in Erich Maria Remarque’s  All Quiet on the Western Front expresses. As a soldier on the battlefield, he becomes acutely aware of every dip and bowl in the ground because he knows that one of them might just save his life by keeping him below the line of fire. Similarly, I have saved many a run by noticing minute variations in the grade.

On difficult hills, I make a point of savoring each and every variation, especially those unexpected dips and flat sections. Since I began looking at hills as a series of micr0-terrains, I no longer have a problem with my old nemesis of a hill, or most other hills for that matter, provided I am careful about my pace.

Micro-terrains are, in short, a mental way to approach hill running that makes the experience more enjoyable. Through the focus on the subtle changes in the terrain, I find I can eliminate the sense of drudgery that a large hill can sometimes produce.
—Mark Caskie

Training Update:

Best Long Run 1: Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway (northern section)/Battleground Park, 11.1 miles. Overcast, misty day with cool temperatures. Saw mist-dimmed reflection of flowering dogwoods and still-bare trees in pond, dense bamboo thicket screening off major road, still puddles along empty loop at Battleground Park. Goose honking menacingly at me on trail.

Best Long Run 2: Salem Lake, 11.3 miles. Forest greening up, first sighting of turtles this year, dark shells glinting in the sun while they sunned on fallen trees, saw almost 20 of them including 10 turtles of all sizes on one fallen tree. Noticed three rocks on the lake that would make excellent picnic spots. Lake calm.

Shorter run highlight: Hamilton Lakes/neighborhood, 7.2 miles. Got extended look at a red-tailed hawk and the consort of crows surrounding him at the end of the run. Hawk perched in a small sapling at eye level, had broad rust-colored chest. Walked within 5 feet of him before he flew away.

Other Running Blog Entries:

“Midpack, Midlife”

“A Tip for Running-Life Balance”

“The Rhythm of the Run”

“Age-Grading for Older Runners”

“Thoughts from the Finish Line”

 

 

 

 

 

The Rhythm of the Run

Trail at Hamilton Lakes Park, Greensboro, N.C.

I’ve always found a certain comfort in running familiar routes. After all, you always have a sense of what lies ahead, which means you can mentally prepare for things like dangerous intersections and challenging hills. But at the same time, overly familiar terrain can leave me living inside my head rather than really noticing my environment. It’s always a bit disappointing to get to the end of a long run and realize that I’ve been thinking about my problems the entire time. On the other hand, new runs, especially long ones, can often create a sense of anxiety, which often leaves me wondering if I’m running at the right pace or worrying about roots that might be hidden under the leaves on the trail. I have developed a solution to this conundrum that combines the best of the familiar and the new in the same run.

Over the years, I have built up a list of favorite long runs in my area. I currently have about six routes, which gives me a lot of variety to choose from. I end up running each route two or three times every season. Because I’ve run these routes before they are familiar, but enough time has elapsed so that I still see the terrain with fresh eyes, especially with the progression of the seasons.

The experience is a bit like seeing a younger family member, such as a niece or nephew, intermittently. More than their parents who experience their growing up years much more gradually, I’m always surprised to see how they’ve grown or matured in different ways between visits. Similarly, I’m always happy to see my familiar routes again, and I’m also aware of the  many changes brought on by the progression of the seasons, weather and chance.

For those readers from the Greensboro, North Carolina, area, you may well be familiar with some of my local long runs. They include Battleground Park and Country Park, sections of the Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway, sections of the  Bicentennial Greenway, Hamilton Lakes Park and Winston-Salem’s Salem Lake. As I’ve been increasing my mileage in preparation for the half-marathon, I’ve found these routes continue to serve me well, because I can easily add more mileage to them without having to retrace my steps over the same terrain.The result is again a combination of the familiar and new.

What all of these routes share in common is hills (hard to run in Greensboro without having to tackle a few of these), water (in the form of lakes, ponds and creeks), and miles and miles of off-road running, primarily through the woods.

People sometimes ask me what I think about on my runs. It’s a question that I usually have a hard time answering. I suppose most of the time I ruminate on the same things I focus on when I’m not running. Not by in large inspiring stuff, but rather thoughts cut from the fabric of daily life. But if that were all, I don’t think I would like to run nearly as much as I do. Instead, I sometimes find that for mile or two, if I’ve run well, that I’ve thought about almost nothing at all, because I was so immersed in the rhythm of the run and taking in the natural world.—Mark Caskie

Training Update
Best long run 1: Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway (northern section), 7.5 miles. Highlights include sound of falling rain in the woods, frogs croaking wildly in the swampy areas and mist over the lake layered over the reflection of the shoreline after the rain lifted.

Best long run 2: Hamilton Lakes/Neighborhoods/Lindley Park, 8.8 miles. Highlights include ideal temperature with bracing breeze, abundant sunshine, extended view of creek glittering in the sunlight at Lindley Park.

Other Running Blog Entries:

“Midpack, Midlife”

“A Tip for Running-Life Balance”

“Micro-Terrains Make Hills Manageable”

“Age-Grading for Older Runners”

“Thoughts from the Finish Line”

 

A Tip for Running-Life Balance

After running for more than 30 years, I’ve found a few basic strategies that have helped me keep on track with my training. While I’ve always been impressed by runners who have the willpower to set a schedule and stick with it, I’ve found in my own life that other responsibilities and competing interests often get in the way. To translate the Scottish poet Robert Burns from the Scots Gaelic, “the best laid plan of mice and men/often go astray.”

My solution is to have a goal for the number of runs I’d like to run during a given week, but I don’t decide what days I will run them ahead of time. I do try to get off to a good start at the beginning of the week, however. For example, suppose my goal is to run four times during the week and by the second day of the week I’ve already run two of them. That leaves me five days to complete the other two runs, which means I have some flexibility about when I complete my exercise goal. You might wonder if my runs get clumped up at the beginning of the week, but life being what it is, it rarely works out that way. With this approach, I find I’m usually able to get my runs in and still have time for my life outside of running.

—Mark Caskie

Race/Training Update:

Registered for Race 13.1 Greensboro on May 15.

Training Highlight: Long run (7.5 miles total) at Salem Lake on spring-like day. Clear skies and brisk wind made the lake sparkle. Bridge across cove with view of the railroad bridge in the distance, earth embankment between lake and marshy backwater, and small waterfall with picturesque rocks were favorite sections. Hill behind marina: BRUTAL.

Other Running Blog Entries:

“Midpack, Midlife”

“The Rhythm of the Run”

“Micro-Terrains Make Hills Manageable”

“Age-Grading for Older Runners”

“Thoughts from the Finish Line”