Walking home from the pool on a clear Ohio evening, just as the sun was going down, I saw a flash in the grass. A broken piece of glass or a reflector? A piece of garbage? Either way, it was enough to turn my head, and as soon as I did, I noticed little green flashes and glows everywhere... Fireflies!!!
It was The Coolest Thing Ever.
I stood there on the sidewalk in front of someone's yard for a good long time, just staring in wonder at the fireflies. I knelt down to get closer to one little bug, mesmerized by his little glowing butt, fascinated by his calm hovering. I reached out slowly, resisting the temptation to just scoop him up between my hands, letting him land on my fingers.
The rest of the way "home" (to my "home away from home"), I saw more and more as it got darker-- I had to resist the urge to drain my nalgene and use it for a firefly lantern. But I didn't realy want to (or have the means to) poke holes in it!
Oh yeah, and the swim workout: 2200 m, 300 warmup, 500 building to 90%, 50 sprint, 1000 m building to 90% at the middle and end, 200m building to 95%, then a cooldown. Worked on sighting felt a lot easier and less disrupting than usual.
It's been a while since I've posted, so I have a bit of a backlog. I tend to write as I run (or bike, or swim)... forget about speech-to-text, I need thought-to-text!
This morning, I got up early (4am Calgary time!) to shake the jetlag with a run through my new favorite spot. Just under 40 minutes, pushing the pace but mixing it up... basically doing fartleks. I explored some more of the trails that I found, and got some great views. I was having theological arguments with myself; must be the setting, a meditation path next to a campus of churches. It was just what I needed. And I just realized that I didn't actually write about the cool trails that I found in the church campus... gorgeous trails that are immaculately gravelled, and that look barely used. Portions are just mowed grass, and there's no wear tracks.
On Friday, Nicole and I drove out to 22x for a ride. She hadn't ridden for a while, so I thought we'd drive out to the junction, where 22 goes south, and head west. If I'd been out that way before, I would have started us going east, first, to warm up. But I was maybe a little over-confident. Well, I was fine. (I'd better be, after the miles I've put in recently!) Nicole struggled a little. After the first long hill, she had to take a break, but the worst was going down the next big hill. Not that she was worried about the speed, she was stressed about climbing it coming back! Here's a link to the Map
We made it most of the way to the Bragg Creek turn, but decided to turn around before the last downhill. And that hill she was worried about? No problem. She powered up it with no problem. "I just looked a few feet ahead of me and kept pedaling. I just didn't look up at the top of the hill, and then I was there." Yes, you were. And I was very proud.
