4.35 miles
marshall loop (cleveland)
60 degrees
Started re-memorizing “Babel” by Kimberly Johnson and was reminded of the first sentence, My God, it’s loud down here, so loud the air/is rattled, as I ran. So loud! The air buzzing, my footsteps amplified. Ran north through the neighborhood, across the lake street bridge, up Marshall hill. I enjoyed passing all the cars waiting for the light to change, wondering if they wished they were me, out in the air, not stuck in a car. Lots of sun, some shade, no shadow. My left hip is a little tight — I think it’s my IT band, which is irritating but not a cause for alarm.
My God, it’s loud: 10 Gorge Things
- the electric hiss of cicadas
- my footsteps on the asphalt — not a soft strike or a hard thud but something in-between, something loud, almost echoing
- deeper breaths
- a black-capped chickadee — fee bee fee bee, a blue jay trying to answer back screech screech
- water rushing or gushing or just falling at shadow falls
- dong dong dong dong dong dong dong dong dong (the bells at St. Thomas)
- crunch thwak — an acorn popping then flying out from under a car’s wheel
- walk walk walk walk — the crosswalk sign at summit and cretin letting me know that I could walk
- we’re almost to the bike trail! — a woman biker to the passenger in her bike trailer
- He’s the Wiz and he lives in Oz — the refrain from the first song I listened to when my put my headphones in on the bridge
Since I mentioned my IT band, it’s time for another round of fun with injury terms:
I T stands for iliotibial band, but why couldn’t it stand for…
- ink tents
- impish tattlers
- iffy tables
- incomplete tarantulas
- illuminated truths
- ill turtles
- Icarus trend
- implied tantrum
- itemized tally
- Italian treat
- implacable tree
- idiotic toadstool
3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
79 degrees
A somewhat chaotic swim. Choppy water with swells. On the way to the little beach, it felt like the water was both pulling me down and washing over me, making it hard to stroke and to breathe. On the way back to the big beach, the swells were bigger — more punching walls of water — and with the sun, it was almost impossible to see any of my landmarks. Also, several kayaks and one swan boat got pretty close to me. And the first green buoy was placed so far to the right that it wasn’t until the third loop that I figured out the right trajectory for swimming past it without needing to correct my course. Even with all that, I enjoyed the swim. It’s always great to be out in the middle of the lake!
My God, it’s loud: 9 lake things
- a woman near the lifeguard stand where swimmers leave their bags, talking VERY loudly about her kid and what they were doing at the playground
- 3 loops and an hour later, that same women still talking VERY loudly near the lifeguard stand
- a flock of seagulls, calling out as they flew above the water
- a flock of teenage boys, yelling as they played some game at the edge of the swimming area that involved touching something gross at the bottom of the lake
- kids playing in the water near the little beach
- water sloshing over my head as a wave hit me
- water spraying as my hand entered the water and I hit the wave
- the lifeguard to the flock of boys: please do not play on the rope!
- a general din on the beach from people talking, eating, playing music, laughing