Sunday, October 22, 2006

A few days off in Southern Illinois

ORN: Wednesday: 3 miles, no knee pain; 4 miles hiking
Thursday: 4+ miles, no knee pain
Friday: 3 miles, knee pain; 4 miles hiking
Saturday: no running; 3 miles rough terrain hiking

Gretchen and I took off for a few days off last week. We went to the far south of Illinois, an area we’d never visited and spent time in the hills and hollows of several state parks. Mostly, we didn’t rush anything. We read, hiked, sat, talked, slept, wrote, ate, didn’t eat. With no schedule. Genuinely refreshing.

We stayed at a delightful B&B that Gretchen found on-line, The Davie School Inn in the small town of Anna, Illinois. A converted old schoolhouse, we had the 4th grade classroom (the Brown room) as our home for three days! We were spontaneous in finding places to eat, making one marvelous find and one that was not.

On Saturday, we visited Vulture Fest. I am not making this up…it celebrates the return of the migratory turkey vultures to the area after their summer in Canada. It actually had nothing to do with vultures, much more a hippie/new age flea market. Gretchen really wanted a T Shirt, but alas, none for sale, only sun catchers. (Sorry, links don't seem to work today...if you want to find Vulture Fest, try Google!)

One of the fun parts of running while traveling is heading out the door each day and just running in one direction to see what one can see. This trip was no exception. I ballparked the distance from my watch (my Garmin is on the fritz) and that was plenty good enough.

On Friday, however, came a not-fun part of running; the right knee pain came back after a mere three miles. I do have this feeling of slipping into serious mileage deficit for the upcoming trail marathon. Until I do some long weekend runs, I won’t settle this gnawing concern. Yet, I resolve to remind myself I’m running for the long term (and I have a specific goal for this I’ll mention sometime) and won’t injure myself further in the short term.

Back in the saddle this week. Persevering.

3 comments:

Backofpack said...

It sounds like a wonderful break - easy, relaxing, fun. I think maybe we need to do that! Was the fourth grade classroom huge? It sounds like a unique b&b.

Sarah said...

Sorry about the knee...but you've got the right attitude about it. Keep your perspective and it will all work out the way its supposed to.

The B&B sounds like the McMenamins Kennedy School here in Portland. Its an elementary school converted into B&B, restaurants, pub and movie theatre.

Darrell said...

Sounds like a wonderful time away. The turkey vultures also return to Hinkley, OH in the spring on their way back to Canada. The vulture used to be the mascot for the WMMS in Cleveland, it may still be for all I know.

Too bad about that knee. With only 6 weeks left we've really only got time for one (maybe two) decent runs of 18 or more. Besides I doubt that missing them will have any real effect on completing Tecumseh.

I've got a "do it in less than" goal. I'll be interested to see what you're thinking. That sense of discovery in new places is definitely a plus side of traveling/running. I'm certainly enjoying seeing parts of the country I've not been to before or recently.

Rehab that knee, we've got some trails in IN to see!