To race a swallow

The weather forecast for today might as well have read: "Glorious. A perfect summer day." So my husband and I decided to get up before 7 a.m. to run and walk (he ran, I walked) a 5K through the winding trails of my small college on the hill's environmental center.

The trail turned out to be the most difficult either one of us has either run or hiked on, one that not only snaked through the forest through impossibly narrow trails, but included not only one very steep hill but also what to me looked like the side of a tall mountain, on the second loop around.

I'd already completed almost 2 miles when I faced that second climb, and a part of me was like: "Hell, no! Turn around and quit." But the woman warrior in me chaffed at the idea of quitting, so I decided to take it slow, and to enjoy the scenery as the climb got higher and higher and higher. Do you know the metaphor about facing a mountain that must be scaled? Well, this felt like the literal experience.

But once I got to the top I was elated. I thought: "Not bad for a near-47-year-old survivor of two major surgeries, an asthmatic, and the only non-runner among all the 30 people or so who ran the race today, including the kids!" So I patted myself in the back and kept on going to finish the 3-mile walk in about an hour (my husband finished in half that time). The athletic pre-college teenager who won did the 3 miles in 22 minutes so you can just imagine how difficult the course must have been.

He told my husband that when he faced the mountain he considered walking up to the top, rather than running, since not a soul was behind him. But when he saw the person who awaited with the Gatorade and words of encouragement at the top he decided he didn't want to chicken out in front of that guy, so he ran up. Kudos to him.

I also had no one behind me (I was the last of all those who participated), or in front of me, for that matter, since I had been promptly left in the dust by all the runners. But I had no qualms about taking my time going up the mountain, and I'm glad I did.

Once we were back, exhausted but happy, I cleaned up and went with one of my very favorite former students and a new colleague-friend to the farmer's market. We stocked up on fresh goodies, and I came back to take a much-needed nap. Later in the afternoon, my husband and I suited up and hopped on the motorcycle for a perfect ride through the hills and valleys and farms and little towns of this county.

Several times, it seemed like we were racing swallows, who would fly by our side for a short distance before veering suddenly away. The white cumulus clouds hung low and heavy in the horizon, the sun shone bright on a blue-blue sky, while the breeze tickled the white wildflowers, which seemed to be laughing. The short soy plants appeared to wave goodbye as we whizzed by, and the tall corn stalks stood like an army at attention, waiting for some Deity to command them into motion. Field after field flowed in waves of green, like an ocean of leaves.

In one turn we saw one farmer on our right side plowing his field with a tractor, and on the next turn, to our left, we saw a young Amish farmer doing the same with a team of horses. This is country country, no doubt about it.

There is no better way to celebrate the completion of a 5K than to eat locally made ice cream so we stopped at a famous site near my small college on the hill, and then came home to have a meal mostly comprised of fresh locally grown veggies. As the day comes to an end, the breeze still rustles the leaves of the trees outside and the swing calls me to keep it company with a good book before the mosquitoes leave their tiny coffins and come out for blood.