Vacation Week 1/3

I’ve been in SC for a full week, and I am finally feeling somewhat relaxed.

I know it has been a week because my “desert island calendar” said 7 days this morning. And it is even a diary of sorts because I know I got the oyster shell on my 20-mile run day.

The beach here has many shells, but they are boring compared to the exotic ones I collected in Siesta Key (Sarasota) last month.

It may be one of the coldest Januarys recorded here (and there will be another arctic blast in a few days), but it has been so sunny compared to the constant gray at home. Here are photos of the Atlantic from my balcony after I got to my VRBO and the marsh from the other (smaller) balcony looking southwest.

And my first vacation sunrise.

I headed out to run early even though it was only 32 degrees, as there was weather on the way!

This storm brought 10 inches of snow to Nashville and 4 to Atlanta.

Just as I was finishing up I felt, rain? No, it was sleet!

The boardwalk from the beach and sidewalk was a little slippery, but it all melted in about an hour or two. I watched the Weather Channel to see news about the fires in L.A. and the Nashville snow, and there was a constant “possibly icy roads” banner on the bottom of the screen. I assume there were “falling iguana” warnings in Florida.

Saturday I got around to unpacking and just did a half hour of Yoga/Core exercise. I would have liked to swim in the gorgeous pool but it is closed for “winter”, WTF. Even the hot tub is closed. Most ski resorts have heated outdoor pools and spas so I don’t understand why not here. These condominiums are all 1-2 $M, so it seems very stingy to at least not have a hot tub. I have finally come to terms with the situation, but it was very hard the first few days to constantly see it from my balcony and living room. And, yes, it was in the VRBO property “description” but only buried way back in the “Litchfield complex rules” after parking, recycling, quiet time, info, etc. that I did not read thoroughly until actually getting ready to visit.

I “stocked” my refrigerator and pantry. I could live just on Clif bars, David bars, coffee and fruit but that would not be good for my physical or mental health. Pocari Sweat is the drink for the Tokyo Marathon course, so I have been training with it. It actually tastes nice (a subtle, not too sweet, grapefruit flavor) and has a good amount of calories and electrolytes.

Before leaving home, I read about the planets aligning in January and the Wolf Moon passing over Mars. Since I had a good view of the clear sky here, I looked out for them. I didn’t really spend enough time to see Mars get occluded, but I got a great photo to the east at 8 p.m. of a moonbeam pointing at Orion and then in the early morning of it getting ready to set in the west.

Sunday morning, there was another beautiful sunrise. It will take me a few days to stop taking sunrise photos.

The first day I did NOT take a sunrise photo I was proud of myself and almost called Alex to say “sometimes….if it is really special….I DON’T take a photo, so it stays real in my head for me”. It is a running joke we have of a quote from the Sean Penn character in “Walter Mitty”. I actually ALWAYS take a photo. Alex and I both loved that movie. In fact, when we went to Iceland, Alex made sure we stopped at the bakery on the edge of the sea that was made up as a Papa John’s Pizza for the movie. We did not skateboard down a volcano, though.

Oh, Uh, the clip is from TikTok!!! Watch it quick… or, hmmm. I’d better videotape it unless I can also find it on YouTube. Oh, good, it was on YouTube. Here you go. I guess I was always misquoting him a little, but the idea is good.

It really was a great movie if you’ve never seen it.

For Sunday, my marathon training schedule required me to go 20 miles. After Ironman Florida on November 2nd, it was about 15 weeks until the Tokyo Marathon. I had run 26 miles, of course, on November 2nd (at a slightly slower than normal pace due to having broken my ankle in July, not because of pain, but because of limited training time once I was cleared to run in September). I had NOT for the 7 weeks since IM kept anywhere near the recommended running volume. With my treadmill (and other exercise equipment) being “held hostage” since I moved to my own home, I could only run outside (when it was not too dark, cold, or icy) or on a treadmill at the UB gym (with its limited hours on weekends and school vacation).

For the first 17 miles, I was able to maintain a 10 minute/mile pace as recommended, but for the last 3 on the sand, my legs felt like cement. I made a minute-long Relive app movie of it.

https://www.relive.cc/view/vWqBZDRDeYq

Most of my run was in or around Huntington State Park. It had wonderful marshes and forested dirt trails, paved paths, and roads to run on. The campgrounds also had very nice restrooms where I could refill my water bottle. The dotted red line on the left is the 20-mile bike path that I used for running the 3 miles north to the park from my VRBO.

The birds were great, but sadly, there were no alligators. In winter, they bury themselves in the mud or in hidden areas just below the surface.

It will hit 60 on Sunday; hopefully, some will come out to bask in the sun. I basked for a while myself.

I relaxed on the couch all afternoon and watched the Bills playoff football game. I slept late on Monday morning, so no sunrise photo for that reason. I wanted to try a swim, but it was still cold when I woke up, and by the time it warmed up past 40, it was beyond my usual AM exercise enthusiasm window. My Garmin watch also suggested taking a full rest day.

I spent much of the day finishing the book about the Middle Ages I was reading on the Kindle.

It was getting a little long even for me, but after the Bubolic plagues and Leonardo, I knew the Middle Ages were almost over, even if the Kindle said it was only 65% complete. It had some photos at the end and lots of endnote pages.

It was interesting that the Black Death led to a social revolution in Europe as the huge loss of laborers made labor a more valuable commodity than in the past, giving them more power. And while the 1300s were marked by repeated plagues and awful weather they also produced Chaucer, Dante and Petrarch writing in not Latin but common languages and then the printing press came along and Martin Luther. I did not know that in 1527 Charles V sacked Rome with an army including many anti-catholic protestants. I learned a lot from the book. In fact I had a dream one night that I was in college and I think it was because of all the history I was reading and at the same time I am learning to speak Japanese (won’t ever try to learn to read it unless I live there).

By evening I was going a little stir crazy and it was still in the 40s so I went for a walk on the beach.

It was very relaxing. I saw one person in the distance walking a dog but otherwise just me and the waves. It was overcast but the moon peaked out at one point.

Afterward, I saw a cute cat, but she was shy and scampered off. Then I relaxed on the patio for a while, listening to the waves with a comforter on me, listening to my audiobook, and actually dozing off.

For Tuesday, my calendar called for a 50-minute Fartlek workout.

Because it had been overcast most of the night, it was still fairly warm at 6 a.m. Thanks to the full moon, it was light enough not to bring a flashlight.

I ran 3/4 miles at an easy pace and then all out for 1/4 mile and repeated. I was able to run almost as fast on the hard sand as on pavement. My only fear was stepping on one of the giant cannonball jellyfish, but I think I would have seen one in time to avoid it. Luckily the only two I saw were quite a bit off to the side of my course. Here is the photo from the other day in case you didn’t see it. About a foot across!

And, another sunrise photo, hadn’t stopped yet. But this time, after running and Yoga.

I finally felt relaxed enough to start working on my to-do list for the week. I still had to arrange travel from Tokyo to Kyoto (bullet train) and from Kyoto back to Tokyo airport (short flight).

I accomplished those tasks, I still need to arrange for two day trips out of Tokyo I want to do but will get to those soon. I needed to adjust a hotel stay and the website wouldn’t let me do it. As they are 14 hours ahead of us in Tokyo, I called later at night once it was past 9 am there. When the woman answered in Japanese I quickly responded “eigo ga, hanashimas ka?” (Do you speak English). She said “skochi, skochi” (little, little) which worried me, but then proceeded to be 100% fluent. Just like most of my “Spanish only” speaking patients who quickly reveal that they speak MUCH better English than I do Spanish. I snuck in a few “Hai, arigato” (yes, thanks) to her polite requests to wait and then a Ja Mata (goodbye) at the end. I am doing DuoLingo as well as Pimsleur and I recently got up to my “go to” phrase for foreign travel.

After running on the beach so early, I realized that if I was going to finally swim in the 54-degree water, I should just do it early in the morning. Although cold, there would be no wind which usually picked up a little by the time it warmer.

So on Wednesday morning, after yet another sunrise photo, I bundled up in my wetsuit, hood, and booties (no gloves, they are still being held hostage also, but I should have just ordered some on Amazon).

It was 37 degrees so warmer than some recent mornings and there was no wind so the ocean was as calm as a pond. I did my usual cold water tricks of jumping jacks to get my heart rate up and pouring a bottle of warm water into my wetsuit and then in I went.

The NOAA site had said the water was 54 but…. those buoys are usually a few feet down and on summer days tend to be lower than the surface and on winter days higher. With it being so cold and calm I think the surface water was possibly below 50 but I didn’t bring my pool thermometer with me. It didn’t feel that different than my last Lake Erie swim of the season when the water was only 47 and I didn’t last even 10 minutes.

I starting swimming when the water was less than 4 feet deep and went 10 strokes, stood up, another 10 strokes stood up, then 20, 30 and then my face didn’t hurt anymore and I was actually swimming. After about 15 minutes I felt great but my hands were starting to get very cold (as they were in the cold air so much). I stopped at 20 minutes and was VERY satisfied and proud of myself. By the time I walked to the boardwalk to towel off my hands and face my fingers were so numb I could barely get my gloves on. But … anything that doesn’t kill you….

Just like the author of the Middle Ages book I am making this too long. Today I ran 10.5 miles at exactly a 10 min/mile pace. In shorts! It was almost 60! Then some balcony Yoga and I went a rented a bicycle. I watched Manchester United (Chelsea is “my” team but I also support MU as it is a close friends fav) amazingly win 3-1 after being down 0-1 with only 10 minutes left. And one guy scored the hat trick himself! Then I watched the last episode of Season 1 of “The Squid Games” on Netflix, mixed feelings about it but I’ll watch season 2 also.

And here is my meme for today. I joked to someone recently that I was just trying to live my life according to memes now.

Please subscribe, share, “like”, I only got one “like” for my last post but it meant the world to me! No comments though…. If a blog falls in the forest but no one comments did it make a sound?