‘Aaron, if you could go on vacation, anywhere in the world, where would you want to go?’

‘West Virginia.’

‘Aaron! Be serious.’ And I realized he was.

If I go too long without traveling (say 3-4 months, to some place at least as exotic as Europe), I get flat. I get a little narrow and self-fixated. I need my brain jolts.  On the other hand, if Aaron had it his way, the farthest we would vacation would be Canaan Valley. And eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day.

But Aaron’s reluctance to travel abroad isn’t just an affinity for consistency and routine. Aaron’s company is small, and it’s hard to take extended time off work when you’re solely responsible for the company having a functional IT system (and its clients who use its software).

Hence, the birth of noncation.   Some people staycation, where they take time off work but just stay in their homes and do fun things around their home town. Aaron and I go the other way. We fly somewhere and plant our laptops and work regular hours.

Our first noncation was in Frisco in May (‘mudseason’). We worked in the morning, took a little jog around the mountains mid-day, and then worked again into the evening. On the weekend we did some biking and spring skiing in A-basin. And then we went home. We did another noncation in Minneapolis last summer, working from the university during the day but having our little adventures in the evening: renting bikes, running trails with a local running group, hitting up some local breweries.

Noncation may sound like a cop-out. Or at least not very romantic. No Paris or Maui. But there’s something quietly romantic about two people with seemingly incompatible positions finding a way to both get what they need, even if it’s not so conventional. Aaron gets full days of work. And I get my mini adventures, memories, and sips of different cultures.  Everyone wins!

 

 

Lobsterfest VI

Chevy Chase, MD

April 25, 2015

 

As Sarah W. pointed out at the 6th Annual LobsterFest, the only people who have annual birthday parties anymore are kids under 10 and grandparents over 90.  And Martha.

When I was a kid I had homemade birthday parties.  My mom would make a cake.  My brother would do a magic show.  There would be a bug hunt in the lawn.  As a goodie bag, you could take your bugs home with you.  As we got older there might be some wiffle ball in the front lawn.  It was a home run if you could hit it onto our neighbor Krish’s roof.  Then on the actual day of my birthday my mom would ask me what I wanted to have for dinner. Lobster!

My great-grandmother Martha Palonen (the Finnish one) lived in Gloucester, MA, a fishing town north of Boston that must be one of the lobster capitals of the world.  Here we could buy lobsters fresh off the fishing boat and boil them ourselves.

When I moved back to DC in 2008 to work at the NIH, my parents had just bought a second home in Shepherdstown, WV and were in a habit of hosting parties up there.  We also discovered that there was a nice little 5k race up there that supported the local Potomac Audubon Society that was held around the time of my birthday.  Race for the Birds + lobsters at Shepherdstown + friends and family = the initiation of Lobsterfest I for my 28th birthday.

Last January my parents’ house at Shepherdstown burned to the ground during a fire of unknown causes.  My parents were home in Chevy Chase, no one was hurt, but it was devastating for my parents.  My father’s massive library of books was in the basement.  That year we had no Lobsterfest, just a small family dinner.

But my parents have been rebuilding the house and it was hoped that it would be ready in time for LobsterFest VI.  But as we got close to the date, we realized that LobsterFest in Shepherdstown was not going to be a reality this year.  My mom made some peeps about using neighbors’ toilets, but I summarily rejected these.

It was thought that we would still go up for Race for the Birds.  This year R4B was even expanding into a 15k trail race option.  But I had been under the weather ever since returning from Boston at the start of the week puking (I didn’t even run the Marathon and I was still booting!).

So this year ended up being kind of LobsterFest Lite.  Many of my friends have been to previous LobsterFests and know how much fun the ‘real’ version can be.  This time, the cold rainy weather didn’t cooperate and we had to eat inside, forego tennis and excursions, etc.  We kept invoking the Passover mantra of: Next Year….In Shepherdstown.

But we had a wonderful turnout of family and friends from work, running, and childhood.  My brother Fred and him family came all the way down from Vermont.  ‘Cookie’ Jen also won big points for driving all the way from Ashburn to deliver her treats even though she didn’t feel well enough to stay.  The lobsters were absolutely delicious (I ate 2).  The croquet was fierce until the weather turned.  Fearless bug hunters braved the rain (Fred and Summer won for greatest diversity of bug, Savannah and I won for prettiest bug — as prizes I gave out the 4-leaf and 5-leaf clovers I had found that day clearing sticks from the croquet lawn). As the greatest single mark of success of LobsterFest Lite, we cleared out all of my parents’ bottles of red wine in the cellar.

 

 

 

Bull Run in Quotes in Reverse Chronological Order

2 Days After Finishing Bull Run Run

‘So Aaron, do you know why I keep running ultras, even though they’re just bouts of prolonged misery that drain the life out of my soul?’

Aaron swiveled his chair around but did not say anything.  I think I’ve mentioned before that Aaron does not like guessing games.

‘Because they’re the best possible way to prepare for a marathon.  After suffering through an ultra, a marathon feels like a breezy walk in the park.  After Holiday Lake, I felt like I was running on air at Rock ‘n’ Roll.’

‘That’s very sad.’

‘It’s kind of like how flying to Atlanta feels like a tiny puddle jump after Australia.’

Aaron made a sad face.

‘No, I’m serious.  I thought about giving up ultras and just running road races.  But ultra running teaches me how to shove gels down my throat even when it’s the last thing on earth I want to do.  It teaches me how to cruise through muscle twinges, knowing that they’re likely to pass.  Knowing how to do that does way more for my marathon performance than mile repeats or 80-mile training weeks could ever do.’

After two days of listening to me wrestle with the philosophical question of whether I should continue to run ultras, a question that seemed to rattle the essence of my identity as a runner who runs for fun, Aaron was too exhausted to offer any further response.

‘No, bear, this is good!  I’ve figured out how to reconcile ultra running with not being masochistic.  I’m suffering for a tightly defined purpose — it works!’

~            ~             ~

1 Day After Finishing Bull Run

‘Every runner out there has their own personal challenge.  Yours just happens to be your stomach.’  Aaron tried his best to put my struggles in perspective.

‘My challenge sucks!  Can I trade it in for a different one?’

~            ~             ~

1 Hour After Finishing Bull Run

‘I set a PR!’

‘Oh wow!’

‘Puke Record!  Seven spews!’

~            ~             ~

Mile 49 of Bull Run

‘Come on, run with us the last mile!’  A couple guys passed me very cheerfully.

‘Uh, no, I’ve been puking for the last couple hours.  If I go any faster I’ll puke.’

‘Yay!  We love puke!  We want to see you puke!’

~            ~             ~

Mile 45 of Bull Run

‘Hey, girl!  How you doin’?’  Some guys were sitting on a hill in the sunshine on the other side of the Marina aid station.

I glanced at them.  And then vomited three times on my right Montrail shoe.

‘Whoa, that’s the first time a girl has ever responded to me that way!’

~            ~             ~

Mile 36 of Bull Run

‘Yay, Boots!’

‘Martha!’

Gag reflex.  Followed by my first puke of the day.

‘Ooh, it’s okay, Martha.  You’ve got this!’

~            ~             ~

Mile 35 of Bull Run

‘Julian, I’m going to throw up.  Not now, but soon.’

‘No, you’ll be fine, you’ll be totally fine.’  If there was ever anyone who could convince me that everything would be fine, it was Julian J.  But I knew what was lurking in my stomach.  I had starting gagging about an hour prior, and the illness was steadily creeping upward.

‘It’s just a matter of time.’

~            ~             ~

Mile 29 of Bull Run

‘Kathleen, just let me know if I’m bugging you.’  I had promised Aaron I would go slowly for at least the first 38 miles.  Kathleen was holding a very nice steady pace and it seemed wise to duck in behind her.  We had been running most of the Hemlock-to-Fountainhead together, chatting breezily.  But my loquaciousness had gotten under her skin, and I was trying to be as quiet as I could on the White Loop.

‘Just so you know, Kathleen, if you ever need me to talk less, just go ahead and say so.  I will not be offended.’

~            ~             ~

Mile 1 of Bull Run

‘Aaron there is something seriously wrong with my bladder.  It’s flopping all around.  Can you fix it?’

Aaron fumbled with my pack while we slowed our trot.  ‘Is that better?’

‘Ooh, yeah, that’s much better.  I think it wasn’t fully in.  Can you just try to shove it in a little deeper?’  Pause.  ‘Ha!  That’s What She Said!’

Keith chortled.

 

UPDATE – SHOES ARE TAKEN – very glad to see them go to good homes!

My feet expanded from a womens size 8 to size 8.5, and I have finally owned up to the fact that I can no longer wear the majority of my previous shoes. When I really like a shoe, I often buy several pairs, so many of these shoes are still in the box and have never been worn. Or they were shoes I won and never wore, or shoes that just never quite worked.  These shoes are all too small for me, so contact me if you have interest in any of these (I am not selling these for $$ but if you’d like to make a small donation to Homeward Trails Animal Rescue as a token gesture that would be appreciated):

 

 

‘Aaron, I have one goal.  Can you guess what it is?’

Aaron dislikes guessing games, especially poorly defined guessing games.  ‘I can’t even begin to.  What are the parameters of this said goal?’

‘Ultras.’

‘Oh, okay.  Umm… To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, hear the lamentations of their women?’

‘No.’

Aaron was unwilling to offer another guess.

‘I want to win Western States.’

‘How original.’

‘On a pony.’

He grinned.  ‘You mean the Tevis Cup.’

‘Yes.’

He kept grinning.

‘You don’t think I can do it.’  I was incredulous.

‘What’s a winning time for horses?’

‘No idea.  Not as fast as you’d think.’

‘Doesn’t really seem like you have the requisite expertise there.’

‘Dream big, baby.  It’ll happen when I’m in my 50s.’

Full Circle

The first time I ever rode a horse was on a family vacation at Lone Mountain Ranch in Montana when I was five years old. The animal was a large chestnut quarter horse with a white blaze named Nugget. I wore a massively oversized Washington Redskins ball cap, which didn’t cover my ears, and they were burnt red at the end of the long day.  Nugget liked to eat a lot of grass, and clearly was not bothered in the least by my tiny feet that flailed like duck wings, not even reaching his flank.  I fancied myself a great horsewoman (I had read all the Black Stallion books), so it was humiliating when they had to attach his bridle to the lead horse with a rope.  But it was a beautiful ride through the Montana mountains. A golden eagle soared above. Mule deer bounded in the distance. I wrapped my fingers through Nugget’s mane, and nuzzled his smooth neck with my cheek. My parents had no idea how much trouble this ride would cause in the Nelson household for years to come.

My family lived in a suburb a couple miles from the Washington, DC border. When I turned eight I started taking horseback riding lessons at the nearby Meadowbrook Stables. One by one, my friends eventually tired of horses, and quit, and my parents expected me to do the same. I had lot of other interests: I was also on a travel soccer team that made it to the finals of the Maryland State Championship, I played basketball and tennis and showed promise as a runner. My elementary school gym teacher had already phone up the high school track coach after he saw me run the mile.

It sounds absolutely absurd to suggest that my upbringing was anything but supremely privileged.  I went to sleep away camp.  My soccer team had a professional coach.  My family traveled to Europe when I was 10 to visit our Finnish relatives.  By all American standards I grew up with the world on a silver platter.  But in the context of the DC horse world, we were dirt poor.  I wasn’t going to get my own pony.  I wasn’t even going to get Devon boots.  Everything I owned was used — my show jacket, my chaps, my jodhpurs, my boots.  At the other end of the spectrum was Paige Johnson, who boarded her million dollar ponies at my barn.  Her dad owned BET television.

My parents saw the writing on the wall.  They saw how dejected I’d get when my exasperated instructor fumed about how I would have won the Pony Medal if it weren’t for my outfit: the color of my jodhpurs was wrong, my jacket was ill-fitting, my short boots were for kid riders….This was not the world for the Nelsons.

I had to give up horses in high school.  I had advanced to a point where I needed to start riding the A-rated shows in Culpepper.  My parents tallied that it would cost upwards of a grand a weekend and laughed.  But I never forgot about horses.  In college when I had a free Saturday without a game or a meet, I borrowed some friends’ riding clothes and competed in the inter-collegiate horse shows, winning some of the over fences events. It was my first time wearing tall boots.

These days I think all the time about taking up riding again.  But in the DC area it’s still $70-100 for a 1-hr lesson.  DC is teeming with lawyers and lobbyists who can drop that kind of money without blinking.  Aaron and I have great jobs that afford us a very comfortable lifestyle.  But not quite that comfortable.

When I was interviewing at veterinary schools, many of the profs at Cornell and NC State had horses.  Visiting Ithaca, I envisioned exactly what my new life would be like: a medium house with a sprawling track of land, some mutts and barn cats running loose, and a couple of thoroughbred rescues off the track that started off as crazies but came to love the trails as much as we do.  I’ve still got many miles to go before I get to this dream.  Miles on my own two feet.  But if Aaron’s counting on the dream fading over the next 20 years, he should remember how I told him I don’t want no wedding ring: just a horse.