Chasing Cardinals

A trail run at Farmdale.

The nuts and bolts of the run, the stuff that goes into the running log, are time (four and one half hours), temperature (21 to start, 29 to finish), distance (don't know), and maybe some notes on how I felt, what I ate, etc. (good, but with some slight back pain the last hour).

The guts of the run are things like:

- noticing the last vestiges of greenery in the shrubs along the creek, many with red fruit still on, apparently they don't look good to birds. Couldn't I.D. the plants.

- wondering what sort of building that big concrete pad supported? Surely someone knows. While you're at it, fill me in on the stone bridge footings over Farm Creek.

- hearing shotgun shots ring out in the woods bordering the reservoir. Opening day of shotgun season. Some of the deer along the trail are skittish, some don't move at all. Perhaps they the know the fate they're avoiding by hanging out with me. Oh, didn't see anyone hunting illegally or driving deer. Not to say that doesn't happen.

-falling hard on TNT late in the run for lack of foot lift and not caring. A curse word followed by a dust off. Contemplating whether it speaks ill of my personal character that my snap reaction is to cuss.

-loving running on the thick pine needle bed on roy l. and to a lesser extent on schroll's. Almost makes you long for the north woods.

-being surprisded to see four cardinals criss crossing in front of me from tree to tree, a shade of red that seems to intensify with the coming winter and embelished further by the skeletal backdrop of leafless trees. Chasing those cardinals for 100 yards or more down the trail, looking down and regretting that the run was almost over.