I Am a Trail Runner (for now.)

This morning as I was out on the bluff, logging miles in the hot sun; I was just running along, enjoying the flowers and the trees and the grass and the wildlife when it suddenly hit me. Almost my entire life I've been running, and it's been mostly on roads. Up until maybe a week ago, I would have definitely considered myself a road runner. That's not what hit me, but I'll return to that in a bit.

Running for me began as cross country then track practice in elementary school, in which there was one day a week where we ran down the trails about a quarter mile from school. During high school, summer training introduced me to some more of those same trails along with others around town- now we could actually drive places and find new routes to run! But for the most part during the school year, we would have most of our practices and workouts either on the road or the track.

Then came college. We did a good mixture of trail and road running during the cross country season, but my summer training had to be mostly relegated to roads- after all, if you don't have someone to run with and you're a little girl all alone, you should be cautious of running trails alone. But they always had a draw for me anyway- I just mostly stayed away from them, for the sake mostly of the people who love me. Half-way through my junior year, I decided not to join the track team after cross country season and began running on my own, through the woods, getting lost intentionally in order to find new trails and new places to run. It was great fun, and my love for the trails was growing.

My first marathon year happened during senior year of college. I was convinced to join the cross country team by the new coach who promised me he would train me for my first marathon if only I would also run for the team. Did it. Qualified for Boston. Ran Boston. Most of these training miles were logged on roads- my rationale was that concrete and asphalt are way flatter and easier to run on; the terrain is very predictable. Trails have more bumps and it was harder to get into a rhythm for 18- or 20-mile training runs.

After this, I continued to run, mostly on roads, mostly to train for my next Boston Marathon the next year. But that next year, I got a hip flexor injury in March that caused me to miss my second chance at Boston. I actually didn't run at all for about 4 months, then started slowly again. I moved back to the west coast and started grad school. That was last August. Throughout all of last year, I ran some and played music more and was wondering where my running journey was going to take me next.

So that kind of leads up to today; running on the trails of the bluff where trail running was first introduced to me in the 4th grade, it hit me: I am a trail runner. I'm tired of roads: running along busy streets or even through neighborhoods has just gotten so monotonous. And it doesn't smell as good as nature. And I feel like I'm being watched and judged by everyone. Trails are so much quieter, more peaceful. It's much easier to run on trails- they're softer and they don't demand anything of me speed-wise or distance-wise.

So I guess the revelation I had was that I've come to a new chapter in my book of running- trail-full, timing-device-free, joyful running!

New Plant, Clean Room

So I've been wanting to get another plant for my bedroom for a while. I have a peace lily that used to be there and now it's an office plant that I really don't want to move. Two weeks ago when I was in MA, I talked to my friend and massage therapist, Irit, and she suggested a bamboo plant. She told me they are easy to take care of, grow inside very well, and don't even require soil!

So when I got back here, I searched bamboo out (which wasn't hard- it was at the local grocery store!) and bought two stalks (which also wasn't hard- $5 per stalk!). After I brought it home yesterday, I looked the plant up on google to figure out more about how to not kill it and ran across this website: http://www.chiff.com/a/lucky-bamboo.htm. I guess what I got was actually "Lucky Bamboo," which is technically not bamboo at all, but in the same family as lilies...

Anyway, this beautiful plant sitting in my messy room just did not match its surroundings, so I took the evening to "Tidy OOP!" as Ulla says in The Producers (more on this later. I'm playing trombone in the show at Coeur d'Alene Summer Theater). It was a good relaxing evening. Here are the results:


And here is my room, technically the guest bedroom at my parents' house, with a few of my own additions, of course:

Trombone Lessons

I taught six trombone lessons today, from 11am to 4pm, and it was a lot of fun! It seems like all of my students are happy to be at their lessons and are practicing, even though it is summertime. Maybe not as much as I'd like, but we haven't really set down practice goals for the students. Maybe if I give them a practice sheet and have some type of board where I keep track of all their practicing, they will be more motivated?

That may be the next thing I add to my teaching goals. I already have all of my students doing 1) warm-ups that all include buzzing specific pitches and expanding range and flexibility, 2) exercises that improve the quality of sound production, and 3) rhythm exercises that improve their sense of time. Then there are different things that my advanced students are doing, such as learning scales and chords, and my younger students are learning to play by ear at the same time as learning to read notes.

I was especially happy to witness the progress made by my youngest student, who just finished the second grade (he's so small he can't reach past 5th position!!). His sound quality is very good for such a young player, and he has a great ability to hear the right notes! He is working on playing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." He learned the first phrase last lesson, and was playing it almost perfectly this week. So we moved on to the second phrase and are working on rhythm exercises that are in 3/4, since that is the time signature of the song.

Days like these, I'm happy to be a private lesson teacher.