On Textures, Trails, & Timing

Posted on October 24, 2018 by shanathornton

The river trails lured me when I first looked out the window yesterday morning. Everything was covered in dew drops and shimmered as we moved toward the rays of the sun. The dewy blanket revealed the textures of each flower gone to seed, the velvety puffs and cushions of wildflowers, the spiky anchors of grasses, the spinning parachutes of weeds…

The sun rose over the hillside and illumined the spider webs that now looked vacant after a busy night under the full moon. The webs covered the grasses, flowers, weeds, and almost everything in the field, as if the spiders had cast nets to catch the frost.

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I’m a slow runner. I plod along for a half marathon; Monday’s average pace was 12:45 a mile. Of course, that included bathroom breaks, videos of deer, photos of deer a few times, tying my shoes, and trudging up some big hills over and over and over again (total elevation gain of just over 6,000ft). Still, I’m slow at running, and I know it. I take my time and enjoy the space. I notice a million tiny things that I want to stoop and admire, photograph from different angles, try to capture the textures and shifting light. I have to lure myself forward with the promise of even more tiny delights coming out of the earth. The fossils paint stories and each footfall finds another one, images to gobble into my imagination, so I trudge still onward, quite content with the pace and space…

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The trails on the hills offer different sights and sensations than the river trails. Beside the river, I am sometimes 3 min. a mile faster on my average running time. That’s quite a difference, and the terrain and climate create an alternative momentum. The fields meet the forest by the river in a low circular formation. Sounds reverberate off the limestone bluffs and muddy edges that create the river bank. Mossy trails offer soft cushions for my feet, and squishy mud through the small forest is equally inviting for quick progress.

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Landscapes and their textures remind me of human bodies. Or, vice versa. Form and texture create layers for both movement and the imprint of previous motion. Taking time to pause and express a form with my own body, my motion suspends for a moment—the running stalls, breath softens, body lengthens, bends, relaxes. My favorite mat has always been the earth, and my yoga mat is so dirty from practicing outside that taking it into a studio seems hilarious when placed next to the pristine and often expensive yoga mats of other practitioners. The leafy or mossy ground is a great cushion for arm balances. The drishti of tree branches, leaves, and flowers forever blooms into new gazes, new focus, and the change of nature is the meditation, staying there patterns the breath, loosens the love, even as I move again.
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Pausing to practice, to center in meditation again as I stretch, I catch glimpses of the red-shouldered hawks, a great blue heron, a cardinal, the wren making a fuss about my presence, the singing of crickets in a loud chorus that I hadn’t previously noticed, the splash of a big fish in the river, a turtle sliding into the water’s edge and the cloudy silt fluttering up to the surface for the moment and settling again.

Yoga at Montgomery Bell

Posted on August 8, 2018 by shanathornton

I’ve been jumping up and down–in excitement…and over the jump rope for training. Beginning in Summer 2019, I will start teaching two power flow yoga classes a month at Montgomery Bell. But first, in December, when all the ultra runners come to check in for the Bell Ringer on Friday night, I have the opportunity to lead them in a yoga class, and then go out and run with them the next day.

The first yoga class will begin in the Summer of 2019 on Saturdays from 8-9 a.m. More details coming soon. Rescheduled from this fall due to construction at the park location where we intended to have the yoga class.

This will be a Power Flow and energy-generating yoga session. During this class, we’ll practice sun salutation flows, warriors, and leg strengthening postures. You will sweat during this practice. Overall, you will move and build strength and flexibility. For runners, this is a great class for pre-run strengthening or for cardio workout on your “off” days. Music Playlist will be funky, bluesy, upbeat music. We will have a cool down portion for flexibility.

Pre-registration required. You will need to bring your mat, bottled water, a towel, and possibly, bug spray.

I’ve been visiting Montgomery Bell since I was nine years old–to swim, to hike, to picnic, to run, to swing, to play games, to splash in the creeks. As a college student, I met my then-boyfriend in the afternoons at the park and hiked out to the lakes and talked for hours about what we would do when we grew up. When I was twenty-three, I got married to that guy in the little historic church there. In my thirties, I ran several races, even when I was pregnant once. Teaching there and planning for so much more to happen at a place that has allowed me to experience many of life’s beauties and challenges propels my imagination and determination to create more and to share those moments with other nature enthusiasts.

I’ll be teaching on Friday night, December 7, 2018, before the Bell Ringer race. Then, I’ll be running in the 50km the next morning.
Here’s the Bell Ringer 50k/25k Sign Up!

1,000 Miles = Listen & Run

Posted on August 31, 2016 by shanathornton

Happy dance today at 1,000 miles for my 2016 annual running mileage! This was my total for last year, & I wasn’t expecting to surpass it by Aug. 31. I did it without the expectation. I haven’t been focused on running away from something or running toward a goal like a race or a pace in the future. I am running in the present–looking, listening, observing, being free in nature, and feeling free to discover. I observe so much in the natural world, but my inner world during the run reveals just as much about how I see and experience time and life.

As I’m chased by a hornet and then a horsefly, I am reminded to always show all sides to the trail. I would be lying if I said that I haven’t confronted my fears out here on the trails–fear of falling, getting hurt, being victimized, losing the path in unfamiliar territory, and more, but every day is an act of listening while taking one step at a time, knowing I will hear my body’s signals about placement and speed and breath and water if I listen, hoping that I can trust my fellow humans on the trail to offer kindness and help if needed, but mainly to respect one another’s space to experience nature in positive ways, and believing that I can be aware of the trail and its inhabitants to teach me how to run–the trees, their roots, the mud, rocks, the animals, reptiles, amphibians, the insects and arachnids, the birds and their songs of greeting and warnings to one another, the wind and the leaves it carries, the storm’s flickering messages and the rain’s cool relief.

I am in a constant state of wonder at all of it, and then deer run out into the rain and play chase with one another, and then my thoughts go beyond, to other worlds, and a wondering happens–what are the other trails and trees like in another universe? To imagine the expanse offers a buoyancy to the run and to life–a tiny glimpse into what is in the wide wide abyss. Flight & tethering, and then time to head for home. I am so grateful to experience the run without running away from anything and without wishing to reach some place.

All photos are views from recent trail runs.

Too Much Instant Gratification: Not Enough Anticipation

Posted on October 21, 2014 by shanathornton

Running the Crazy Owl marathon reminded me that I grew up in a time of waiting. I waited for satisfaction–waited for film to be developed, waited for the movies to make the long process to VHS, waited for a ride, waited for a computer to boot up, waited for letters in the mail, and in most all things, waited to move on to the next level without any real sense of what it would look like, how it would actually be. Maybe that’s why I took so long to run an official full marathon, even though I’ve trained enough for it before now.

Race began at the Iriquois Steeplechase

The run brought back memories of my past friendships. Beauty. The wonder and magic of the forests that I shared with my best friends of all time. Some have gone their own ways. We aren’t part of each other’s life anymore. We shared the owl dance under the tall trees by the fireplace. We imagined they were disco owls– the sun, the moon, our strobe lights and flare…the beats echoed in our cadence of running.-~dancing, and walking up the limestone trail–it chipped away and was reshaped by our steps. We laughed, “whoa!” and listened to the pieces roll away and smack rocks and bushes tumbling down into the hollow.

Memory: My college Rumi (artist-chef-philosopher-wild sage college roommate) and I taking photos. Reloading another roll of film in the camera, exploring the forest and trying to capture the essence of tree, light, fern, moss, earth. (During the marathon, I remind myself that film is closer to the scent of some earthiness than the iPhone.)

On my parent’s back deck, I had shaved my college Rumi’s head maybe a week before our hike, so she’s bald in all the pictures. Her blonde hair floated off into the forest.

We hiked, talked, click click the pictures at Percy Warner. Afterward, we parked up where you can look down West End and the whole of Nashville from the hill with all the other smokers, the college students, the grunge and angst seething from us, but some deep red smoldering was there, burning. We waited. The Tao te Ching contains a phrase, “The greatest talent matures slowly.” Waiting a little, but not like apathetic waiting. No, college Rumi and I owned creative waiting–we would create something–the dialogue of plants, the orchestra of hand gestures, the blooming of noodles and food. We waited for photographs to process–film to develop. Images printed of Percy Warner Park–sunflares capturing the ghosts of those hills. We were there. I ran past us.

The Crazy Owl stirred me on and around and up again. Remember: I was with D in the car listening to Jimi–it was all crosstown traffic and watchtowers as we wound through the forests and bumblebee hollow at 2 am, talking men, and God, and Goddess dreaming. Talking shit. Talking. Loving at 16-going-on, then lost and winding on the roads of 20-something. Stopping at a swing set, singing, “Say, say, what about when we grow up and have babies?” Now, late 30s, all the stages of my life have passed at the park.

The Belle Meade stairs in grade school. The field trip. The passing on the way to Cheekwood exhibits. And I descend them first this time, and run around the flagpole, feeling like I’m 8 & racing my third grade classmates. I climb the stairs again, slowly. It’s a long walk to the top, and I know it well, but a volunteer points to the direction. He laughs, “Wish I could say it was the last big hill.”

Wish you could see the stairs going up in the shadows

Early 30’s: running and hiking with my Mom, and just being where I am, where I have been on the Warner Trail. Discussing everything with her there–childbirth, generations, what’s funny, what’s lost, what hurts, what heals, and my family’s history, my family’s now, and where we’re going both literally on the trail and in the future. The Farrell Road trail knows all my secrets and desires.

Another water station. A volunteer reminds me, “It’s just a walk in the park.” I laugh.

I realize in this run–I am my future self. I understand my motion and then I am dizzy and slow. Slow. Be. Walk. Slowly. Soak. It. In. Even the emotion. Let it. Allow. Ahhhhh.

I almost stopped. I did stop. Sat down on a bench momentarily and another runner checked on me. Walked. Walk in the park. Take it easy, baby. The hills are enchanted when you let them in. All the runners who passed me were encouraging. The support rallied me to get out of my head. I worked too hard for too long to let it get to me. Grateful for true dirtbags because they won’t let you fail. They motivate and tell you that you are great and awesome when you look and smell like shit.

Within all of that, I actually broke my shell and talked to some other runners. I admitted that I felt intimated, and they understood! So happy to talk with fun people during the race–women and men with more experience than I, and I learned so much just by being near them. Thanks to Donna, her friend who fell and couldn’t finish the race (I forgot his name), and many other unnamed runners.

I kept going and go, go, go. I can see my husband in my mind–and just at that instant, I get a text from him. “Breathe” and another text, “you’ve already done great”, and more texts and more encouraging messages. I am done. Yes, that’s Right. Done is coming up, so I get going. And I know he’s there with another memory for me and him and my girls at this finish line. I could hear my daughters’ laughter half a mile before the finish. My children and their laughter echoing over the hills, the trails, the roads–all my selves there to embrace. It was the real epic–what you want to get from your(soul)self, the place, and the people in one day.

If you can visualize it, then you can achieve it. Anticipation is what you need.

shanathornton

writing about literary inspiration

Tag Archives: running

On Textures, Trails, & Timing

Yoga at Montgomery Bell

1,000 Miles = Listen & Run

Too Much Instant Gratification: Not Enough Anticipation