I need a change from this scenery

I've listed off the serious and facetious parts of West Des Moines running that I'll miss.

But don't worry; I'm not going to shed tears over this weekend's move. Besides my visual fatigue with the same roads and trails, here's what I'm looking forward to leaving behind:

5. The geese around my current apartment complex: I try to dodge their doo-doo along the sidewalks, within reason. In winter, with icy and snowy conditions, this becomes a real hazard.

Also, Doug's affirmative answer to my question of "do geese attack?" has reinforced my paranoia that they'll choose to herd ME off the sidewalk, instead of the other way around.

4. Construction all over: First it was the Jordan Creek Trail underneath Interstate 35. Then it was the Walnut Creek Trail under Interstate 235. Now it's the Jordan Creek Trail pretty much everywhere east of 60th Street, it seems.

Yes, I like safe and smooth infrastructure, but that doesn't mean I can't wish the trails could remain open when they're not being repaired.

3. That rough spot on the Jordan Creek Trail that I either had to detour around, or ride gingerly to avoid another pinch flat: After discovering two pinch flats either during or after a certain stretch along EP True Parkway, I reacted not by learning to change a flat tire, but by scouting out a detour that added miles and a crossing of EP True that didn't have a traffic light.

It's definitely one of the rougher spots on the trail, and compounding the issue is that the slope from sidewalk to street (of which there are several) isn't very smoothly done. I'd forgive lengthy construction closures if this were what was being fixed.

2. The 60^th Street hill(s) and Westown Parkway overpass: When your parents' house/your apartment sits close to several hills, you become a stronger runner without even trying — unless, of course, you're motivated enough and organized enough to drive to a flatter starting point consistently. (I am not.)

Here, I have a dramatic downhill to the north and south on 60th Street, meaning there's a dramatic uphill if I do an out-and-back those directions. Then, to the east, is the Westown Parkway overpass. (And yes, there are hills to the west, but just not of the demonic sort.)

I've definitely developed a strategy for these hills, and I don't deny the value of running hills, even if your race courses will all be perfectly flat. And I even recognize that, with my new apartment being close to the Sherman Hill neighborhood, I'm not escaping all elevation increases.

Still — good riddance to these particular inclines. Familiarity breeds contempt, in this case.

1. The traffic lights at the beginning/end of these hills. Funny how when I'm flying downhill, they turn red, but when I'm crawling uphill, they turn green as soon as I reach the top — leaving no excuse not related to my fitness to linger.

Strange sights on Sunday runs

I went for a long stretch without seeing very many weird things out on runs.

The two Sundays leading up to today's race have broken that streak.

First, I saw what seemed to be a strangely high amount of clothing: Downtown, just off the Neal Smith Trail and near an apartment complex, there was a pair of tightie whities crumpled up on the sidewalk.

It reminded me of a pair I watched for months back off a country road in Rockton. I assume — without investigating — that people are discarding dirty pairs, but can't they just wait and put them in a garbage can?

Less gross but more oddly placed were the socks along the Jordan Creek Trail's 50th Street underpass. Without an apartment complex or laundromat nearby, there's not much explanation beyond a very unhygienic one: If there's no toilet paper to be found, I'm told, one's best bet is to use a sock.

But not everything I saw was bathroom-humor-related: I had a pleasant wildlife encounter not far from my complex.

I'm used to running up toward geese, which frankly scares me a little bit (do they attack?), so it was a pleasant change to see smaller birds hanging out on the sidewalk this past Sunday.

Most of them scattered as I approached, except for one bold one. As it turned out, s/he was lingering to pick up a half-eaten piece of pizza.

I suppose I could also demand who throws out a perfectly good piece of pizza, like I did with the laundry-litterers, but I was too amused by the bird's salvaging of it.

It was like something out of a cartoon, come to life. If only a dopey person had been holding the piece, gearing up to take a big bite ...

(Yes, I know birds eat people food, the prime example being bread crusts.)

Encounters of the furred kind

I spent almost 26 years living near farm country — towns that were suburbs of a midsize city, or in the case of my college town, the biggest clump of humanity in bufu — so I'm familiar with wildlife near/on roads.

Most of said experience, however, tended to be from a distance: the creature dodging my car, for example; or me dodging its corpse as I ran/biked along country roads.

The past few weeks in Des Moines have changed that dynamic.

I've already mentioned the deer that I flushed out along the Raccoon River Valley Trail; I repeated that experience on the Jordan Creek Trail with a pair of rabbits last Friday.

One was smart and went straight across the path, from weed patch to weed patch; the other would have been smart if I were a hunter and shooting at it, because it did the zigzag pattern one is supposed to use to avoid gunfire.

As it turns out, zigzagging is much less effective when trying to elude someone who is also trying to dodge you. (No, I didn't hit the rabbit. I just swerved enough where a casual observer would've thought I was a daredevil showoff or a drunk.)

So that particular incident was scarier for the four-legged creature than it was for me — however, earlier last week, I had the opportunity to be more freaked out than the other animal was.

I was on Douglas Avenue, not far from Homemakers (i.e., still in a more-urban-than-rural area), when I saw a gray-brown blob on the path. As I approached, I expected it — a possum? a groundhog? — to dart away, like rabbits, squirrels, deer and chipmunks do.

Oh no. Not this creepy little rodent. It held its head high and may have even bared its buckteeth at me. For a brief moment, I wondered whether giving it a wide berth would be protection enough for my rabies-vulnerable flesh.

Thank God the sidewalk/bike path is spacious. I zoomed around it, not chancing a look to see whether it had lunged at me, and let out a shudder of revulsion and relief once I'd passed it without being bitten.

Between this and last summer's possum sighting, I've had enough visits with wild rodents to last me a while.

A feat of mental strength

When I stepped outside Sunday morning to test the temperature, I discovered good news and bad news.

The good news was that a T-shirt and shorts were completely weather-appropriate.

The bad news was that it was drizzling, and I had to be at work in two hours — meaning it was either run now or hope I was committed enough to go after work.

As I've admitted before, I'm a wimp about rain. Getting an iPhone has only made this worse, because it's a crutch: "I don't want to get my expensive high-tech phone wet, you know?"

This time, though, I managed to kick my own crutch out from underneath me (hooray!). I told myself that if the rain's pace picked up — I couldn't tell it was raining from inside — I could just turn back. But on the first springlike day in at least half a week, I would regret staying home.

So I went and was rewarded with:

* Very little rain. My shirt was merely speckled, and my smartphone was never in any real danger.

* A smug sense of superiority. The same girl who bundles up in a blanket at her office desk was out on a windy, overcast day in shorts and a T-shirt, while other Jordan Creek Trail runners had long sleeves, windbreakers, earmuffs, even sweatpants on.

* Shiny stats. I took a break midway through the speedy portion of my tempo run (YES I KNOW I WENT OUT TOO FAST), but each half was almost 1.5 miles at a 8:28 pace.

The fact that I even ran might not seem all that impressive, but I'm kind of a baby about the weather. I spend a great deal of time at weather.com, looking at the hourly forecast to find when it will be driest and how many of my long-run fears — heat, humidity and wind — I can avoid.

To deliberately head out into a condition I dislike took willpower.

Apparently I have willpower.

The kindness of strangers

It used to be rare for me to greet people on runs, back when I was conquering the farm country of western Winnebago County.

Around my 'hood, it was expected, but beyond that, either I waved to acknowledge cars, shouted "STAY!" at loose dogs or silently cursed the friendly guy who liked to point out how steep the hill I was climbing was.

Now that I'm a city runner, I have a lot more brief and breathless conversations with people, mostly about the weather or hills (shorter and smaller than that awful one back home).

But the one I had a few Fridays ago with some teen girls definitely wins the prize for funniest.

The two were on the Jordan Creek Trail behind the Dahl's on EP True, and each was holding something that my nearsighted eyes couldn't make out. I also couldn't tell whether they were about to ask me a question, so I kept peering and slowed down.

As I approached, I realized one was holding a cigarette; the other, a pipe. Whenever I pass someone who clearly isn't a runner, I wonder what they're thinking of me and assume it's probably snide.

This time, though, we did more than exchange hellos. The cigarette girl looked at me, smiled and said cheerfully: "You're doing the right thing." (The pipe smoker was otherwise occupied.)

I laughed -- it was so unexpectedly self-deprecating and yet encouraging (even if she was being sarcastic), and so much more interesting than the brief hellos/thanks that I usually trade with other rec path users.

A better runner than blogger

At times in the past, I have been a better blogger than runner. Right now, that's not true — and not just by virtue of my inconsistent posting.

When I last wrote, I was coming off a good set of intervals that made me feel great (oh hi, runner's high!). Since then, I've also had:

* Two collegial group runs on absolutely gorgeous days.

* One three-miler in which I averaged a sub-9:00 pace.

* One three-miler in which I averaged a 10:39 pace because it had been snowing for about 24 hours straight, including during my run, and because it felt like 14 degrees. I still went out, people.

* One seven-miler done before work, done in subfreezing temperatures and done slightly faster than race pace. With stop-and-breath or stop-and-blow-the-nose breaks.

* A few "meh" runs. It happens.

* But most importantly, one eight-miler where I kept a 9:08 pace and could still walk afterwards.

Yeah, let's talk more about this run, even though I definitely went faster than I wanted to.

I didn't purposely plan a route that babied me through terrain or through weather; there were some inclines (one at the end, no less) and some stretches that went into the wind, and the reverse was also true. Factor in the tempo run two days before and the longer-than-expected shakeout run the day before, and this becomes a legitimately good run.

My splits were reasonably consistent, as was my mental state. I used the count-backward-from-100 trick to get me through mile one's never-ending hill, and shortly after that, I began suspecting I was en route to a strong effort.

Though my early hunches are often right, I didn't want this one to cause me to push too hard, or to send me into deep despair if I hit a wall. So I reminded myself that I'd barely done two miles and not to get too excited.

A little fatigue did sneak in after mile three and continued to flicker on and off for a few miles, but part of that seemed to be navigational stress. (I took a stretch of path I've only biked coming from the opposite direction.) Once I hit a familiar spot, I could feel my legs perking up again.

The only part that was a true struggle was the final half-mile. About a mile before then, I'd felt my energy — mental and physical — start to waver, but knowing the end was in sight kept me going.

It almost doesn't matter how fresh or faded I am, though; the long hill north on 60th from EP True to Ashworth, is going to take my breath away. Suffering is a given; the only question is how much.

This run was close enough to perfect to counter any panic over half marathon distance (it can overwhelm me when I haven't gone long in a while!), but far enough to highlight a few areas for improvement. I'd say I definitely deserved the chicken parmesan I dug into that night.

When la dolce vita catches up to you, it's not so sweet

It dawned on me recently, after reading yet another runner's status update/Daily Mile post/tweet, that I hadn't gone on a long run in a while. Nearly a month, in fact.

So yesterday — Sunday's rain enabled me to procrastinate — I set out on an eight-miler, bright and early. I finished in about 1:17, averaging a 9:36 pace. The key word here is average, in two senses.

One, in how those miles ranged from 8:50 to 10:27, depending on the terrain and whether the wind was canceling out the humidity or canceling out my strength.

And two, in how unremarkable the run felt. With the exception of a few highs and lows, I mostly just moved OK. 

That was 24 hours ago, and my body is definitely still demanding what the heck I did to it. There's no pain, which I appreciate, and it seems that I was able to cure the insatiable hunger and lower-back stiffness last night ... but the sleepiness and slow-moving, sore legs have stuck around.

The last long run I took, a 7.5-miler in July, didn't seem to affect me quite this much. I doubt the extra half-mile is to blame. Though the routes and weather conditions were different, it's not their fault, either.

What to blame? More like whom to blame. Me.

While it's true I've been running fairly consistently over the past month, I've also been rather self-indulgent recently. Dinner out, with appetizers and/or dessert? Yes, please. A glass of wine and/or cup of ice cream after work? You got it.

Don't worry: My alcohol tolerance hasn't shot up, nor have the buttons on my pants popped; I'm indulging in moderation, but on what's becoming a routine basis.

Fellow young athletes have shared wisdom about treats and training with me in the past.

One, my roller-derby-playing friend Jeniece, cited a blog post comparing bodies to machines — the quality of the fuel, for each, affects performance, i.e., when you're pouring junk in, don't expect stellar results.

The other, Scheels bike group leader Jordan, mentioned that he abstains from alcohol, not because he doesn't like it, but because it cancels out the gains from working out. (He has some ambitious biking goals, which I've forgotten.)

I'm not going to turn into an ascetic — even despite that New York Times blog post that destroyed my "I run for pizza" philosophy — but now that the ice cream and wine are gone from my freezer and fridge, respectively, I don't think I'll restock.

Seen while running: Week of Aug. 5

All three sights — only one of which was documented by camera — were scary in their own way last week.

First, on Monday night, was what I assumed was an act of violence. I'm pretty lukewarm toward watermelon, though it did hit the spot perfectly after my first 40-mile bike ride, but it couldn't have done anything to warrant this treatment!

The scene of the crime: a sidewalk along 50th Street.

I will say this, though: When I first spotted this, in the dark and without the benefit of contacts, I assumed it was a watermelon wedge. Then as I doubled back, it occurred to me that perhaps rubbernecking was a bad idea — what if the red flesh wasn't fruit, but actual flesh?

Gone are the days when roadkill was an everyday obstacle on my runs. Someone's gross-out instinct is weakening each day she lives in a city ...

Second, on Tuesday night, came another stealth biker. I nearly walked into him as I set foot on the sidewalk for my run. More like "not seen while running."

It wasn't completely his fault that I didn't see him until the hum of his rapidly spinning gears and the breeze created by his speed startled me — I was about to embark on a nighttime run.

And third, on Saturday morning, was Jordan Creek Trail, on foot, east of 50th Street. Unfortunately, I wasn't supposed to see that. I was supposed to turn north on 50th Street during my 4.5-mile route, which I'd started an hour before I needed to be in the shower so that I could arrive, clean and punctual, at work.

All of those things still happened, because I realized my error just late enough to nudge the run toward five miles ... and because I'd packed my lunch the night before.

Baby steps toward conquering the big(ger) city

On Thursday, I participated in a group bike ride led by a bike enthusiast employee of West Des Moines Scheels.

I've run fairly frequently since moving into my new apartment, first on the sidewalks in my neighborhood and later, once I spotted it, on the Jordan Creek Trail. This paid off Thursday, when I was both too lazy and too late to put my bike rack on my car and the bike on the rack; my exploration-by-foot of the Jordan Creek Trail led me straight to the mall that houses Scheels.

One of the bridges of Polk County. I took this picture heading back home from my first excursion on the Jordan Creek Trail.
EDIT: I think this is actually in Dallas County.

So I felt both efficient (what stop-and-go traffic?) and fit (what, you drive to workouts?) as I whizzed over to the meeting point. Once we started biking, from 60th to the Clive Greenbelt Trail, that sense of fitness began to dissipate, but that's besides the point.

I knew where I was all the way to the intersection of 60th and University Avenue — and then for the next 10 to 15 miles, I had no idea whatsoever. Around curves, through woods, down hills we whirred, and then at some point I saw the sign: Grays Lake, one mile. For a brief moment, I was oriented again, but then it passed, and we were winding all over the south side of town again.

When we reached the Valley Junction area, it began clicking. There was the farmers market, there was Furry Friends Refuge (from whom I adopted my cat), there was my veterinarian ... everything I recognized, I identified out loud with much glee.

Finally, as we reached the eastern stretch of the Jordan Creek Trail, our guide mentioned that we weren't far from where we began: "Oh, so we're not far from the underpass, then. It's I-35, right?"

The guide, a West Des Moines native, replied with some surprise: "Yep, exactly." He paused. "You sure know your way around for only being here two weeks."

I puffed up with pride. No one has ever before (and no one probably ever will again) praised my navigational skills — because I have none. I'd passed as a competent adult for years by living in my midsized hometown. However, I'd been determined since Day 2, when my head had finally cleared from the sleep-deprivation and tiny homesickness cloud, to achieve Des Moines fluency.

My strategy includes several components, one of which is running. It's easier to pay attention when you're safely on a sidewalk, it's a healthy, free, green way to roam the area ... and it's apparently a successful one. Hooray for discovering another fringe benefit to running!