Last Saturday was “my” day in our rotating date days. I had a very full day planned.

“I” took Mer out to breakfast in the nearby town of Hudson. I say “I” took her out in that I drove us there. We are pretty much broke after our summer o’ excess with two mortgages, so I did not feel like we could eat out. Mer then told me she had a little cash squirreled away, so breakfast was on! We went to a restaurant we had never been before, creatively called “Hudson’s.” It was cute inside, and they served breakfast until 1:00, which was good since we got there about 12:30. We both had breakfast egg-sausage wraps and a cinnamon roll. The cinnamon rolls were not in the Anne Sather’s class of roll, but they were still very good.

Happily fortified, I took Mer slightly northward to Brandywine Falls in the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area. I did not even know these falls existed until a few weeks ago when Shannon, Jo, and James were in town. When we went to a sports store, I picked up a brochure on the Valley, and it mentioned the falls. We live about 25 minutes from them.

The falls are easy to get to – there is a short path that leads to an observation deck. The falls are not super-duper huge or anything, but they are good sized (about 60 feet, I think), and they are very pretty. And it was a perfect day out, so we had a good time watching the water. We then wandered back up the bath and across a bridge over the falls so we could go check out a nearby B and B that looks very promising after a Riordan financial recovery. As a bonus, there was a trail next to the B and B, so we had to take it.

The path was next to the gorge that the stream flowed into, and it was a little nerve wracking at first. Then the path started going down. And down. And down. Toward the bottom, we ran into a ranger who told us the path did loop around back to the falls, including getting to cross the river on stones placed in the creek bed. If that doesn’t say good times, I don’t know what does.

We found the ford and crossed over. We made it safe and dry, but then we had to start going up. And up. And up. We had some help in the form of stairs, but we were both huffing and puffing fairly well by the top. The nice day turned hot when you had to climb. Still, it was a good walk in pretty surroundings.

We got back to the car, and I turned southwards again, but I drove past home. How exciting! The day was continuing. I drove south to near the center of Cuyahoga Falls, and I turned into a Metro Park called the Gorge Metro Park. C’mon! Gorge! I had been meaning to check it out for years, and Saturday was the magic day.

We parked the car and started toward the trail. The sign indicated it was a 3.6-mile out-and-back, but I was okay with that. Mer was game even after expressing surprise since we had already done 2-3 miles in the earlier park. Off we went. I can’t say it was the prettiest walk I have ever taken. The Cuyahoga River on one side was very nice and serene (it is wide at this point because of a dam), but the trail existed as a run for high voltage power lines, which were overhead. Still, not too terrible. Nice walk with good company.

I was sad when we got to the dam. Here was a fairly big hydroelectric dam, and there was no observation point. (There was no legal observation point – I looked at the gate to the walkway, and it was not locked, but did have a “No Trespassing” sign on it.) The bank was overgrown thickly with trees, so I could not see more than a glimpse of the dam. We pressed on. The trail was easy and flat, but after the dam the river had literally dropped away and was hard to see through the trees and down 100 feet. I still had not seen anything resembling a clear sight line on a gorge, so that was frustrating. We did stumble across a huge bridge near the end of the trail (which is called the Highbridge Trail, by the way). I like bridges, and it was cool to be right under one.

After the bridge the trail split, and we had the option to go down stairs, so down we went. There was a second set of stairs. We went down those. There was a third set of stone steps, and Mer was wondering why there was two sets of stairs in a “Y” pattern near the top, close together. I joked that it was a WPA project and they needed to invent work. After I looked the park up on line, it turns out that I was right! 🙂

Anyway, the stairs took us back to the riverside, where we hooked up with another trail. We strolled along enjoying the scenery. After a few minutes, the trail left the river, and I was worried about time, so we turned around. We went back past the stairs in hopes of getting a good view of the bridge. We wandered until we came to a small official looking building that stank to the sky. Turns out it was a small sewer station. Sigh. We turned around and went back up and up and up and back to the car. I think we walked 6-7 miles on our combined outings.

I continued “my” day by heading south toward Canton. Yes, the date day (edging on toward date night) included a movie at the $1.25 theater! I has seen a preview there a few weeks ago when I went to see Iron Man, and even though I had never heard of it, it looked good. Imagine!  A movie preview doing what previews are supposed to do. How much of a risk could it be for $2.50 total? So, we went to see Hancock, a movie starring Will Smith as a superhero whom people don’t like because he is such a jerk. I had figured it was a parody, but it had some thoughtful moments in it. It is not deep, but it is a good film all the way through, and I highly recommend it for you NetFlix-using readers.

After the movie, the fun was not over! I had grabbed our $25 gift certificate to Friday’s, and so I took Mer there (to the Canton branch). We had a welcome meal (the breakfast wraps had worn thin after 10 hours and 7 miles). The only surprise came when I got the bill back after the gift card. Turns out we had used $19 of the value already, so my near-free meal wasn’t. Ooops.

It was a good day!

(On doing more research, it turns out all the really cool stuff at the Gorge Metro Park is on the other side of the river. Who knew? Next trip….)

On Friday, Mer and I headed down to our church for a wedding. It was the granddaughter/daughter of close family friends, a girl that I pushed around in a little car when she was five (back in my Ohio stay, part one). In a typical way for this family, the “small, family wedding” bloomed into a church wedding of about 130 people. That was okay, but it made me smile – things always get bigger with our friends.

The ceremony was good. Our pastor and friend, Ken, presided. Ken is great in that he is plain in his message, and always has practical advice. He admonished the couple that marriage is for life, and is from God. He told them to actively protect their marriage, and that their love for each other is the most important (Earthly) love they have now, and then Ken gave some advice. He told the husband to be willing to talk and listen to his wife when he came home from work, for at least 30 minutes (they are going to have a housewife/working husband household). He told them to be patient with each other, and to strive not to let the sun go down on their anger when they had some. I enjoyed the ceremony.

There was a reception in the church’s new expansion wing, but I did not get to experience much of that. During the ceremony, I had the start of one of my wonderful migraines, and it bloomed into full-throbbing mode during the reception. I spent most of the reception outside in the cool evening air –  it made my head feel somewhat better. I even tried getting a Blizzard-esque ice cream treat from New Baltimore Ice Cream, which was really good, but did not help my head much. I did have some fun distraction with talking with one of the 7-year-old granddaughters of our friends. She told me the story of her Barbie movie, Barbie and the Diamond Castle, which was told a mile a minute with huge gestures. It made me laugh.

I finally pleaded with Meredith to go just as the cake was being cut. That says how much my head hurt – I was willing to miss cake, and I even let Meredith drive with me as the passenger for the first time in years. I got home and promptly went to bed and slept for about 12 hours.

I understand Mer had a great time talking and visiting with Aunt Mary and with other close friends.

I have a wedding to go to this evening, so I did not think I had 45 minutes to go running. But, I still wanted to get some kind of run in. So, I decided I could probably squeeze in a 22-23 minute run. That is fine, but then I decided I should turn it into a speed workout. After all, what is 3 miles when you’ve been running 15-20?

Apparently a lot. I decided to run as if I were in a 5k race, where my mile times would be about 6:30 or 6:45. I had not run at that pace for awhile, but I have been running distance at 8-minute miles, so I figured that would be a great pace – hard but doable.

For about 1 mile. I got to 7 minutes of running hard, and my lungs hurt and I was coughing up gobs of mucus. Charming. I tried to run a little more, but my lungs hurt too much. So, Mighty Marathon Man was defeated by one measly little mile. Over 30 minutes later, after cooling down and showering, I’m *still* coughing up phlegm. Amazing.

My CVCA clubs have started back up, and I’m pretty excited. My Irish dance club (the Ceili Club) had 11 people show up, which included 4 new members. My improv group (the Royal Fools) was missing a few members because of fall sports, but I had 4 new people show up for Fools as well, and I was pleased with how they did. One of the members is an exchange student from Brazil. I cannot imagine doing improv in a foreign language, but she did really well. It should be a good year in both groups.

Jim and I had a long run scheduled this morning, so we dutifully went off in the rain. It varied from a gentle mist to a heavy rain all morning, but we slogged through it. We were soaked within the first mile or two, and we both gave up on dodging puddles after the first mile.

We were scheduled to do 20 miles. Jim suggested we go further south than we normally do, to break up the run a little more evenly (normally, we go 25 minutes south and back, and then the remainder would be north). I agreed and was excited by running in a new area. Until we got to the “poo plant.” About a half mile from where we normally turn around is Akron’s sewage-treatment plant. Jim had warned me in the past that some days it could smell, but I figured it would be okay in the rain because I thought the rain would “scrub” the air. Boy, was I wrong. The place reeked to the point where we were gagging so badly that we had to turn around. So, our foray south was only a total of 20 minutes in each direction. Maybe next time.

Somewhere in the middle of the run it suddenly dawned on me that were were probably carrying 4 or 5 extra pounds from waterlogged clothes and shoes. Otherwise, I’m not sure how rain affects long runs. I generally have a good time running in the rain, but usually I’m not running 20 miles in it. I’m not sure if the body can cool down with the rain. The rain feels good, but I’m not sure it can evaporate to cool the skin. At any rate, I started to have trouble with my legs feeling tired around mile 15, and at mile 19, I had to let Jim go; I could not keep the pace anymore. I walked about 100 yards and then jogged it in for the last mile. All in all, I ran 19 miles at an 8-minute pace, and then put in about a 10-minute pace for the last mile to finish around 2:42.  I was happy with that.

We burned about 3,000 calories during the run, so when Jim offered me half a banana, I did not refuse it. Normally, I am not a banana fan, but this one tasted really, really good.

Next Saturday’s run should be easier since the half-marathon is two weeks away. My guess is we’ll go 8-10 miles, but maybe Jim will want to go the whole 13. Either way, it is a sight easier than 20 miles in the rain.

Mer and I really like David Tennant, the classically-trained actor who is the current Doctor in the BBC show Doctor Who. It turns out that David is staring in Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company (with Patrick Stewart as Claudius). We *really* wanted tickets since we had free airline tickets to London, but the production is sold out. As an anniversary treat, we bought the promotional poster and had it framed. We picked it up yesterday, and I’m really happy with how it came out. I suspect I’ll have to hide it when Jo comes to visit….

Yesterday was “my” Saturday. I spent the morning running with Jim, and then got cleaned up. Mer and I then ran a few errands and got home about 2:00. I decided to give our friends Zach and Londa a call to see if they wanted to go out that night. I got a hold of Zach on his cell phone; he was grading papers at Rico Latte, and he was pretty enthusiastic about going out to my suggested restaurant, the Cheesecake Factory. He checked with Londa, and all was well, so we agreed to meet at our house at 4:00. That worked well, because it gave me a chance to get in a nap. But at 4:00, we all piled into Zach and Londa’s car, and we headed north to Legacy Village where the Cheesecake Factory is located.

We had a great time chatting. Zach is a wonderful storyteller, and things just seem to happen to him, and he has no problem sharing them. Zach also works at CVCA, so that gives us much common ground. Londa works at a Christian publishing firm that handles fundraising campaigns for churches and other ministries, so she has a link to CVCA via that as well. So, the 30-minute ride passed quite pleasantly.

We had a short (5-minute) wait for a table outside at the restaurant (it was a pretty day, so we wanted to be outside). Yet eispite the short wait, a CVCA student came into the restaurant during that time. CVCA spotting number one. Keep in mind we were 30 minutes away from the school.

The meal was excellent, and Mer and I decided to split a dessert, and between the two of us we managed to finish a Factory Mud Pie (servings of which are huge). After such a filling meal, we decided to wander around the shopping area (it is an outdoor mall, and well laid out for strolling).

We wandered over to the Apple Store where I did a fair share of coveting over iPods and Macbook Airs. Zach kept telling stories as we kicked tires (so to speak), so that was a pleasant time. On the way out of the store, I heard a yelled “Matt Riordan!” I looked around, and a group of four girls came over – CVCA students who had Zach as a teacher a few years ago. Mer and I have NO idea why they would yell out MY name as opposed to hers or Zach’s, and no idea why they would use my first name. How odd. CVCA sighting number two.

The mall also has a Dick’s Sporting Goods, so I wanted to check it out to see if they had runner’s water bottles (water bottles on belts). On the way there, we ran into one of Mer’s students. CVCA sighting number three. It turns out that Dick’s did not have anything I wanted, but Zach told another story, and there were some funny trash-talking shirts for sale that we liked (“Your mom pays me to take it easy on you” and so on).

To reward Mer for her patience in the sporting goods store, we went into Joseph-Beth’s bookstore, a huge independent bookstore. None of us bought anything, but we spent a happy 20 minutes or so browsing.

We left the bookstore and walked back along a different pedestrian way, and by such came to a little square in the mall. They had a bandstand, and there was a good jazz band playing, that even had three brass players (trumpets and trombone). There were a few couples dancing, and it was a fun scene. We walked by and headed toward the car, but I got derailed by a gelato store. I cannot find real gelato very often, so I swung in and got one scoop of chocolate chip. It was tasty. Londa picked up a small hazelnut, and we ate outside in the pleasant evening air. We finally got back to the car around 8:00 and headed home, happy and very full.

My training for the Akron half-marathon continues apace (ha!). I’m feeling better during my long runs, and I’m looking forward to the race. My longer runs over the last two weeks have been:

– Tuesday, Aug. 26th – 90 minutes (11 miles) – warm day, but decent run.
– Friday, Aug. 29th – supposed to run 17 miles with Jim, but I bailed after 13.4 miles, and I walked along the road until Jim picked me up. It was really hot (86 degrees) and humid. I was pretty discouraged.
– Monday, Sept. 1st – got in a good run early in the morning. The cooler weather and lower humidity made a great difference as I got in 2:09 (about 16 miles).
– Saturday, Sept. 6th – ran with Jim, and he wanted to go about 19 miles. I felt really good, and we ran 2:26, which should have been 18-19 miles.

Race day is 20 days away. I should be able to get in 3-4 more long runs (90 minutes or longer) before the race. I’m still hoping for a personal record, which would be better than 1:35. That will be hard, but I’m hopeful.

 I started Labor Day out with a solo run of 2:09 (16 miles) down on the Towpath. That was a nice run – cool and dry and a huge encouragement to me, since the half-marathon is now only three weeks away.

I got home late morning and showered and ate, and then Meredith announced she had an outing for us.

We recently decided to take up an old tradition. We used to take turns planning date days on Saturdays, where one of us would be in charge for the day. That might involve going out and doing a bunch of things, or it might be a mellow day in, but Mer felt as if it was time to start doing that again. Last weekend was Mer’s turn, and since I had to work Saturday, she decided to claim Monday as “her day.” So, she ushered me to the car and gave me directions that took us down into The Valley (but not the Towpath).

The greater Akron area has many smaller parks called Metro Parks. We had talked about going to these ever since we moved to Cuyahoga Falls about a year ago. Mer decided to take action, and she took me to Akron’s Nature Realm park on the edge of The Valley.

The Nature Realm was not a particularly big park. There were three trails – two that were about a half mile in length, and one trail that was 1.5 miles in length. The entire park is only about 100 acres in size, but they did a great job of making it feel remote. The trails wander through the woods and make you feel as if you are far removed from towns and roads. They also decided that the trails should take advantage of the hills of The Valley, and some of the sections of the trails made us sweat. There was a very cool small suspension bridge that we got to cross over a gorge, and you could feel the bridge sway slightly as you crossed. There were a couple of small ponds to look at (one full of turtles). There was a field full of wild flowers, and there were signs telling about the local butterfly population. The park has a visitors’ center (closed on Mondays, as it turns out), and a small flower and herb garden. One of the great things about a small park is you can see the whole thing. We managed to cover all three trails just in the afternoon we were there, and we had a great time tromping around. Mer planned a nice little outing.

I’ve got a bit of a back-blog. The back-to-school rush has taken me away from blogging for a bit.

Last Sunday, Mer and I went to Aunt Mary’s church, where Mer and Aunt Mary sang a lovely prayer-hymn together for the congregation. Both Mer and Aunt Mary sing well on their own, and when related folk (that can sing) sing together, it is pretty fantastic. They did a great job.

It was a perfect day out before church, and Mer and I arrived there early, so we spent time wandering the church graveyard, which sounds morbid, but I’d like to think it is helping to remember people who are gone from here. We were both amazed at the number of people who lived to be over 80, and there were a fair number who lived to be in their 90s. We also take great pleasure in people who pre-paid for headstones and had 1925-19(blank-blank) carved on them. There is something happy about people outliving their projected tombstone dates – kind of a “take that” to time.

After church, Aunt Mary took me and Mer to the nearby 365th Fighter Group Restaurant for an anniversary-celebration brunch. I really like the 365th Fighter Group – it is a WW II themed restaurant with plots of airplane stuff all over. They have good food, and they sit right on the runway of the Akron-Canton airport. We had a good brunch buffet, and I got to see about 5 jets take off from about as close as you can ever be without being arrested. It was a fine meal, and inspired my taking a Sunday afternoon nap.

(As to the title to this entry, yes I *know* the full quote is not positive, but the partial, famous part fits, so I put the shoe on the blog.)