Sage: My First Post as a Salty Running Blogger

I am now “Sage.” I am so excited to join this wonderful community of Salty Running bloggers (www.saltyrunning.com). I started running when I was twenty-five years old, eight years before the women’s marathon was an Olympic event. I was self-taught. I wore baggy cotton shorts, tee shirt and Keds™ shoes. I was often the only woman …

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Running: The Beginning

I don’t recall precisely why I chose running and swimming as the counterbalance to studying for the bar exam. In high school I had practiced the 880-yard distance with the girls’ track team, but I’d been too slow to compete. During college, I had persuaded my roommate to jog the hills surrounding campus on Sunday …

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The Road Trip: Post-Script

My family always went on road trips in the summers. We didn’t have money for hotels and my parents, perhaps remembering their days as camp counselors, seemed to revel in the back roads, camping with tarps as shelter, later with old army tents and finally the latest in family travel, the tent-trailer! Of course, traveling with …

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Remembering Bess: An Early Morning Hike

“Around the Mountain Trail” at Bogus Basin Ski Area, 15 miles outside of Boise, Idaho, at 6100′ elevation. It was a perfect morning to write about the trail, still fresh from morning dew, perky buttercups, moss-covered trees, chirping birds. Instead I was awash in memories of my dear, beloved friend, Bess Harter, who passed away …

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Tempo Training Morphs into Scenic Trail Run

I restarted my half marathon training this past week, having passed up the May 2 Windsor Green Half Marathon to run the 10k instead (and surprisingly, did PR of 47:07 (or 7:35 min/ml pace). I didn’t feel quite ready for the 13.1 miles as my right hip flexor was a little weak. The Water to …

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Runnng for Joy

I had trained for four months to attempt my first half marathon in over five years, the almost exact amount of time since I tore my left hamstring (high hamstring tendinopathy or HHT) during speed training for another marathon. I endured several years of no running, almost no walking some days as the spiking pain …

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Present Perfect

The correct English usage of “present perfect” is to describe an action that has happened at an unspecified time in the past. I can say, “I have run the Avenue of the Giants old highway many times with friends.”  I spent the weekend in Humboldt County to promote my recently published book (“First Friends: Love, …

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Matisse and Me: Why I Write

Matisse Cut-Outs: Blue Nude            The list of writing projects varies by day: musings from my daily bicycle rides, runs and walks; current events that interest me and for which I may have some ideas, suggestions, or frustrations; philanthropic activities, especially seeking out and vetting organizations who not only “do good,” …

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Spring Bursts Forth and A Grandson is Born

I never had a strong maternal pull to have children, yet when each of my sons was born, I became immediately, deeply, incontrovertibly in love. I would do anything in my power to keep them safe, healthy, strong human beings. I would do anything to shield them from the vagaries of this sometimes tough, unyielding …

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It’s a Kiwi or a Rabbit

The sky darkened with only the sun’s last rays giving rose-tipped light to the tops of the trees. Our slight dark-haired, dark-eyed guide handed us each headlights. He quickly explained, as he likely does each tour night, how to turn the thin knob at the end of the tiny lamp clockwise for on, counter-clockwise for off. We’d …

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