Yes! The lady and I ran our first marathon on April 11 (hence the animated gif). This was a real feat for the both of us. 26.2 miles. That is really far. About 2 round trips of our old commute to work, but who’s counting.

Back in August or September, somewhere between swimming in the lake every morning, watching Lost, and the general cabin fever associated with living with 12 people, we decided to run a marathon. Seemed like a great way to become more intimate with this landscape and achieve a goal. We needed to sweat more, for everyones sake.

Training
As we increased our mileage in training, our world here felt small and close and well… we had a hard time finding long runs. We zig zagged through streets in Anacortes trying to get enough miles. This is a small island. We even resorted to driving to Bellingham (nearly an hour away) where they have longer trails.

The necessity of mechanic rhythms and mantras is much greater than it was with riding bikes. The sound of the wind is much quieter than the sound of your feet, breath, and heart. So much pounding. The biggest lesson so far over the past 7 months: run no matter what. Don’t worry too much about distances or times of days or when you last ran or any other self-inflicted constrictions. Get out and run, every day, and the rest will come. After the first 4 miles, the weird aches work themselves out.

281 and 321

The Race
We started out running around this tiny soccer field, graduated to jogging through the misty night air on the high school track, to 6 miles trails along the water, and now we’ve run 26.2 miles. In the early morning, the first 17 miles of the race almost felt like a breeze, even the massive hill at mile 7. My feet hurt and I was tired, but I felt great.

But the last 8 miles, now that is another story. This was the part of the course that the lady and I didn’t drive. We figured it would be mellow, on the water front, flat. Ha! The hills rolled on. If there is one word to describe the Whidbey Island Marathon it would be hills. Lots of them. I did get a lei, though. It seemed that everyone had an iPod. For some reason I thought this would be frowned upon. I thought I would want to commune with nature and the sounds of everyone running. But at mile 22 all I wanted was to listen to some Usher.

After the race we went out with Nick and ate a whole lot of pizza and then I slept for 4 hours. It took about two days to start walking normal again.

Right now we are running the Whidbey Island Marathon!

So, this week I decided to pick a few buckets before they were gone. Margot hung out with me the whole time. She finds solace in the shade of this tree. She is able to watch birds and remain aloof all day. But she was happy for me to come visit her in her zone.

It took be about an hour to pick and pit. This I did alone. It was fun and therapeutic. Afterward I had a bowl of pitted fruit and stained hands.

That is not to say I did all the work myself though, really I only did the easy part. Laura picked up some jars and sugar at the coop. We had a late night of making some decent tart jam. Exactly as I want jam to always be. Not too sweet, nice and gooey.

It was our first time canning and it was a real experience. I was extremely nervous and intimidated by the process. Laura reassured me and told me that I was a geek for freaking out too much. Turns out, the process is really mellow and now we have seven jars of extremely delicious plum jam. We are saving some for the winter when fresh local fruit is scarce.

I’m really only writing this post to boast. Sorry, but it is so delicious and I think about it constantly, like LOST.

Five-minute ferry ride to another Island for lunch, tested out one of the land cameras we found in the old darkroom at the DoS.

This morning the lake was warm, our palms stained from thimbleberries. Summer on Fidalgo Island—rules pretty hard.

Although I miss the salty waves and bobbing around in the swell, I have fallen in love with swimming in lakes. Lakes are something we have an abundance here on beautiful Fidalgo Island. There are like ten. So far, my favorite is Trafton (pictured above). I was told that it is very magical and I believe it. It was made by a meteor. The water is the color of rust. Much darker than any of the other lakes.

But isn’t this an island, you ask, isn’t there ocean surrounding you on all sides? Well, yes, that is true, but it is not like La Jolla Cove with its rhythmic waves and tickling Garibaldi. The ocean is more like a bay—and it is very cold—even for Lynne Cox, maybe. There is one “swimming” beach nearby though, it is waist deep forever:

We are having a party, let us give you a proper goodbye.

Come May 1, 2009 we are moving out of the desert and into an old fire station near the forest of the snow owl (see B). Eagles will rest on our shoulders as we pick wild berries and we will learn great truths from the ferny depths. There will be mushrooms and ocean and cool dudes on motorcycles. We may meet this friend. There will most def be lots of musics and “art” and references to these symbols:

Department of Safety! (We are going to live there.)

We must heed the call of the mountains.

GET SOME WHILE YOU CAN. We are.

• Bloomsdale Spinach
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Cilantro
• Collard Greens
• Kale
  • Blue
  • Red
  • Tuscan
• Kohl Rabi
• Mustard Greens
• Parsley
• Radishes
• Rainbow Chard
• Red Beets

• Buckwheat Honey
• Fuji Apples
• Ginger
• Tangerines
• Tomatoes

Highlights

• A challenge: Finish it all in four days.

• Beets
  • Chiogga
  • Red
• Bloomsdale Spinach
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Cilantro
• Collard Greens
• Kale
  • Blue
  • Red
  • Tuscan
• Kohl Rabi
• Mustard Greens
• Parsley
• Radishes
• Rainbow Chard

• Fingerling Potatoes
• Fuji Apples
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Onions
• Parsnip
• Raisins (from Burkart Farms again. Can’t get enough of these!)
• Sweet Potatoes
  • Japanese
  • Orange
  • White
• Tangerines (from a different seller this week – much more sweet and seedy)
• Walnuts

Highlights

• Bread pudding from Caffe Etc. that was extremely satisfying.
• David Ha from Ha’s Apple Farm remarking that we eat a lot of apples.