Crunchy ‘Nanas

A guerrilla gardener in Brussels called Girasol has declared 1st May to be “Journée internationale de la guérilla tournesol”. To celebrate May Day, stealthy guerrilla gardeners around the planet will be sowing sunflower seeds to brighten up the neglected public spaces around them. We’ve got our seeds ready. Cross your fingers that the cheeky birds don’t follow us out. They’ve already picked through the “Ruby Red” pots we did over the weekend…

In case you were wondering what their “friendly-faced” visages actually looked like. (I don’t have a fantastic zoom, and you can’t get too close. Rightly, they are trying to keep these animals as wild as possible. But you get the picture.)

Rewind technology and you get to the here and now. Today. As it could have been thousands of years ago. Or, at least thousands of years ago across the Channel. And without the traffic sounds in the distance and the wire fencing. Or me snapping images with my digital camera while riding my mountain bike along the well-developed National Cycle route 15.

Across the world, McDonald’s is busy with plans to hook up cashless customers with Big Macs and Egg McMuffins paid for through their cell phones. But here, the Konic ponies take me back to the past while preserving biodiversity for my future. Relatives of the now extinct ancient European wild horse, these 21st century equines chew quietly out in the field, munching the way to an environment where native species of plants, animals and insects can thrive. Where the John Deere would sink into the muck, the friendly-faced ponies graze peacefully, unaware of their duties, but performing them well all the same.

Thanks, ponies!

Tuesday’s run

Distance: 3.2 miles
Time: 29:47
Pace: 9:18 min/mile

Today’s ride

Time: 1:35:00 give or take some time snapping pictures of the ponies

The daffodils are coming! Already. Punxsutawney Phil hasn’t even popped his head up for a look at his shadow, and I am seeing tangible signs of spring. As I ran toward Monkton this morning, I saw them. Not simply the fresh shoots pushing up through the topsoil, but actual golden trumpets. They were in someone’s yard. I wonder if they bought them already in bloom. The shoots along the road are still green, waiting a bit to burst into color. I can’t wait!

Yet, as much as I yearn for spring flowers and the warmth of summer sunshine, this anticipation also harbors a bit of hesitation, as we live out our lives conscious of climate change and its possible effects. It’s hard not to ask oneself these days if what we are experiencing is just a mild winter or a deepening trend toward catastrophic rising world temperatures. I’d be okay with gray rain and icy cold a bit longer, if it meant the world was more in balance and harmony. I’m worried about the bears. I know what it’s like not to get enough sleep.

Today’s run

Distance: 3.7 miles
Time: 36:15
Pace: 9:47 min/mile

We’ve fallen behind on our gardening? What makes you say that?

Okay, I didn’t run today. But, I thought you’d like to know how productive I was at ripping stuff out of the ground. And getting muddy. The sad part is, you can’t really see a difference. But, it’s a start.

Lately, Crunchy husband and I have been listing local places that could use a little guerrilla gardening action. This morning, I looked out the window and realized we’d better start closer to home!

It took everything I had to move my butt off the lukewarm kitchen radiator this morning. The argument went: the sooner you move and change clothes, the sooner you will get the run done, and the sooner you will be warm. But, I’ve had this problem my whole life. When I am cold, I can’t move. The rational thinker in me knows that movement generates heat. So I should move around a lot when I am cold. It also should help that what I’d be moving to will usually warm me up. In my gallery of childhood memories, I can still hear my mother telling me, as I stood shivering with a towel around me, if I’d just get out of the bathtub and dry off, I’d be a lot warmer. I knew she was right. But, I still couldn’t do it. Sometimes I still have this problem.

Kermit’s right, man. It’s not easy being green. This winter, I’ve been trying so hard not to turn the heater on until the evening when Crunchy husband comes home. (As you can see from the first sentence, this didn’t quite happen today. But it’s off again now.) However, sometimes a sweater or even a jacket doesn’t do the trick. So I try to think of other ways to stay warm (that don’t include snuggling under the warm duvet!). Take a hot shower. Hmmmm…If I’m cold outside the shower but warm inside the shower, chances are it’s going to be a long shower, and waste a lot of water and energy warming the water. So that’s no good. I could stand around the stove warming my hands. But that wastes gas. Go to a shopping center where they’ve got the heat pumped up anyway, so I might as well benefit from it. But, that wastes energy getting there if there’s no other reason for the trip.

So it’s getting easier and easier to motivate myself to get out and run when it’s cold. Or, maybe it’s better to say that I am wasting less time sitting on my bed trying to convince my brain to tell my arms just to take off my semi-warm pajamas and put on my cold running clothes because the sooner I do that the sooner I will be warm again.

Now I am back, and I am nice and toasty. The run felt like it sucked. I was supposed to pick up the pace a bit today, and it kind of hurt in my lungs to push myself out of my comfort zone. I was feeling frustrated about it, even considering the route is hilly. Turns out I wasn’t doing the math quite right in my head as I went along, so I feel a little better. And, it did have the positive effect of generating great amounts of body heat. So I am happy now.

Go for a run! Be warm! Save the environment!

Today’s run

Distance: 3.2 miles
Time: 29:54
Pace: 9:20 min/mile