Official Cross Country Takeover

Over the past month, we have been walking the line between life and CROSS COUNTRY. This weekend we slipped and fell headfirst into a full-on cross country takeover. Our high school cross country team did not have a meet on Saturday. It was a much-needed breather at the halfway point in our season. The middle school team did have a meet, however, and our entire family rode the bus to this meet for several excellent reasons: 

1. Our son is on the middle school team.
2. Jeff and I are both cross country coaches.
3. The middle school team only has one coach (no assistant)
4. We are trying to build the running program in our school district from the foundation (aka middle school), which involves cooperation between high school and middle school teams to foster connections and trust (and get those middle schoolers to sign up for high school cross country).

Remember September

September is such a busy intense month that it is hard to find energy to write about it. When I open my journal at the end of each day, I am too tired to want to write about what made me tired! But even saying "I'm tired" is pretty much redundant for anyone involved in the school district, from those who send their kids to school and school activities to those who are school teachers and/or coaches. Or anyone living life in general. I'm trying to banish the scarcity mindset when it comes to sleep and rest and accept that I have enough of both for the day at hand, but it's hard when I generally do feel that I would benefit from two or more extra hours of sleep and/or rest each day. 

During school hours, my days are divinely quiet and mostly Shaina-centered (as I have planned them to be), but outside of that glorious six hours per day, it is full steam ahead with all of the busy intensity that this season has to offer. I am so thankful that I have those hours during school to recoup both our house and myself in preparation for the next onslaught of cross country practices, dinnertime, and kid-taxiing. After long Saturdays at cross country meets, it takes me till practically Thursday before I feel caught up on rest and life again. Then another Saturday with another meet comes back at me with a vengeance and the cycle begins again! As busy September gets, however, it's still worth remembering. Here's my attempt, from the trenches.

August Books

August: summer ended and school started. I read 14 books during that month of shifting routines. When I was writing this post, I realized that I didn't have too much to say about the fluffy fun fiction that I read, but I had a whole lot more to say about the two quality nonfiction books I read. Fiction rests my mind so I have the brainpower to take on the thought provoking nonfiction! Stress, rest, repeat: the time-honored method for building strength--works on both the mind and the body. 

Run, Rest, Repeat

Last weekend's intense overnight camping trip with the cross country team shoved me into tired recovery mode this week, but Random Responsible Things kept needing to be done. Even though my kids were in school all day every day, I didn't have a day to fully catch my breath until Friday! I had numbers to crunch and papers to sign after our team camping trip. I had uniform shorts orders to wrangle. I had dinners to cook and a family to keep on track. Rose and Amber started piano lessons this week. I traveled 18,000 steps on foot at least three days this week. I went and helped out at two back-to-back practices on Wednesday for the middle school and high school cross country teams, which involved lots of walking, kid-herding, timing, encouraging, and cone-placement/pickup. None of these activities was overly tiring alone, but combined together in the timeline of this week, they made me a nice a formidable schedule. Peripheral illustration of my general fatigue and busy-ness: On Monday (Labor Day), while our family was watching a show together, one of the kids spilled a bowl of popcorn onto the carpet. I did not get around to vacuuming up the scattered white bits until Thursday. 

Ultimook 2021

Ultimook 2021 was a blast! It was good to be back after the 2020 hiatus. When we arrived at Hydrangea Ranch around 5pm on Friday night, still riding the beach and ice cream high, everyone helped unload the bus in the camping field. Then we said goodbye and thank you to our bus driver as she drove off to her hotel (where she would get a good night of sleep in preparation for our long drive home the next day). Time to set up those tents! Watching and listening to the teenagers wrestle with their tents was as amusing as ever. Everyone figured out what to do eventually! Jeff and I were surprised that we had such a hard time setting up our own two tents--it had been two years since our last camping trip, and we kept making ridiculous rookie mistakes with our tent setup, right along with the rest of the team. A stiff breeze blew through the valley as we worked, so we had to hustle with the stakes. Since Covid rules required separate tents for each household, everyone got to set up a tent. By the time we had all untangled our tent poles and staked down the corners, we had a cluster of seventeen tents! Two for our family, and 15 for the team (2 of our 16 runners are sisters and they shared a tent). 

The finish line at dusk, with a fire pit aflame to the left.

Beach Run and Ice Cream!

We kicked off the start of our high school cross country season with our traditional camping trip near Tillamook, Oregon for a team adventure. The two other seasons that we have done this trip (2018 & 2019), the team has wanted to go to the Tillamook Creamery for ice cream, but we have never managed to make it happen. All summer, I wanted to go to the beach, but after our long road trip, we never managed to make it happen. So I used my craving for the beach to craft a masterful plan to get our team (and my family) to both the creamery and the beach. The plan was: beach run, Tillamook Creamery treat, and then camp at Hydrangea Ranch, where we would run our races the next day.

Many Beginnings

We had a week of beginnings: 

• Jeff began his 11th year as a high school French teacher and returned to work on Friday, August 20th.
• High school cross country began on Monday, August 23rd with our first official practice of the season. This is Jeff's 6th year of coaching cross country, and my 4th year as his assistant.
• The first day of school was Wednesday, August 25th.
• Amber began first grade--the only year she'll ever be at the same school as a sibling.
• Rose began fifth grade--her final year of elementary school.
• Jay began seventh grade--right in the middle of middle school.
• Jay began his first-ever season of middle school cross country on Thursday, August 26th. 
• I began having six-plus full hours of home-alone time during the day. 

Those are the stats of the week. It was an intense week! Adjusting to a new schedule is always tiring. 

July BOOKS!

July was vacation month, so I did more vacation reads than anything else. Who am I kidding? I always do more vacation reads than anything else. Hah! I just did even less non-fiction and thought-provokers than usual. I also did more re-reading than I have done recently, because when I'm on vacation in new places, I crave familiar territory in my books! Travel is best with an anchor. I'm either anchored at home reading far and wide or traveling far and wide with a nice homey re-read anchor. 

The Elusive Enchantments

One of the premier hiking areas of the central Cascades is in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. It is so beautiful that the official name of the area is The Enchantments. I've written about it before. The trail through the Enchantments is 18-20 miles long. I have done 5 miles up one end of this trail to Colchuck Lake, and 7 miles up the other end to the Snow Lakes. The middle 6-8 miles include the Core Enchantments, which I have been drooling over ever since I visited the "border lakes." I really wanted to do one more trail run before cross country season and school started up, so I researched, prepped, planned, and packed for an epic daylong adventure straight through all 18+ miles of the Enchantments. It was a process. 

The first half of August

 August is barely half over, and we've already had two bouts of wildfire smoke drift in and out. Clips from my journal:

Monday, August 2nd: Blast this wildfire smoke! Jeff and I spent some time discussing and finalizing our cross country schedule for this fall. It feels strange and good to have an actual schedule for an actual normal season! 2020 kind of killed my zest for thinking far ahead and making dependable plans, so knowing what the next 3 months will look like feels new.

Summerland and Panhandle Gap

Hello, Tahoma! On Monday, I went to Mt Rainier's Wonderland Trail for a Zen-run to Summerland and Panhandle Gap. This was my first solo Shaina trail run of the summer, and it was just as soul-filling as I hoped. After spending half of July exploring the Tetons, driving/hiking/biking in the Rockies, and viewing the Grand Canyon, visiting the central Cascades felt like coming home. I ran this same section of trail last year too, so my feeling of homecoming was amplified. The placement and shape of the alpine wildflowers and the snow was slightly different this year, but the journey still felt joyfully familiar. 

Grand Canyon, Beaver, and Home

I. The Grand Canyon: We left our hotel in Holbrook, AZ at 7am and drove the almost 2.5 hours to the Grand Canyon South Rim, entering from the east on 64. We stopped at the Desert View visitor's center on the east side of the park and saw our first Grand Canyon panorama. It was breathtaking and big and beautiful! We were in awe. Thunderstorms were in the very near forecast, however, so we nixed our family bike ride plans and stopped at several canyon viewpoints as we drove west on 64 along the south rim. From the road, the canyon rim was mostly hidden by scrubby pine trees, so it wasn't a very scenic drive. Every time a brief canyon view opened up through the trees, we yelled "NATURE!" and pointed or tapped or smacked the window. It was silly, but our kids are so used to totally zoning out on car rides that they weren't even looking out the window much on their own before we started the nature shouting. We unplugged all screens and stories when we entered the park as well, to encourage nature appreciation.