Humble Pie

I have run half marathons, a full marathon, thousands of miles during training. I used to swim miles and miles. I do yoga. I used to bike miles and miles. I've climbed at climbing gyms and outdoors. All of those things are easy to do and learn by comparison. I had never played 18 holes of golf until yesterday and it was humbling. I admit, I sprained my ankle and have been walking and doing yoga lately, so I am a bit out of shape, but I ache in places I didn't know I had muscles. Not horribly bad, but man, 18 holes was a lot more tiring than I ever thought. Technically I didn't even play all 18, I probably played through 12 to 14 of them. So here's to the Tiger Woods and Anika Sorensens out there, your sport requires stamina and strength that I had not imagined. I even thought I might be able to walk the course, because I run distances - right??? We took a cart and I was sure glad we did. Mind you, I take my hat off for the ability needed to play this totally frustrating game. A good golfer has talent. I never really considered that it was that physically challenging however, so I will now have my humble pie. A la mode if you please.

Roots

It appeared my potatoes weren't doing very well. I thought perhaps they were rotting in the ground and so I harvested a bucket. It actually yielded some very tasty, albeit small, potatoes. For the fourth, I made the "French" version of the American standby. I'm not exactly sure why the recipe called it French Potato Salad with Bacon. Anyway, it was sans mayonnaise, with a light vinaigrette and bacon. Pretty simple. The beets don't seem to be getting much bigger. I can't quite figure that one out. I harvested one which had started to split. It went into the beet salad last night, tasted sort of earthy before I added the vinaigrette dressing.

Those were the good roots.

The other one sent me sprawling. I went to run a trail I hadn't run in a long time. One time I got spooked running there in the late afternoon - unknown, seemingly large animal, no other people for some distance - and I had since avoided it. I will probably continue to avoid it after last week's fiasco. I love the run because its really good hill work, straight up, more or less. The view at the top is spectacular. There are a lot of bicyclists that ride the trail, making it a little nerve-racking as you round blind corners that they tend to fly down. On the way down this past trip, that's exactly what I did. I am usually quite agile over the roots, but the uphill climb had left me quite sluggish. I was thinking about how I should be careful, maybe even stop to walk, when the root seemingly burst through the soil, caught my foot, which formed a perpendicular angle with my leg, and a popping noise rang in my head. I couldn't really tell if it was my ankle that made that sound or I just imagined it. My body immediately lurched towards the ground, my good leg catching it, and righting me into a yowling hop. I was a mile away from my car and cell phone, so I had to hobble back. Walk it off, right? It was really painful, but fortunately I knew what to do. I think I was pretty lucky. I performed the standard PRICE plus ibuprofen. Today I was able to do yoga, sort of one legged. However, now my foot is numb, so I think that means I should continue to take it easy. Bummer. Dumb root.