Travels
Curtis Lake
From the Curtis Park dam early Sunday morning, Hartwood, Virginia.
The Fredericksburg paper had a picture of a swan at this spot in March of 2013. Today I could also see two more on the far side of the lake. The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries said in 2012, “The mute swan is classified as a non-native exotic (nuisance) species in Virginia.”
Thurmont, Maryland
Lunch and a pint of Guinness at the Shamrock Restaurant twice this week, with Sandy, Judy, and Alex. The picture is not of the restaurant, but looking west from behind the restaurant. It’s on US 15 a few miles south of Gettysburg. Roads were fine on this trip except for the 10 country miles closest to home, where they were mostly packed white. This was the day after yet another government-closing, school-closing snowstorm which brought our house about 7″ of unusually sand-like snow. By starting early, I was able (in two sessions) to clear the entire driveway with the leaf-blower.
(I have not paid the $30 annual fee to prevent the occasional appearance of randomly-placed links to somebody else’s advertising. But my use of the WordPress blogging software is free.)
Protected: Chaps Pit Beef for Mothers’ Day
Fifty years ago
Pics from the Queen Mary just before docking at Pier 90:
Also see Gareth’s animation on his website.
Here’s what we had been doing earlier:
(No direct response to any of those messages has yet arrived. However I did hear that year from a boy in the north of England presenting himself as an officer of the International Bottle Club.) Assuming the four-hour time difference and the coordinates were correct, I certainly got the London time wrong — it would have had to be four hours later, not earlier. And I was mistaken at that point about being in the middle of the Atlantic. We were almost there! Here’s what Google Maps makes of those coordinates today:
Here’s where we’d stayed the night before we sailed from Southampton:
Dilwyn was here!
October 19th we visited Mount Vernon (but did not take the river cruise), then walked the South Valley Trail in Prince William Forest.
Dilwyn tried to fit in, even wore his half-marathon shirt, but after breakfast had to leave us for a long drive to South Carolina. We went south too. Erin was in Fredericksburg for the annual alumnae game at the University of Mary Washington. She had a ball. They won.
Prognostication for November
(I added race results notes on 11/29/2012 to the bottom of this article.)
Borrowed from campaign documents:
No, not that race. This is the 103rd annual Run for the Diamonds nine mile race in Berwick, Pennsylvania, to be held on Thanksgiving morning. In 2008 I ran 1:25:53 (pace 9:32/mile) and in 2010 I ran 1:18:17 (pace 8:42/mile). Like Lynchburg, this race includes some seriously hilly terrain, but unlike Lynchburg, it’s all downhill after the half-way point. Hoping my third attempt might continue my trend. See 2010 writeup.
Update posted 11/29/2012: I finished 21st of 41 men aged 60-64, time 1:24:21, pace 9:25. This was 6 minutes slower than in 2010, but 1 minute faster than in 2008. The 475′ total climb of the Run for the Diamonds nine-miler at Berwick is 64% greater than the 304′ climb of the Virginia Ten-Miler in Lynchburg! QED: yes, it is a tougher race.
Update posted 11/29/2012, being my race report submitted to Dead Runners Society and to Runners Gazette:
The 103rd Run for the Diamonds nine-miler occupied 1,614 finishers on Thanksgiving morning at Berwick, Pennsylvania. The weather was perfect, with bright sunshine, temperatures in the mid-40s, and even atop the ridge not a hint of a breeze. The arrowhead-shaped course starts and finishes downtown, mostly uphill out into the country and mostly downhill on the way back. Mapmyrun.com says the course climbs 476 feet. The most strenuous part of that climb is packed into the unrelenting third mile up the ravine from Foundryville to Summerhill. During the 2010 race, the steep camber and icy road here had me worried I could slip and slide left into the ditch. I was glad for the guard rail on the right, where it could otherwise be a long slide down into the creek below. But this year the entire course was dry pavement. Before the four-mile mark near the top, three ladies were kept very busy handing out tissues — despite the sunshine, evidently there were a good many runny noses at this point. This race has great community support. In the town, the course was almost entirely lined by cheering residents, but even out in the country there were dozens of community gatherings of spectators. I was five hours drive from home, but somebody with a roster at mile six cheered for me by my name and hometown. I heard my name called as I crossed the finish line too. Winners included Derek Nakluski from Kitchener, Ontario, 45:51, pace 5:06, and Karaleigh Millhouse from State College, PA, 52:58, pace 5:54. As a solid middle-of-the-packer in my age group, and with a two-hour drive to Thanksgiving dinner, I did not stay to witness the awards presentation, but 22 diamond rings and pendants were due to be awarded as well as many other prizes. The two $500 prizes for new course records would have gone unclaimed this year. Those records remain with Peter Pfitzinger, 1980, 43:20.9, and Heidi Peoples, 2009, 50:35.
Addendum provided to Runners Gazette:
The finishers were 41% men and 59% women. Their individual paces averaged 8:37 and 9:51 respectively.
The first man with an 8:37 pace took 547th place of 949. The first woman with a 9:51 pace took 381st place of 665.
About 24% of finishers listed Berwick or Bloomsburg as their hometown, and 90% listed Pennsylvania as home state. 10% of the finishers were out-of-staters, travelling from as far away as Alaska, California, and Florida, with larger contingents from New York (34), New Jersey and Ontario (13 each), North Carolina (12), and Virginia (11). The Canadians could have had a five-hour drive to Berwick — but they were rewarded by hearing Edwin Livsey’s annual clarinet performance of both the Canadian and American national anthems at the starting line.
A detour on the trip to Lynchburg
Stopped here Friday afternoon about 7 miles north of Lovingston hoping to get a few quick snaps of the slabs I’d hoped to find in the Dameron Family Graveyard (on behalf of Findagrave.com.) But as I couldn’t find it, I will have to pass that assignment on to somebody else with time and energy to identify the location of the cemetery.
Near Thurmont, Maryland
View today from the Shamrock Restaurant, on Route 15 between Thurmont and Gettysburg, a good place to stop for lunch between Stafford and Harrisburg. Draught Guinness on tap.
Summertime
On July 6th, Tim introduced Owen to the craft brewing industry:
The bridge from Bethany Beach to Rehoboth, Delaware:
One of the last of this year’s the stargazer lilies, last weekend at home:
Rose of Sharon this morning:
Old railroad station at The Plains, Virginia, July 14th:
Connellsville B&O Station June 22nd:
