Peace, Love, And Understanding

Platt Loop 16.3mi

“I don’t like hippies, and I don’t like cornbread, and I don’t like much.” -- Lyle Lovett

I don’t like hippies because they ruined my concept of the American Indian. In the children’s game of Cowboys and Indians, I always wanted to be an Indian like everybody else. Later, in high school, I grew my hair down my back, pierced my nose, and even wore turquoise earrings on occasion. My reverence for hippie subculture was a kind of hero worship that came from a mix of my parent’s nostalgia for their “hippie days”, and my early love for the music of that era. By the time I had met some practicing hippies in college, the mystique had worn off. I never could get into the body odor thing, and everyone seemed to have some unseen means of support that I could never figure out and didn’t have access to. And there were so many rules. I do love cornbread though.
The hippies’ identification with the American Indian sprang from their own idealized and stereotypical notion of what Indians represented, a characterization most likely formed from watching John Wayne movies as children. John Wayne was my grandfather’s hero, and what better way for my father to rebel than to cheer for his enemy, the noble savage, but the hippie concept of the American Indian was as twisted as John Wayne’s.
In college, as a new reporter for the school paper, I got my first byline for an interview with Russell Means, the former leader of the American Indian Movement. Means was in town to protest the arrival of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, replicas of the famous fleet made to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage. He towered over me, a giant of a man, thick black braids on each shoulder, as he railed against Columbus, the media, and Hollywood’s portrayal of Indians in recent movies like Dances With Wolves. Later on, Means apparently changed his mind when he appeared in The Last of the Mohicans and provided the voice of Chief Powhatan in Disney’s Pocahontas, a movie that he referred to as “the finest movie ever done about Indian people in Hollywood”.
Gloria Jahoda’s River of the Golden Ibis has renewed my interest in the figure of the Indian in American history. The Indians that Jahoda describes are not only at one with the land, they are intelligent, articulate, complex, deceitful, and vengeful. They are human.
Today I run south along the west bank of the Hillsborough, known to the Seminoles as the Lockcha-popka-chiska, and earlier to the Timucua as the Mocoso. The Timucua town of Mocoso sat on this side of the river near what is now the University of Tampa. My plan is to cross the river at the Platt Street Bridge before it empties into Hillsborough Bay. I’m trying to follow the river as closely as I can, but I keep getting pushed to the west by the security gates of apartment complexes, and the dead end streets of riverfront homes. I follow Rome Avenue to the south, past Tampa Catholic High School and its waterfront stadium, home of The Crusaders, a team destined to strike fear in the hearts of others like the Chamberlain Chiefs, but not immune to the terrors of King High School’s Lions.
Continuing today’s theme of empire and subjugation, I cross Columbus Avenue and pass the riverfront housing projects with their tall iron fence along the water. I guess these people aren’t paying enough rent to be allowed to enjoy their prime location. I had hoped to find a shortcut from Rick’s On The River through the baseball fields to the south, but all I can see is barbed wire and thick underbrush. I take advantage of the detour to use the facilities at Rick’s before skirting the ball fields to the west. On Spruce Street, I find a way through the elementary school to the track along the river, and I locate the path that connects the fields with Blake High School on the other side of North Boulevard. This is not the best of neighborhoods, and my aunt, a guidance counselor at Blake, has said that students have been mugged along this path on their way to Phys Ed. I’m about an hour and a half into this run, and I think if someone steals my Gatorade money I’m going to cry.
I follow the path under the North Boulevard Bridge and along the river until I have to squeeze through a hole in a fence to follow the path under I-275. My efforts are thwarted again at Tampa Prep, when a security guard in a golf cart refuses to let me run through the campus. I head west and take North Boulevard to the University of Tampa campus, past the former Tampa Bay Hotel , and south to the Publix at Platt Street, where I jog up to the register with my precious bottle of Gatorade.
From here I take the Platt Street Bridge across the river towards the convention center on the Hillsborough’s eastern bank. This is the site where Fort Brooke was established in 1824. It was here that I stood in 1992, microphone in hand, embarrassed by my long straight hair, as Russell Means spoke against Hollywood, political correctness, and “hang-around-the-fort” Indians. And it was here that Indian agent Wiley Thompson, under the presidency of Andrew Jackson, proposed the Seminoles be gathered for their forced emigration to Oklahoma.
Thompson did not live to see his plans realized. On December 28th, 1835, he was shot fourteen times by the Seminole chief Osceola, in an event that would lead to the Second Seminole War. The rifle that Osceola used had been a gift from Thompson.
Osceola was a hang-around-the-fort Indian, spending time at both Fort Brooke and Ocala’s Fort King, and he used his time there to study the tactics of the United States soldiers. His knowledge of their methods helped him to lead a struggle that lasted seven years and cost thousands of lives.
I head north along the river’s eastern bank, through the beleaguered Dan Kiley Riverfront Park, where the only people living off the land are the homeless men bundled up against the cool weather. At the Performing Arts Center I’m enveloped by a group of high school age runners, and I fall in with the pack, proud to be keeping up at eleven miles into my run. For the remainder of the route I stick to the river road, getting the occasional glimpse across the water to where I came from hours ago. It seems like years.

Slideshows

Westchase 3.5mi

I couldn’t decide whether to run or crosstrain to get back on schedule, but I had to work and the gym is closed on Sunday mornings, so I opted to run. I set out at a nice easy pace from the station onto Linebaugh and into Westchase. I never run in Westchase, and in some ways this area doesn’t even exist in my mental map of Tampa. During the years that I spent exploring the outskirts of this city after I got my first car, this entire community did not exist. This was one of my favorite places to go on a Sunday afternoon when I could go to Ella Hardy’s camera shop at the Oldsmar Flea Market, wander through abandoned dairies and ranches with my Rolleiflex medium-format camera, and drive my car along Racetrack Road in a manner befitting its name.
These days Westchase is a sprawling collection of subdivisions within subdivisions made up of randomly winding streets designed to break up the monotony of the three available home designs repeated ad infinitum. Imagine being able to look straight down a street of this kind of repetition. The curves help to break things into smaller pieces, and by the time you round the bend you’ve forgotten that this house looks exactly like that one.
I remember riding through here at Christmas time in the back of a rescue unit running emergency to a call. We were driving through one of the condo communities, and I was looking out the side window at the units illuminated by the rescue’s strobes. The light created a movie-like flicker effect as the same scene reappeared from the darkness time after time, projected on the screen of my small window. It was like watching a piece of stop-frame animation where the set remained exactly the same, right down to the Christmas tree sparkling by the sliding glass door. Only the actors changed as we passed. Here was a man laying on the couch, now a woman cooking dinner, an empty apartment, two children watching TV on the floor. Each scene strobed past so quickly it was almost subliminal. The only way to take it all in was just to watch without thinking.
I have witnessed this effect before while watching graffiti through the subway window in New York. On the Manhattan bound B train from Brooklyn, there was a place where an abandoned tunnel ran parallel to the B’s tracks, the two tunnels being separated by a series of archways. For some reason the empty tunnel was brightly lit, and some intrepid graffiti artist had taken advantage of the flicker created by the archways separating the tunnels when viewed from the passing train. Repeated on the far wall of the tunnel, framed by each archway, was an image of a rocket ship that shifted a little more to the left in each scene until it passed out of the frame, creating the effect that it took off each time the train passed. This snippet of animation lasted only one or two seconds, and I can remember it clearly many years later.
I drive through these streets nearly every working day, but the memory of that Christmas montage is one of the few that sticks out in my mind. My mental map of the area is rudimentary at best, and I just can’t seem to populate the woods and pastures of my youth with these lanes and cul-de-sacs.
Today I follow Linebaugh to Montague and run south through West Park Village and down its fake little Main Street (this development is too new to appear in the mapcard aerials, but it does show up on GoogleMaps). Starbucks is open already, and a few people stroll around in the predawn quiet, clutching their Sunday morning lattes, past the shuttered boutiques advertising “only the best for your baby”. There seems to have been some kind of carnival here this weekend, and the nearby park is full of partially dismantled rides, games, and concession stands. I feel like I’m on a stage set. Somehow even the other people on the street don’t seem real to me. Who gets up at 6:00 on a Sunday morning to walk around in the dark drinking $5.00 coffee? Maybe they’re extras hired by the neighborhood association.

Tastes Like Burning

Sulophur Springs of Darkness 8mi

This week’s long run came a little late because of last Saturday’s race. The distance for the week is eight miles, and I’ve decided to repeat the Sulphur Springs of Darkness route because it is one of my favorites, and I am too lazy to map out a new run for this distance. I still haven’t been able to shake the soreness out of my legs from the trail run though, and I’m not sure how I’m going to feel after eight miles of mostly pavement.
I start out following the river to the north along its eastern bank, and the tightness in my calves begins to ease a little more with each mile.
On the path down to the troll bridge I catch a brief flash of color in my peripheral vision, and I look to see a familiar red-blossomed vine entwined in the chain-link fence to my left. I know next to nothing about Florida’s wildflowers, but I have a distinct memory of these particular flowers being introduced to me as a child. On what must have been a school field trip, someone pointed out the vine growing along a similar stretch of fence. The bud-like blossoms pulled easily away from their sepals, and they were full of a sweet nectar that attracted both children and ants. I remember standing there sucking on flowers, amazed that something so beautiful and sweet could be found growing along a stretch of rusty old fence.
About forty-five minutes in, I start to get my legs under me. This seems to be my standard pattern. Whatever the length of the day’s run, I start to feel good about halfway through. I’ve heard over and over about how much of running is a mental exercise, but I’m just starting to realize this for myself. My perception of each run is shaped largely by the approach that I’ve taken before I’ve even laced up my shoes.
As I turn back to the south, my stride has become more compact, efficient. I’m several minutes ahead of my pace from previous runs on this route. I round the corner from Mulberry onto River Cove, keeping pace with a Rasta on a bicycle pedaling along lazily and talking on a cell phone. Ahead I can see the flowering vine again, and I remember now where I was on that field trip twenty-five years ago. It was right here at what is now a small park along the river. My memory is partially obscured by the vines, but I can see a zoo with a bear in a cage and river otters playing in a concrete pond. I pull a blossom off of the vine, suck out the nectar, and run off towards home.

Cardiopulmonary Espionage

Photo Run 4mi

I set out with my digital camera to document some of the areas mentioned in previous posts. I always feel a little strange taking pictures when I’m out running, like people will think I’m some kind of federal agent disguised as a friendly neighborhood jogger. My obvious lack of running prowess only serves to support this suspicion.
I stop along the way to shoot the hidden spring on North Street, the dismantled Wahl house, and the River Shore spring, along with some other neighborhood design gems. My legs are still stiff from my 15 mile run, and I don’t know why this run has taken so much out of me, but I don’t think that over training is the issue. I vow to be more diligent about my crosstraining sessions.

Would You Rather Rage Against The Machine Or The Dying Of The Light?

Seminole Heights 4.5mi

I’m out for a quick run around the neighborhood before it gets too dark, and my legs feel like they belong to a lazy old man. My joints are creaky and my muscles are sore. I keep feeling like one leg is shorter than the other, but I can’t decide which one. It keeps switching. My shoes are too tight and my clothes feel like I have them on backwards. Eventually I loosen up a little and I meander through the streets of Old Seminole Heights enjoying the quiet and the old houses lit by the setting sun.

Wendy O. Williams, Where Are You Now?

John Holmes 15mi

I rescheduled my normal Tuesday long run for Saturday so that I could run a 15-mile race on the Croom trails. The race was organized by the West Central Florida Adventure Racing Club (WeCeFAR) and was the “fun run” companion to the John Holmes 50K. The Croom Tract of the Withlacoochee State Forest is located to the east of Brooksville and is home to many miles of trails which wind through a landscape of pine forests, cypress hammocks, scrublands, and HILLS. After some initial difficulty locating the race, I’m standing at the start with about 60 other runners of various ages, builds, and ability levels. The atmosphere is much less hectic than most of the races I’ve run, and the general vibe seems less like a competition and more like a bluegrass festival. A few people jog up and down the dirt road to warm up before the start, but most people are talking with friends and just standing around. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone stretching. The race director gathers us at the starting line, which he has drawn in the sand with his heel. He briefly explains the course to us, and counts down to the start: “five, four, three, two, one” and yells “BANG!” I’m off like a startled turtle.
The first half-mile of the course follows Croom Road to the east before heading north on a fire road and linking up with the trail. The amoeba of runners slowly spreads out and begins to divide into four smaller groups: the winners, the optimists, the realists, and the simply happy to be there. I find my place somewhere at the pessimistic end of the realists, struggling to stay ahead of the gap that the happy to be there are pushing up behind me. As the faster runners break away from us, someone behind me yells, “It’s only a fifteen mile race. Get it out of your system now.” I think I’ve found my pace group.
When I stop for my first walk break I’m passed by a couple of runners, but I catch up to them slowly on each run, getting a little closer each time before stopping to walk again. This looks like a good comparison of running vs. run/walking. At the second aid station, around mile four, I overtake them and then, gradually, I overtake a few other runners who started out ahead of me. I’m being passed occasionally, but these runners are obviously doing the 50K and are already on their third or fourth lap of the seven-mile loop course.
The hills and loose sand are working my calves in new and interesting ways, but my pace feels consistent and my heart rate hasn’t gone through the roof yet. I wish that the aid stations were a little closer together (at my pace I’m reaching them about every thirty minutes), but they are well stocked with drinks and snacks, and I laugh to myself that I’ll just eat my way through this race like it’s the world’s longest buffet line.
Around the end of my first seven-mile lap, I experience my first fleeting moment of what might be called “runner’s high”. I’m running through a cypress hammock by a marshy pond full of wild daisies and butterflies on the first truly cool morning of the year. I’ve just filled myself with M&Ms and electrolyte drink at the last aid station, my pace still feels good, and I’m not tired. I think to myself, all I have to do is run. The route is laid out for me, the blazes are easy to follow, there is food and drink at each stop, and the weather is beautiful. Just run. I’m glad I’m alone because I have this stupid grin on my face. The kind of grin I used to get as a kid when someone played the banjo or said something that no one else thought was funny. The kind of grin that you try to suppress and you just can’t. A laugh in church.
Throughout the morning I’ve been hearing the typical race-day platitudes of “looking good” and “keep it up” from the volunteers at the aid stations, but a few other runners have said things that actually seemed sincere. Looking back at me approaching them on the trail, they said, “Wow, you’re looking really strong, I’d better step aside.” Quite a few of these runners were doing the 50K and they had every right to look the worse for it. Their race started two hours before mine, and they were still out there. Still, the encouragement is nice and as far as I know I haven’t been passed by anyone who started behind me after the initial half-mile shakedown.
Somewhere around the thirteenth mile, “all I have to do is run” has become “the one thing I know that I can no longer do...is run.” I try to push through it and I increase the frequency of my walk breaks, but still each three or four minutes of running seems to go on forever. I’ve fallen off my goal of a three-hour finish. Somehow I think my body has a way of preparing itself for the task ahead whether it’s three miles or fifteen miles. If I’ve decided that I’m going to run for three hours, when that time comes I just don’t have another fifteen minutes in me. This is definitely something to keep in mind when deciding on a marathon pace.
At the second to last aid station my disposition has taken a turn for the worse, and the volunteer handing out water looks at my shirt and says “Oh my God!” Earlier in the week I had done a little manscaping to my chest hair, thinking that a high-and-tight would be more comfortable in the heat than my old Tom Selleck sweater-vest. What I hadn’t realized was the level of nipple protection afforded by the deep loft of my chest hair. I look down for the first to time and realize that the front of my shirt is covered in blood from my chafed, sweaty nipples. The woman offers me some Vaseline, which I smear on by the fingerful as I limp off down the trail. Struggling through the last couple miles, I’m haunted by the image of that tub of Vaseline, wondering whose fingers have been in it today. Everyone who has touched it has slathered it onto a bloody, seeping rash. I’m just glad I’ve had my hepatitis vaccinations. At 3:14:10 I finally cross the finish line, amused and buoyed along by today's Deep Thought: when it comes to community Vaseline, I think there needs to be a strict prohibition on double dipping.

Updates

I have been working on adding some new features to the site and they are finally ready to debut.
I have been playing around for awhile with different GoogleMaps mashups and I've finally found something that I'm relatively happy with. The mashup developed by Jared at CommunityWalk allows users to post markers, text, and multiple photos on their own GoogleMap, and it allows for various levels of depth through internal links and filters. The two maps that I have developed are in this site's sidebar under "Photomaps". The "Running Through Tampa" map is a companion site to this blog with photos and text excerpts tagged to their locations on the map. "Tampa Folksonomap" currently looks identical to the "Running Through Tampa" map because it only has my markers on it, but this map is open for other users to post their own text, photos, etc. This could be a powerful tool for us to develop a grassroots view of our community's history, culture, geography, etc. Follow the tutorials at CommunityWalk for directions on how to post to the map, and be sure to look at the other map communities for ideas and interesting information.
I have grown tired of deleting the comment spam from each new post, so I have turned on the word verification feature. Now you will have to prove that you are not a robot before you can comment.
Finally, in response to a conversation I had with Stefanie, I have added a "Reading List" to the sidebar for anyone who wishes to follow along.

The House Where Nobody Lives

Epps/Lowry 4mi

10/10/2005

On Sunday I missed my run because I went straight from work to New Port Richey so that Mike and I could look over some video of the Furniture Challenge show at Chris’ house. Chris has been doing some marathon training of his own since we talked about this project on the night of the Furniture Challenge opening. We have been trying to get together to run without any luck until now.
On Monday morning, Chris meets me with his daughter Maya in tow. We head east along the Epps/Lowry route with Chris pushing Maya in her running stroller, and the three of us looking very much like an ad for the benefits of gay adoption. Chris is a former resident of the storied North Street Compound, and we talk about the history of these houses and their residents as well as the house across the street at the entrance to Epps Park. I had been told before that there is a spring beneath this house, and it is apparent from the constant flow of water from the yard into the storm drain along North Street.
Chris tells me that, allegedly, the spring had been a favorite swimming hole for neighborhood children, but after a child drowned there the city capped off the spring and filled in the hole. At some point later, a house was built on this spot and the owners only learned of the former spring when their foundation started to settle and the water began percolating up from beneath their house. The current owner of this property is almost universally reviled by everyone I have spoken to in this area, and he now seems to be engaged in some sort of squatter’s rights claim to Epps Park itself, as the fence around his house gradually expands to include more and more of the riverfront land.
As we run north along the river, Chris and I swap stories about the neighborhood and I get to point out some sights that I’ve mentioned in previous posts. In Lowry Park I spot The Squirrel Whistler coming towards us, and I dance in and out of the vermin lingering on the path as Chris steers the stroller from side to side.
My watch has died and we are just running by feel, taking walk breaks here and there, passing the small spring on River Shore Drive, and turning back to the south at the foot of the water tower. Crossing Sligh again at Highland, we run past Bert Wahl’s house at the corner of Highland and Hiawatha. I tell Chris about my memories of Wahl in the 80’s, showing up for parties at the Baldwin house on Hiawatha with spider monkeys and raccoons that he had rescued. If there was anyone in the neighborhood that was a nuisance in those days, surely it was us, not him. We always thought that his Wildlife Rescue operation was a selfless labor of love, but as time passed there were more and more allegations made about Wahl’s treatment of the animals, and about his right to keep them in the city limits. Wahl’s story, as I have come to know it, has all the intrigue and plot twists of either a great documentary or a terrible soap opera.
The first reference that I can find to Wahl’s long list of troubles comes from 1983 when he pled no contest to battery charges for locking an assistant in a panther cage. Normally the sole occupant of its enclosure, Wahl’s “Florida panther” was actually the descendant of generations of captive-born cats who had been interbred with other non-Floridian sub-species. This didn’t stop Wahl from presenting the cat as “full-bred” when he spoke to schools and civic groups about the need to protect the last of Florida’s panthers, a presentation that he gave regularly for a $200 fee. Wahl and his cat were frequently in the press as they shared the stage with political figures from Lawton Chiles to Prince Charles, and he was even credited as “animal wrangler” on the “wildlife unit” of the 1995 movie “Just Cause” starring Sean Connery, a division that also included the somewhat-less-prestigious classification of “fly wrangler”.
I remember thinking, along with many others, that Wahl’s mounting problems were largely political in nature and that the city, county, and state governments were on a mission to destroy a well-meaning individual who simply refused to bow to their authority. This is what Wahl said at the time, and it may have been the case for a while, until he started believing his own press. As time passed, Wahl was cited and arrested repeatedly for violations of city codes, improper handling of endangered species, animal cruelty, and neglect. Wahl was eventually sentenced to nine months in jail for the abuse of his 16 year old cougar “Old Man” when he “choked the cougar; dragged the cougar; dragged the cougar by a choker chain; punched the cougar; kicked the cougar; hit the cougar with a shoe; and jammed a mop and broom handle down the cougar's throat” in an episode that ultimately led to the animal’s death.
At some point, Wahl abandoned his house on Hiawatha where it sat and slowly caved in on itself. His last arrest on record was made on September 13, 2004, on charges of “maintaining a public nuisance”. I can only imagine that this refers to the condition of the Hiawatha house, which had deteriorated substantially after that summer’s string of hurricanes. And still the house sat, a monument to Wahl’s righteous indignation.
Today something has changed. There is a dumpster in the front yard and two men appear to be slowly dismantling what is left of the house. Looking at the overgrown cages in the backyard, I think back fifteen years and I can remember seeing the large cats lounging in the sun next to the rescued emus and river otters. Most of all, though, I remember the sounds. The strange, haunting cries of female panthers in heat that would echo through the neighborhood. A sound so loud that it would stop us in our tracks as we rolled metal garbage cans down the street in the middle of the night.

10/12/2005

On Wednesday I run the same route again. This time I’m concentrating on my pace, my stride, and my breathing. There’s no need for me to stay conversational today. My watch is still broken, so I glance at the clock next to the television and run out the door. I know I’ve got a good pace going and I’m guessing the first mile comes in right around eight minutes. I close down the aperture of my senses and run. A little bit slower with each mile, but I’m still moving along nicely. Rounding the corner at Thomas and Highland I dig in for the last quarter-mile and sprint up the steps to the house. I have to get a look at that clock.

Beer Run

New World 4mi

Running to the bar has its advantages. For one, it’s a one-way route which is always more satisfying because it gets you twice as far from home. It is almost exactly four miles from my house to New World. This makes for some nice easy calculations. By most accounts, runners burn about 100 calories per mile regardless of their pace. Up to a point, the increased effort of a faster pace is offset by the decrease in time it takes to run the mile. This means that when you arrive at New World after having run today’s route in whatever time it takes you, mine today was a perfect 40 minutes for a 10 minute/mile pace, you will have earned yourself a happy hour discount of approximately 400 calories. Coincidentally, a pint of Guinness is almost exactly 200 calories, so you can have two pints before they even start to count. And after running four miles in the heat, you’re not going to want much more than two pints.
New World has a large outdoor patio so you don’t have to be all self-conscious about being the sweaty guy at the bar. People might ask why you’re looking so sporty, but when you tell them that you’ve run over hill and dale on your journey from the village in the north they’ll be so impressed they might even buy you another pint. Pints that you didn’t pay for don’t count either.
This leads to the last point. The fact that you are running to the bar means that there is going to be someone there to pick you up and drive you home. Of course technically you still haven’t had anything to drink, but, just to be safe, let them chauffer you home and watch your forty minutes of struggle glide by in ten minutes of air-conditioned comfort.

Toilet Humor For The Dinner Table

Rogers/34th Street 7.75mi

A weeklong battle with what turned out to be bronchitis forced me to take a few days off from my training schedule. I finally went to the “doctor” and got a prescription for a new single dose antibiotic. I think this stuff basically irradiates your insides and only leaves the buildings. Without being too specific, I’ll just say that when I dropped the kids off at the pool they were all Caucasians. Frightening!
I managed to make it back from my illness in time for my long run. Lately I’ve been thinking about the socioeconomic profiles of the neighborhoods that I normally run in and I’ve realized that most of my routes are through middle to upper middleclass white neighborhoods. I played around a little with a GoogleMaps mashup that imbeds maps with US Census data, and I started looking around the area for neighborhoods of different ethnicities and incomes. With a general idea of the areas that I wanted to cover, I decided not to preplan my route. This allowed me to explore more freely based on what I saw, and I simply ran for the amount of time that I thought it would take me to cover the requisite seven miles.
I start out headed east towards Old Seminole Heights where I take a lap around Lake Roberta with the other evening joggers and the ducks before continuing east on Henry Street. I had noticed on the aerials that Henry is one of the few streets that crosses the railroad tracks east of 22nd Street, and it goes through a more diverse, and generally poorer, part of town.
I figure that at my slowest pace I’ll run a twelve-minute mile, so if I want to run seven miles I should run for 1hour and 24 minutes. If I run any faster, the extra mileage will just be a bonus.
As I move east on Henry, gradually the wooden privacy fences turn to chain link, and kids on bikes making ramps out of plywood and cinderblocks supplant the joggers and strollers. I haven’t eaten much today, and I start to notice the smell of food being prepared as it floats out onto the street. For whatever reason, I think that poorer families tend to eat dinner earlier. Blue-collar workers usually start and finish their shifts earlier than white-collar workers, and roofing just builds more of an appetite than web design. At six in the evening, this neighborhood is filled with the smells of barbeque and cornbread.
At 34th Street I turn towards the river and follow River Grove until it meets Willie Black Drive on its way to the Rogers Park Golf Course. Named for the prominent black business leader G.D. Rogers, in Tampa's days of segregation Rogers Park was the only city park where blacks were allowed to picnic and later, to golf. I have been wondering if there is a way through the golf course that crosses Rowlett Park Drive, but I haven’t been able to find anything obvious on the aerials. I follow the cart paths west over the first two holes and find a shortcut along the railroad tracks into the Hobo Jungle.
Following Park Circle back to the west reverses the socioeconomic progression of the first half of the run, and I think about the median incomes rising slightly with each step. The sun has begun to set, and in the fading light I’m forced to rely on my other senses. I move forward, guided by the sound of my footsteps on the road, the taste of salt on my shirt as I touch it to my face, the aches in my feet from a new pair of shoes, and again the enticing aroma of food. It’s as if I’m riding the crest of this olfactory wave, where the forces of economics, leisure, culture, and cuisine come together to produce a dinnertime node that moves forward at about eleven minutes per mile. The smoke of the barbeque grills has softened to become a roast in the oven followed by the distinct fragrance of garlic and onions sautéing in olive oil. I run on in the dark past women in kitchen windows and men smoking cigars on porches.
At home I can smell my own dinner as I walk past the house for a brief cool down, and I open the door to a room filled with chicken parmesan and Jan setting the table. I drop my sweaty clothes, wrap myself in a towel, and sit down, shirtless, to eat.

I Want The City, But I Want The Country Too

Wilderness Loop 15mi

There are at least three versions of every long run written before my pen ever touches the page. The first version is the pre-emptive narrative, written from above as I scan the aerials planning my next route. Some of the decisions made here are based largely on formal considerations. Curves are always better than straight lines, and smooth arcs and diagonals are always more elegant than stair-steps and zigzags. Shade, of course, is a must. Sometimes the route only reveals itself as I zoom out for a broader perspective, the tiny fissures of trails and the subtle color shift of changing vegetation suddenly coming into view. Patterns appear that beg to be circumscribed.
Of course there are requirements to be satisfied. So many miles on certain days. Areas of historical significance. Routes from home. Routes from work. And there are rules to follow.
Always run east first. In the morning the rising sun will light your way and the trees will keep it out of your eyes. As the sun gets higher and hotter, you will turn your back to it and run home. In the evening it will guide you home as it sinks below the western horizon.
I study the narrative to be recalled on the next day’s run. Here are the mile markers. Here are the names of unfamiliar streets. Here is a water fountain. A bathroom. The river.
Today’s run involved more reconnaissance than usual. I knew there was a trail connecting the Wilderness Parks of the northern Hillsborough, but I had no maps and no information on it. I’ve been reading a history of the river by Gloria Jahoda entitled “River of the Golden Ibis”. Her descriptions of this area in the days of Ponce De Leon and Hernando De Soto have pushed me to explore these northern sections of the river basin, which remain, in places, similar to the way the conquistadors found them almost five hundred years ago. I drove from park to park until finally at Flatwoods I found a photocopied flyer of the route with no scale or mile markers. The flyer said that the total length of the trail is 15 miles, but I later found some information online that showed the length to be anywhere between 17 and 20 miles. After having run the route I feel confidant that it is very close to 15 miles. A long 15 miles.
The second version of the days run is written on the trail. It is typically just a litany of complaints, punctuated by brief moments of discovery and even fear. The morning starts with a string of obstacles: oversleeping, disorganization, stomach troubles, and a dead battery in the van. By 8:00 am though I am at the trailhead, slathered in sunscreen and looking sporty in a new running outfit.
I start out running south from the Trout Creek Site along the raised levee road. The road is a good twenty feet above the surrounding landscape, but the tall pines on either side still provide a bit of shade in the low-angle morning light. After the first exposed mile, the trail ducks into the underbrush of palmettos and scrub oaks. A sandhill crane stands at the trail’s entrance to the woods, undisturbed by my passing.
The area to the east of Morris Bridge Road is a maze of trails and loops popular with mountain bikers, but the main trail is well marked and on this early weekday morning I have yet to see another human. The bugs have found me though. Twice I swat the sunglasses off of my head as I try to defend myself against the horseflies on my face.
As the trail turns north and heads back towards the river, it opens up and straightens out a bit. Either the bugs have subsided or I’ve started blocking them out.
At Morris Bridge Park, the trail parallels the road briefly, and I spot an enormous alligator sunning itself in the duckweed gathered at the base of the bridge. A mile further, bright bands of color move lazily across the trail in front of me, and I struggle to find a grade-school mnemonic in a memory bank now deprived of oxygen. “Red touch yellow kills a fellow.” Coral snake. That’s enough to bring me back to reality, and I scan the trail ahead intently. At a distance every root, tree branch, and vine becomes a coiled rattlesnake waiting to strike. A startled armadillo explodes from the dry leaves at the base of a nearby palmetto, and I decide that it’s time for a quick pee break because I’ve almost wet myself.
Around the two-hour mark, I realize that I’m running in a kind of fog. My head is just floating along, dragging my body and legs behind it like a jellyfish. The breeze is starting to give me a chill and it must be at least 85 degrees by now. I suck down one of the gel packs that I’ve brought, along with part of a Clif Bar. This perks me up a little bit, but as I wash down the sickening-sweet-cake-frosting taste of the gel pack, I take a hard pull on my drinking tube and realize that I’m out of water. This is when I start composing the opening lines for Version Two. “Everyone has a bad run sooner or later and today was just my turn…”
I’m well past the last water stop and there’s no way that I’m turning around. I slow my pace and increase the frequency of my walk breaks and soon I’m not feeling too bad. The last half hour consists of more walking than running and I still manage to finish in 2:57:00. I must have gone out way too fast, but the lack of accurate mile markers has made it hard to judge.
Back at the park I shower off, change clothes, and drink two of the best tasting sodas I’ve ever had. Hooray for 82 grams of sugar.
On the drive home, forces beyond my control bring the van to a stop in the mall parking lot where I hastily consume a large bacon cheeseburger at a brass-n-glass establishment. I sit reading “River of the Golden Ibis” while the waitress repeatedly refills my drink, and the final version of the day’s events starts to take shape. It takes a certain amount of time and distance to forget the agony of a fifteen-mile run, but as the mind and body start to replenish themselves the connections develop and I can see the banks of the river populated by the huts of Timucua and Calusa Indians long before the Seminoles came to this area. I imagine Ponce De Leon and De Soto dragging their murderous and ill-equipped vassals through the same hummocks and thickets that I’ve just emerged from. I can see them mired in the Green Swamp, headwaters of the Hillsborough, weighted down by their ridiculous armor, trying to float rafts of pigs through the dense undergrowth of the swamp. My brief loss of clarity pales in comparison as I imagine the Indians who led them to their eventual deaths, moving them ever north with the promise that the riches they sought were always just around the next bend in the river.

And The Rains Fall Soft Upon Your Fields

Epps/Lowry 4mi

I managed to procrastinate for long enough that I had to wear a headlamp for my morning run because the sun was setting.
I spend the first of four miles trying to zero in on my pace. I’m starting to get the feel for what different paces feel like in the 8-12 minute/mile range. Today I’m trying to break my ten-minute miles into smaller increments, judging which landmarks are a tenth of a mile ahead and checking my one-minute splits against them.
I round the corner on Hanlon and remember my idea for the water tower view map as it looms into view. With its new footlights it reminds me of the Mayan ruins at Uxmal lit up nightly for the tourists.
In the coming darkness of a post-football Sunday night my familiar route takes on a new feel. Three men sit on the bank by Andrew’s shop dipping their cane poles in the black, swirling water. A couple gazes across the river from their parked motorcycle, and a group of teenagers passes a joint around a picnic table.
I dance between the pools of yellow streetlight until I reach the park where the trail shrinks to the size of my headlamp’s faint glow, and I watch the reflections of the docks and houses slide by on the river’s slick surface to my left.
Crossing Sligh Avenue again, I take the shortcut trail through to Epps Park and think again about water balloon launchers in the trees. I marvel at how we were able to simultaneously break every single rule on the park’s “WARNING:” sign during this year’s New Years celebration. At night the park’s elevation changes seem more pronounced, and as I turn west onto a section of North Street devoid of streetlights, I kill my headlamp and run in the darkness, feeling my way up and out of the river’s pull as the pavement rises to meet each step.

Negative Splits

North UTBT 3mi

Another day on duty and another three-mile run on the UTBT. I start out at a nice easy pace, slowly opening up my stride as I go. My time at the turnaround is 15:40 and I’m feeling good, so I start to crank it up for the return trip. I finish the second half in 12:20. If I can maintain this pace for a 5k (we’ll see in October), I may actually shoot for a sub-four-hour marathon. But I’m not making any promises.

Big F*#&in' Rats

West/Epps 6.3mi

I hadn’t actually looked at my training calendar for awhile and I just assumed that this week’s long run would be 12 miles, but it turns out that last week’s goal was 11-12 miles (I ran 11) and this week begins the alternation between truly long runs (greater than 10 miles) and shorter recovery runs. So, this week's Tuesday goal is only 6 miles. Of course this would generally be considered good news, but I have come to enjoy the increase in distance each week, especially now that I've gotten myself into uncharted waters. Next week will put me into half marathon territory.
I ran a 6.3-mile route staying as close to the river as possible and, as always, running upstream first and letting the current carry me back. I don’t know why, but it just feels better this way.
In the evening I did some surfing around and found that my friend Stefanie had written a response/review of this site on her own blog page.

if you squint your eyes the air sounds like water
i've been reading my friend devon's blog about his training for a marathon in tampa and now all i can think about is the centro asturiano and naviera coffee. i have been away from tampa for nearly seven years and suddenly i am intoxicated by the thought of it. such exotically familiar surroundings. he writes in depth about the routes that he painstakingly maps out and i feel as though i was asleep for the ten years i lived there. his tampa is one i only saw glimpses of. mine is only a half-real dream. disjointed memories of another life. i miss the abandoned cigar factories. the now demolished tides motel on st. pete beach watching german films projected on bedsheets. falling asleep on the beach after talking all night to a guy with hair just like mine.i miss the late nights working in our lazy-criminal infested studio. i miss watching the guys making cuban bread at four in the morning in the bakery i visited at least three times a week and now can't remember the name of. i miss the heated debate about where we should have breakfast--three coins (spinach feta omelette) or niko's (the best and surliest waitresses). i miss working in a warehouse where the only air conditioning to be found was sticking your head in the sink. i miss throwing rocks at my friend steve's window only to find him throwing rocks at mine. i miss broom hockey in the painting studio and our experimental band we liked to call: a cooking egg. i miss the intense friendships that can only be formed through youth and oppressive humidity.i miss the first house i lived in with it's stucco walls and imbedded pieces of colored glass. the porch where we drank my questionable neighbor's seemingly generous gift of moonshine. my crazy landlord, a triplet from the cayman islands and her bumbling brother who broke everything he ever fixed. the bench imbedded in the river bank. the river. our constant attempts and plans to scale the sulphur springs water tower. the inexhaustable love i had for a boy who picked me up for our first date in a canoe.

I called Stef , who I hadn’t actually spoken to in a few years, and we spent a couple hours catching up on our current pursuits and interests, and talking about Running Through Tampa. She said she felt like it was her little secret that she revealed to a select, and mostly disinterested, few, and that she had started limiting herself to reading my posts on the weekends so that she wouldn’t be disappointed if I only had one entry for the week. I was touched that there was even one person out there anxiously awaiting the next dispatch and amused that she was secreting them away like the chocolate bar that Jan hides in the refrigerator for when things get really bad.
Part of what struck me about Stef’s comments was the importance of the histories that we had created for these places ourselves, and the indelible impressions that they had left on us both. Historical research helps to fill out the body of images and memories that we have of these places, but it is the history of our own making that brings them to life.
So I return to a memory map of the river. My earliest memory involving the river is of my family launching water balloons across to the west bank from Epps Park, when my aunt lived in the now infamous North Street compound. The keys to these houses have passed through the hands of countless artists, musicians, and general misfits over the last thirty years or so. It seems like everyone in Tampa knows someone who has lived in one of these houses, and volumes could be written solely on their occupants over the years. My aunt worked in a lab and would bring home long sections of surgical tubing which we would tie between two trees with a funnel in the center. These devices were capable of launching a waterballoon clear across the river and could be used to knock revelers off of their homemade rafts during the Hillsborough River Rat Race.
Another random image: night kayaking from Ed’s house to the water tower with Mark and Kim. On the way back, in the spirit of exploration, I suggest to Mark that we paddle our kayaks up the drainage culvert beneath the Nebraska Avenue Bridge. I think we can fit if we just duck forward and paddle with our hands.
“What are you nuts?” Mark asks. “That thing’s full of rats.”
“How can there be any rats?” I say. “There’s no land in there.”
One of the quickest wits I’ve ever known, Mark turns me around mid-stroke with his curt reply. “There will be when you go in.”

What Can I Say?

Epps/Lowry 4mi

I took a slightly modified route through Lowry Park and tried to maintain a nice brisk (for me) pace. My time at the three-mile mark was 27:00. I had to slow down some for the last mile to catch my breath and I took some extra walk breaks, but overall I felt pretty good. Today it was the lungs that couldn’t hang with the legs.
I have to say that recently I’ve had a harder time keeping up with the writing that this project involves. This could just be laziness, but I think there may be a bit of writer’s block at work as well. The vasculature of my thoughts is not one hundred percent occluded, but it may be just a little sclerotic. Part of the problem, I think, has to do with my reading list. When I started this project, I was reading material that provided a constant source of ideas and inspiration about history, cartography, memory, etc. Lately I haven’t been reading as much, and some of the connections that I was able to make easily before have been a little harder to get to on my own.
There are several streams of thought that come and go through these runs, tributaries to the main current of ideas that often go nowhere. I’ve been thinking of running mock disaster scenarios to see what Tampa would look like under varying levels of storm surge, and I’ve been pre-occupied with zones of influence, visualizing a map of the areas in Tampa that have a view of the Sulphur Springs water tower. I want to see a map of the most flood prone areas of the city overlaid with the per capita concentration of Hummer ownership.

'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy

UTBT/Gardner 4.1mi

I missed another training session on Friday, so I traded out my cross training day and decided to run this morning. The sun is coming up a little later these days and the start of my run is pretty dark, but the solitude is nice, if not a little spooky at times. My training run pace has been slowly increasing, and I seem to be maintaining a 10-11 minute mile pretty comfortably on a run of this length.
My headlamp is having trouble penetrating the darkness, and as the sun comes up I can see that there is a thick blanket of fog creating an artificial horizon where it hangs about four feet over the trail. I plug along with my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds, a disembodied pair of legs to the passers-by.
Since the Castles Made of Sand Run on Tuesday, I’ve had an insatiable appetite for Jimi Hendrix. That afternoon I stopped at the record store and bought a couple of Hendrix cd’s that I must have lost years ago. Actually, the original copies that I had were on vinyl and they weren’t in the best of shape. Listening to my new copy of “Are You Experienced?” in the van, I realize that the version of “Purple Haze” that has been playing in my head for the last fifteen or twenty years has been permanently altered by my Uncle Steve.
As a kid, Uncle Steve was my hero. He was a sort of William Hurt-esque record producer in Nashville who claimed to have hung out and shot heroin with the likes of Jimi and Janis. He had also been the voice of Jesus for a version of the Bible on tape. Man, talk about track marks.
As young aspiring musicians, my brothers and I were always eager to impress Steve with our knowledge and interest in all things musical. On one of Steve’s trips to Florida, after what had probably been quite a few beers on his part, we all ended up in the “guy’s room” listening to records. Steve sat on the edge of a bunk bed smoking Buglers and listening patiently as we showed off our record collection. In the middle of “Are You Experienced?” Side One, Steve just reaches over and stubs his cigarette out on the record. In the middle of a song.
We just sat there aghast. Maybe it was just a mistake, but now I think this was Steve's drunken way of showing us that his connection to this music was so much deeper than ours would ever be. His relationship to it was so close that he could even commit acts of violence against it. Besides, the Columbia Record and Tape Club would send us another one for just a penny.
I can imagine myself now, not much younger than Steve was then, listening to a Minor Threat album that my nephew has “discovered”. Or, better yet, Nirvana. I’d put a cigarette out on that for sure. Right in the middle of the Ipod’s scroll wheel.
Anyhow, Steve succeeded in editing out the entire second verse of the song and that’s the way that it stayed until I finally lost the record years later. At first, the skips were infuriating because they obliterated a part of the song that I knew was in there somewhere, but over time that verse just stopped existing for me and I came to love the record for what it was. Or, rather, for what it had become: my own unique version of “Purple Haze”. I’ve listened to that record so many times now that I could notate the rhythm of the skips from memory.
Steve’s version of “Purple Haze” became even more important to me than Hendrix’s. He left a mark on that record that forever changed my perspective of something that I thought I knew, and I’m richer for it.
That’s how you make a map. Scratch your temporal existence on the infinite.

Castles Made Of Sand

Davis Island 11mi

View Interactive Map

I got a bit lazy with my route planning, but I remembered that I had a preprinted map of an 11-mile route on Davis Island that I had picked up at the downtown YMCA. This route is like a fractal variation of last week’s run, eliminating the final stretch downtown, and following the coast in greater detail to achieve the additional mileage.
Parking the van in a spot near the Y, I realize that I only have enough quarters to put two hours on the meter. Luckily, I know the mileposts by now and I can gauge my splits pretty well, but I’ll have to run a record long run pace to be back in time. The threat of a $25 ticket waiting for me when I get back proves to be a great motivator.
I run the route clockwise this time and I’m off of the exposed sections on the eastern shore before the sun gets high enough overhead to be a real nuisance. Along the coast, it seems that this entire island is under construction. This is a perfect place for a runner with stomach problems as there is a Port-O-Let every 200 yards. Today I’m in too much of a hurry to make use of them, but last week I was glad they were there.
I’m thinking about New Orleans and the change of perspective caused by rising floodwaters. My image of this island is shaped more by aerial photos than by street level views. I look at the blue-glazed ceramic tile roofs and wonder if I could pick them out on the aerial photos. The majority of people in New Orleans had an image of their city that was shaped by their mostly street level, pedestrian experience. Now their city is a series of rooftops in the Gulf of Mexico. I read that many of the first responders from other parts of the country were having difficulty finding their way around this unfamiliar city, but I would bet that many long-term residents had trouble adjusting to the sudden shift in their vantage point. What would our cities look like viewed in horizontal cross sections of 4, 6, or 10 feet of elevation? When we were hiking in Washington State, Jan and I crossed through several old avalanche zones where all of the trees had been broken off at the same height, now thirty feet above our heads. I remember standing on the trail in the ninety-degree heat, trying to imagine being in the same place at a different time, a snowfield littered with downed trees, oblivious to what lay beneath my feet.
Davis Island is a man-made dredge mound that sits in the delta of the Hillsborough River where it empties into Hillsborough Bay. If the river is our Mississippi, then this is our New Orleans, without the music, food, history, or culture. In contrast to New Orleans, here the wealthiest residents live along the coast in the island’s most flood-prone regions, perfectly poised to absorb any storm surge pushed ahead of an advancing hurricane and magnified by the constriction of the bay at this point. These people have cars though, lots of them, and they can navigate freely through the x and y of these maps we have formed, but it is only their yachts in the marina that will navigate the vertical axis of the rising tide. They will hold their positions long after the stinger-like tail of the island’s southern tip has disappeared beneath the waves.
I’m into the last mile and it looks like I can make it back in time if I don’t take any more walk breaks. Climbing the slight rise of the Platt Street Bridge, I tell myself to remember this pain. My lungs are burning and my legs are like sand bags, but I know that I’ll forget as soon as I can catch my breath. I dig in for the last quarter-mile, and my breathing is truly labored for the first time today. I cross Franklin Street at Brorein and make it to the van just in time to see the meter start flashing, “Expired”.

Training Pants

North UTBT 3mi

Seen in the light of day, my training missteps seem almost laughable sometimes. Yesterday’s sequence was as follows:
0800 alarm clock goes off, consider going to gym for cross training
0800-1000 battle with snooze button, reset alarm, reschedule training for afternoon
1300-1500 rehearse with band for evening performance, finish in time for gym
1530 succumb to urge for nap
1730 wake from nap, cancel cross training
1900 go to club for set-up
2030-2130 perform, drink beer
2200 consume large plate of barbeque chicken with baked beans, coleslaw, garlic bread
2330 sleep
0515 wake
0545 double espresso
0615 run
0625 “I don’t feel so good”
0635 walk remainder of route, concentrate on maintaining control to avoid Greta Weitz impression.

Down The Middle

Ola/YMCA 4.5mi

The run from my house to the Fort Brooke YMCA is becoming more familiar, and I can tell that my body is adjusting to the distance. What felt like a long run just a few weeks ago now truly feels like a short training run. It actually has gotten shorter because my pace is slowly improving as well.
From an aerial perspective, I like this route because it is direct. The mapped route runs due south most of the way, only taking a few jogs to the East to find the finish. The stretch along Ola is shady and traffic is sparse, allowing me to run in my favorite part of the road. Like my grandfather used to say, “Everybody is entitled to their half of the road – I like mine in the middle.”
I can feel that I’ve got a decent pace going without overdoing it. This pace would still be considered “conversational” if there were someone here for me to talk to. Thankfully, there is not.
In the last week or so the weather has begun a subtle shift away from the doldrums of summer. The temperatures haven’t really fallen any, but the humidity has broken, and suddenly I can feel that there may be an end to this heat. It’s this hope precisely that makes September the hottest month in Florida. After five months of summer, it just seems right that September should be the end, but it’s not and it never is. We could represent this cycle as “The Map of Experienced, Perceived, and Expected Temperature for Tampa, Florida.” The intersection of these three metrics defines “The Zone of Disappointment.”
Today though, the hope for new beginnings is palpable, and the feeling literally puts a little more spring in my step (and I mean ‘literally’ in the literal sense that my legs actually feel better, not in the figurative sense that the word ‘literally’ is usually used.) For the last half-mile or so, I stretch out and work on impressing the office workers on Franklin Street, checking my form in the windows as I pass.

If Less Is More Then None Is Best

Davis Islands 10mi

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I know, it’s been awhile. Today was supposed to be a rest day, but I blew off my long run yesterday and I had to make it up. I didn’t train over the weekend and all I have to offer for this is excuses. In the words of David Mamet (by way of Al Pacino), “Your excuses are your own.”
After a four-day hiatus, my legs feel great and I’m starting to think that maybe I had been overdoing it a bit. I start out from the downtown YMCA and follow the first ten miles of the Gasparilla Marathon course through Davis Islands and downtown.
As soon as I’m off of Davis Islands’ main drag, the morning traffic dies down and I run comfortably in the oncoming lane, avoiding the sidewalks as much as possible. Most of the western shore of the island is clogged with monstrous faux haciendas and starter castles, so the water views are hard to come by, but I’m enjoying the quiet of these empty streets and the cool air under overcast skies. At the island’s southern tip, I run past the airport towards the turnaround point at the yacht club. Here the view opens up and I watch the cranes and barges at work across the channel, their running lights still on in the cloudy morning twilight. I’m listening to the sound of my breathing, my footsteps on the asphalt, and the persistent clang of rigging against the masts of the sailboats at anchor in the harbor.
“Do you know how far it is from the yacht club to the roundabout,” an elderly woman asks me as I circle back past the airport. “I have no idea,” I tell her “I’m just running around aimlessly,” and I realize I must be feeling pretty good. I don’t know where any of the mile markers are and, for once, I don’t really care.