Life (Well, 2 Weeks) Sans Uni

We're halfway thru our stay in Martha's Vineyard, and tho we're having fun, I'm still sore about leaving behind all of my unicycles.

Literally sore.

Today we missed the hourly beach bus by two minutes. Knowing that it's only a few miles from our hotel, I decided to run to the car so that I could come back for the rest of the family. The run took me 18 minutes and turned out to be a bit over 3 miles. I guess that means I ran 10 mph. The road was fairly flat, with a few soft up- and down-hills, and was asphalt the whole way. I was running, sockless, in the Keen's sandals that I'd brought to the beach. When I got to the car, my legs were sore and the ball of my right foot was heading for a blister.

The last time my legs felt like this was after I'd run down Masada. That's the natural fortress in Israel where my early ancestors defended themselves from a Roman siege for two years before finally committing suicide to avoid slavery. Shirra and I visited the spot with my mom's friends Yakov and Alma about 12 years ago, and despite their invitation to take the tram car up and back, we decided to hike up. It's about 30-60 minutes' trek, depending on your fitness and how well you deal with the blazing sun. Because our friends didn't wake up in time, we arrived not at 9 am, as planned, but at noon, when it was 115°. After viewing the site for a couple hours, Yakov and Alma had had enough and took the return tram, along with Shirra. But I chose to time myself as I ran down the rocky, winding path of the mountain. I made it down in 9 minutes and hopped right into Yakov's highly air-conditioned car. There wasn't much legroom, so my gams stayed in a fixed posish for the two-hour ride back to Jerusalem. The next morning, my leg muscles were so tight that Shirra had to push me out of bed. I spent the rest of that day slowly regaining movement and thinking about the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz.

Last year I drove us to this same beach (the Lucy Vincent, for which our hotel no longer has a pass), but I had my unicycle. It's an easy ride to the beach and back...but not an easy run.