Two running narratives. . . legs & language.

1.6.11

Thursday morning at Carolina Beach State Park, a gray coolness, a faint sun, hidden & dull behind clouds; a winter run on a winter day.
Ky and Kas left and I finished my coffee and a muffin.  Pulling into shorts and a warm top, I plugged in some Antibalas and faded into a strange sadness while driving to the park, a heavy gravity that I can only correlate to a family member’s surgery (achilles tendonitis). . . . maybe the winter funk that ebbs and flows like a collective melancholy is to blame.
The park was quiet in a flat lusterless light as clouds rolled in on cooler temperatures.  Rare sun moments layered the winterscape on mostly empty trails as my legs pumped across the blue blaze that connects the main office with Sugarloaf Trail. The sand was thick with strong, wet grips yanking at my shoes, shins splashed in cold mud as I stomped through puddles collected from the earlier rain.   The mood and conditions were challenging the very idea of the run.  The trees seemed dwarfed, brittle, elderly, hanging in the air like black smoke burning off of the ashen coals of the exposed sand. An inevitable eventuality, the state of the trees.  Eventually, slowly, my legs loosened and my eyes relaxed into the landscape.  An interesting pale, spongy moss sprouted along the side of the path, and looked for evidence of pitcher plants or venus fly traps (which I believe are warm-weather perennials). My ears zoned into the morning stillness and the cool air sizzled in my lungs and face.  A few dead ends forced abrupt turnarounds, but I allowed myself to run in new directions and follow sand roads and unmarked trails, trying to experience something organic, unmeasured, wild.   Something fresh and open, like a moving satori.  But mostly I found myself running, just running, the hoof-digs pulsing against strained breath, thoughts dispersed and fractured.  Sugarloaf was a nice reprieve though something nostalgic filtered the landscape, remembering states passed in which I viewed that landscape.  The sand mountain.  The poetic dynamics in the act of Erosion.  I looped the trail a couple more times to add up to seven miles, hitting no brilliant times nor any exceptional insights.  Ultimately, just a run, the work of the run, and sometimes that’s enough, and sometimes it is not.

1.7.11

A run at the beach. . . . today was a good run at the coast, returning to one of my favorite seven mile out-and-backs, from Landfall to the Loop including Summer Rest Trail on both legs.  I ran with my lungs open and my mind reeling, avoiding pace concerns, avoiding expectations, and trying to be engaged in my run.  Few people were out on the sidewalks and roads, though Starbucks was packed with folks. WB park was vacant. Two ducks were busy searching for fish, diving beneath the bridges, and they were amusing and serious.  Pelicans pushed heavy beaks into the wind above a choppy ocean chewing the shore.  A moment of sadness descended as I passed the shell of the retirement home, recently closed, along Summer Rest road.  The sun brightened as I sprinted my way to end the 52 minute run at a 7.2 minute pace before a two mile walk with my very grateful dog and some GlobeTrekker on public television.

What was I doing one year ago?  I was starting this blog.

Lung Distance Logs IV e Feliz Ano Nuevo 2011.

A 39 mile week ended 2010, and a wonderful week of running it was.  The sum of total miles for 2010 is lost somewhere in my journal, the thread of addition lost and never replaced, but ten months of running put the last count (in early November) at 1233 miles.  Six weeks of Spring/Early Summer were lost to patellafemoral pain and funk, but most of the year was healthy.  ~1450 miles is an honest estimate for the year's total, and a proud personal accomplishment.

Poverty, Richness and 2011.

The first day of 2011 passed across the pine-needled trails of Poplar Grove Nature Preserve, four miles of joyful smooth running.  After a slammed week of work, with late nights and complex schedules, the noise of holidays, rampant consumer binges, heightened stress and lowered rest, the trails brought spiritual nourishment, brought the freedom and quietude to a still synergy.  The lake was still, fracturing the reflections of winter trees with delicate touches on the surface.  The trail ran easy, my forefeet, ankles and knees, thighs and then the hips finding a good pace-play.  A few sprints peppered the legs and opened the faucets.  A family and a few couples hiked around, dogs lulling behind, and there were two runners talking as they passed.  But most of the run found me alone with my pace, my breath, the vast fields rolling towards the sand dune coast, and a prayer of Gratitude along the clay and grass.  Nothing otherwise to note, except how fully synched Marley’s “Hammer” seemed when I returned to the car.


Sunday the Second was my long run at 15 miles.  The alarm vibrated my pillow at 6h11am and my wife breathed deeply beside.  My legs were curled into my abdomen, a strange sleeping pose, the residual imagery of a dream falling away from my mind, and I lifted my body.  The total act of movement via hips, stomach, shoulders, was like a series of pulleys, with muscles counteracting, such as a crane's motion against a heavy wrecking ball.  Eventually I pulled up my weight.  The coffee was brewed, a cherry yogurt ingested, a Gatorade was mixed, and I pulled on shorts and a brand new singlet for the unseasonably warm morning, tightened my laces.  By 6h55am I was latching back my fence and humming Marley, trying to keep a mellow pace for distance, aiming to hit the sunrise somewhere near the water.

Darkness yielded to fog, which dominated the landscape as I approached the coast, about four miles into the run.  The sunrise was more of a gentle waking of the land, a radiance expanding across the fog and earth.  I turned up Wrightsville and crossed onto Airlie, the prettiest part of the journey with manicured gardens, open fields, red barns and ancient trees.  Airlie was sfumato, suffused by the heavy air, and neither the horses nor their meadows were visible.  Grand oaks reached like burnt bone over the narrow, empty road, their gnarled limbs powering majestic and stark into the fog. An easy drift of thought, a language-sketch of the terrain, continued until I turned the sharp corner into the ICW.  The misted light fell shallow on the glassed waterway, elevated boats caught flattened light on their sides; short piers jutted into the silver intracoastal like terse, poetic afterthoughts. It was a clean and fascinatingly new landscape.

Somewhere around this area was a group of runners, the Wilmington Road Runners, meeting for a group run. I never saw the mass collecting on the road and couldn't remember the address of the meeting, and my hopes of merging with them failed.  Also, I was wearing down, too self-conscious.  Some of the best talent of our area runs with the WRRC, and I am not an impressive runner on any level.  So I crossed the bridge, continuing into the quiet beach morning, and pushed down the bike track onto the coast.  My breath harmonized with the ocean, her choppy white froth, respiring wheezily into the fog.  No surfers, no other pedestrians were visible.  The beach was a milk-wash of fog.  My mind was operating independently of my body, homeostasis like a glide, giving a stream-of-consciousness prayer for the blessings of 2010.  At Johnny Mercer's Pier I pulled back into the loop towards home.  Soon came a mass of runners in three formations, curling off of a side road onto Eastwood, and it was the WRRC, heading the opposite direction and looking fresh as daisies.  Horses galloping.  For a moment I felt pride at sharing the Sunday morning road with these runners, and I kicked as best I could, avoiding narrowly a collision with a few of them who had their heads tucked. The fog was clearing to a strong warm sun, and I finished my run with an okay pace and a positive spirit.

Views of ICW from Airlie Road ~8am.

2012 and 100k and the aleph.

i.  a series of loops, like a 100k.  

The body, the mind, the soul, the collective operates in cycles, layers of cycles, cycles of cycles. . . a World of habit and rhythm. And, most days, I mosh into that patterned existence with a heave/ho and a belief that my labor matters. a faith preserves & propagates further effort.  a momentum drives the body forward. Be it stillness or movement, the body internalizes habit, learns and adapts, becomes its routine.  thus, the running shoes, a notebook, a dose of music, a few starchy strides down a trail before the loosening.

sometimes, the collapse. The sag, the lag, the lull.  and for now, i feel tired.  enter the taper period of the weymouth woods 100k.  extra sugar in my coffee, a gravity on my bones, a brood.

i operate best by instinct and momentum.  i train (run, paint, write) to build a collaboration of instinct and momentum, and by repetition i sharpen my instinct and strengthen my base.  i progress towards an efficient exertion (whether in paint or language or trail). the body is a momentum, subject to itself, a god-form, a sovereign diety. when the run feels natural, when a mark falls easily, a zen inkbrush moment, when effort is impulse and reward, then you have the core of the work down.  then, you have the alignment. its an aleph of existence when a body cuts through the woods in its own strength, a communion between a runner and the earth, a primitive dance, the pursuit of a new language, a mark. 

To be present in the body's habits, to move as life moves, elusive and calligraphic, and to be engaged- even in routine- is the trick. 2011 was a fine year, thus 2012 begins with the same ideas: to get up, check my head, kick some miles, slow the angst, boil out some pigments and language and nurture the belief that the acts of life, as a continuum, as a narrative, will one day prove to be a coherent form. Otherwise, the vacuum of an existential conundrum: nothing but vast, void inquiry. pernod and cigarette whisps across sartre's nauseau.  i need action:  distillation of act, a distillation by Act.

it is really only when i succumb to easy running, complacency, the Glaze, that i bust my ass on a trail.  if i am tired, but conscious, i slow down to allow for sluggish footwork.  but if i am mindlessly milling, eventually, the ground will steal a kiss.  this has happened several times in the previous month to teach me valuable presence of mind.  it normally follows the thought, "i am running well today."  concentrate on the trail and the body will follow; concentrate on the body and you lose the meaning.   

Kicking. A word of several meanings (maybe) but I can really only focus on two. Kicking in street terms is derived from the involuntary flinches of the legs that comes from a narcotic withdrawal. The leg muscles cramp and ache severely, causing a kicking reflex. The stomach muscles and the heart muscles also constrict and spasm- all the muscles of the body revolt, a horror-bask. the gruel.
the other use of the word is running. Running is a cleansing act. A meditation in movement, a transcendental thrust, time that forces the mind into a nexus of awareness and response, faith and function. Running forces the coordination of mind and body, a belief in their collective aptitude.
running a trail is an act of self-confidence and faith and fitness, all conspiring through a funnel of physicality. 

much libido in the early miles-- craving followed by satiation-- there was massive drive and the knowledge of body, exploratory burn, the capture of touch, layers of mouth and breath, fever, primal moutheyes, hunter ears, heat of pulse, gravity, a soul cascades through a body, an eternal hush, the final limp comfort.
there was a newness of flesh and a celebration thereof. 
in truth, sexiness falls from later miles.  peels back like chafe.  libido devours its own suffering minutea and digests it towards a solitary echo, a vague thought.   the sex longs but there is no more body.
it is a common theme.

ii.

To completely reinvent myself.. . . the refashioning might include a buell motorcycle, a glock sidearm, and a wolf named wittgenstein. maybe an obsession with old coins and the alamo. i would register my own constellations.  i would consider the weight of a pillow, how it affects a dream.  i would grow a rat tail.  i would not bother running trails in sub-30 degree weather. i would find the absurdity in running 100k on a trail sufficient to avoid such an endeavor. i would meanwhile cruise on my steel horse and laugh into the wind and chase bears with wittgenstein, referring to the capture and wrestle as a tautological process.

But as it stands, ten days out from my longest race ever, the weymouth woods 100k trail run confronts a dull, tired, flat-minded runner that has little concept of the new year beyond that trail race. the miles have collected like cataracts across my eyes.

iii.  the present.

training eases into a taper. a full taper is not my body's deal: lethargia stones me if i completely stop running. so the runs shorten, slow a bit, switch to nontechnical surfaces, a way to push blood around the legs, keep the momentum of movement in the muscle.  pedaling the surly through a january afternoon becomes a primary exercise, a pleasurable break.
meanwhile, the mind accelerates into doubt, arrogance.  but little more preparation can be accomplished.  it is meat and bone and the results of the conditioning. taper is an easy time and a hard time.

What the body has on race day is the question, the big culmination. marley, wyclef, culture, kronos, dead kennedys, rage, schubert, bach, goat rodeo. nutrition is settled to include gels, fruit, electrolyte beverages, pb&j, protein bars, trail mix. Coffee. things are in place.  i have envisioned later miles, new world miles, and tried to adjust my head for them.  i have a spotlight and a pair of tights.
i have considered tom simpson. 
For now, I am tired and watching kyote play with trains and flash cards.  its 10 in the morning.  the cycle must be free to move, must be free to layer and build and burn.  the act must remain pure, must have weight, ground & gravity, like a painted figure, like a late beethoven fugue, like a passion. there will be myth and collapse and renaissance. a self-devouring.  for me, weymouth is more than a physical run, its a mental/spiritual process.

Flashback to Helen, GA: the Hofbrauhaus Restaurant.

Helen is a strange, picturesque town of German design in the Georgia foothills.  The Chattahoochee river like the Rhine bisects the town, pushing a Bavarian-styled Huddle House against tubing outfitters and Rhineland package stores.  Beyond this charming/cheesy tourist vacuum, at the other end of things, is a restaurant/inn called the Hofbrauhaus.  It is here that we ate.
Bar staccato and smoke are the opening impressions of the Hofbrauhaus. A tight-wound staircase ascends from the atrium to the guest rooms, with the restaurant opening straight ahead.  A brooding, wooden interior muffles the proprietress’s greeting, who studies us behind a large registrar book.  She chews the German language with my family as she leads us to our table.  The dining room feels like a hunting lodge, the scenic Chattahoochee river pushing down the mountain in the surrounding windows.
The menu is in German coupled with quipy English translations, and there is much schnitzel and braten and schwein, with some chicken dishes and a local trout.  We opened with pommes frites and found, well, french fries, not much different than those in your freezer, served with Heinz ketchup. Next was a camembert appetizer, arriving in a large foil-wrap with toasts. The rinded, creamy cheese was warm beneath carrots, haricot verts, carmalized onions, apple slices and nuts.  Easily trumping the pommes frites, the baked cheese was a beautiful opener.
My entree was the sauerbraten, a beef round roast served in a brown gravy of buttery beef-consumme, thick with the nuttiness of rue.  A raspberry jam, as juxtaposed as Helen GA herself, puddled in the gravy with two generous potato dumplings. A plate of red cabbage sauerkraut glinted a fermented beet-sweetness to complement the meat. My dish felt authentic, felt like a working-class German meal on that thick, ceramic, farm-buffet plate.
My wife enjoyed her pork tenderloin, and her spaetzles had a wonderful toothy texture that absorbed well the mushroom gravy.  My father-in-law got the jager schnitzel, which he enjoyed while reflecting on his years in Germany.  He and my wife clinked great goblets of heffeweisen beer.  My mother-in-law had some anemic chicken breast, easily the least appealing dish on our table.  A butter-wine gravy tinted the chicken, but there was not much she seemed to enjoy on the dish.  Nor was she impressed with her schorle, a reisling spritzed with soda water.
Dessert, however, was scrumptious.  We shared a cold highball of thick vanilla ice cream layered with raspberries.  The apple strudel was charmed with a conservative sweetness, a delicate balance of smooth cream against firm apples. The coffee was as dark and aromatic as the dining room. 
Service was briefly apologetic to my mother-in-law over the schorle before bringing more seltzer water.  Mixing a light drink is anti-intuitive, unnatural to a restaurateur, especially at the prices Hofbrauhaus charges.  The proprietress lapped our table twice, giving a history of Helen. Unfortunately the spiel was in German and thus lost on me, but I preferred listening to the crackly, trebled recordings of Wagner, Beethoven’s ninth, and German drinking songs.
Overall, the restaurant presented decent, hearty food.  But it served German peasant fare at the prices of refined food.  In fact, the whole town seems to snarl at tourists while simultaneously greeting them, mocking the passer-bys with high prices on anything from parking to food. Economic panthers. The kicker, and the ultimate downturn of events, was that our server included a gratuity on the check, failing to disclose this information.  I found that gesture to be a direct deception, and I read other complaints about this very thing. If you find yourself in Helen Ga, Hofbrauhaus is probably the best option for a German meal, but be prepared to pay more than you should, and watch for an included gratuity.

Snow-tide and such, December wrap-up.

December 23. Arctic Monkeys, a great band, and a name conjuring an image worthy of today's winter weather, my run through it. Thoughts on the Gator Run 50k exude an excitement approaching inspiration, the wild energy harnessed by furtive preparations. Research on endurance nutrition introduces new foods, synthetic-type non-foods including gels and chews, and "super-foods" such as quinoa (and, perhaps, fig newtons?), while daily running reinforces mental fortitude and physical durability, work and work.  Solitary self-studies reflect of the nuances of posture, generate private mantras against pain management and towards the continuing (basic, rudimentary) leg-labors of miles, the muscle-boils of intrepid determination.   I make lists of reasons why I should finish a 50k, hoping they will be there when I am struggling in my own private hell.  Much of the real preparation is accepting that 31 miles is ticked off one mile at a time, and there is no magic chariot, neither genetic nor chemical nor Zen/Tao mindfulness, that will push me through the six 5.2 mile loops other than my own body and will.

Meanwhile, a simple 7 miler has become something of an ordeal through a bout of illness, and maybe a touch of Christmas lethargia. Despite the drag of mind and body, the miles accumulate, against the viral laryngitis and bronchitis cursing the first half of my week, in fact sending me to the Medac on Tuesday morning. Against the delirium of holidays, the anxieties of Being, the punishments of Life, the curse of melancholy and false inspirations and dry paint brushes and impatient two-year olds and lost thoughts and vapid ambitions and the settling of debris into something called Existence, the miles accumulate. A goal of running 31 miles is the soul-glue at this moment, at this juncture, coupled with the pleasure of the Christmas season with my family.  But the work remains the steady metronome of routine I crave.

December 26th. A literary mania has moshed through my home, leaving a storm of books. (Sometimes reading is the best medicine against writer’s block.) A funny read is Sh*t My Dad Says. Dostoevsky’s Notes continue, interrupted by a Christmas gift, John L. Parker’s Once A Runner. . . . A graphic novel, DareDevil Noir, was my fun read for the past week. I would especially recommend Sh*t.  Lastly, a book on Rodin commands study and awe, the maddest 3-d artist since Michelangelo, and his polished marble torsos are contrasted against his vicious ink-slung figure drawings.

And now a run, or rather, the documenting of one.

The snow fell through my morning’s 8 miler, fell in fact from the coffee pot's first stirrings at 7am, two cups before I entered the window's surreal theater of dizzying ice-crystals and snow flakes, before those snowflakes shocked eyelids and tongue, before the melodic beat of sleet on wind-jacket, before the softened jam of soggy shoes. In rare moments of good running, I could have counted the many snowflakes on my eyelids in their tiny coldness, my legs running but my mind searching out the meditative silence in the muffled, dazzling air.   The snow was wonderful, the clean air was invigorating. Snow is a rare delight on the Eastern coast, but the run remained, as has been the case recently, more of a wading-push of legs, a thick-blooded trudge, Roadside puddles soaked my shoes and socks within a mile, forcing me onto asphalt, my legs protesting with dread through the concussions.  Quietly I traversed the neighborhoods into the deserted Ogden Park. But a snow-run was a pleasant mind-drift, at least in the middle four miles and certainly afterwards,  fixing a quesodilla for my son who ate voraciously for the first time in a couple of days. I watched him eat, watched him wipe buttery fingers on his shirt between bites of quesodilla, and I sipped French Roast coffee with extra sugar and cream while snacking on a peppermint-chocolate pretzel. Pandora radio played some early punk and the clatter of typing becomes a percussive accompaniment and the rest is delicious, luscious, lush, and my world refocuses.

A Winter Solstice howl or hymn.

Deccember 21st. Winter Solstice of 2010. The longest night of the year, the darkest night of the year (sounds like a Lord Byron line.)

The previous three weeks of running have been solid, even with unusually cold conditions on the coast. But as life does, a series of good runs becomes viral laryngitis and bronchitis, becomes the first shift of the year missed due to sickness, becomes ennui and gluttony and then sweet easy hours. Dr. Sparr declared that Sunday’s fourteen miler, kicking into the windy cold coast and back into sun-dry air, wore my body down, that two or three days out of the running cycle could be a good idea, that running was a love of his before two knee-replacements, and that he missed it. But seeing my wariness, he amended his advice to trying a slow, short run, keeping careful attentions to my body’s response, eventually submitting a reluctant “You’ll know.” But knowing he spent much more money on an education than me, I moved on to other interests, a thing easy to do as I’ve been reclaiming my mania recently, my attentions pushing me to an easy zealousness for damn near anything. First, I convinced my wife to let me join her on her day off. Our indulgences began with a delicious meal at Flaming Amy’s where I applied my theory of spice-hot food aiding the body’s immune system. I then accompanied her to the mall, falling into the Christmas frenzy, spraying Yves Saint Laurent and Dior on small white cards and sniffing coffee beans between studying fashions she may enjoy and suits I could wear, casually and everyday-refined. Everything smelled woody, like dry wood, moth’s wings, the powder of moth’s wings. Fragrances which were normally oiled or sweet like heated cedar permeated old hair; cotton smelled of a beery hay; handmade wallets were distorted through my olfactory disarray from musk and leather to something else entirely, like a sulfuric match kissing off. Wandering through myriad ties and dress shirts, I thought of getting my two suits dry-cleaned. Cell phones rang in spontaneous cacophony. Pretzels baffled me with a certain admiration of invention. Gift sets stacked like a marvel of architecture. It was then a good friend suddenly appeared, said hello, a moment of recognition, and I was immediately There, acutely aware of my presence at the mall, and self-conscious, a mottled wreck. My hair was heavy with the oil of uneasy sleep, the fevercloud of my body’s expulsions towards wellness; eyes were heavy and brooding, pthalo shades of dehydration beneath; my lungs were busy pulling air through the filaments of space remaining in my nose, and my voice sounded like a phonograph recording of Custard’s last stand. So the Mall adventure ended with me feeling sick and dirty, delirious.

Home was warm and the sunset was flooding rich cadmium spectrums against the cotton-wad sky, and winter’s first night was swelling from the East. Winter had come as official as a calender. As official as Dr. Sparr’s prognosis.  Sweeps of raw red slashed windswept clouds as purple drapes fell in the background, deepening to bone-black and carbon-black, flecks of silver, settling ash.

In the night is the luxury to be sick. One succumbs to sputtering coughs, heavy head mulling in fog, the red-burn of fevered eyes, the labored reel of breath and wheeze and ember throat. The one work shift I’ve missed would be concluding, and the associated guilt is released. Now is when can one rest while reading essays on Pollock’s works on paper, reconsider de Kooning’s Sag Harbor or Clam Diggers, dig into Olson’s study of Twombly, revisit Hoffstadter’s Godel Escher and Bach. Hell, Sillitoe is back out on the coffee table, along with a Dare Devil graphic novel and my image/text journal. Rauschenberg combines flash fast through mind’s gallery. Shostokovich beats the shit out of a cello. A private kaleidoscope of Image. The prime internal gallery of memory. Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Schnabel, Tworkov, Courbet, Gotti, Carravaggio, Basqiaut, Beuys, Ghenti, McCarthy. . . . ad infinitum. Kirkegaard, Cantor, Wallace, Miller, Cioran, Melville, Ferlinghetti. . . . the Winter night allows, glorifies the loss of boundary, the fraying of edge, the dynamic bleeding of element into element, disparate emergence, the crossover or matrix of separate Idea and Idea, a mutation or splicing of things. A fusion in pursuit of the synergy of seasonal associations, such as an entire history of visual art. . . mind you, to elucidate, this is not a Smithsonian or a Louvre, this is not a cultural memory of Art but a private museum, a place of singular Muse, a solipsist gallery Wittgenstein or Foucault would get. A madness of Winter’s paleness. It is a stream-of-consciousness addressing the personal retrospect of image-encounters. A Proustian Collection.

A run on December 16th.

Folks Café was the first stop of my run. A three-count pour of sugar with a splash of cream readied the robust Sumatran before I stashed it in the truck, slinging my hoodie on top of keys, raisins, a cliffbar, my work apron, and a long-sleeve shirt. I stared down Princess Street with a certain nostalgia, I once lived here, ghosts of lovers and dope fiends and their counterpart peddlers, the laundry spot, desolate nocturnes pacing home from bars broke, Schoenberg or Schnittke or Dvorak in the head, the cycle of those days. Essays on entropy or the unfinished Michelangelo sculptures, the late slave series, addled dereliction and hymns, the Stab-n-Grab. . . . I turned the other direction to march then slowstride then jog, shaking out the heft of legs, letting ankles loosen, knees bend into the kick, Coca-Cola warehouse and Ninth and Princess, next a right and the park at Fifth and Chestnut and the run worked from Downtown to Greenfield Park and back up Front Street to Water Street. Ultimately it was a ten mile journey and one of my most effortless runs. The Sumatran was still hot when I returned cold, and Beastie Boys Check Your Head got me home.

And now for something completely different- JumpinGoat Coffee.

JumpinGoat Coffee Roasters and Shop, Helen, Georgia, December 2010.
The serpentine mountain road that takes you through Nacoochee Valley into Helen Georgia does not warn you of the coming mountain cabins, cascading down the road as the Chattahoochee river flows behind (and sometimes beneath) them. Worn-paint walls struggle against winter and age, and hand-painted signs claim their wares. These rustic shopsteads avoid the final, fatal slide into the river, offering interesting wares, including the goods of a stone-wheel mill, glass arts, local pottery, and the JumpinGoat Coffee Shop.

The coffee shop is separate from the roastery, located above on the mountain, but the smell of dark coffee is a thick, aromatic tincture pushing against the vapors of winter. Inside the provincial cabin, the oiled pine planks groan beneath numerous bags of flavored and roasted coffees, neatly bulging out of wooden baskets. The attendant poured samples, including a chocolate coffee so rich and delicious, I thought they had coated the cup in mocha syrup. The JumpinGoat signature blend had interesting flavor notes, was energized and layered, smooth as the wooden floors. For my afternoon cup I chose the Nicaraguan Arabica, and man alive was this a cup of java! Hearty, deep, nutty, with some smoked-wood notes, I felt like I was drinking the essence of the place. A touch of cream and sugar extracted more flavor notes, and I felt a few cravings to go run the mountain. The sumatran looked superb, like a bean of polished onyx, but there was none brewed on that particular day.

 
If you are in the vicinity, the sign-laden JumpinGoat Coffee and the neighboring stone-wheel mill (fresh-ground grits with molasses!!) are excellent reasons to drive to Helen, Ga. By the time you reach the Nacoochee Valley, you will be ready for a hot cup of coffee, the perfect fuel for running trails or roaming shops.