I’m sitting on a wooden, sunny bench beside Main Street, Bar Harbor. I’m watching the people watch each other. With its line of sidewalk benches, the street is like an extended front porch. There’s an energy flowing among the tourist and artist-types who live here. Mind vibrations shimmer on the street. Conversations waft by with the gentle breeze.

People try to look chic, wear the right uniform: Patagonia fuzzy pullover, Docksiders (no socks), jeans or khakis, turtlenecks. Have to be fit looking; have to drive the right car. After all this is swank Bar Harbor.

For those of you wondering where I’ve disappeared to for the summer, I’ve chosen the cold gray northeast.

But with me it’s not really a choice, more like a migratory instinct. My parents brought me to our 1894 white clapboard cottage when I was six weeks old. My first summer was spent on a striped towel on the porch floor. I didn’t know about the lighthouse a quarter mile offshore or the green pointed islands I would sail to alone in my little sloop starting at age 18.

This spring was especially cold and rainy; 40’s at night, 50’s during the day. A northeaster blew through last Wednesday that blasted salt spray onto our windows and set my sailboat to plunging and rearing on its mooring, sailing the high seas without traveling an inch.

The day of my first race, Mother’s Day 5k, May 14, wasn’t quite that bad, though it was dark gray, 45 and planning to rain. I got first in my 10-year age group only because the overall woman winner was also in the 40’s. My prize was great: a $50 gift certificate to a fancy Samoset Resort restaurant, the Breakwater, in Rockland.

Unfortunately a 22:20 on my next 5k, Saturday, June 11, in Bar Harbor did not even rank me. I was fourth. The sponsoring YMCA was awarding only first and second in decade age groups.

Running in Maine is much more serious than in Florida. Though there are fewer runners at races, they are fast, dedicated souls.

I don’t fit in. For me Maine has always been the land of sailing the islands. My life is primarily focused on the water, not the land.

So my training here has been neglected. Result: I ran the Bar Harbor 5k on very fresh legs. No mileage at all between the last race, Sunday, June 4, a 10k in Camden, and the June 10 5k.

Hills and temperature make a difference. It’s hard enough for me to force myself to go out running alone in Florida on friendly flat terrain in sunny conditions. I have no inclination whatsoever to brave the elements in this cold mountainous region. Consequently, my weekly mileage has fallen to about nine miles.

Out of desperation, I have linked up with two running groups: the Sub5 in Bucksport and the MBNA in Camden. Both of these are far from my home. Training Wednesday nights in Camden means a one and a half-hour drive to the mountain where we run vertically more than horizontally over roads and trails at 8 minute pace.

Donna Hurley, the 6 minute miler who consistently wins my age group, acts as trainer and she’s a rigorous and enthusiastic coach. She jogs backwards uphill shouting encouragement to those of us panting and struggling up the incline.

It was fortunate that I’d trained on the June 4 course for the 10k in Camden. During the workout I could appreciate the scenery. Running the race (4^th with a 47:35) all I was noticing were vertical grey surfaces—not the peaceful pastoral scene of belted Galloways (Oreo-cookie cows, black, white, black) grazing on green meadows; not the sparkling blue of the harbor sprouting masts of elegant sailing vessels.

The Sub 5 group runs up and down hills surrounding Bucksport. That’s the only terrain there is. Bucksport is in a river valley, so any route out of town has to be up.

On June 24, I’ll be running a ten miler around Silver Lake. All hills. Needless to say, I’ll get out and run the course a couple times before the race. I’ve learned my lesson about racing on legs that are too fresh.

Hopefully by then the weather will have warmed slightly. Still, it’s great to have frilly crabapple blossoms and lavender lilac blooms scenting paths this late in the year.

Spring in my part of Maine happens in June. Soon the lemon lilies and purple lupine will be flowering. Perhaps I won't have to stoke my woodstove as the number one chore in the morning to warm the cottage kitchen to a livable 55 degrees.

Despite the cold and rain, I’m enjoying the silent rhythm of living next to the water. I love the dense blackness of the nights, or those evenings with myriad light points people call stars.

It’s an "away" world up here, filled with a different vibrance than city living. Even though I’m not running as much as I should, I must count walking the several miles back and forth across our small field pushing the wooden and iron industrial age lawn-mower (self-sharpening!). It leaves the lawn looking like velvet green stripes. I feel bad about cutting off the tiny heads of the forget-me-nots and daisies, but they’ll grow back. Flowers that people elsewhere buy to plant, grow wild up here.

And, as far as fitness activities go, don’t stacking and hauling logs, painting and digging count as mileage?

That’s an idea. I think I’ll start documenting manual labor in my training log. It’ll be labeled "Maine mileage". That’s fair, don’t you think?

Until next time, your Maine correspondent.

© Copywrite 2000 Sheri Bedford