Year in Review

Karen and I often sit down this time of year and list the year in review, as if we were editors of a newspaper or magazine.  I never really thought about where this tradition came from, perhaps our experiences with Citicorp back when we had to prepare weekly and monthly reports.  Some day maybe I'll tell you about those weeklies and sitting down with Carl Levinson and his other direct reports to review them on Monday morning, afternoon, sometimes into evening.  No, I don't think I will.  I understand he's retired, so maybe he deserves to be let alone.  In case you're wondering, that was 17 years ago, before what's now called Citigroup got into its current mess (and after it had worked its way out of the last one -- it had almost failed before, more than once or twice, did you know?).

Anyway, this year's list would include adding on to the goat barn for turkeys, which joined our herd for a while until we put the "tur" in the freezer and replaced them with "don".  Which reminds me Adam lost a "key" to our Volvo wagon.  He thinks it may be hiding in the bottom of our famous local swimming hole, the "Straw Pond."  We haven't bought eggs in a year and a half.  Yesterday, Karen bought milk for the first time in almost a year.  That skim milk tasted almost like water on my oatmeal this morning.  Come on girls, have your babies!  "Maybe that's why you got sick," Karen suggested this morning.

Yes, I need the healing, anti-bacterial life force of goat mammary emissions, which brings me to Hellgate, an important lesson for me this year.  That "race" helped destroy my running regimen for December.  Having rested the week before, which basically eliminated any mileage at the beginning of the month, the 46 miles I finished battered me down and probably yielded my immune systems to this cough/cold I've been fighting for a week and a half when I haven't been running because a little exertion sets me into a coughing spree and we've pert near run out of goat milk.  So, after 11 months of fantastic running that put me on track to complete my first 2000-mile year in years, I'm ending up shy with 1940.  Shy, did I say Chy?  That's our jenny (a new word for me in 2010).  Or "chi," pain-free running, which I did experience all year until my falls during Hellgate.

"What's the lesson?" says Virginia. 

Relax, run for the joy of it, and don't complicate it with visions of heroics, award jackets or age division trophies.

Gosh, I only barely got started on the list, didn't I?  My musical highlight had to have been playing the first movement of Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor with the local orchestra in early March.  Thanks, folks, for that opportunity.  People who play like me don't often get to do something like that.  The monster concert holiday singalong wasn't too shabby either, plain clean fun (not counting "Santa Baby," unless we agree it was sung by Mrs. Santa and not that other girl).  Meanwhile, banks have been buying the "Practical Guide to the Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act," released during the summer after a mad dash.  Thank you, readers.

More later, maybe -- greenhouse, court appearance, visits with friends and family, just read through old blog entries.  The next step for Karen and me, according to custom, is to try to predict 2011.

The Confession of a Quitter

Hellgate handed me my first "DNF" (did not finish).  I ran according to plan, with a conservative start that brought me to the first cut-off with 10 minutes to spare -- 12:20, 25 miles, Headforemost Mountain.  Staying upright had proved to be difficult.  By then, I was ahead of Dave Moore, my running partner, in falls, 2 to 1.  In the darkness, headlamps sometimes changed rocks into leaves and leaves into rocks, and snow on top of both completed the disguise.  My first trip was slow, gentle and leafy.  My second was not, but I bounced into forward progress and urged everything to return where it belonged.

The weather was almost perfect, other than the evidence left by its past.  The midnight start, at 23 degrees (F), felt comfortable in the midst of 130 bodies.  Even at the high elevations, the air was relatively still.  Fingers that stiffened on downhills quickly warmed when we headed up.  The inevitably wet feet from "Hellgate Creek" (the race nickname; its actual name is Elk Creek, the same creek that borders our farm) never felt cold, although whoever said "they'll quickly dry" was wrong.

"So why did you quit?" says Virginia.

I missed the second cut-off is the easy answer.  I arrived at aid station 7, Bearwallow Gap, mile 46, after 12:30 p.m.  My third fall had taken its toll.  I hit my right shin pretty hard.  I rested for thirty seconds or so, then rose and resumed running.  Forget the details.  How much is weak mind over matter is anyone's guess.  I'm sure someone like David Horton, race director, or David Goggins, top ultraman-plus who ran and finished the race 3 months after heart surgery (see http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com/2010/05/14/david-goggins-toughest-athlete-planet/), might say it's no guess; it's clearly mind over matter.  I might protest in a high, whiny voice, pointing at the swelling in my right leg.  In a way they would be right -- I probably could have finished, maybe not by the 18-hour deadline.  My wimpy wish had been to beat the second cut-off by an hour or so and walk, if I had to, the rest of the way, maybe even enjoying the scenery.  With that wish ditched, so went my motivation.

I like to think that at age 57 I'm finally man enough to figure out and admit when I've had enough.  In 1992, at mile 24 in Chicago, I found myself "cruising" to a sub-3 marathon.  Then I hit the proverbial wall.  I was very disappointed and Karen, having seen me giving a thumbs up shortly before the wall, worried like crazy until I finally finished in 3:09.  The year before, in Toledo, less than six miles into the Glass City Marathon, my stomach wouldn't cooperate.  I finished the race by running until I felt like throwing up, walking until I didn't, repeating, ad nauseam.  As it turned out, I had the flu.  This time Karen didn't have to worry.  I had a cellphone and it worked.

Hey, 46 miles still looks pretty good in my running log.  I suppose it even counts as a marathon (almost two of them).

Day of Hellgate

Weather predictions anticipate a pretty day tomorrow, real feel at midnight of 25 degrees, gradually rising to 46, with a high chance of rain late in the day after Hellgate is over.  According to David Horton, the race director, the southern section of the Blue Ridge Parkway is likely to remain closed because of 2 inches of packed snow at the high elevations (aid stations 2, 3 and 4).  Maybe the conditions will be almost perfect, except for the risks presented by snow and ice.   Perhaps the melt queen will slip in and clear all that away, please do, dear.

Karen provided an awesome dinner last night, with salad and calzones, preceded by 3 cheeses courtesy of our goats and her hand-made rosemary crackers, all shared by a few friends who kindly asked a few questions about running 66 miles.  As it turned out, at least two of our guests hold record "firsts."  When I asked if they were in the Guinness Book of World Records, they suggested that firsts don't get into that book -- what get in are the successes in beating the firsts.  Bob and a colleague were the first to spend 24 hours underwater below 7 feet of Arctic ice.  Bob and Gerri and a friend were the first to spend 7 days at full nitrogen saturation 50 feet underwater.  Dennis took multi-month bicycle rides by himself, traveling up to 120 miles per day. No one accused anyone of being crazy. 

All boded well for a rich sleep, which ended at 9 this morning and may complicate my hopes for a couple good naps before midnight.  I hunted down an old blue Citicorp gym bag and filled it with things this runner might want after the sun rises -- shoes, clothes and a pair of new contacts.  Called a "drop bag," the Hellgate volunteers will make it available at aid stations 4 (Mile 22: Headforemost Mountain) and 7 (Mile 43: Bearwallow Gap).  I'll rely on the 9 aid stations for food and water refills.  According to the race director, the first aid station open to "crews" (i.e., friends of runners who want to offer support) will be aid station 5 (Mile 28: Jennings Creek) -- unless the Forest Service reopens that portion of the Parkway.  A forest ranger said the Parkway may be opened south of Bearwallow Gap (Mile 43: aid station 7).  So, crews might as well sleep in and forget about driving around in the dark.

Karen called me out to the greenhouse, thinking I might like a diversion from whatever I'm thinking about.  "Hmmm, what could that be?" asks Virginia.  She's adding fuel to my hoped-for greenhouse heater, the compost/manure bin, which so far I don't think has raised the temperature very much.  I should get a thermometer with a probe and figure out what's happening under that pile of crap.

See, her ploy worked.  Now I get to label this blog posting "Gardening" and "Greenhouse" as well as "Running" and "Hellgate."

Day Before Hellgate

"What does a runner feel like the day before the day of a race?"  asks Virginia.

It's not a race, I tell others and I tell myself.  As usual, it depends on what you mean by "race."  By the first definition in my 1981 version of Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary -- "the act of running" -- it is a race, although most of us will be doing a lot of walking, especially on the uphills, which are many, with an estimated total elevation change of over 13,500 feet.  As for the verb form -- "to compete in a race," "to go or move at top speed or out of control" -- for me, it's not a race.  I'm sure some of the fellows far ahead of me will be competing.  I won't be, and I hope not to be "out of control."

At this point, "being out of control" is my biggest concern.  I like to be comfortable when I run, not too warm and not too cool, cruising along, enjoying the scenery and sometimes the company of other runners.  The biggest challenge on Saturday will be finding that comfort zone, despite the possibility of snow, ice and cold.  And darkness at the midnight start!  I have never run a marathon at night.  Even if I cover the first third of this course as slowly as I hope, I'll nearly finish the 26.2-mile marathon distance by sunrise.  In light of the snowfall that probably remains on the highlands, "slowly" will be a key to not falling "out of control."

More directly on point regarding Virginia's question, today is my 7th consecutive day not running, except for a 3/4-mile test last night of my headlamp and flashlight.  I haven't gone this long without running in years.  It's all because of my former running buddy and 60-plus ultra veteran, John Zerger, who suggested I rest the last week.  Anticipating the objections of a compulsive recordkeeper, he said, "Don't worry.  You'll be able to log 66 miles on Saturday, very good total miles for a week."  On one hand, I understand the psychology of the racehorse waiting for the starting gate to rise and the physiology of resting after months of hard training.  On the other, a certain insecurity arises from not having used my legs for a week.  "Will they still work?"

It's been many years since I've slept as fitfully as I have this week, which probably results from muscles that aren't used to resting so much and nervousness about the physical challenge of running farther than I have ever run in one day.  Last night I dreamed I missed the starting gun, began running an hour or more late then realized I'd forgotten about packet pickup (i.e., getting my bib number and other paraphernalia), suddenly remembered I'd have to run like crazy to make the first cut-off which I then missed by far, got lost on a trail leading to Roanoke, where some crazy old coot in a big Cadillac almost hit me, stopped his car in the middle of the road, and chased after me.  A nice young couple came to my rescue and drove me part way home.

Speaking of sleep, remember that the race starts at 12:01 a.m.  I'm usually in bed before then.  I imagine anticipation and adrenaline will keep me alert at the beginning.  Will I be running with my eyes closed by 6 a.m?  I hope to head that off by catching some shut-eye tomorrow afternoon and evening.  I'm sure you can imagine how restful those cat naps may be. Meow!

This morning when I retrieved my usual 3 armloads of firewood, I smiled at 25 degrees, a clear blue sky, and bright sunshine.  At 12:01 a.m., Saturday morning, I intend to smile at the black night, near-freezing temperatures, and the sounds of 120 people running together into the night.

Black and White Day

Today was tough for this pseudo-ultramarathoner, thankfully today instead of a week from today.  This morning I tried to imagine running 25 miles by the time I woke and couldn't.  My stomach felt as if someone had kicked it.  I couldn't find enough handy blankets to get warm.  After 3 frigid trips to the bathroom, I felt better, but far from good.  Now, near the end of the afternoon, I've enjoyed a 9 a.m. rise and two long naps. For the first time in months, maybe years, I haven't been outside.  Wait a minute...there, cancel that!  I just let a few snowflakes melt on my tongue.

When Karen slammed the back door this morning to fetch firewood -- you must slam it or it won't latch --  I found comfort both in her willingness to pinch hit for me and Chy's foghorn.  Also, it must have been almost first thing, Karen put my overalls in the wash.  A few hours later, she delivered them to me, toasty warm from the drier.  Finally, there might be sweat somewhere on my body.  No hanging out the laundry today.  See why?

Lately, I've been thinking about how fortunate we are to live in this home, especially on a day like today. All but one of our walls, interior as well as exterior, are at least a foot thick, made of brick from clay harvested and fired on-site.  According to a neighbor, his grandfather lived for a while in a train car and walked across our field every day to bake bricks.  More than 140 years ago, someone knew a little something about passive solar construction, facing this house north and south with tall, wide windows that allow the sun to warm much of our living space, including the walls.  Nevertheless, on a cloudy day like today, it might be nice to build lofts up under our 9 1/2 foot ceilings.

"So what?" says Virginia.

Just being thankful.  No one other than perhaps me is going to be terribly disappointed if more snow and ice coats the Blue Ridge next weekend and I choose to stay in our little castle.

"Certainly not me," says Virginia.  "You might work on my life, as you did today.  Thanks."

Countdown to Hellgate

The thermometer's above-freezing reading this morning was misleading, as became abundantly clear up on the ripples of the Blue Ridge.  Fortunately, I was ready, thanks to my son's suggestion that I wear one of his Under Armour shirts.  I thought I'd be too warm with long-sleeved Under Armour under a Nike wick fit shirt.  If so, off would come Nike and on another light shirt that had been keeping my cellphone from bouncing in my bottle belt.  At times, nestled in a hollow with the sun shining, I was too warm, but as we climbed up to its ridge a howling wind made me grateful for the thicker layer.  At one point, we heard what sounded like a semi-trailer grinding down a winding double-track road and saw it smoking circles.  Then we realized it was a windstorm spinning dust and leaves.

Eleven runners showed up to experience the third and final leg of the Hellgate 100, now only two weeks away.  While we waited for someone to say, "I'm getting cold; let's go," I noticed an oval sticker on the back window of race director David Horton's car -- "Hellgate 66.6."  "Aha," I said, "so you admit it's over 100K."  Horton smiled and nodded, "in fact, if you finish the run, you'll get one of those stickers."  "I'm cold," said someone, and off we went for the day's 21 miles.

I've written this before; the best part of any race is the training runs.  Today all of us stayed together (except for the two speedsters who hurried ahead to hang yellow streamers along the course; after the first two minutes, we never saw them again).  If someone lagged behind, we waited at the next big turn.  If someone got ahead, he'd wait or regret, as happened once, just after Bobblets Gap, "whoa Scott, you missed the turn."  Because we were close, we could check each other.  Our leader kept up a running commentary.  We should have given him a microphone and hung a speaker on his back because he was hard to hear over the leaves swooshing around our feet and wind whistling through the trees.

"There's Purgatory Mountain," the leader pointed.  "What?" yelled someone near the rear.  "Purgatory Mountain," "Purgatory Mountain," passed by, as if we were playing a parlor game.  Most us fell once or twice.  "You okay?"  "You okay?"  Now and then we'd stop to clear fallen limbs off the trail.  "Better today than trip over them two weeks from now after running 50 miles."  "Look at that," and we'd slow down while we moved our eyes from the rocky trail to a stunning overlook.

"What did you think of the 'forever section?'" asks Virginia.

Which one?

Why Run Hellgate?

Why run Hellgate? I know some folks think it's crazy and can't imagine why someone would. One answer is the perennial "I guess you've got to be there" to understand.

I haven't done it yet, so I don't really know the answer. A previous winner of the run, Jason Schwartzbard, has written: "...those reasons that we share with acquaintances over cocktails at holiday parties only skim the edges of our reasoning....Just as the painter, dancer, mathematician or corporate executive creates, so does the runner. But while the painter, dancer, mathematician or corporate executive feel[s] both the joy of meeting the human need to create, and the pleasure of seeing some final product, the runner only has the former....So at those cocktail parties, the reasons that come out for running long distances in the woods tend toward values that are meaningful after the fact. But as I ran down that grassy road, a little more than half way through the race, a few minutes before sunrise, what drove me forward had nothing to do with pushing myself to new heights or being able to eat more pie the following week. What drove me forward was the transcendent satisfaction of creating my experience."

I touched on a similar idea in an earlier blog posting ("Ordinary People," December 26, 2009) -- the idea that artists, writers, dancers, and other creators must find satisfaction in the act of creation and not in the "final product."

"Oh, what I'd give to re-experience the event, itself," says Virginia. "Second, give me the memory, not the sterility of a recording."

Well, Virginia is a pro, one of the few who peaked in her profession, however briefly. As an amateur musician who enjoys performing, I hesitate to focus on the moment of performance. Musicians, like athletes, train for weeks, years, for their performances, and then can stumble because something takes a wrong turn -- maybe another musician's error, a broken string, a memory lapse, or an overheated room. I don't want my satisfaction to depend on the performance. The performance means little if I'm miserable practicing by myself or working with other musicians.

Likewise, Hellgate. I'd be disappointed if I didn't run the race. The moment when I cross the finish line will be a special moment. But -- race director, you may stop reading now -- I have already experienced an incredible amount of satisfaction before toeing the starting line, running alone in the forest in Fall colors and sunshine, dry leaves swishing at my feet, spying a white tail bouncing through the trees or a flock of turkeys lifting off, and being grateful my body parts are able to complain. The creative process can feel very good, good, not-so-good, not-so-bad, bad and very bad, but most of all creation feels.

Hellgate Official Training Run # 1

Knowing I had to be on the road by 5:45 this morning to meet other Hellgate crazies at Blue Ridge Parkway milepost 80.4, I crawled into bed about 8:30 last night with 1491, a slow-going but very interesting guesstimated history that would probably destroy most readers' (certainly my) paradigms about native Americans. I read a few pages before letting the book fall onto our heavy bedspread. I suppose I lacked confidence in my cellphone's alarms -- I had set number one for 5:15 and number two for 5:16 -- because I began squinting through my curled forefinger when the digits flicked 4:00, nodding on and off until 5:00 when I slid onto the floor to do my good morning crunches. I then pulled on the running gear I had carefully selected the night before, cancelled the alarms, drank my daily apple cider vinegar tea, and ate a piece of toast with grape juice. After brushing my teeth, I hugged and kissed Karen goodbye only to hear her laughing like a hyena. I suddenly realized the fur wasn't hers. Rosie (one of our two boxers) had claimed my spot as soon as I left. This required a re-kiss. I grabbed my readied bottle belt, which contained banana goo, a peanut butter sandwich, an orange vest, a tee shirt, and two water bottles.

I had included an extra ten minutes for contingencies, so thickly frosted car windows didn't bother me. 24 degrees did. I headed South and then skyward on Petites Gap Road. The drive affected me more than usual, probably because the darkness allowed my mind's eye to vividly picture the steep cliffs a couple yards to the right of my tires. With the Blue Ridge Parkway making me even more nervous than usual, I tried to admire the beginning sunrise and what looked like city lights 3,000 feet below. The reading on the car's thermometer surprised me, showing at least 12 degrees warmer than our house.

A cluster of cars waited at Floyd's Field (mile 80.4) when I arrived at 6:25. We waited 10 minutes for possible late-comers, consolidated into two cars, and headed back down to Big Hellgate Lane, the start of our run, a little over a mile from where Karen and Rosie rested. At 7:30 we headed into the forest. I'd guessed right. I knew the beginning of the course quite well, up to aid station two, except -- I suppose I should have anticipated this from the Mountain Masochist Trail Run -- the same race director's insistence on making the course as difficult as possible. For example, ignoring a convenient footbridge that crosses Elk Creek at the Belfast trailhead, David Horton takes his course directly across the creek less than a hundred yards West and then, instead of stepping up onto the nearby paved road, he first requires us to trek a few hundred yards across rocks sometimes hidden under fallen leaves. Not a big deal? Remember, Hellgate begins at 12:01 December 11th, so we'll be running this part of the course in the dark.

After Belfast (this trail leads to the Devil's Marbleyard), Petites Gap Road took us steeply up to the Parkway. Along the way, Horton longingly eyed the Glenwood Horse Trail to the South. "I'd love to take this course up that even steeper trail," he said, "but we aren't allowed to take a group this large into that wilderness area." I guess I'll "run" that another day.

Rather than bore you with the entire first third of the Hellgate course, let me simply mention that today's pack quickly divided into two groups -- under 30 and over 49 (perhaps this suggests that the 30-49 age group is uniformly sane) -- and we older guys, after crossing the Parkway and heading down the other side of the mountain, quite promptly made a wrong turn. Here's how we discovered our mistake. "Look there," says one, "two more tractors like the first two." "Ummm, those are the very same tractors," say I. "Damn," says runner number 3. "This means, instead of finishing 45 minutes behind the faster group," says the first one, "they'll be waiting an additional hour for us." Slow to understand the implications of that comment, I tap the top of my head, "Oh, are you saying our three cars are the only ones at the end?" "Exactly," says he, "someone should have planned that a little better."

"How thoughtful and considerate," says Virginia. "What did you do?"

We pulled out a map and hunted for a solution. I believe the older group ended up running a little farther, while the younger guys ran harder. We completed two thirds of the Horton course and then gradually found our way to mile marker 76 on the Parkway and finished with an easy 4.5 mile downhill to Floyd's Field. I forgot to ask how long they'd been waiting.