this bee's knees.

there's a hole in my bucket.

2012-01-28T02:30:00.001-05:00

All the damn rain this week had me keeping a watchful eye on my aging roof.

Keeping an eye on my aging roof made me thinking about buckets.

Thinking about buckets prompted me to reassess my bucket list.

I'm not sure I actually have one. Or, more truthfully I suppose, I'm pretty sure there is more ground I want to cover and more adventures I hope to have than any one bucket could possibly contain.

So, in fairness to the bucket, I've decided to dump out its contents save one teeny-tiny list item, the North Face Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc:

I turn 40 in the summer of 2014 and Chamonix and the Alps seem a fitting pilgrimmage to mark the occassion. Maybe I should establish my Kickstarter account now and see if I get any takers. Hmmm.

Is it a worthy cause? Noble?

No, I suppose not, but a dream is a dream is a dream and well worth chasing.

Right?

4,226 feet high and rising.

2012-01-26T23:20:00.000-05:00

I last boarded an airplane back in August and, despite the economic gloom the news would have me believe, the parking lot outside the airport was packed, the hallways were flooded with bodies hurrying from gate to gate and there was not a single unoccupied seat on board. Looked just like it did in the salad days of the late 90's and early millennium by my eyes.

But Cincinnati in early 2012 had room, room, lots of room to spare. My mind conjured up the foretelling of the rapture but I couldn't recall if Cincy fell in the ol' Bible belt or not and my instincts told me no.

Nope, not a single soul had ascended to heaven but some of the hell had been taken out of flying. The flight in from Philadelphia found me enjoying a row of seats all to my lonesome and I'd landed in Ohio without any need to unfold myself from a cramped position. The doors flung open and there waiting in the airport was...nobody. Glorious.

There was another spare seat waiting on the connection from Cincinnati to Salt Lake City and clear, obstacle-free skies delivered me blissfully to the Wasatch Front. Back again and ready to run.

Yes, there was work (much work) to be done and as much as I'd like to "cool guy" you into believing I don't give a crap about work, I'd be bluffing and you'd be right to call me on it. I toil away like my Germanic father before me, wearing a work ethic like its the only pair of pants I own.

But I do leave room for my vice and, in a world of R-rated vices, mine is downright Disney with a capital G.

The clock strikes 4:30 AM Mountain Time and I am out the door. Fifteen minutes later, I'm a thousand feet above downtown and Salt Lake City sleeps below like the slumbering lion of The Tokens' song.

I only covered about 5 miles but the thin, crisp (and impossibly clean in comparison to home) air and the meandering singletrack put me in the right headspace for a day of business-ing in the climate-controlled environs of the Salt Palace and the Winter Outdoor Retailer trade show.

I did take a pretty big digger on a patch of black (brown?) ice that surprised me on the otherwise soft, sandy trail and deposited on my, er, um...ass. Which is where being in my line of work comes in rather handy. In between appointments, I ducked into the Kahtoola booth and bummed a pair of MICROspikes from Danny Giovale, the very man who built the damn things.

What are MICROspikes? Glad you asked. They are one of those startlingly simple engineering marvels, a set of low-profile crampons integrated into a durable rubber housing that slips easily over whatever footwear you got. You might be more familiar with Yaktrax, but they are truly pedestrian in comparison to the adventure ready MICROspikes.

Where can you get them? Glad you asked. Try here:

http://www.backcountryedge.com/kahtoola-microspikes-2011.aspx

So, I'd secured traction but needed advice on how to get up higher. Danny began saying something about Grandeur Peak but then got pulled in another direction, leaving me with an imagination-inspiring name but no idea how to get there.

Lucky for me, those-in-the-know were milling all around me, including Piep.

Piep (John Pieper by birth, but, take it from me--a Steven known to many/most as Leon--he is and shall ever be Piep) had been living with his lovely family in Durango, Colorado for the past several years but had returned home to Salt Lake about a year ago, taking a Director of Sales and Markeing position at Gregory Mountain Products. He was well familiar with the area trails and he seemed to agree with Danny that Grandeur Peak was well worth visiting. After dinner, he grabbed a topo map, outlined the approach options and then insisted that I take the map along with me when I headed back to the hotel to catch a few hours of sleep.

Thanks, Piep.

I just realized that I've failed to touch on the fact that the daytime temperatures in town had been hovering in the upper 40's and low 50's even though Salt Lake City sits at an elevation of 4,226 feet, a good 3,800 feet higher than my Manheim home. In other words, winter hadn't come to the Great Basin any more than it had come to the Susquehanna Valley.

And, so, the next morning I awoke to precipitation, but not the fluffy white stuff that I'd hoped to find. I drove up above town, hung a right on Wasatch Boulevard and then took a left up Millcreek Canyon in the dark. The moisture in the air still qualified as rain but just barely. A good sign.

As soon as I stepped from the car, I was headed uphill through a National Forest picnic area. The lungs were immediately heaving despite the fact that I was creeping along at a rate well shy of my normal pace.

A sign came into focus in the beam of my headlamp and confirmed that I was headed in the right direction.

That was fractions of a mile farther than I expected which immediately illuminated the fact that I'd forgotten to bring my Garmin. Who cares right? I know, I know, BUT it meant that I was going to be ascending in the dark with no real idea of what time it was or how far I'd gone which could be problematic since I needed to eventually to get back to the hotel before returning to the Salt Palace for another day of work.

The effort required in the climb and my love of running in the dark combined to back burner those concerns. Per the topo map, I was looking at well over 2,500 feet of climb in those 3 miles and my legs and lungs were busy confirming that reading. I cycled between running, power hiking and straight-up trudging, all with an oh-so-happy grin. You know the kind...shit-eating some call it, though that phrase has always been lost on me.

Periodically, I'd peek to my right or my left depending on the turn of the switchback and ponder the void, wondering at the invisible drop. I was so captivated by the darkness, it took me longer than it should have to realize that I was ankle deep in snow and more was falling. A look back over my shoulder confirmed that I'd been plowing through snow for quite some time.

Such is the power of the MICROspikes.

Long (too long already) story short, I ended up turning back before the top out, a decision I'll probably always question, but the appropriate call given my not being able to confirm the time but being conscious of my going pretty darn slow given the conditions and my flatlander lung capacity.

Thanks to the short hours of winter daylight, I didn't see a single drop of sun on my morning runs but I loved everything I could see in the tunnel of light that I carried with me. I look forward to getting back up to Grandeur (or anywhere else Piep or other locals can point me toward) in August and getting in a run or two ahead of taking another shot at the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase up in Park City (just confirmed today as again being part of the La Sportiva Mountain Cup series!) on the Saturday of Summer OR.

Then, if the body holds up, I'll be back through Salt Lake in October for the drive down to Moab for the SlickRock 100. Pretty stoked.

And, just to return to the good omen of the empty flights, Salt Lake sent me off in style with an unexpected meet-and-greet (a run-in...get it?) at the airport with the iconically-mustachioed Nick Offerman.

Who? You know who.

Pretty random, I know, but good times nonetheless. Don't let the scowl fool you (his, not mine), he was a sweetheart.

If I hadn't alreay returned Piep's map and Danny's MICROspikes, I might have clued him in on Grandeur Peak.

Next time.

like you've done before....

2012-01-23T19:37:00.001-05:00

I haven't run with my iPod in a long time and expect I won't anytime soon.

Got nothing against it in practice, but the reality tends to get me in trouble, coaxing me to an unrealistic pace in one instance and lulling me into too slow an amble in another. Worse yet, it drowns out the birdsing, leafrustle, windwhistle and other ambient soundscapes that make the outdoors so irresistably inviting in the first place.

Music is already playing and running with headphones is liking arriving at the dance club only to pop in soundproof earplugs.

Drowns out the rhythm.

And even on days like today when circumstance makes running on the road a necessary evil and the provided sounds are anything but appealing, my jukebox of a brain always manages to serve up an interesting record.

Here's what a mental quarter bought me today as I dodged traffic and pounded away in the freezing rain, icy fog and puddles of slush:

Can't wait to lace up the sneaks tomorrow, hit shuffle and see where the music takes me next.

this must be the place...right?

2012-01-17T23:04:00.001-05:00

Standing high above Salt Lake City with the awe-inspiring backdrop of the Wasatch Mountains and the sweeping valley below, it's easy to understand Brigham Young's famed "this is the place" utterance when he and his fellow Mormon pioneers reached the end of their long journey west.

Over 160 years later, Salt Lake City has become the place for something other than an escape from religious persecution and a new and bountiful home.

It is the now the twice annual host of the Outdoor Retailer trade show, a head-spinning gathering of various manufacturers of backpacking, climbing, paddling, trail running (all the shoes down in shoeville!!!) and other outdoor adventure gear. Each January and August, vendors unveil the innovations bound for store shelves 6 months later.

For a gear junkie, it's a sight to behold.

But, for a retailer trying to carve out a greater niche in the marketplace, it also plays host to a lot of hard work compressed into a short amount of time. At this point, after several years of attendance, I can barely imagine not going to OR, as it's commonly referred to within the industry. The shows mark the year with far greater reliability than the temperamental passing of the seasons. It may or may not snow, but, dammit, the Winter Outdoor Retailer show WILL happen in late January. Count on it.

So, this IS the place and, lest I sound like I'm complaining, attending OR also means easy access to buttery singletrack and the advantage of still being on Eastern time so I can bag 5-10 miles each morning before "work" on trails like this perched 5,000+ feet above sea level (note SLC way down below):

Makes punching the clock a whole lot more palatable.

confession and plea.

2012-01-14T12:27:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday, January 7th, I ran the PHUNT 25K, a Fat Ass (that pretty much just means it's free...and casual) put on by the Trail Dawgs at the Fair Hill Natural Resource Area in Elkton, Maryland.

Who are the Trail Dawgs? Glad you asked. Go here and find out more about these fine fellows and what they're scheming up next: http://traildawgs.org/

Now where was I?

Ah, yes, I ran the PHUNT 25K and did it in a pretty pleasing 2:30, especially considering the continuous roll of the course and the muddy footing. Problem is I was intending to do the PHUNT 50K and here's photographic evidence of how that turned out.

No, it didn't take me an hour to run another 3 miles, but it did take me that long to get back out on the loop a second time, fear what my non-responding arches (especially my left) had to tell me and then walk back to the start/finish/mid-way point.

Even after more than a decade of running and several years of trail/ultra-running, I still don't know my body well enough to be certain when I'm being alerted simply to pain or receiving an emergency cry to bail out before real, lasting damage befalls me. Wish I did know the difference.

The Trail Dawgs were kind enough and the event low-key enough, that I was encouraged to log my 25K time which I eventually did. The unbelievably beautiful January weather and fine company made for a wonderful day in spite of the abrupt end to actual running, but, a week later, I feel like a cheater and know that, regardless of how the results might read, I actually logged my second ever DNF.

The short term good news, sort of, is that my arch has proven touchy all week long and I feel quite certain that I made the right decision by calling it a day. The longer term good news is that a few days of not-running (as I like to call it) and working out on the bosu ball (miracle invention...do your research) has me feeling vastly improved if not all the way back to normal.

Which brings me to a quick mention of the highlights on my upcoming race calendar. I'm signed up for the HAT Run 50K in March, the sure-to-be epic Hyner View Trail Challenge 50K (my first DNF was at the 25K version of this race at a time when I already knew I was nursing and injury and I couldn't resist the chance to take part in the inaugural 50K this year) and the Laurel Highlands Ultra 70-miler in June. With all of that on the docket, all of which is meant as a build toward the Slickrock 100 in October, remaining healthy is as important as logging miles.

So, that takes care of my DNF confession and its back story. Here is the plea. I'm not sure it's a plea so much as a call for opinions and I know you've got 'em.

Yes, you.

Years of destruction from basketball (believe it or not, I was a pretty decent...or at least quick/pesky...point guard back in (sigh) the day) have laid waste to my ankles, especially my left one.

Every now and then I pull out the x-ray taken back 2004-ish that shows floating fragments and two bones grinding against one another in a manner that still makes me question why I bother moving at all. I didn't have the time or money to justify surgery then and less so now.

I steered clear of trail running for far longer than I wish I had because of fear of falling, twisting, breaking, etc. It was also only a couple of years ago that my left foot was still going completely numb after about 10 miles or so of running, leaving me feeling as though I was actually landing with each step on a stub located a few inches up my leg.

Not good.

And, trust me, I tried every shoe under the sun to try and correct the problem. No dice.

Not good.

Eventually (obviously) I made my way to the trail, endured the early predicted falls and twists but managed to avoid any breaks. Slowly, surely unengaged muscles and new types of flexion gained endurance and strengthened. Bulky shoes went out the window as my feet sent word that they were better up to the task than was rumored. Even on the road, I eschewed the gimmicky corrective structures I'd come to believe I needed and turned toward lower profile shoes that stayed out of the way of my feet and let them attend to their prescribed purpose.

And then, in time, I started covering longer and longer distances. Pain and discomfort, except among the most anatomically blessed, is inevitable when you start pushing out beyond marathon distance. It's part of the fun or, at the very least, an acceptable side effect of the fun to be had when going long.

Still, I kept seeking out the perfect shoe.

Lest you're still holding out hope for that very same thing, I'm here to tell you that that shoe does NOT exist. Perhaps if you are gifted enough athlete in the first place to be lured into the laboratory by a shoe company that lends you its scientists and molds a shoe to your very specifications, perfection may be obtainable. Perhaps, but, even then, unlikely.

I do, however, enjoy daydreams and "what ifs", so I'm giving you and anyone you know the forum to tell me that I'm wrong. To hold up THE shoe (cue the beam of light shining down upon it from the heavens) that is sure to solve all my problems, keep me pain and distraction free and deliver me to the finish line in personal-record establishing time.

I'm not looking to replace the MT101 (unless the 110 stays true to the design AND improves on durability) as my everyday shoe for up to 15+ miles, but I am seeking a reliable go-to for extended races and/or gnarlier terrain.

To improve the chances of success, I'm lowering my expectations to finding a low-to-medium profile shoe, preferably with little or no medial support, with traction enough to not be utterly useless in mud but not so burly as to be pointless in anything but mud. That still sounds like a tall order, but I'm all ears.

All ears and bone fragments.

opening weekend.

2012-01-04T23:06:00.002-05:00

Two-thousand eleven was slipping away with each tick and every tock.

Despite the mild temperature, I saw few people outdoors on my drive to Holtwood Park. New Years festivities may have been well under way but they were either happening elsewhere or behind closed doors.

Fine by me.

The first face I saw was a friendly one.

Gary climbed out of his truck, delivered a proper hug and introduced me to Charlie who, along with a few other members of the Lancaster Road Runners Club, would be accompanying us down into Kelly's Run and up to the overlook at Pinnacle to greet the new year.

After watching the venerable Bill Smith sweet talk a couple of State Police officers into turning a blind eye and letting us venture off into the darkness, the crew assembled for a quick group picture.

Photo courtesy of Evan Sandt

Down, down, down we dropped into Kelly's Run, picking our way over the debris that has collected in the lower portions of the ravine in the wake of the rough weather earlier in the year. My camera refused to play nice in the dark and left me without evidence of the frequent creek crossings and the bouldery climb up to Pinnacle.

"Running" was limited by a lack of light, tricky footing and the steep clamber up to high ground, but the company and conversation were top notch. Being on the Conestoga again with Gary, Cassie and Steve was a nice reminder of our day of adventure back in September.

The lead pack arrived at the Pinnacle just moments ahead of midnight and gathered at the rail high above the Susquehanna to soak in the view of far off fireworks displays over Red Lion, Wrightsville and more rural outposts.

The remaining members of our pack arrived shortly thereafter and we gathered above the cliffs to break open a bottle of celebratory champagne. Bill offered up short-and-sweet best wishes and we hoisted and "clinked" our plastic cups to another year of shared experiences on the trail.

Photo courtesy of Evan Sandt

On the return trip, the group split into two, one following the more direct white blazes back to Holtwood Park and a few others doing a true "back" on the Conestoga. Feeling frisky, I charged up and out of Kelly's Run, catching a few of the others just before the trail dumps out into the open at the top of the climb. With a little luck, one of these days I'll actually finish the Conestoga Trail Run with a push this hard. Could take lot of luck, now that I think about, but what better time to dream than New Years.

After a blissfully uneventful drive home to Manheim, I caught a couple of hours of sleep, woke up to play with the kids and then headed to Marietta to meet an entirely different crew for the first (annual?) Fancyfeet DiSanto New Years Day Half Marathon.

I had enthusiastically invited myself to join in the event, having stumbled on the announcement for the event on Facebook and, as is my habit, assuming that I was more than welcome. Only after posting my "I'm in!" did I read a bit further and realize that this was initially established as a friends and family outing by Leo DiSanto in celebration of a recent return to running and a kickoff to another year. Leo, quite graciously and never having met me, didn't just let me tag along but offered a warm reception. Good man.

Leo did offer some warning that this was a pretty ambitious undertaking and seemed to suggest that we may not be moving along very quickly. My gut told me that good times were to be had, regardless of pace and my lukewarm feelings for road running, and for once my gut was to be trusted.

I met Leo, his brother Nick (the only person in the group that I actually knew), Josh and Katie in the square at Marietta and we hopped on the ribbon of trail that parallels the old railbeds along the Susquehanna River.

We passed beneath the picturesque face of towering Chiques Rock and then followed the tracks through the old rail yard and into the town of Columbia. That first mile or two of trail was a nice surprise but was soon left behind as we headed south toward Washington Boro.

Thankfully, traffic was pretty light and we were probably passed by as many bicycles as four-wheeled vehicles. When we hung a left in Washington Boro, we'd covered half the route and had a rolling 6 miles left on Route 999 before reaching our destination in the borough of Millersville.

The weather was again unseasonably warm, but not unpleasantly so. A cold rain and accompanying wind descended with just a mile or two left in the run, too late to do much more than motivate us to the finish.

I was super impressed by the effort on everyone's part and really enjoyed the camaraderie. New friends lurk everywhere, I sometimes forget, and this day unearthed a few more. Katie even passed along a fresh pitted dates filled with peanut butter and cayenne recipe that I look forward to utilizing both on trail and off. As it did when she first shared the concept, my mouth is again watering as I type this paragraph.

I slept like a log on Sunday night and awoke Monday morning to don a rare shirt and tie. I drove a somber hour-and-a-half to Ambler, Pennsylvania where the family of Debora L. Schultz was gathering to pay their final respects. An extended running family, of which I feel proud and blessed to be part, was also in attendance to support Debora's son, Derek, and husband, Randy, two of the finest individuals anyone could possibly hope to meet who just happen to also be runners.

Both seemed surprised to see so many people who had never even met Debora, but it was an honor and a privilege to be given the direct opportunity to let them know how deep is the affection that many of us have for the two of them. I hope our presence was of some comfort. Having been in Derek's shoes when my father passed, I suspect that it may mean more upon reflection than it can possibly mean on the actual day of farewell.

In spite of the unfortunate circumstances of our gathering, it was nice to see Derek, Randy, Jo, Jason, Paul and other familiar faces.

Needing to get back to Manheim, I said farewell and headed back toward the Turnpike. As I neared home, I touched base with Lindsay and learned that she and the girls were headed out on adventure of their own and the afternoon was mine to do what I wanted with it.

So, what do you think I did?

It's been a while, or feels like it has been, since I've run at Governor Dick Park near Mount Gretna. A surprisingly extensive network of trails crisses and crosses through the 1105 acre park and offers a wide variety of terrain and demands. I parked just off of Route 72 and jumped immediately on loop trail #13 and followed it to #12 which meanders westward and climbs to a high point in the park, passing by the still-standing fire tower that stands as the most striking landmark in the park.

It was significantly colder than the previous two days but still not nearly as cold as one might expect in early January. I still felt comfortably warm and sported fairly fresh legs when I reached the environmental center and gave the trail map a close look (hence my being able to quote the trail #'s above that I've never managed before to retain knowledge of).

Here I learned that the trail I've enjoyed the most is trail #15, a winding, technical 2.6 mile trail that traversing rolling slopes on its way back to the eastern side of the park. I also discovered that an intersecting path, trail #4, was the only one with a "difficult" designation, despite appearing to be rather short in length. I decided to keep my eyes peeled.

I'm going to come right out and say it. Trail #4, I love you.

Steep and technical, this is the kind of trail that most cries out to me and, at least in short duration, plays to my strengths. With some tweaks in my technique and building of endurance over the last few years, I now climb well and, most importantly, absolutely enjoy the hell out of it. Despite beginning to feel the creep of fatigue from the preceding miles of the last couple of days, I attacked #4 and reveled in the exertion.

As I neared the top, I also understood that the morning visit to the Ciavarelli Funeral Home had me revisiting a deep well of emotions and what might have otherwise been darkness was transferred into celebration of all the things I love most about being "here" now and retaining possession of wonderful, vivid memories of those who are not.

Some "sads" are good sads and this was one of those.

As is the case after my favorite days (or consecutive days) of running, I found myself ready to get back home to my beautiful family. My melancholy had washed away and I had nothing but genuine smiles and laughter to share with a wife and children who deserve as much of that as I can provide.

I'd bagged 25+ miles in two days to kick off the new year and cherished the exercise, the conversations and the time spent NOT inside.

With the Phunt 50K coming up on January 7th and all kinds of other challenging opportunities materializing in the months ahead, I'm as excited about my upcoming race calendar as I've ever been, but I'll trade each and every potential race for sustained health for me and my family.

2012? Let's do this.

along my journey.

2011-12-31T13:42:00.008-05:00

"Along my journey

through the transitory world,

new year's housecleaning."

-Basho

The sun was shining brightly this morning and the temperatures crept higher than plausible for the last day of December. It was as though 2011 was asking forgiveness for all of the sickness, lost loved ones, strained relationships, financial struggles and other hardships of the last 12 months.

Heavy skies and dipping mercury seemed more befitting but the day's offering was too good to pass up. The air smelled of promise, if only in my hopeful imagination,as it tends to in the context of new year anticipation.

It gave me pause to reflect on the fact that the negativity while ever present hadn't managed to outduel the countering positivity that also coursed throughout the year. Balance was struck and, in the sieve that is my memory, many of the details were replaced by general impressions of "wasn't that great" or "please, never again."

I revel in blacks, whites and grays and purposely employ them in my journaling. Beauty rests there and demands that imagination do the coloring should it feel the need. In the darkest of memories, all remains gray and there arises no temptation to paint anything more. Those most precious moments, however, easily come to life in the full bloom of color.

And there was color in 2011. Much color.

Shared experiences with friends old and new. Celebrations of life lived well and pain escaped. Births and rebirths. Invention, reinvention and paths altered. New connections, reconnections and necessary, healthy disconnections. Adventure into new landscapes and physical challenges.

The children grew taller and wiser and thirsty for more, more, more of everything. Of every single thing. And the momentary quenching of that thirst (thankfully only momentary) was joy and reward unmatched by a paycheck, a bill paid in full, a conscious-clear accounting of one's purpose.

Color, color everywhere. And more to come.

Photo courtesy of Bianca Cordova Photography

Photo courtesy of Andrew Rebeiro

Photo courtesy of Eric Harvey Brown

Photo courtesy of Jo Weakley Agnew

Photo courtesy of Dan Martzall

Photo courtesy of Jack Anderson

Photo courtesy of Mike McMonagle

No need to clean the house (why start now?) at the end of this year. Sure, it's less than pristine, far less, but it is also surprisingly, comfortingly livable despite its blemishes and imperfections.

Thank you, friends and loved ones (and what joy it is to have the lines blurred between the two!), for the flawed but glorious year that it was.

I could not be more excited for all that lies ahead.

"Happy, happy. Joy, joy."

-Stimpy

binge. purge. (agnew's revenge)

2011-12-22T00:06:00.002-05:00

I'd held out as long as I could. Except for a brief, relatively unsuffocating trip to the mall earlier in the month, I'd managed to steer clear of the mad swirl of Christmasing.

With time slipping away, I was going to have to venture into the fray. With a focused plan, a map through the maze, I hoped I could get my shopping done in one two hour operation of determined tunnel vision.

I pulled into the Target parking lot, the first stop on my consumerist binge. I should have laced up my sneaks because the closest parking spot was about a 1/4 mile away from the front doors.

There isn't much to tell of my time behind the wheel of the wobbly cart that greeted me at the front door. All went relatively well and the shelves kindly peddled many of the things on my list, saving me any need to check it twice. I didn't get everything I needed at that Target but expected visits to two more retailers addressed all remaining items on my list.

Time to purge.

To distract the girls while I was busy playing Santa, Lindsay had decided on a trip to Dutch Wonderland (a quaint little kid-oriented theme park for you non-Lancastrians) for holiday inspired amusement.

My inspired amusement would come from my beloved Conestoga Trail.

I have written about the Conestoga Trail on many occasions and those of you who read along have likely heard of or have had the pleasure of spending time on the trail. For those who haven't, the Conestoga begins near the southern end of Lancaster County and meanders roughly due north until intersecting the Horseshoe Trail just below the Lancaster/Lebanon County line. At its southernmost end, the trail serves up a jaggedy profile of elevation changes as it climbs high points and dips into hollows on the eastern shore of the Susquehanna River. The terrain is rocky and rooty and the scenery is absolutely stunning, especially considering its close proximity to the ever creeping suburban sprawl of Pennsylvania and Maryland.

The aptly (if not terribly creatively) named Conestoga Trail Run takes place here each September, beginning at Pequea Creek Campground and traversing "10 challenging miles" on its way to Holtwood Park. I love that race and had invited my good friend Kelly to join me there this year only to have him bear a grudge for what proved to be anything but the "totally runnable" course that I'd (admittedly) falsely promised.

What can I say? My want for Kelly to love the trail as much as I do had totally clouded my recollection of how punishing the Conestoga can be.

Long story short, I now cannot think of the Conestoga without also thinking of Kelly and I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing, considering the unlikelihood that he'll ever set foot on it again.

Anyway...back to my story.

With hours to blissfully while away, I decided to park the car just beyond the small riverside village of Pequea and jump on the trail at a point a couple of miles along the race route. This allowed me to skip the very short portion of established road and get right onto glorious singletrack. Before long I'd climbed past the cave (yes, there is a real cave that sits just off of and likely beneath the trail) and up to the vista at House Rock.

The panorama looking south toward Pinnacle, past the few dotted islands and up to the curve in the river before the Holtwood Dam was as lovely as ever. I progressed at a nice pace in the mid-40 temperatures but also stopped frequently to take in the view, listen to the subdued quiet of the river below and fiddle with the camera. Honestly, I only wanted to go so fast.

It was nice to see a number of other people on the trail, though all were hiking not running. As much as I love solitude and am susceptible to having a day downgraded or even ruined by excessive on-trail traffic, I often find it sad to cover mile after mile of trail without crossing anyone else's path and am left wondering how few people appreciate the beauty that while arguably fading is still all around us.

There were still many signs of the beating that the landscape had sustained from the hurricane and violent weather that came through in late summer and early fall, but it was also apparent that nature rolls with the punches and a bit of debris on the trail is of little consequence to the overall health of the forest and its inhabiting creeks.

Tucquan Glen, as usual, was lush and picturesque. It's a lot of fun to run here but this is also one of those cherished places that cries out for you to stay and it always feels a shame to rush through too quickly.

The long brutal climb up out of Tucquan to Pinnacle is less about lovely scenery and more about doing the work required to just keep moving forward and achieve the high point above. This is definitely a point during the Conestoga Trail Race, especially on a bad day, where you start to wonder if and when the race will ever end.

Without a clock ticking at the finish line, I was able to enjoy this section more than usual, but did break it into two parts, playing again with the camera at the top of one of the rockiest bits.

I still felt pretty good when topping out at Pinnacle though the circling vultures suggested otherwise.

I've always struggled with the next half mile to a mile of downhill trail after it changes over from the old fire road that departs Pinnacle onto loose scree and slabby rock that drops aggressively toward Kelly's Run below. The first time I did the Conestoga Trail Race I took a hard fall and bounced on my tailbone. Back in early September, while running with friends, it took everything in me to not recreate that fall. Dead legs during this year's Conestoga Trail Race had me unsteady and tentative through this segment.

This day proved no different as downed leaves and fir needles made the rock slabs even more treacherous than usual. By the time I arrived at the more level trail down in Kelly's Run, my ankles and shins had taken a pounding. I climbed well from there to Holtwood Park but knew that I'd lost a lot on the descent from Pinnacle.

It was time to refuel...

...and check my progress.

The food, drink and salt tabs went down well with my stomach giving its approval and my body immediately feeling improved. Considering the time I'd piddled away not running, I'd covered the "out" section in pretty strong fashion. I hadn't stopped having fun and everything suggested that the return trip would include more of the same.

Except for one thing.

I nudged the display buttons on the side of the GPS and discovered that it was 4:30 on the afternoon of one of the shortest days of the year. In other words, I had about 45-60 minutes of daylight remaining, maybe less with the heavy cloud cover, and, while slightly refreshed at the moment, my legs were definitely going to be showing fatigue on the way back.

None of this would've mattered in the slightest if I had been in possession of a headlamp which, aggravatingly, I almost always am when running with a pack. For whatever reason, I didn't have one with me today. Those overcast skies were going to ensure that I didn't get any help from the moon or stars, so there was no getting around the fact that sooner or later, I was looking at still being on the trail with little to no visibility.

Somewhere, Kelly Agnew was grinning. I imagined him the villain in some Scooby Doo-like cartoon, spying me through some far off computer monitor, bellowing out a vengeful cackle and perhaps even shaking a fist in the air.

And I, in my lack of preparedness, deserved it.

Nothing left to do but run and run hard while there was still enough light left to risk it. I made it back down into Kelly's Run, clambered back up to Pinnacle and pushed to get down into Tucquan Glen before the sun set entirely. I'd gotten turned around on that descent from Pinnacle on an overnight hiking trip with friends and that was with headlamps, so I was definitely relieved to put that section behind me with light to spare.

There was still light enough to run through Tucquan Glen but by the time I topped out on the next climb, I was alone in the dark. This didn't immediately prove problematic as even without a light the worn in groove of the trail was followable. I couldn't see enough to risk running over the technical surface and really injuring myself, but by keeping my strides close to the ground, I was able to power hike pretty briskly.

Eventually tricky water crossings and sections that skirted large rock slabs left me bushwhacking and/or staggering about trying to figure out how I'd literally just been on the trail and now could find no sign of it. Knowing that the blazes on the trees that are impossible to miss in the daylight hours were lurking invisibly all around me was fairly maddening.

I was frustrated but never panicked, as there was no missing the Susquehanna River off to the left and, so long as I kept within earshot and continued progressing northward, I was going to get where I needed to get.

Just not very quickly.

Though I managed several times to get back on the trail after losing it, I finally lost the track for good on the climb up the ridge that shelters the aforementioned caves. I'm pretty sure now that I initially climbed too steeply too soon and missed some aggressive switchbacks that would've taken me higher and also a bit further inland. My chosen route got me up and over the face of the climb more directly but also put in me in a couple of precarious positions and forced me through thorns and brambles that tore up my shins, knees and upper thighs. I'd stumbled on several occassions once the sun set but was falling with regularity during this leg of the trip. Twice I ended up having to do makeshift self arrests to keep me from sustained slides and on one of those flailings I bloodied my hand.

My lesson learned and a note driven with a mental steel spike to ALWAYS have a headlamp, the forest decided to spit me out onto familiar ground a few hundred yards from my car.

As I trudged up the road and fumbled for my keys, I remembered that it was just up the hill from this point back in September where I'd unsuspectingly come upon a nest of bees kicked up by the runner just ahead of me.

Perspective is everything and, wanting to end on a high note that reaffirmed that it had truly been a beautiful day in the woods, I focused on how nice it was to be returning home without a single sting.

Purge accomplished.

i used to go running.

2011-12-14T22:37:00.000-05:00

I used to go running. I used to write.

Lately, though, I haven't run much and have written less.

Not running has some to do with a busy schedule and some to do with a lack of motivation which may or may not have some to do with a busy schedule.

Not writing has had some to do with a busy schedule but more to do with liking what I'm reading from others far more than I like my own writing.

BUT, I'll come around soon. I always do (jinx). Inspiration's out there.

In the meantime, I'm just gonna ponder my next move...and keep reading.

Photo by Ken Trombatore

run of the mill.

2011-11-24T00:37:00.001-05:00

"With apprehension that I am summoning a jinx, I have decided to unfurl the map and plot a course that leads towards running my first 50-mile event in late 2011, the Stone Mill 50 Mile Run."

I wrote those words here on the 20th of December and had pondered the jinx through Achilles issues, a gastric meltdown at Laurel Highlands, bee stings at Conestoga and month after month of mileage that fell short of what I'd intended to log in preparation for Stone Mill.

But, on the morning of November 19th, as I stood at the starting line outside of Watkins High School in Gaithersburg, I felt pretty darn good and, at least to start, there was no sign of the jinx. Of course, there was a lot of hours left in the day and many miles to cover, so the possibility of a sighting remained.

The weather was perfect, cold to start, but not so cold as to require excessive layering for comfort. I'd brought gloves but felt just warm enough to not need them. I remembered Kelly's advice to stay conservative at the start and decided to stick to it as headlamps bobbed ahead of me on the trail.

That lasted for about 10 minutes until I realized that I was going to go crazy tucked (and stuck) in formation on a beautiful section of wooded singletrack. I wanted to stay controlled but 11+ minute miles weren't going to hold my interest and were possibly going to put me in a hole I had no want to climb into as I alternated between what felt like running in place to walking so as not to literally bump into the person in front of me.

Managing to leapfrog past a number of other runners at a couple of strategic widenings of the trail, I was able to move along more swiftly while still remaining mindful of not going too fast. The course was really runnable with only gentle rises and falls and fairly non-technical footing. By the time I hit the aid station at mile 11, I'd settled into a very comfortable 10:00 minute mile pace and hoped that it wasn't too much too soon.

I had taken in some water and Gatorade from the handheld bottles I was carrying and had kept down one gel, but otherwise I hadn't refueled. I wasn't hungry yet, but, knowing that I was going to need more throughout the day, I ate a couple of bites of potato at the aid station. My stomach didn't fully protest but hinted that it would have preferred that I had left it alone. "Wait to worry", I vaguely remember telling myself.

The sun had finally crept high enough to cast a beautiful light on the meandering Seneca Creek Greenway Trail. I couldn't fathom that such sustained sections of unbroken trail were tucked inconspicuously into the wild cracks between the bustling sprawl of Washington D.C. and Montgomery County, Maryland.

I was having an absolute blast, cruising along, splashing through water crossings and waiting for my beard to thaw.

As I started to near 20 miles, I pulled the throttle back just a hair in hopes that I could settle into a pace I could hold all day long. I even power hiked a couple of the steeper hills to conserve energy even though there wasn't a single section that I couldn't and wouldn't have run in a shorter race.

My pace dropped even further after I decided to take a break. "Don't you have to go to the bathroom?", I've been asked on numerous occasions when talking about running long races. Yes is, of course, the answer and, if you're lucky, there's a port-a-potty handy when the need arises. Call me lucky.

I left the john behind me and felt better for it. Moments later I was on the towpath of the C&O canal and my "feeling better" went away. After miles of trail, the hard-packed towpath surface felt way too much like pavement.

The view, however, was lovely with the mighty Potomac perched on the left.

I snapped a bunch of photos along this stretch, partly because it was so beautiful and partly because it broke up the monotonous pounding of the towpath. On any random day, I would probably enjoy running on this surface and certainly surrounded by that landscape but, having already come a long way, this was the first time that my feet felt fatigued and the first time that my mind wandered to the many miles ahead. My resolve weakened and I realized that I hadn't put anything further in my stomach.

A few miles later, the course branched away from the towpath and the ruins of the race's namesake stone mill offered a welcome distraction.

I investigated for a momentbefore hitting up the aid station nestled just a few yards away. My drop bag was stocked with a change of shirts, a handful of gels, some GU Chomps, a couple of granola bars, some dried dates, salt capsules, some band-aids, a fresh wicking shirt and some ibuprofen.

I opened a gel packet but didn't manage to get much down before deciding that I just didn't want to tempt fate with my cranky gut. I slipped into the dry shirt and packed my wet shirt and remaining gels back into the drop bag. I knocked down two ibuprofen and tucked the Chomps and salt caps into my pocket. The crew at the aid station refilled my bottles and I gave the GPS a quick glance before heading back out onto the trail.

Despite all my dawdling, I was still at a sub-11 minute pace and just 7 tenths of a mile shy of halfway home. I wasn't feeling my best by any means, but was happy to have the towpath behind me, not suffering from any real physical issues and encouraged at being well ahead of the 12 hour cutoff.

After a short stretch of unpaved road, we were back on trail. I felt pretty good for a mile or two as the path wound through open, hilly farmland fringed by old, thinned out woods. Somewhere near mile 27 or 28, I hit a major lowpoint. Physically, nothing seemed out of order, but I just couldn't muster any enthusiasm. It was unignorable...I didn't want to be there, didn't want to run any further. I'd gone further in a number of other races and on other runs and I couldn't understand why I was feeling the way I was, but that just made me more frustrated. The miles between 27 and 30 seemed absolutely endless and while I wasn't really considering dropping when I reached the next aid station, I was dreading the miles and hours ahead.

For all the enthusiasm and support that lives in trail running aid stations, they can be really depressing places when your stomach isn't cooperating. I looked at the chips, pretzels, M&Ms, almonds and other snacks with disdain and borderline despair. I was sitting down, nursing a cup of Coke, staring at nothing and thinking about the same when I overheard a runner ask a volunteer for some chicken soup. Hearing that request brought on a craving for soup like I've never experienced. I jumped to my feet and said "make it two", feeling melodramatic but not caring in the least.

To say that that cup of soup saved my life would be...stupid, it would be stupid, but what it did do was give me calories I was sorely lacking and those calories translated into positivity that I'd been without for several miles. It wasn't the last soup (or cup of Coke) that I would have that day, but it was the one that got my fueling back on track and kept me from a total bonk. I wouldn't say that I went flying out of the aid station, but I did get back to running with purpose instead of letting pace get away from me entirely.

I kept plugging along, enjoying the babbling creeks, leaf-stripped woodlands and postcard-perfect old barns perched on distant hillsides. I discovered that I'd covered 40 miles and was creeping toward the possibility of sneaking up on the finish line at just under 11 hours. I wanted to go faster but also reminded myself to stay smart and forced myself to power-hike now and then to break up some of the repetition on my leg muscles. The strategy seemed to be working as the Garmin reported that I'd made it to 44 miles.

That's where I was when the gentleman at the next aid station welcomed me to "41 miles". I gave him a puzzled look as he explained that the next section was an out-and-back consisting of a 1.5 leg to a water stop and then an additional 3.5 miles to the turnaround. I'm no mathematician and was tired to boot, but that sure sounded like more remaining work than I'd expected. I mumbled something about the read-out on my wrist and he smiled when he told me that a lot of other runner's GPSs had said the same thing. Hmmm.

Off I went, but with an admitted deflation. Even though I felt pretty good, there was something about having thought I was so close only to learn that I wasn't that took a toll. I slowed noticeably and no longer needed to force myself to hike the "ups". Shortly after leaving the turnaround and recrossing an icy stream which may have been the motivation for the race directors to send us that way in the first place, the sun passed from low in the sky to gone. Luckily, I'd kept my headlamp in my pocket instead of throwing it in the drop bag back at the Stone Mill aid station.

A mile further, the light revealed Bobby approaching me on his way out to the turnaround. Stone Mill was his 11th ultra of 2011 and he'd lined up despite suffering from what he suspected was the start of plantar fasciatis. Bobby and I had suffered through Laurel Highlands together back in June and forged a fast friendship and an easy camaraderie. I wanted this to be a great day for him as much I did for myself, but I could tell he was having some difficulty. He confirmed that his plantar diagnosis was correct and told me of his day. He'd tried to modify his gait to offset the growing pain in his foot and brought on some knee issues in the process. He'd gutted things out for hours on end, but, in learning that the course was longer than advertised and not wanting to cause any further damage, he decided to turnaround here and come back with me. His race was over but he still had a few dark, cold miles ahead to get back to the start. I was sorry for how his day had gone but happy to again be sharing the trail with him.

With the sun down, the temperatures had dropped considerably and we looked forward to calling it a day. Having a friend to talk to made those last few miles slip by surprisingly quickly and before long the finish line loomed ahead at the top of one last grassy slope, the steepest of the day. I bounded up the hill, surprised to find that I still had a little leg, and crossed under the Stone Mill start/finish banner.

I'd finished my first 50-miler and was pleased to feel like I could have gone further. Well, to be fair, I had gone further. Four-and-a-half miles further. I hadn't managed to look down to see where I was at mile 50, but based on my final pace and the slogging that I did on that last out-and-back, I'm guessing it was something a little less than 11 hours. Maybe.

Despite the unexpected miles, I had a great time and loved the event. The weather was perfect and the course was totally manageable. I'd have been hard-pressed to pick a better day and race my first 50. There was a lot of grumbling about the extended distance and I'm still perplexed as to why the directors were comfortable overshooting by that much. Wayne, who I'd met the night before, was using Stone Mill as his qualifying race for entering the Western States 100 lottery. To get in without a 100-miler, he needed a sub-11 hour 50-mile race and, by running strategically throughout the day to hit that comfortably, he ended up just sneaking in under that time because of the extra miles. His frustration was understandable. For me, just wanting to get through the distance, I'm hoping that those extra miles will give me a psychological advantage the next time I attempt 50 miles. Time will tell.

My hope is that the organizers publicize the full distance next year or modify it to be something a little closer to 50 or even add on and make it a 100K. As cold as it got on Saturday, had there been rain or wind to further complicate things, runners could have found themselves in real danger of hypothermia or exposure. This, obviously, is always a possibility at any ultra, but with the course being so much longer than advertised, the directors would have had to field some uncomfortable questions that, thankfully, didn't need to be addressed this past weekend. Outside of that, I have no complaints or suggestions for improvement.

Thanks to all for putting on such a well-supported event with a great vibe. With a hard to believe $35 entry fee in an era where you're often asked to pay that for a 5K, Stone Mill didn't include a commemorative shirt, but the swag was still pretty sweet and included a nice imprinted drop bag, a mug (for first time Stone Mill runners) and a flashlight.

It probably goes without saying, but my favorite piece of swag was the finisher's medal.

a light in the midst of the tunnel.

2011-11-08T00:25:00.000-05:00

I really am beginning to believe that I do my best running in the dark.

By settling into the narrow tunnel of light and letting my brain pull what little info it can from the beam and quickly convincing my feet to trust that little bit of info and get on with things. Maybe there's too much available data in the light of day and it's my brain that can't stay on task, leaving my feet wondering what it is they're supposed to be doing.

The Stone Mill 50, my first attempt at running 50 miles at one shot, is two weeks away and I'm considering wearing blinkers like a skittish racehorse. Maybe I can start a new running fad.

Anyway, that decision can wait. For now I'm concentrating on cranking out a few last moderate length runs to stay fit and keep the legs moving. The family schedule has been wacky so night runs have become the norm. Tonight, after a couple hours of fun hiking with Lil, Piper, Dan and Adeline and then getting the kids to bed, I zipped over to Pumping Station to spend some time on the Horseshoe Trail and the surrounding area.

Yes, it's dark out there. But that is why I bring a headlamp. And here's what things look like (be forewarned, this is barely watchable):

While I didn't grow up IN the forest, I did grow up just outside of the forest and spent many nights venturing into them. I feel strangely at ease in the dark or at least I'm told that it's strange from folks (my wife, for one) who shudder at every snap of a twig and hoot of an owl. I expect to hear those sounds and they don't bother me one bit.

That's what I was telling myself as I began to hear what sounded like the steady squeak of a slightly rusted tricycle apparently pedalling along in the woods just outside of my field of vision. It held steady through a quarter mile climb and the subsequent descent. I knew I was imagining it or, more correctly, misidentifying what I was truly hearing and morphing it into something creepy.

Time to think about something else.

I began thinking about Kelly Agnew's invitation, made a few weeks earlier, to have me pace him at the Javelina Jundred (pronounced Havelina Hundred for anyone unfamiliar with the hard-as-nails Javelina's soft-as-butter J) out in Arizona in mid-November. He needed someone to accompany him on the final 39 miles and kindly (I think) thought of me.

I was flattered and intrigued even though I knew right away that I wouldn't be able to pull it off. I had neither the money or the time to get myself there, not to mention the fact that I've never done 39 miles in a single go, haven't served as a pacer for anybody at any distance and I was signed up for Stone Mill the weekend that followed the Javelina Jundred.

Honestly, I was more than intrigued. I wanted to do it. For Kelly and for me, I wanted to find some way to be there.

But, it wasn't to be, despite Kelly's persistent texts that were equal parts urging and mocking. It was an effective tact and resulted in a nagging conscience despite my sticking to my guns (facing reality).

So, anyway, here I am running in the Pennsylvania darkness and thinking of Kelly and I running in the Arizona darkness. I was no longer concerned about ghost tricyclists but I did begin questioning if I had the stuff to be of any use to anyone as a pacer.

I never did get my answer, but I did decide that I want to find out. I fully intend to keep running my own races and testing my own boundaries but, man, there's something about the idea of being there for a friend at a time that he or she most needs support while together tackling the very kind of challenge that has likely brought us together in the first place.

Sitting high up on Eagle Rock, I looked out over the sleeping valley below and looked forward to adventures to come.

So, if you're looking to go long and think you could use some company somewhere along the course, pick up the phone, send me an e-mail, let me know where I need to be. I may not be the world's best and certainly won't be the fastest pacer out there, but I will do my damnedest to have an encouraging word when you need it, shut my mouth when you need it shut and suffer right along with you to the finish line.

My finish line on Saturday night was the Pumping Station parking lot where my car waited to escort me back to my slumbering household. It was a satisfying finish.

As satisfying as making a finish can be, I can only imagine it's that much more satisfying to help someone else get there too.

Whether it's in broad daylight or by the glow of a headlamp.

just a number.

2011-11-03T22:07:00.002-04:00

"Age is just a number," they say.

Funny thing about they...for all of the bravado, they don't seem to do a lot of signing their names to the swaggering proclamations. And with good reason, since many of those mouthing-offs don't hold water.

While I don't find the passage of time to be a source of dread, I can say, unequivocally, that age is far more than just a number.

If it wasn't, I'd be toeing the line at 5K races expecting to flirt with 18 minute finishes like I did at 24. Those days are long, long gone. Of course, so is the free time that I had in my early twenties. Free time that would've come in handy had I taken an interest then in the long-distance running I love so much now.

Which brings me to something that is, in fact, just a number.

It's sitting right there in the lower right hand corner of the photo. One thousand and two (point 1, since we're keeping count) is the reading on my 2011 running odometer as of the end of my middle of the night run run last evening (or this morning if you really want to get technical).

Engaged in a hobby in which some individuals crank out 50 or 100 miles in a single day (or at least at a single time over a span of more than 24 hours), taking 10 months to cover 1000 miles is easy. I, however (and I realize that my non-running friends and family aren't going to buy this for a second), am not a very high-mileage ultra-runner. I would like to be and hope over the coming years to increase my regular mileage, but not so much so that the rest of life requires an overhaul.

I've got 3 lovely reasons who share my home and my life to make me unwilling and uninterested in devoting much more time away from them, especially when my running life is already blissful with the time I am able to give it. For now, I'll stick with my 20-40 miles per week that more resembles 10K training than a 50-mile race regimen and live with results on race days.

And, let's face it, 1000 miles is a fair few miles. Leaving my front door and heading west, I'd be within 100 miles of New Orleans by now and could expect to knock on my friend Megan's door sometime late this month or early December (and promptly take her for a run). If I'd have headed northeast instead, I could have visited Bar Harbor in early summer and have just 30 miles left on my return trip. Had I made a beeline for San Francisco, I'd be pulling out of Kansas City and looking at being halfway across the country by the end of the year.

All that is nonsense, of course, as 1002 really is just a number. I've got friends and acquaintances who probably waved goodbye to that same number as early as April or May and didn't see any reason to blather about it the way I am now. Curiosity got the better of me this year, though, and so I'm looking more closely at the numbers than I have before. I'm not really gleaning anything particularly useful from the running log that I decided to keep for the entire year, but I am finding it intriguing. I may (or may not) have run 1000 miles in a year a time or too before but I never had the documentation to confirm it.

I went in to last weekend knowing that I was getting close to quadruple figures and when I let Monday and Tuesday slip away without getting in any miles it started to prey on my conscience. Lindsay was scheduled to work on Wednesday evening until 11:30 and it looked like I was again going to spend the day on the sidelines.

When she got home early and needed to transition right into studying, I saw my opportunity. On went the shoes, the windshirt, a hat and my headlamp and off I went. Roughly an hour-and-a-half and just under 10 miles later, I had reached the silly number referenced in the earlier photo.

It was during that run that I began pondering age. Not sure why, but it happened. I'm not going to say "I LOVE being 37", but I'm far more content as 40 approaches than I would've predicted as that speedier 24 year old.

Last I checked, the average American male can expect to draw breath for about 75 years, landing me squarely at mid-life crisis age.

But it hasn't happened and I'm fairly hopeful it isn't going to happen.

If anything I feel like the member of a football team that suffered through a rough first half only to emerge from the locker room re energized by a fiery halftime speech and the recognition that his team is still very much in the game. The blessed existence of my wife, the life-affirming arrival of my children and, yes, the physical joy of running combined to deliver that speech and I'm thinking this second half could be a far more positive than the first.

Who knows, maybe grandkids'll sub in late and I'll end up sticking around for overtime to watch them unleash vengeful (but harmless) mayhem in my name on my mischievous children.

octo-brrr.

2011-10-30T23:10:00.001-04:00

I loaded the girls (my two daughters and their great aunt) into the van, jumped in the driver's seat, turned the key and pointed the vehicle toward Lycoming County and, with any luck, some freakishly early snow.

My wish came true (though I'd have never guessed--weather reports notwithstanding--that there'd actually be more snow home in Manheim than up in the higher elevations of northern Pennsylvania).

Whichever friend of my stepfather's who owns and built the cabin that we frequent a half hour's drive north of Williamsport chose a beautiful location. Perched on a nice vantage point just above the Lycoming Creek, the cabin is close enough to home (2.5-3 hours) to always feel within reach but remote enough to seem as though home is far, far away.

When we arrived on Friday, the sun was already down so we didn't get a peek at the state of the fall foliage but we could see that there wasn't any snow on the ground. It wasn't warm, but the temperatures hadn't dipped below freezing. Regardless, the cabin's wood stove made for a cozy night's sleep.

When I woke to my alarm at 6:30, things had changed.

A solid frost clung to everything, steady snow was falling and a cold fog hung in the dim light of early morning. The first few miles of my run would keep me low in the valley away from what little warmth the rising sun might bring. The mercury hadn't dipped far below freezing, but a very wet snow dampened everything it touched and made the air feel that much colder.

I followed Route 14 south for about 4 miles until it reached the town of Ralston. Once there, I hung a left onto an old logging road that quickly left town behind and crept out toward Loyalsock State Forest. Rather than continuing into the state forest (which is beautiful), I soon bore left onto McIntyre Road, another unpaved mountain road, that offers a challenging sustained 4 mile, 1000+ foot climb to what, in fairer weather, is a pretty stunning vantage point of the valley that I'd just passed through.

A gathering blanket of snow on the tree branches welcomed my arrival.

I settled into a steady pace determined to run the entire climb and managed to so. I had the road to myself except for a couple of passing hunters who greeted my wave and smile with the subtlest of acknowledging nods that, honestly, I may have invented to assure myself that we'd made nice. Because of the road conditions, it took them a long time to leave me behind which gave me a nice shot of adrenaline to finish the climb.

Before actually reaching the vista, the road levels and even offers a slight downhill before the turnaround. Having run the entire uphill, I decided to mess around with the small tripod in my pack and see if I could get any decent shots of me running. They turned out so-so, but I liked this one:

When I did reach the overlook, visibility was extremely limited by the icy fog that rolled between the rocky outcrop on which I stood and the far ridgeline, a couple of miles removed. Vanity coaxed me into another self portrait:

I lingered for several minutes as small gaps in the clouds opened and closed, providing momentary glimpses of the landscape below.

I realized I'd stayed long enough when a torso-shaking chill reminded me that I was soaking wet and it was still snowing. I dug a dry shirt out of my pack and welcomed the immediate warmth. Though the hardest part of my out-and-back was behind me, I still had a 9 mile return trip and was glad I'd planned well enough to have brought the change of clothes.

With four immediate miles of downhill, I pushed the pace a bit and was happy to have my legs respond nicely. At the lowest section of McIntyre Road, the mid morning temps had climbed enough to keep the snow from accumulating. I really enjoyed the autumnal beauty and almost wished that the road went on forever.

It didn't. Eventually I was back along the comparatively bustling Route 14 and churning out the last few miles to the cabin. I was pleased to see that I'd held comfortably below 9 minute mile pace for the entire 18 miles despite the climb up McIntyre and without every really trying to push hard.

This is the route, if you're interested:

http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=458308

Despite having snow fall throughout the day and into the evening hours, we didn't have any measurable accumulation at the cabin itself. I learned that back home Lindsay had had the displeasure of shoveling 5-6 inches of heavy snow and a limb had sheared off of one our favorite backyard trees.

By the time I got home late on Saturday afternoon (and with the exception of the tree branch), most of the evidence was gone. It had clearly snowed but little of it remained. Still, curiosity led me back to the car and off to Pumping Station to check on the Horseshoe Trail.

Because of the closures of Route 322, I couldn't get the car all the way there.

I'm assuming there were trees down somewhere on 322 to merit the closure, but on foot, I couldn't see them. There were limbs down everywhere on the Horseshoe Trail, however, and it was slow going through the gathered slush and what snow lingered.

After the long, quick road miles of the day before, the varying footing and the riddle that is route-finding on rocky terrain was a nice change of pace. Topping out at Eagle Rock, I snapped a quick photo to show the couple of inches of snow and the view north toward Schaefferstown, Myerstown and the Blue Mountains far in the distance.

For good measure, I took one more "I wuz here" photos of you know who too.

I tacked on a couple more miles before returning to the car to get home to my lovely snow-shoveling wife, some pizza and a couple hours of not running.

finally.

2011-10-28T01:25:00.001-04:00

How I've dreamed of a complete race. Just one solid start to finish effort that didn't leave me questioning or second guessing myself at the end of the day.

I think I may have had one or two over the years, but I was a much younger man the last time it happened. Even my better results were usually accompanied by some missteps or sections of the race that could have gone differently and ended with a lower time.

So, I'm 37 now and no longer in possession of the speed and lack of wear-and-tear I had at 20. I'm only gonna go so fast. Which leaves me needing to be disciplined and smart. Neither is my strong suit.

All the better, then, to have things come together at a race that references the "not smart" in its very name, Pretzel City Sports's third annual Ghouls & Fools 10K.

A Ron Horn original, this little gem of a race starts after the sun sets and winds its way up and around Mt. Penn, asking runners to weave around trees, duck under branches, clamber over logs and endure endless rocks and roots with just your flashlight or headlamp beam to guide the way.

I ran this race for the first time in 2010, placing 39th out of well over 400 finishers with a time of 52:44. I was pretty pleased with that result, especially with the hesitancy I felt during the first mile or two as I questioned every footfall on the leaf strewn, rocky course. I'd also managed to start further back in the pack than I had intended, always a potential obstacle at the well attended (and for good reason) Pretzel City events.

I almost missed this year's race entirely as I had somehow managed to convince myself that it was scheduled for the 29th of October, a day I would be in a little cabin north and east of Williamsport enjoying a weekend away with family. Thankfully, I emerged from the fog on Friday morning to realize that the race was actually happening on Saturday, October 22nd.

Jefferson was there in body and spirit, but was leaning on a trekking pole that confirmed his ankle hadn't recovered from not one but two nasty falls on a predawn run the weekend before. I was glad to see him even if he'd only shown up to claim his prepaid race tee. Steve (50:22!) and Cassie (who earned a 3rd place finish in her age group!) were there, as was Jason though I didn't actually see him until later in the evening. Shasta, as promised, showed up to try her first night run and ended up running it like it was routine. There were plenty of other familiar faces too, but many of my closer running friends were out of town, the only bummer of the night.

The weather was perfect...just cool enough to run in long sleeves and a hat without wishing you could ditch them 10 minutes after you started.

After listening to Ron's pre-race threats, I succeeded in wedging in right behind the speedsters at the front of the pack and waited for the gun. I stayed inside on the first crowded turn out of the parking lot and consciously moved quickly during the first few hundred yards to ensure that I was free of the fray when we hit the initial section of singletrack.

I was really psyched to vanish into the woods with no more than 15-20 bobbing headlamps out in front of me. The pace was speedy during the first mile as the track tumbled mostly downhill ahead of the climbing to be done later in the course.

It was during the downhill stretch, as I tried to get a peek at how fast we were going, that I discovered I'd left my GPS in the car. I immediately decided that it didn't matter and never gave it another thought.

At some point within the first two miles, the small pack that I was in fell apart at a spot where a few runners started off course and the others began to follow. I emerged from that confusion at the front of the group and dug into the uphill section that immediately followed. Some minutes later I realized that I was running alone and had been for a time as the trail continued to climb and snake here and there in the darkness.

I spent the next few miles mostly alone and shot right past the aid stations, not feeling the need for anything over the short distance and in the cool conditions. I was eventually caught by a couple of other runners but stayed in the same headspace, just cranking out the miles and relishing the way my brain stayed out of the way of my body doing its thing.

I began to wonder if I should consider ONLY running at night as I really think I was running more purely with the lack of visibility because in order to hold pace I had to pretty much turn things over to my legs and hope that they were making the right decisions. Every now and then I would hit a rock or root oddly and understand that I was a single misstep away from a disaster, but, thankfully, that misstep never happened.

I was almost disappointed to see the old familiar guard rail that marks the start of Ron's beloved one-last-kick-in-the-ass finishing climb. A scramble over that last rocky ridge deposited me on the grass just ahead of the finish. Jefferson threw me some kind words as I passed him and glanced up at the clock. Crossing the line at 45:39, I'd shaved a full 7 minutes off of last year.

I felt great and loved that the race had felt less like a race and more like the best of runs, free of any expectations and, instead, just a total escape with the sound and noise of real life turned all the way down.

Beautiful.

Turned out my time was good enough to land me in 9th place and 2nd in my age group. And the best part of all that was having Ron proclaim my beard the "best beard in the race" when he handed me this ghoulish medal:

I usually don't mingle with clowns, but I'm making an exception for this guy.

singing the blue's cruise.

2011-10-04T01:43:00.002-04:00

I've got blog posts withering on the vine.

I meant to report on my day at the Conestoga Trail Run (and address Kelly's accusations), had a commentary on the wonderfully inherent risks of getting lost at ultras and intended to provide a look back at September's mileage. A beard vs. aerodynamics entry is way overdue. There are other ideas rattling around in my sieve of a brain but I've got to let them go or at least set them aside to say a thing or two about the 2011 Blue's Cruise 50K.

Just gotta do it.

I'm actually going to do my best to keep my clumsy words out of the way and let some great pics from some great friends (thanks, Jo and Derek!) do most of the talking.

Speaking of Jo, there she is on the far right smiling away as usual. This was the crew at the 6.5 mile aid station and they were fantastic. On a pretty raw day thanks to the muddy, muddy course, cool temps and on-and-off rain, the volunteers at Blue's delivered warmth and encouragement at every stop. The been-there-done-that wisdom of the Pagoda Pacers was evident at each aid station and much appreciated.

And speaking of warmth and "pretty raw", here's Derek doing, well, whatever it is he's doing. I'm relieved to say that I didn't witness this spectacle first hand. I did, however, get the jolt of adrenaline that Derek delivers each of the four or five times I crossed his path on the course as he leapfrogged from point to point, cheering on racers and photo documenting the day.

Derek snapped this pic of me just after I went past the 6.5 aid station. He had his shirt on at this point, thank goodness. I was still feeling good enough at this point to have run through the aid station without stopping and it seems I was fancying myself some kind of bird in flight. Why I can't help but clown for a camera is a mystery worth investigating.

This is ultra-machine Kelly Agnew doing work. We ran together for the first couple of miles and I forgot to ask him if his stopping to shed a layer and encouraging me to "keep going" was his way of actually telling me to "get lost". Hmmm. Maybe it's better that I didn't ask. The next time I saw him, he was asking me if I was "ok". And, then, he got right back to the task at hand and cranked out a sweet 5:24 on a track way muddier and hillier than my (once again) poor pre-race reporting would've suggested.

Don't let this photo of Gary and Carli fool you. The course is about 95% trail, much of it sweet singletrack. This shot was taken within the first 1/8 of a mile and other than a couple of road crossings and this same short stretch at the end, this was the last paved surface they needed to cover. Congrats, you two!

Look at that grin. You think Greg likes ultra running? I'd say so. This is another of the wonderful individuals that I met at Laurel Highlands and immediately felt like I'd known forever. I look forward to spending more time together on the trail...the sooner the better.

Jeremiah caught me from behind coming down the first real climb on the course when my left arch was starting to punish me for punishing it in the stride-mangling mud of the first 1/3 of the course. He said "you don't recognize me" and he was right. The last time I'd seen him, he was sporting a full head of dreads that apparently have been shorn. Jeremiah is the owner and head trainer of the CrossFit Collective in Lancaster. Whatever he's doing, it's working. He ran a sub 5:30. Check out the Collective and maybe he can whip you into shape too (maybe I should consider that a note to self).

Jason is another Laurel blood brother and a face I always hope and expect to see at area races. We spent some time together on Sunday at a point where we were both in grinding mode, just trying to push through to the finish. If you haven't been there, trust me, those are bonding moments for sure. That much more so when you endure them with an already kindred spirit. Way to get it done, Jason!

I hadn't met Steve before, but knew him through Facebook if that qualifies as "knowing". Can't imagine a better way to have made his acquaintance than by sharing a mile together on the trail. He was chugging away and I wish my arch would've allowed me to spend a bit more time with him. Conversation was easy and he shared stories of Leo Lutz, another Lancaster runner who appears to be known by everyone but whom I've never met despite our similar names and shared interests. Steve is another of the 6 degrees that will eventually lead to me shaking Leo's hand. I didn't see Steve later in the day, but, per the results, it looked like he was 1st Senior Male, clocking a 6:02:58 at age 65. Yes, sixty five. Awesome.

And, speaking of awesome, the one and only Randy Schultz crossed the line and, in the process, scored his second 50K finish in the last month! I can only imagine the thrill of being escorted to the end by son Derek. This is one proud papa who just so happens to be a papa that so, so many of us are proud to know. If there's a bigger heart out there, I'll need visual evidence as proof. Congratulations, Randy! You truly are an inspiration.

Which brings me back to me. There was a different kind of inspiration waiting for me. Lindsay and the girls were kind and loving enough to brave less than ideal weather to see me make it to the end. If only I had as much pep left at the finish as Piper Bea did when she came dashing my way with a celebratory hug and giggles...the best finisher's medal ever.

Shy Lily played coy and got bearded kisses in response. More joy.

Shout outs too to my beautiful wife, Lindsay, for spending one of her extremely rare days off from work, class, clinicals and studying to wait and worry in the cold rain for me to finally drag myself to the finish many, many minutes after I'd told her to expect me. We make sacrifices for each other, but, frankly, mine are minor in comparison to hers. If there is such a thing as an angel, she just might be one. Thank you.

Thanks also to the race directors and all of the volunteers for another incredible event. There was pre-race buzz surrounding the Blue's as this was the first year that it would be a true full 31 mile loop around the lake. Then with the wicked weather of this past month, there was some concern that the course wouldn't actually be ready. Just two to three weeks ago, most of the trail was quite literally underwater. Like 10-15 feet deep! I'm amazed at how well the race came off with those challenges and tip my hat, thinking it way too weak a gesture on my part under the circumstances.

To trail running friends, old and new, may it please be evident how much I cherish our shared adventures. Even at low physical moments, I can't imagine wanting to be anywhere else. I hope that I find ways over the years to at least partly repay the inspiration, kindness and positivity that you gift to me on every meeting. It's been a great ride thus far and I'm so excited that the road, er, trail looks like it just goes on and on and on.

See you out there!

kids' first bibs.

2011-09-21T23:40:00.001-04:00

I've found it harder and harder to muster enthusiasm for road races, but I'd gotten pretty excited about this year's Amos Herr 5K Honey Run.

I have run this race several times before and have fond memories of one year pushing Lily in the stroller as she cheered at each person we passed (we passed many as I was in the bathroom when the start gun went off, giving us the chance to catch the entire back of the pack and a good chunk of the mid-pack too!) and, another year, doubling back around after finishing to accompany Lindsay on her first 5K finish.

This year I'd managed to convince both Lily and Piper Bea to let me push them in the double stroller. This was especially exciting for me because I had a suspicion I might not get the chance again with Lily growing taller by the minute and Piper rarely agreeing to sit still for minutes at a time.

The girls were also excited to take part in the kids' 1/4 mile fun run, their first opportunity to "run like daddy". Both girls grew more enthusiastic as race day approached which in turn made me that much more excited. Every day of the week ahead of the race, I would answer "which day is Sunday?" with a full countdown of the remaining days.

Then on Saturday afternoon while trying to reinflate the tires, I broke the stroller. Really broke it.

As in, killed it. And not in a good way.

My heart sank and, almost on cue, a head cold swept in and threatened to put me down for the entire weekend. Between my disappointment and being sick, I got myself in a pretty nasty funk.

Boo-hoo for me and all that. Pathetic.

But that melancholy washed away on Sunday afternoon when I, in a medicated haze, witnessed Lily and Piper crossing the fun run finish line to proudly, giddily accepting their first ribbons.

In the end, I realized I was happier for the girls to have race day memories of their own that didn't need sharing with just another day of running for Dad.

Too bad it took me busting the stroller to give them that. My bad.

an abbreviated (but still super) hike.

2011-09-11T14:35:00.003-04:00

My September running got off to a strong start with a number of hour+ long runs strung together over the Labor Day weekend. My legs held up throughout and I wondered if that would make me feel that much more restless while volunteering at the 3rd annual KTA Susquehanna Super Hike on Saturday morning.

Even some wicked pain in my toe that required a doctor's attention (lancing proved even more painful than the injury itself) on Wednesday night didn't keep me from feeling like I had a long run in me. If you're curious, Google the term paronychia and hope you never hear a doctor say it to you...I have never had such a seemingly insignificant source of discomfort make me question my pain threshold more critically.

It was with some guilt, then, that I learned of the Keystone Trails Association's decision to cancel the Super Hike after tropical storm Lee swept in and buried Lancaster County in many, many inches of rain that led to subsequent flooding in area creeks, rivers and towns.

Certainly I'd never hoped that the Super Hike would be shelved entirely, freeing me up for a long weekend run. The event really is a treasure as is the Conestoga Trail and surrounding ridges, streams and hollows that host the race.

The KTA puts in an incalculable amount of work in putting together the race and participants train for weeks and months beforehand in preparation. Obviously, all involved were sorely disappointed while still being respectful of the fact that safety comes first and the attention of emergency responders was best focused elsewhere in the aftermath of cresting flood waters.

A like-minded bunch of adventurous runners, however, decided to gather at the high point of Holtwood Park on Saturday morning, head down into Kelly's Run and north toward Pequea to see how far we could get before passage proved impossible. I knew a couple of individuals firsthand, but most of the assembly consisted of new faces or faces that I knew only through the sneak peek that is Facebook or from fragmented memories of past area races. Regardless, as I find with trail running in general, we all mingled and mixed like old pals and instantly felt like a team.

There was a ton of standing and running water up high on the trail that made me suspect we were in for a short trip. Thankfully, that water must have been filtering into the ground or heading off in varied enough directions because the trail was actually in better shape the further we ventured into Kelly's Run.

When things bottomed out (still high above the Susquehanna), there was clearer evidence of receded waters, downed trees and choked debris. The trail was certainly still passable, but required a little bit of clambering which led to slightly deeper than usual creek crossings at the lowest elevations before the start of the climb up towards the Pinnacle.

The Pinnacle stood unharmed, standing as it does a few hundred feet above the river, but the dense fog offered up only an impenetrable curtain of white and gray that refused any glimpse of the Susquehanna.

We pushed onward, heading down again, this time toward Tucquan Glen and the first landmark that had true potential to be completely underwater.

Before we reached the bottom, we caught site of the railroad tracks and knew that the river had dropped at least below that point. Though the tracks were clear, there was a broad island of debris on the inland portion of the bridge that cluttered the clear pool that usually sits at the foot of Tucquan.

On the other side of the rails, there was a 4 to 5 foot wide ribbon of deep mud that had trapped numerous small fish, fingerlings and crayfish. We shuttled as many as were immediately visible into the river, but I'd imagine the story remained the same all the way north and south from that point.

A preliminary determination had us doubting that the Conestoga Trail was above water in Tucquan and we leaned toward taking the "high" trail on the other side of the creek to reconnect with the trail above the glen. Someone, I'm not sure who, scouted ahead enough to say that the low trail was doable so we stayed the course and braved on.

The first portion of the trail was pretty waterlogged and, except for the few hearty souls that waded over-the-waist-high along the shoreline, most of the group did a bit of rhododendron bush-whacking to stay above the trail.

After the initial 50-100 yards, the trail reemerged and led to the always wondrous beauty that is Tucquan Glen. As the elevation increased by even just a few feet, the glen looked not unlike it does after any significant rainfall. At the sight of runners strung out around the bend on the ridge-hugging trail, I fell behind to try and snap photos, none of which turned out to do the spectacle any real justice.

Another creek crossing welcomed us to the start of another climb. We passed a United Way group doing trail clean-up and offered our thanks and good luck. A short while later we got our first from-up-high look at the chocolate-milk-like waters of the Susquehanna.

A short descent led across Reed's Run and then into the ups-and-downs over House Rock, past the limestone caves and down into the village of Pequea. Clean-up was in full swing with pumps emptying water out of basements and first floors. Small numbers of onlookers milled about, scoping the Susquehanna and viewing the swath of debris that filled the marina. Something (everything?) didn't smell quite right.

We hung a right on the path toward Pequea Creek Campground and immediately hit standing water and deeper mud. Most startlingly (and I can't believe I didn't manage to get a photo), deep cracks in the soft soil of the unpaved road seemed to offer strong support to the landslide warnings that had been issued the day prior. I cringed at the idea of 500 hikers and runners attempting to cross through here on their way to the Super Hike finish line just a half mile ahead.

Before long we transitioned from the road into the campground and collectively gasped at what we found there. Everything that wasn't under water, clearly had been not long ago and where the water had retreated, thick mud was left in its place.

The pavilion that a year ago had been the gathering place of volunteers, race finishers and their family and friends stood bathed in mud, its picnic tables pushed this way and that. A slick of mud along the top of the seats of the picnic tables made it clear that the entire pavilion had been beneath at least 2 feet of water.

Downed outhouses had washed up against the pavilion and were now resting on their sides a few feet away.

The grassy plot that had served as the tent camping/parking area for the Super Hike looked fine until you stepped on it and discovered that beneath the top layer of grass was several inches of soupy mud. My first footfall caused the next several feet of grass to ripple and roll like water displaced in the bathtub.

Even the herons looked perplexed, standing on banks that normally provided a high vantage point above the creek but were now flush with the dark brown waters of the creek.

Being beyond the end of the summer season, the campground had already seen many of its usual resident RVs and campers leave for the year, but those vehicles that had stayed behind were likely not going to be put to use again. At the western end of the campground, there was still a foot or more of water and the line of mud caked along one camper's windows proved that water had been at least another 3-4 feet higher within the last 24 hours.

Before the four of us who remained together for the return trip left the campground, I snapped a quick photo of my GPS, concerned that the battery was going to run out of juice before we topped out at Holtwood (it didn't). I'd forgotten to turn the Garmin back on when we'd first left the Pinnacle earlier in the day but had received confirmation from another runner's GPS that I'd shorted us exactly 4 tenths of a mile.

Off we went.

The journey back found Cassie, Steve, Gary and I together throughout, basking (sometimes gasping) in the sun that now shone brightly in the sky, enjoying each other's company, pushing through growing fatigue and using each creek crossing to calm swelling, cool down and clown around.

It was a blast.

At Pinnacle we dug into the cooler that Cassie and Steve had hid there earlier in the day and fueled up for the final push. The section from the Pinnacle to Kelly's Run provided a breathtaking viewpoint of the trail, river, dam and bridge way down below.

Earlier in the day, knowing that I'd slow to a snail's pace if I pulled out my camera and started shooting pics, I had passed through Kelly's Run without taking a single photograph. Coming back the second time, I lingered a bit behind the group to get a couple of shots.

Fueled by the want to try and run the last leg (especially with the Conestoga Trail Run just a couple of weeks away) AND, maybe more importantly, to stay ahead of what felt like a growing threat of cramping, I was able to crank out a pretty good pace on the run up to Holtwood Park. I'm not sure, though, that I had anything more left in the tank once I got there.

Steve, Cassie and Gary appeared just a few minutes later and together we enjoyed the cookies and beer that the others had kindly left behind for us.

In the end, it may not have been THE Super Hike but any full day spent on the trail with good friends (and making new friends) while gaining perspective well beyond running itself is pretty damn super.

august.

2011-09-01T19:18:00.000-04:00

This was going to be the month.

July had seen a slight uptick on mileage and August was going to be the month that I finally pushed things up a notch. Only it didn't happen.

Some really solid running took place and there were many memorable on-trail moments, but I went in the wrong direction in terms of miles. I did a couple of mid-distance races, the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase, of which I've already written, and the seemingly underappreciated On the Rocks 16-Miler at Rocky Ridge Park in York, PA. I was reasonably pleased with both efforts (I finished 9th at On the Rocks), but admittedly felt some fatigue in the days after and struggled to cover additional miles.

No matter.

A couple days of tired legs are no big deal and other than keeping track of them for curiosity's sake, the number of miles really don't matter much to me. I do, however, need to remind myself of that now and again.

And so August wasn't THE month, but it sure was A month of running and one that I'm looking back on fondly as I sift through the photo evidence below:

Wednesday, August 10 - AM - First run after Jupiter Peak Steeplechase included a good bit of climbing at Pumping Station and on the Horseshoe Trail - legs feeling good.

Wednesday, August 10 - PM - Back end of my twofer, a run home from work.

Thursday, August 11 - Run to work - felt fatigued but held pretty solid pace.

Sunday, August 14 - Morning run at Pumping Station/Horseshoe.

Wednesday, August 17 - Morning loop run on Horseshoe Trail starting on southern side of 322, crossing over to Eagle Rock overlook and back on the conservancy trail - may have been the last go for these MT 101s.

Saturday, August 20 - On the Rocks 16-miler at Rocky Ridge park.

Sunday, August 21 - Colebrook Road to R2T to Junction Road loop - good effort the day after On the Rocks.

Wednesday, August 24 - Horseshoe Trail out-and-back with Jefferson starting at Segloch Road and heading toward Middle Creek.

Thursday, August 25 - Midday run on Penryn and White Oak roads.

Friday, August 26 - Nighttime loop on Colebrook, R2T and Junction roads returning on Sun Hill - UTMB excitement and the pending arrival of Hurricane Irene had me feeling cabin fever.

Saturday, April 27 - Post-UTMB and early stages of Irene on Colebrook, Hossler, Power and Sun Hill roads.

Sunday, August 28 - Post-Irene afternoon/evening run at Pumping Station and on the Horseshoe Trail.

Monday, August 29 - Midday run on White Oak and Penryn roads.

Wednesday, August 31 - Pre-dawn run at Pumping Station and Horseshoe Trail - planting seed of hope for a sub-2 hour effort at the Conestoga Trail Run in a few weeks. Fingers are crossed.

alpenglow.

2011-08-28T23:42:00.002-04:00

Last year during the running of the 2010 Western States 100 miler, I followed the action as best I could by hitting, hitting and rehitting "refresh" to see if there were any further checkpoint updates. As you can imagine, that makes for a pretty long day, no matter how nerdy your interest in ultrarunning.

That day the young Spaniard, Killian Jornet, drove a furious pace that eventually helped push Geoff Roes and Anton Krupicka to record performances. Jornet ultimately faded in the unfamiliar California heat after naievely failing to stay hydrated. He returned this year, fluids in hand, and won the race. Still, his real home is in the mountains of Europe.

Which brings us to this past weekend and another running of the epic Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, a 100+ mile circumnavigation of Mont Blanc across the rooftop of Europe. Runners climb over 30,000 feet and start in France, pass into Italy and then Switzerland before returning to France for a crossing of the finish line in picturesque Chamonix. The race begins in the middle of the night amidst thousands of celebrating onlookers before disappearing into the darkness. The course winds through the Alps, exposed to the shifting weather of the mountains, and visits numerous 1,000-year old villages whose streets are lined with proud inhabitants enthusiastically cheering on the visiting runners and volunteers. It is impossible to imagine a similar atmosphere here in the United States.

Obviously, I was nowhere near the Alps, holed up in Manheim awaiting the arrival of Hurricane Irene. Thanks to Bryon Powell and http://www.irunfar.com/, however, I was privileged to be one of the moderators of a live "chat" of the event. Collecting various Twitter feeds and serving as a common meeting place for anyone following the event from wherever he or she called home, the iRunFar coverage was as good as it gets for those of us who couldn't be up in the mountains ourselves.

As a moderator, my sole task, really, was to review and authorize comments to make sure that they weren't inappropriate, block spam (there was little, if any), keep any single poster from monopolizing, etc. Bryon, who has done a magnificent job covering Western States, Hardrock and other major events in the past was on the course this time, not as a reporter, but as a UTMB participant. Maintaining his open-minded approach to iRunFar, those of us monitoring the chat employed a light hand in moderating and most comments were given the "ok". Mostly, we kept busy responding to those who'd just checked in with updates from earlier on in the event. There were several of us involved and we split shifts amongst the group, though there was much overlapping as, at heart, we were there as fans and spectators as much as we were moderators.

The shared enthusiasm of those logged in was infectious and included Americans, Canadians, Europeans and many others. There was some friendly nationalist and continent vs. continent competitiveness in some of the dialogue, but mostly there was shared awe and celebration of the Alps, the UTMB and the participants at the front, middle and back of the pack.

I can't even imagine the electricity of actually being there in the Alps, but even following along on the computer with like-minded enthusiasts was thrilling. There were disappointments as reports drifted in of many of the top Americans dropping throughout the day. Those letdowns played out repeatedly as fans, friends and family members checked in for updates only to find that beloved runners were already off the course.

The highs, though, were incredible.

The machine-like Salomon running team owned the day on the men's side with teammates Iker Carrera, Miguel Heras and Kilian running together near the front almost the entire race before an always smiling Kilian (so revealed the countless pictures being posted online) broke away in the last few kilometers to finish just minutes ahead of Iker. The incredible Lizzie Hawker punished the women's field and beat all but 12 men to the finish line.

The pre-race excitement had motivated me to get out the door for a 10 PM run on Friday night and, after Kilian made his triumphant arrival in Chamonix, I found myself lacing on my sneakers again despite the pending arrival of Hurricane Irene. The roads surrounding Manheim are hardly the Alps but I found myself daydreaming.

Those daydreams looked a little like this:

Returning from the run, I tuned back in to see just how far up the overall leaderboard Lizzie had climbed on her way to the women's crown and learned that Bryon had DNF'd. The weather had been less than cooperative and the cold at the highest passes had taken its toll.

Those factors had made for a higher than usual drop percentage. Only 1131 of the 2300 starters made it to Chamonix. The DNF list included some of the biggest names in the sport, including Scott Jurek, Geoff Roes, Krissy Moehl, Nick Clark, Dakota Jones and, yes, even Miguel Heras who ran near the front for most of the day.

Bryon could (and should) hold his head up high knowing all that he'd accomplished, including giving so many of us, who until recently would have had no visibility other than reading race recaps, a nearly-live connection to the glorious spectactle that is the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc. I know that I for one am most grateful.

Thank you.

it's complicated.

2011-08-19T22:07:00.002-04:00

Been pondering the "why" of running quite a bit lately.

Not due to any doubts or second guesses, but because I've been incredibly inspired as of late by what folks have tackled, are tackling or are planning to tackle (and I'm not just talking about running) and, in turn, I have been wondering how far, how high and how hard I might try to go on foot before my body gives out on me.

When I consider the motivations of others in doing something I love doing, I find it impossible not to look inward for what drives me. At the same time, I've had friends and family ask me to explain the fascination.

It isn't the easiest thing to do. Not because I don't have reasons. In fact, I started making a mental list and ran out of paper. But no single reason holds the key and the words I come up with fall woefully short of capturing everything I want to convey when pressed to explain myself.

Frustrated by my inability to express myself properly, I've been devouring other people's writing of running and marveling at their abilities.

The June issue of TrailRunner ran an article about Diana Finkel's amazing second overall (1st woman) finish at the 2010 Hardrock 100-Mile Endurance Run and the subsequent kidney failure that she suffered in the days following the event. The account was penned by Ben Woodbeck, her husband and pacer for the last 40 miles of the race. Turns out he's also a gifted writer and insightful runner.

To wit:

"Asking about running is just another way to wonder, what is it for? Just as ineffable as why one would climb a mountain, or kayak a river, or jump from an airplane, I guess. Running makes life worthwhile, maybe; it gives a little definition outside the confines and strictures of work and family. It offers a community, one in which we can be individuals, ourselves, sometimes our best selves. It reminds us what is important, somehow, even if it does so by reminding us that running is not really that important. Relationships are important; another truth that we know but sometimes forget."

I love that. Love it.

It speaks so beautifully to the "escape" of running without saying (as I would have) "running is such an escape." Whatever it is that we turn to in order to get momentary respite from the weight of the world is valid only so long as we remember that while it's a lovely gift it isn't "real" in the way that the rest of life is and must be. The danger is to get so fixated and so lost in that step away that we fail to come back to what really matters.

The best of escapes, and for me that is a gorgeous, inviting strand of single track, sharpens the focus upon returning on what truly is important.

And that, friends, deserves ice cream.

the sea level blues.

2011-08-08T23:42:00.001-04:00

Twice a year, I board a plane for Salt Lake City to attend the Outdoor Retailer trade show. If you like backpacking, mountain biking, climbing, trail running, paddling, camping or just about any other activity in the great outdoors, each January and August, the Salt Palace serves up a head-spinning carnival of "what you'll have to have six months from now."

OR (pronounced oh-are), as it's known affectionately, also happens to be a great place to make and/or reconnect with like minded friends who've found ways to forge out a similar work/play hybrid career. Each time I go, I've got more faces to look forward to seeing and more difficulty freeing up the time I'd like to catch up with everyone.

As a key component of a retail operation that works hard, hard, hard to continue carving out a place in the outdoor industry, I am often overwhelmed by how much actual work we cram into just a couple of days and I should be thrilled that we find anytime at all to socialize. And we do.

For the past three or four years, while at OR I've run the Wasatch Wobble, a 5K put on by Montrail/Mountain Hardwear up in Red Butte Gardens above the city. The event is a non-timed focused-on-fun event but at 5,000+ feet of elevation it's always been a good test for me too. This year, though, I'd learned about the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase that takes place in Park City each August. Beginning at 7,000 feet, stretching for 16 +/- miles and having a gain of over 3,000 feet, this race promised to be a big step up from the Wobble.

On the first day in town, I got up early to sneak in a run and breath the fresh air before sucking in the artificial air at the Salt Palace all day long. I was also looking forward to seeing how my legs and lungs felt a few thousand feet higher than back home.

We were staying south of the city just a short drive to the foot of Big Cottonwood Canyon. Unfamiliar with the area and starting before sun-up, I opted for a paved pedestrian trail until it conked out and left me climbing alongside the road toward the top of the canyon. Not being on single track didn't dampen my spirits, as there were no cars on the road and the soft grit that ran parallel to the road felt great underfoot. As the sun rose, I plodded steadily uphill as the sun began to peak over the Wasatch Mountains.

Not even the birds were stirring and the only sound was the creek crash, crash, crashing its way down the canyon. My camera complained about the lack of light and an inept operator who couldn't find a mechanical compensation. All the same, it did its best and captured a few memories.

I was on the verge of daydreaming my way up into the mountains and away for the day when I came to and realized I needed to get back to the car. I tucked the camera into my waistband and quickened my pace. I'd managed the climb nicely and was able to really push on the descent. This made me hopeful for the race on Saturday morning even though I knew I'd be at twice the elevation. I'd hiked above 10,000 feet but never run up that high. It was safe to expect that I wouldn't manage the sub 7:30 miles I'd just logged, but, I was still encouraged by my effort that morning.

The next two days were a blur of backpacks, socks, tents, sleeping bags, trekking poles, waterproof/breathable jackets, headlamps, doodads, whizzywhats and shaboozles. Business was talked, talked, talked, talked, talked. Thankfully, there were also a healthy number of warm handshakes, hugs and laughter wedged in between all that talking.

The hours and days flew by and it was Saturday morning. True to its calling, the alarm alarmed me that it was 5:45. A little over an hour later, after dropping my boss off in downtown Salt Lake for a pre-business business-breakfast (talk, talk, talk, talk, talk), I coasted into the lower parking lot of the Park City Mountain Resort and stared past the windshield at the fittest bunch of pre-racers I can remember seeing. A little gasping-for-air voice told me I was in my over my head, but my eyes followed the chairlifts upward and I wondered where out there was the top of Jupiter Peak.

I had to go see.

There was one last moment of trepidation when I realized that Lindsay's phone number was printed right on my bib. So some kind passerby could give my wife a courtesy call upon stumbling on my corpse? Yikes.

Clearly I was over thinking things and just needed to get my feet underneath me. I wedged in with some 300 other runners as someone muttered inaudible instructions through a megaphone. A signal of some sort, again unheard by me, sent the pack slowly shuffling up a steeply sloped service road before funneling us onto the start of endless (and glorious) single track that would wind its way all the way to the top of the mountain.

I'd decided on a modest goal of 4 miles an hour on the ascent, expecting that the severity of the grade and the altitude were likely to make my usual pace impossible to achieve. If I could top out in 2 hours and have legs left beneath me, I hoped to let gravity whisk me the full 8 miles down to the bottom at a much faster pace.

I fell in stride with a number of runners who seemed to be of equal ability and condition

Somewhere soon after mile 5 the grade steepened and I could sense unfamiliar physiological demands. I was struggling to pull enough oxygen out of the air and my legs reported corresponding heaviness. Feeling a little lightheaded, I decided it was time to peek at the GPS and learned that we'd now climbed over 9,000 feet. There were less than 3 miles left to the top but another 1200+ feet of elevation to be gained. Needless to say, I was no longer running 12 minute miles when I looked up to see the ridge just below Jupiter.

To give some scale to the photo, note the "runner" at the very lower right and keep in mind that the tufts at the top of the ridge are full grown trees. I couldn't help but notice that not a single person ahead of me was actually running. In fact, some of them were on all fours or at least appeared to be. Loose rock added to the challenge and I was relieved to find that the stubborn grass growing on the ridge held my weight as I clutched at it.

Topping out, I glanced at my Garmin and was surprised to see that I'd only covered 7 miles. I vaguely remembered hearing that there was more work to be done after Jupiter's Peak and after a quick two hundred yards of downhill, the track led upward again to the top of Tri-County Peak. At last the climbing was done and the smooth winding downhill single track led off into the distance.

It was right around mile 10, probably while my mind wandered off into another patch of aspens, that I fell and fell hard. I took the brunt of the fall on my right knee which was now bleeding but also banged my right side just above the hip and dragged my right forearm and elbow. A couple of runners hopped over me, offered words of genuine encouragement and then disappeared down the trail. It took me a moment or two to get back on my feet and I was, admittedly, shook up. I traversed the next few miles very tentatively and did anything but barrel down the mountain.

Eventually I shook off the fall and got back to running but I never work up to the pace I'd hoped for on the return to 7000 feet. My head, however, did begin to clear with the downward progression and I reached the bottom feeling good. Good and tired.

I can't speak for any of the preceding 18 years, but my GPS confirmed that this year's course was a full mile short of 16. My exhausted lungs and legs didn't seem the least bit disappointed. Those 15 miles had taken me just over 3 hours (more than an hour behind the winners), but, coming from a home elevation of 400 feet, I'm holding my head up high...and looking forward to next year.

goodbye to july.

2011-07-31T22:45:00.000-04:00

I won't miss the heat of July. Not a bit.

Luckily, it didn't keep me inside and while it upped the difficulty factor on my running, it didn't actually keep me from logging miles. It would've been nice to have run even more but it already felt like there were too few moments to spend with Lindsay and the girls. Getting the majority of my running in while the rest of my house slept did the double duty of saving me from the worst of the heat and not keeping me from my family.

Work didn't require any extended travel during the last 30 days and with the exception of a 5-mile race on the 4th of July and my informal birthday 60K, my running didn't consist of any organized events. That was fine by me. It was just good clean running for the sake of running. And it was great.

Here are the photos:

Saturday, July 10 - Early evening loop on Mt Joy, Power and Sun Hill roads

Monday, July 11 - Run home from work

Tuesday, July 12 - Run to work

Wednesday, July 13 - Horseshoe Trail and power line trail at Pumping Station

Thursday, July 14 - Lunch break run on the Penryn and White Oak roads loop

Thursday, July 14 - Second leg of surprise twofer - After work loop on Mt Joy, Hossler and Colebrook roads

Saturday, July 16 - Horseshoe Trail out-and-back across 501 to ugly clear-cut reroute below Middle Creek

Sunday, July 17 - Pumping Station and Horseshoe Trail - picked up an odd blister high on my heel

Wednesday, July 20 - Pumping Station and State Game Lands

Thurday, July 21 - Run home from work - so ungodly hot, I jumped right into a freezing cold shower and it wasn't until I got out that I realized the stopwatch was still running (must have hit the stop/start twice).

Friday, July 22 - Run to work on Mt Joy Road

Sunday, July 24 - 37th birthday 60K - Clarks Valley on the AT to Horseshoe Trail through Campbelltown

Wednesday, July 27 - Pumping Station and Horseshoe Trail

Friday, July 29 - Mid-day sprint on Penryn and White Oak roads

Sunday, July 31 - Horseshoe Trail, Mole Hill (first ever sustained run-up!) and State Game Lands

horseshoes and....

2011-07-28T00:49:00.000-04:00

Been running the Horseshoe Trail now pretty religiously for going on two years and have been itching to venture out onto more of its 120+ miles. I've also been anxious to go beyond the 50K distance in anticipation of taking a shot at 50 miles later in the year.

With my 37th birthday arriving on July 25th, I set my sights on running the last or first (take your pick) of the Horseshoe Trail the day before said birthday.

Lindsay had to work a shift at Lancaster General, but my mother and stepfather agreed to watch the kids until I could get to them. Jefferson selflessly agreed to shuttle me from a car drop in Campbelltown to the Clarks Valley of the Appalachian Trail, the nearest access point to the yellow blazes of the Horseshoe. The week prior brought one wicked heat wave and I considered calling off the run, but Sunday's weather report was a little less ominous with temperatures dipping back down below triple digits. The humidity was still going to be an issue, but the plan was a go.

Things got off to an inauspicious start when I couldn't find the Locust Street the Horseshoe Trail guidebook told me I needed to travel in Campbelltown to drop the car. I ended up flagging a police officer who was as sure as he could be that there wasn't a Locust Street in town, but, thankfully, he did guide me to where I wanted to be in spite of the missing road.

With the van parked, I jumped in with Jefferson and we headed north. Clarks Valley is situated in a natural gap between Peters and Stony Mountains and the trailhead put us 3.2 miles from the summit of Stony and the junction with the Horseshoe Trail.

We snapped a quick photo in front of the AT sign at the Route 325 crossing but my fat head managed to block out all but the arrows. Notice the haze hanging in the distance. It was right around 7:30 AM.

There's a solid 1,000 feet of climb up to the top of Stony Mountain and I enjoyed the heck out of every step. Jefferson and I chatted as we climbed the rocky track, making good progress but managing pace to hopefully keep me from bonking later in the day. I wasn't planning to "race", not by a long shot, but I still intended to be running (shuffling, at least) late in the day.

I was having such a good time, I couldn't believe how quickly we seemed to cover those initial miles. Jefferson snapped another photo of me standing in front of the initial blazes of the Horseshoe and the Cyrus Sturgis Monument.

The run down from Stony was super quick and I wrestled over whether to open the throttle and blast down the ridge or put on the brakes to save the legs. I compromised somewhere in between and had soon covered two miles of downhill and started down the unpaved Ellendale Stagecoach Road which seemed to go on forever (somewhere around 3 miles, per the guidebook) since I wanted badly to be back on singletrack.

That was going to have to wait. Much of the 4 mile climb up from Stony Creek to the top of Second Mountain followed a wide abandoned logging road. Tantalizing narrow trails shot off in all directions and I made a note to come back here to backpack and camp. The sun was still behind the clouds but the day was beginning to warm up. Though the inclined grade wasn't too severe, it didn't offer many breaks either. I was caught from behind by one fiercely fit mountain biker and passed a single trail runner headed the opposite direction who looked spirit-crushingly fit. I was somewhere around 10 miles into the trip and fighting the first wave of doubt.

Within a mile of the summit, the trail switchbacked against the logging road and transferred to extremely steep singletrack. I couldn't make out the top and, like it has too many times before, my stomach began to raise protests. Thankfully, those rumblings never turned into anything, but for a moment they did add to my concern. Shaking them off, I power-hiked to the summit and sat for a moment to catch my breath, down a gel and consult the book.

It was cool to be doing this solo, but without aid stations waiting down the line, the only water I could count on was what I had in my pack. The early sections of the route were proving really remote and I wondered where I was going to fill the emptying four bottles (two handhelds and another two in the side mesh pockets on my pack) that I had with me. A peek ahead at the trail directions didn't look terribly promising. I decided to start rationing and concentrate on just getting further along the route.

The next six miles were pretty sweet, weaving through mature woods on a slow clamber down from the summit of Second Mountain. When things leveled off, the path fluctuated between singletrack and logging roads. There was still little sign of civilization and the few structures that did appear were either in states of disrepair or spartan in their design. Heavy tree cover coupled with the continued cloud cover to keep heat manageable.

In Manada Gap, the trail vanished into road but showed no sign of a place to replenish fluids. The guidebook suggested that a mere 3 mile detour (one way) would get me to a convenience store but that mileage tack-on seemed really foolish and the whole idea of leaving the Horseshoe felt really unappealing. I ignored the offer and stuck to my yellow blazes.

Less than a mile later, the trail reappeared and followed what the guidebook had referred to as a "beautiful trout stream on a splendid woods trail under old beeches and hemlocks". The trees were still there (though I suspect in fewer numbers) but there wasn't enough water to support trout and the trail itself appeared to be woefully untraveled. Bummer.

Another bummer was being completely out of water, especially when the trail vanished again and the blazes migrated from trees to telephone poles. I was back on the road again and less than thrilled by the exposure to the sun. The New Balance MT101's that I was wearing were spot on for the trail, but not ideal for extended road work. Wah-wah.

I decided I would offer cash to the next human being I saw in exchange for cold water in my water bottles. Over the next 3 miles, however, I saw plenty of homes but not a soul outside. The whirring of air conditioners and the periodic appearance of undrinkable backyard swimming pools mocked me and my bone dry bottles. Help would eventually come in the form of James who was outside braving the heat to deliver water to his landscaping.

James wouldn't hear of my offer, turning down the cash while kindly taking my bottles to fill me up with water on the house. Perhaps because I mentioned that I'd come the whole way from Clarks Valley, he even filled me up on ice. I couldn't have been more grateful, though I'm not sure I properly conveyed this, as stopping at last made me acutely aware of how parched and hot I'd become. Looking back towards the distant aridgelines from his front yard, I got my first sense of how far I'd come.

I said my thanks and offered goodbyes before chugging back down the road. My spirits soared for a few minutes until I started to get the feeling that I may not find dirt under foot for a good long while. I was 21.5 miles into my run but feared it might be road the rest of the way. The sun was now unimpeded with the clouds having melted away and I was taking a pounding. I realized I'd only had James fill up two of my bottles despite his offer to top off anything I had. Dumb. Those two bottles were only going to go so far.

As I reached Route 22, I hung a left in hopes of soon finding somewhere to get more water. My confidence was wavering, my left foot was hating the road surface and I was really starting to dread the idea that the trail running portion of my day was over. Stumbling upon a closed-for-the-day garage that had a stunningly beautiful soda machine parked right outside, I sat down to drink an ice cold Pepsi and ponder the possibilities.

I fished my cellphone out of my pack and attempted a call to my cousin, Chad. He didn't answer the phone. I replied to a text message from Jefferson asking how I was holding up and asked him yet another favor, this time hoping he could Google Route 22 East and tell me where it ended up. While waiting for his response, Lindsay called and gave me an earful about a minor calamity at home. I raised my voice back at her before we both calmed down, offered deserved apologies and traded "I love yous". From there I placed a call to Mom who confirmed for me that 22 wasn't going to take me where I wanted to go.

I collected my thoughts, scoured the various maps in the Horseshoe Trail guidebook and decided it was time to quit mucking around and get back to what I'd set out to do in the first place. Yes, I was hot and was looking at a lot of roadwork, but my legs felt pretty good and my stomach was fine.

I finished the last of that oh-my-god-good Pepsi and bought a number of waters from the machine to refill all four of my bottles.

I texted Jefferson to call of the Googling and confirm that I'd gotten my head straight. Sending that text was the final push I needed and I was back on my feet, heading west to reconnect with the Horseshoe. It wasn't long before I'd managed to do just that.

I covered another 6 miles before the blazes again got me off of the road, dumping me into a farmer's field somewhere around 27 miles into my day. There was a confusing twist shortly thereafter when the trail seemed barred by a tall cornfield. That proved a good thing because it forced me to again consult the guidebook which encouraged me to look back across Swatara Creek toward the Blue Mountains for "one of the most remarkable views along the trail". I haven't seen enough of the trail to properly validate that claim but it sure was lovely. The camera failed to capture a proper image through the afternoon haze, so I did my best to save the view to memory.

Turning back to the task at hand, I plowed through the cornfield and came out running on the other side. A bright yellow blaze was waiting for me and waved me down the trail. Sadly, that lovely bit of trail lasted little more than a mile before depositing me back onto roads just north of Hershey. Before it did, however, I was offered one last look back at the mountains and this time the camera cooperated with a fairly nice representation.

I passed by Hershey Cemetary (the venerable Milton Hershey is buried here) and endured a rather frustrating bit of "where now?" in an old inactive quarry that added a few hundred unnecessary yards to my journey. Emerging finally on the other side of that stretch, I had less than 10K to go.

That was good news because I was tiring. I threw a pose at the sun to see if I could spook it back into hiding but my bluff was called.

There was one last bit of confusion to muddle through before I got where I was going. It could've proven disastrous.

Per the guidebook, I'd soon arrive in Palmdale, cross 422 and then make my way to Campbelltown. I'd never heard of Palmdale but hadn't given it too much thought. At this point, though, I had a pretty good idea where I was and where I was was Hershey not Palmdale. A bit more searching in the book uncovered a reference to Palmdale being a "western suburb of Palmyra". Palmyra I knew and Hershey I knew. I couldn't tell you where one ends and one begins but I do know there isn't a Palmdale in between.

Not anymore.

Upon reaching 422, I flipped a mental coin and hung a right. A mile later, I began to doubt my decision AND discovered that I was again out of water. I backtracked a bit and ducked into a restaurant/bar. Evidence of my running out of gas is the fact that I never even took any notice of the name of the establishment. Poking my head inside, I pleaded with anyone available to clue me in on Palmdale and the seemingly fictitious McKinley Avenue. No one knew what I was talking about and, frankly, I soon realized how insane I must have looked, sporting a cavemanish beard, wearing a sweat-drenched backpack, clutching empty water bottles and babbling on about a town that didn't exist.

A young guy named Dustin came to my rescue, throwing my beard a compliment and fetching me a Coke. He also filled up one of my other water bottles which was huge and even retopped off my Coke after I downed it in about 3 seconds. I bounced the Palmdale/McKinley question off of him but he too did not find either of those references familiar. When I mentioned that I was heading to Campbelltown, he felt pretty certain that I needed to head east and hang a right. In terms of getting me to Campbelltown, he was correct but I actually needed to push a little farther in the initial direction I'd headed to pick up the Horseshoe Trail. Honestly, it mattered little at this point because I was looking mostly at roads regardless of which way I went.

Long story short, Dustin gets props from me for getting me exactly where I asked him to get me and for just being down to earth and cool at a moment when I benefited from that at least as much as getting the "right" directions. No props for me in failing to snap a proper documentary photo.

And so I made it at last to Campbelltown, though I was approaching the van from the wrong direction and from off the "trail". I'd been pretty sloppy with the GPS throughout the day, often turning it off when I took breaks but not always and sometimes forgetting to rehit "start" when setting off again. I'm certain that I'd gone at least 37 miles by the time I opened the door, but the Garmin said 36.55. I put my pack and bottles on the passenger seat and kept on running, heading out along the Horseshoe Trail along the route I should have just been on. After about a quarter mile, I spun on my heels and returned to the van. My day was done and my MT 101's could wait for dirt.

Happy Birthday to me.

endtroducing.

2011-07-23T23:18:00.000-04:00

My four-legged friend is gone and while I knew that day would come, I didn't expect it to arrive so soon.

Lindsay and I saw Lego in the Sunday News one early morning in the Spring of 2006. Before finishing the rest of that newspaper, we jumped in the car and headed to the Humane League. We loved him as soon as we saw him in black and white and that much more in the full color of real life.

He caught a ride home with us and settled into our apartment as though he'd lived there the entire 6 months of his life. A suspected Boxer/Blue Heeler mix, Clouseau (as we dubbed him) was an odd looking duck and good-naturedly endured puzzled looks and questions like "is that dingo?". He was unfazed and more often than not won over the doubters with his big heart.

He didn't stand very tall and eventually topped the scales at just 55 pounds, but every ounce was muscle that was thankfully never used for anything more than chasing sticks and swimming like a peculiar surface-skimming fish.

Lily arrived less than a year into his residency and we feared how he'd react to the shared spotlight. Our fears were unwarranted as he proved a gentle, doting chaperon who rarely strayed from the baby's side.

This diligence continued even after we left the city and into a home with more room for Clouseau to sprawl.

First Lily and then Piper loved him and likely never considered life without him. Now and again Lindsay or I would comment on how strange it was to realize that Clouseau would likely not live to see the girls into their teens, never entertaining the idea that he'd not even see them get on a school bus.

This April Clouseau began having accidents despite having been housebroken from before we'd adopted him. At first, I thought he was at last demanding the attention lost from sharing the home with two small children. I was wrong.

I finally broke down and took him to the veterinarian by then assuming confirmation of a bladder infection or, at worst, kidney stones. When we learned that Clouseau had advanced lymphoma and had little time left, we were absolutely stunned. We were stunned and heartbroken.

Not knowing how much time we had left, we did what we've always done, we took Clouseau hiking and swimming.

We threw sticks, we laughed, the girls squealed. But even little Piper seemed to pick-up on our melancholy.

It was a lovely, bittersweet day and it wasn't the last. We were granted another couple of months with our beloved dog. By early June, however, it became apparent that life was becoming more of a struggle and we'd agreed to not extend his suffering out of a selfish want to have him here with us.

The family shared goodbyes.

I loaded him into the van and we headed to the vet. He took his normal post at the passenger seat window, nosing the full blast of the passing air. He leaned so far forward it appeared he was trying to beat me to our destination.

In the waiting room he perked his ears and absorbed all the yips from the bowels of the building and sniffed all the comings and goings. He didn't tug on his leash, however, laying at my feet and leaning against my leg. I knew I wouldn't feel him there again and cherished the contact.

We never made Clouseau wear his collar at home and I'd hated putting it on him for this trip. Having removed it for the last time, I put it back in its usual place upon returning home.

On the other side of the room sat Clouseau's bowls and I couldn't bring myself to put them away.

Lindsay and I have always been very straightforward with the children and both girls knew that Clouseau had been sick and wasn't going to get better. Still they struggled to understand that he was truly gone. Both Lily and Piper seemed to take the news rather calmly, but when I put Lil to bed that evening, she and I shared a good, hard cry.

Once the two of us had composed ourselves, Lily said so sweetly to me that she just wished Clouseau would've stayed a little longer.

Me too, Lil. Me too.

gimme, gimme summer runnin'.

2011-07-14T22:29:00.000-04:00

What's the rush, summer?

Time ticks on and I'm still trying to determine whether June actually happened or we all just agreed to skip right to mid-July. There's been a lot of work on my plate and even more on my mind. I've been run, run, running as an offset and been blessed with healthy legs and motivated feet.

Here's the evidence.

Monday, June 27 - Ran home from work in my new Happy Father's Day kicks. Nice.

Thursday, June 30 - Ran to work in my one-run-less-new Happy Father's Day kicks. Still nice.

Sunday, July 3 - Early morning run at Pumping Station and the Horseshoe Trail.

Sunday, July 3 - Afternoon run on Elizabethtown, Penryn, Locust Grove and Newport Roads.

Monday, July 4 - Ephrata Firecracker 5 - forgot to stop the GPS in the finish chute - official time was 34:57.

Tuesday, July 5 - Lunch break loop through Manheim.

Wednesday, July 6 - Morning run at Pumping Station and State Game Lands with Jefferson and Chris.

Saturday, July 9 - Horseshoe Trail out-and-back from Pumping Station to Middle Creek clear cuts.

smith's challenge (and the week after).

2011-06-27T23:40:00.000-04:00

Father's Day means Smith's Challenge, a 10K men's only race held for 20+ years in Lancaster County Park. Reportedly, this 23rd running would be the last, but we've heard that before. I hope I hear that claim every year for as many years as I'm able to keep running and that it keeps people coming back each time. It's a beauty of a race.

Last year I'd not run the entire week prior, resting up after my leg of the Laurel Highlands 50K Team Relay put its hurt on me. I had pretty dead legs and, frankly, took the course too lightly, running 1:00:59 and feeling lucky to have managed that. This year I'd logged a good many miles on the heels of Laurel and felt pretty good about the effort I'd given in the altitude of Boulder in the days just before Smith's. I hoped to improve dramatically on my 2010 time.

Lindsay and the girls came along this year (which was awesome) and joined Erin, Noah and Finn at one of the playgrounds while Jefferson and I chatted about the course. I spoke with Chris McDougall for a bit and was stoked to hear about some of the forward progress on the Born to Run film and Chris's confirmation that he had every intention of again doing the Conestoga Trail Run in September.

Before long, we toed the starting line, listened to Ron Horn do his schtick and then headed off into the park. My legs weren't nearly as fresh as I'd hoped but I felt certain I was running stronger than last year.

It was nice to see numerous familiar faces on the course, be they running or volunteering. I'd forgottent that, despite the fact that much of the course is under the trees, there are some sustained exposed sections that felt awfully warm in the sun that greets a 10:00 AM start. Most of my running happens before or right after sunrise or in late afternoon/early evening. I definitely noticed the difference but was slightly irritated to be feeling like it was negatively impacting my efforts. What a baby.

Thankfully, I was holding a good pace in spite of not feeling terribly strong. I hit the finish line in 50:32, having shaved just over 10 minutes off my time. True to form, I immediately started pondering where I might've done better and gotten down in the 40's, but that faded away pretty quickly as I lounged with Erin, Lindsay and the kids. Jefferson came across the line looking strong, rightfully psyched to have run sub-59.

Forgot my bib!

Admittedly, I spent much of the rest of the day being L-A-Z-Y, but I suppose if there's a day to get away with it, it's Father's Day. I was slightly concerned that as fatigued as my legs felt, I might be looking at a weak week ahead, but I'm proud to report that I rebounded nicely and got in my fair share over the days that followed.

See:

Monday, June 20 - Post-work loop on Colebrook, Hossler, Power and Sun Hill roads.

Tuesday, June 21 - Mt Joy Rd to Power and Sun Hill roads.

Wednesday, June 22 - Pumping Station - locked my key in the car and needed a ride home from John.

Wednesday, June 22 - PM Run from work out to Pumping Station to retrieve the car.

Thursday, June 23 - Run to work.

Sunday, June 26 - (Post-Western States nerd-out) Pumping Station and Horseshoe Trail.

colo-running.

2011-06-25T01:34:00.000-04:00

Laurel Highlands put some cosmetic hurt on my feet, but otherwise left me surprisingly none the worse for wear.

Peel off a toenail...

...band-aid the ankles..

...lance a blister...

...good as new.

It was back to business and a few days in the office before boarding a plane for Boulder, Colorado. I'd only be on the ground for 3 days and most of those hours would be devoted to work, but remaining on East Coast time, I hoped, would allow me to do some exploring each morning. This would be the first time in several Colorado business trips that I'd be staying in a hotel in downtown Boulder with easy access to the endless trails that beckon from just outside of the city. I'd picked a few of the brains I trust most about what trails to hit and how to get their from the Boulderado.

The flight to Denver International was blissfully uneventful and provided beautiful glimpses of the American patchwork below. My girls are fascinated by planes (and why shouldn't they be?) and have rekindled my marveling at the experience after years of not giving flying much thought at all. Surely a 2 and a 4 year old must believe that there's magic at work and if I think on it for too long, as I did on the flight, I tend to agree with them.

Our host for the visit, Ben, whisked us (my boss, Tim, was also along for the ride) away from the airport and shared a good laugh at the full behind-closed-doors pat down I'd received at the Harrisburg Airport after the scanner reportedly showed a large threatening bulge in the crotch of my pants. All I can say is that a most thorough search on the part of two TSA employees failed to turn up anything incriminating.

Ben treated us to an awesome dinner at a local Japanese tea house and, at least according to Mountain time, we turned in early. Despite being excited to run in the morning, I fell quickly to sleep. Except for a middle-of-the-night wake-up call from the amorous couple in the room next door (short-lived, but vigorous), I slept soundly until my alarm went off at 5:00 AM "their" time. The trails were calling my name.

Three blocks and a couple of hundred yards later, I was here:

Back in April, I'd run and hiked in Utah with Jon Webb, a current Boulder resident, and we'd hoped to get out on the trails together when I hit town. Unfortunately schedules did not align and he was back in Utah on business of his own. He had, however, been generous enough to give me some insider beta and it was at his suggestion that I was climbing the Viewpoint Trail on my way to the Flagstaff trailhead.

The sun rose quickly and after a few hundred feet of ascent I'd reached Flagstaff and continued to climb toward the summit. The single track was incredibly forgiving in comparison to the rocks and roots of home and the surroundings were breathtaking. I saw several deer during the run and they seemed determined to offer up postcard worthy poses against the sub-alpine backdrop.

I made it to the top of Flagstaff winded but pleased to find that the four day window after Laurel Highlands was enough to restore some energy to my legs. The run down from the summit was quick and fun despite the fact that I managed to lose the trail somewhere along the line. I didn't lose the trail so much as I somehow found myself on another, the Ute Trail, which took me further from town and down into Gregory Canyon.

Ute ended at a parking lot which was also home to access trails to the top of Green Mountain and I immediately made up my mind to return there the next morning. A short jog up the road afforded a sweet view of the Flatirons.

Remembering that I did have a meeting that morning and confirming with the GPS that I'd been out on the trail for a good bit of time, I stuck to the road which returned me to Viewpoint and a fun sprint back down into town. I got back to the Boulderado with just enough time to jump in the shower and wolf down breakfast.

Tim and I put in a full day of line reviews of Spring 2012 backpacks, tents, sleeping bags and other outdoor gear before enjoying another delicious dinner. We roamed around Pearl Street for a bit before calling it a night.

My neighbors serenaded me again, this time with a little more gusto. Perhaps they too were getting used to the altitude and building endurance. I didn't give it too much thought and thankfully fell right back to sleep.

Knowing I had a more significant climb ahead of me than the day prior, I planned to wake up at 4:30. I was up before the alarm went off, made my way through the eerily silent hotel and headed for Green Mountain.

As I climbed back up Viewpoint again, I was psyched that my legs felt fresh even after logging 8.5 miles the day before. I was feeling about as good as I could possibly hope to in the unfamiliar altitude.

I couldn't immediately determine where the Ranger Trail began but stumbled upon Saddle Rock and decided I'd run the loop in reverse. Within a couple of hundred yards, I understand why Saddle Rock was suggested as the downhill portion of the loop. That climb went on and on and alternated between maintained step-ups and technical track that surprised me after the smooth surfaces I'd tackled earlier. Here's a look back over my shoulder:

I was no longer progressing very quickly but I was having a blast. The sun had just gotten fully above the horizon when I reached a high point that looked back down on Boulder.

That high point, it turns out, was nowhere near the top of Green Mountain and I had plenty of work ahead of me. I missed a couple of steep switchbacks that made the run even longer than it needed to be, but every single step was a joy. I tried not to look at the GPS for fear that it would tell me it was time to head back down.

Eventually, I topped out at the summit and drank in the expanse. The monument called out the parade of peaks that marched off into the distance.

I finally managed to drag myself away from the view even though I would've loved to linger. I was still daydreaming about those high peaks when I took a misstep and crashed hard on my right knee. Even the lump that rose above my kneecap couldn't ruin the day (though it did complicate the descent).

Less than a mile outside of town, I was granted one last gift as a mule deer in velvet allowed me to take his photograph.

And that was that. I'd eked out 17.5 miles in two days and loved every inch.

bellyaching.

2011-06-22T23:40:00.003-04:00

I'm staring at the keyboard knowing there's a long, long story waiting to be typed. Even before I begin, I feel like I'm not going to manage to say everything I'd like to or convey all that transpired that weekend.

Nothing to do, I suppose, except start stringing letters and words together, like footstep after footstep, and see if we finish. A theme emerges.

I left work midday on Friday headed for Ohiopyle and the acceptance of an invite from Derek to take part in the Laurel Highlands Group Weekend (I'll introduce the team in a moment). I'd purposely run very little that week, sneaking in a run to work and another run home from work on Monday before spending the rest of the week on my bike.

Derek, Jason and Kelly (who I'd yet to meet) were going to be attempting the classic 70 mile Laurel Highlands Ultra (actually measuring out at 77 miles for the 2nd straight year due to a detour around a bridge that was out) while I was going to be tackling the shorter 50K race after running just the first leg of the 50K relay last year. Greg, Bob and Randy, all of whom I'd never met, were also going to be running the 50K while Jo, Kelly's wife, would be crewing her husband's attempt at the full distance.

Jo and Kelly had been kind enough to offer to help shuttle cars to ensure that those of us running the shorter race would find our vehicles at the race's end. This was no small gesture on their part considering the surprising distances between checkpoints and the fact that they'd be rising extremely early on Saturday morning to make certain that Kelly was ready for the 5:30 starting gun.

I'm hardly shy, but I did wonder at how well we'd all mesh. I shouldn't have had any concerns. As we settled into dinner, conversation flowed as the camaraderie I've come to expect and cherish in trail and ultrarunning came easy. While Derek attended to the science experiment that is his pre-race food preparation, getting-to-know-yous transitioned into race story swapping and laughter. We walked together down to the Youghiogheny River (the "Yough") so Randy and Derek could soak in the chilly water and the rest of us could enjoy a beautiful evening in downtown Ohiopyle.

(L to R) Bobby, Kelly, Greg, Randy, Derek, Jason and Me (photo by Jo Weakley Agnew)

Kelly and Jo chauffeured Bobby and I back to the lodge after letting us park our vehicles at the finish line 31.1 miles away on the meandering Laurel Highlands Trail. We said quick goodbyes to let them get what little sleep they could sneak in before 3:30 AM, said final good lucks to Derek and the rest of the crew and retired for the night.

Bobby and I swapped a few more stories before flicking off the lights and getting some sleep. He was without his iPhone and concerned that he'd either left it in Kelly and Jo's vehicle or, worse yet, forgotten it on the hood of his car. We both joked that it was good he'd done it at a trail race because it was likely the phone would still be there, agreeing that at a road race someone would've jumped at the chance to pocket the loot.

We awoke just before 7:00 AM, leaving us more than an hour to cover the couple of hundred yards between the lodge and the starting line. I commented immediately that I didn't feel my best, but I wasn't too concerned either. I headed off to search for coffee and was relieved to find an open door with the smell of fresh brew wafting out onto the sidewalk. Caffeine hit the spot and any trepidation I had was long gone. It was time to sound the gun and get out into the lush beauty of the Highlands.

Bobby's plan all along for Laurel Highlands was to pace his friend, Chuck, to what would hopefully be his first 50 kilometer finish. By the time I hit the parking lot, Bobby and Chuck had met up and were ready to go. Chuck had friends along to crew and they generously agreed to transport my pack to our final destination, a detail I'd managed to not consider ahead of time.

The 50K starts in the parking lot of Wilderness Voyageurs, an Ohiopyle fixture for gear, good times and raft trip send-offs. As we broke from the starting line, we were headed in the opposite direction of the boat launches and up, up, up and away from the Yough. I remembered from last year that the initial broad track quickly turned into tight single track as a narrow set of stairs (yes, stairs) ushered runners into the first of the day's climbs. I did my best to stay ahead of the pack so as not to immediately bog down.

Well familiar with the sustained, unrunnable climb that lurked at miles 6-8, I made certain to maintain a realistic pace at the outset. I knew all too well that I hadn't logged a run of any significant length since before my Achilles flare-ups and nothing near 30 miles since last October. I was pleased to settle pretty comfortably into what felt like somewhere in the range of 8-9 minute miles. Foolishly, I'd forgotten my GPS in the pack that I'd handed over before the start of the race, so I'd spend the day without solid beta on how much time had elapsed and how steadily I was progressing. That mattered little at this stage of the race, however, and I was thrilled just to be back on the Laurel Highlands Trail.

At some point I found myself right on Greg's heels and after a few switchback's he caught sight of me in his peripheral vision and realized I was stalking him. We spent the next couple of miles in good conversation, discussing how we'd come to running, why it meant so much and marveling at the galvanizing force that is Derek.

I stuck with Greg through maybe mile 7 but watched him keep pushing on while I took a few moments to stretch the Achilles in a preventative attempt to stave off any strain issues. Having loosened up again, I got back to the climb and topped out feeling much better than I had the year prior.

And then I threw up. Violently. I was somewhere around mile 9 and didn't feel bad leading up to the episode and felt pretty good immediately thereafter. I chalked it up to the effort of the climb, shrugged it off and began moving swiftly again toward the first aid station at mile 11.6. I'd end up puking twice more before reaching that station and by the 3rd time, my body was going through the motions but finding nothing to expel.

The trail levels off and transitions into rolling terrain ahead of the first aid station and my legs felt surprisingly good when I finally reached it. I didn't bother to ask the time but, having been passed by few runners, I knew I was still on pace for a decent finish. Despite it not occurring to me to retrieve my GPS, I was able to part with my hydration pack, shirt and hat which my new friends generously offered to put with my backpack. The hat and the shirt were unnecessary as most of the trail up to that point and beyond was beneath the trees. Carrying two handheld water bottles, I hadn't put a dent in the water I'd been carrying in my hydration pack, so I didn't see any reason to continue to carry the weight, especially with closer spacing between aid stations the rest of the way. I'd come to second guess that decision.

I drank a cup or two of Pepsi which felt really good on my churning stomach. I ate an orange slice which tasted a bit harsh but seemed like a worthwhile indulgence. I refilled my water bottles with cold water and continued on my way.

I felt good. Really good.

For about 10 minutes.

Somewhere around mile 12, I threw up again. And again. And again. And....

Each time I thought I'd gotten everything out of my system, I'd set off again for the finish line. Progress had grown ridiculously slow and I believe I may have even sat a time or two over the course of just a mile or two. The trail has little stone markers at every mile, so you can easily keep track of how far you've come. Shortly after passing the mile 13 marker, I had the most violent episode of the day despite the fact that my stomach had gone empty quite some time before. It was at this point that I realized I wasn't sweating anymore. Almost simultaneous to this realization, I got hit with the worst stomach cramp of my life. A deep horizontal indentation in my stomach made it look as though someone had begun sawing me in half, lost interest and walked away after making it halfway through my torso.

My day was done. I began moving again but this time I was headed back to the first aid station. It seemed the only logical decision with aid station 2 placed somewhere out beyond mile 19. I was upset but didn't want to end up like the listless guy that me and Taylor had transported from aid station 2 to the finish line last year, wondering if the guy was going to pull through and knowing that, without an IV, he was in a bad, bad place. Oddly enough, while sitting to gather strength, that very runner passed by, stopping in his tracks when I asked him if he was the guy I'd given a ride to last year. He thanked me and urged me not to allow myself to get where he'd gotten.

Soon after that exchange and totally out of gas, I plopped down into a creek to see if I could cool off and give myself enough of a boost to get back to the aid station. Many (most) of the folks who passed by kindly offered to help me if they could. I turned down most of the offers knowing I had little chance of keeping anything down. One seasoned ultrarunner wouldn't take no for an answer and gently placed an electrolyte tab (I could've sworn it was a Listerine strip) against the inside of my cheek, gave me a salt pill and made me drink a little bit of water. She told me to take all the time I needed and then assured me that I'd come around. I couldn't help but think back on my dear friend Matt's claims that "trail magic" from a kind stranger had carried him to the finish of the 28.4 mile Susquehanna Super Hike. That image faded as before my trail angel had even passed fully from sight, I vomited up everything I'd just been given.

Which makes it all the stranger that a few minutes later I clawed my way up onto my feet and began heading back down the trail, not toward the start but toward the finish. I wasn't moving well and, at this point, I had very little hope of finishing but something had convinced me that I could at least make it to 19.6.

During one of my frequent sitdowns to try and calm my stomach pains, Bobby came upon me. He too was having some GI issues and had urged Chuck to push ahead. Though he was definitely moving better than me at this point, Bobby seemed disappointed to not be setting a quicker pace. All the more reason I appreciated his offer of an electrolyte tablet even though I turned it down. He assured me that he'd alert the next aid station to my difficulties and carried on his way.

Though I continued to creep further along, it seemed like an eternity between trail markers. I still hadn't managed to keep anything down and because of the slow progress, no longer had any water left in my water bottles. Luckily, another trail angel passed my way. Laurie wasn't fast but she was dogged. She was way, way back in the pack but I had no doubt that she was going to eke out a finishing time. She hadn't intended to have her 3-liter water bladder filled completely at the aid station but an enthusiastic volunteer couldn't be talked out of adding water until the bladder bulged. Laurie confided in me that she'd been spilling the water away to shed weight and urged me to take some. She gave me enough to fill my water bottles about halfway and then settled back into her machine-like pace. I watched her go and slowly mustered the determination to follow.

I hadn't gone more than 100 yards before I brought one of the water bottles to my lips to discover that the water was nearly undrinkably warm. Just like that my determination was gone again. The trail was again nudged right alongside a stream and I clambered in one more time to see if there were restorative powers to be had. I submerged both bottles and hoped that their contents would cool.

I do not know how long I sat there but it was long enough to turn the water in the bottle ice cold. I drank both bottles empty, savored the coolness for a bit and talked myself up and out of the creek. I was moving again.

I alternated between fast hiking and, on downhill sections, something resembling running. The further along I went, the longer I was able to sustain runs and transition more quickly between walking and running on steeper sections. Taylor had run the second leg in 2010 and I recognized one of the climbs from his descriptions and knew that I was about to make it the second aid station that had seemed impossible a short while ago.

When I tumbled into the aid station, the volunteers looked bewildered. I have a feeling it wasn't just Bobby who'd mentioned the state that I was in and it was clear that they'd been discussing what to do about me. I pounded more Pepsi and, though I still had no stomach for solid foods, I licked the salt off of a handful of Pringles. Laurie was there at the aid station and offered words of encouragement and admitted that she hadn't expected to see me in the state to which I'd seemed to return. I gave her a hug, filled my bottles with 9 parts ice, 1 part water (roughly) and continued onward. I'd made it through the aid station 2 cutoff with just 23 minute to spare.

Within the next few miles I came upon Bobby and another gentleman. They too looked shocked to see me and admitted that they were struggling. Bobby had not previously known the other runner but they'd teamed up as Bobby continued to battle his stomach and the other runner wrestled with the strain of a first time 50K attempt. Together, we all determined to push the pace as best we could to ensure that we managed a qualifying time. After a short sustained stretch in which we slowly, painfully ultra-shuffled instead of just walking, Bobby and I shared a good laugh at how crazy it was to be excited at having gotten our pace down to 17 or 18 minutes! Any other day, we'd have probably been humiliated by that realization, but it was a genuine victory under the circumstances.

The remaining miles are pretty much a blur of cramping, shuffling and, oddly enough, laughter. Too many hours had passed for there to be any chance of achieving a time to be proud of, but we did move along steadily enough to know well before the finish that we'd be managing to secure a qualifying time and a finisher's medal. This allowed time to take in and fully appreciate the beauty of the Laurel Highlands. With the exception of the short uninteresting pass through Seven Springs ski resort, the entirety of the trail is as pretty as can be with the crisscrossing streams, tall tree cover, sprawling sections of prehistoric ferns and an overall quiet remoteness.

My final time of 9:15:50 proved to be my slowest 50K to date...by 3.5 hours!

On paper, it's one of my worst, if not the worst, running performances of my life. Truth is, it's the one of which I'm most proud and one I honestly believe could be a real breakthrough for me. Throwing out the true injury that occurred at Hyner View, this is the first time that I've really had to push through "you should really stop" obstacles and do proper battle with the ultra demons. I didn't do much more than barely finish the race, but that result was very much in doubt for most of the day.

Best of all, I made a great friend in Bobby and was able to immediately share the kind of profound experience that seems reserved for lifelong friends and loved ones. It was a pleasure to suffer through the day with him and together lay claim to our finisher's medals. We even managed to both arrive (via car, not on foot) at the aid station at mile 64 to spend time with Jo as she waited for Kelly to arrive and then offer encouragement to Kelly who certainly inspired me by looking like he was out for a walk in the park. I guess, in a way, he was, but 77 miles is one long walk in the park.

We'd held out hope that we'd manage to see Derek at that aid station, but learned instead that he'd passed through earlier and, when he'd passed, was convincingly in first place. We were already hooting and hollering at that news when the volunteer confirmed that Derek had actually already arrived at the finish and WON the race! Bobby and I glanced at our phones to check the time and were astonished. Not only had Derek finished in first place, he'd shaved an unthinkable hour off of the old 77-mile course record. The recent news that construction on the bridge was expected to be completed before next year's race meant that Derek's record would stand in perpetuity.

Needless to say, it was a Laurel Highlands Group Weekend to remember.

week 21 plus 2.

2011-06-05T00:24:00.001-04:00

Didn't I just type the phrase "May is here"?

I did, but it turns out it isn't. Not any longer.

June came on fast and August-ish heat and humidity are already in full effect. Wish my legs (and lungs) were keeping pace, but they're going to need a few more weeks of exposure to summerlike conditions.

No complaints, however. I've been running just about every day for the last several weeks and even though the runs themselves aren't long in duration, their mere existence is joy.

Witness:

Tuesday, May 24 - Mid-day White Oak and Penryn roads loop.

Wednesday, May 25 - Pulled out a pair of old but beloved New Balance for a fairly fast-paced 4 trail miles at Speedwell County Park.

Thursday, May 26 - After work run up Power, Sun Hill and Junction Roads - started strong but absolutely wilted as the mercury flirted with 90 and the humidity soared.

Friday, May 27 - Good solid pre-work effort - ran in Pearl Izumi and didn't realize until seconds before my Saturday run that I'd forgotten to document it - hence the appearance of my legs and the Montrail stand-ins.

Saturday, May 28 - Bushwhacking on the northernmost section of the Conestoga Trail between Pumping Station and the southern side of the bridge across Speedwell Lake.

Sunday, May 29 - Horseshoe Trail and Mole Hill - muggy, muddy and awesome!

Monday, May 30 - Got a jump start on Memorial Day with Jefferson on the Oak Loop at Speedwell Forge County Park.

Tuesday, May 31 - Repeated the Power, Sun Hill and Junction Road run home of a few days earlier and didn't handle the heat/humidity much better this time around - Gotta keep working.

memorial day musings.

2011-06-03T23:46:00.000-04:00

Memorial Day weekend allowed me to string together a couple of consecutive days of trail running and the weather couldn't have been more cooperative. The sun shined and shined.

And shined.

I finally managed to explore the northern end of the Conestoga Trail and am looking forward to piecing together the entire 60+ miles and, in the process, identifying which of those miles don't need revisiting (lots of road crossings, I'm afraid). The handful of miles between the initial trailhead and Speedwell Lake aren't nearly as technical as those to be found at the southern end of the trail but they are lush, lovely and apparently woefully untraveled.

I stumbled on a Superman tag in a turnpike underpass. So dumb. Of course, I couldn't avoid sneaking into the picture.

Pssst...Will Oldham called. He wants his moustache back.

I got home to find the girls posted up behind one of the kitchen screens, serenading the birds who were serenading them back from the feeders along our driveway. I love it.

I woke early the next morning to meet Jefferson, Josh and John on the Horseshoe Trail and hoped I would still be considered part of the gang despite my incompatible first initial. Thankfully, they didn't seem to notice or agreed not to hold it against me. Arriving a little bit before they did, I strolled over to read the contents of the State Game Lands bulletin board.

Is it a Pennsylvania thing to find such hunting-centric language and empty shotgun shells littering the ground below?

The humidity was stifling and served as a proper reminder that summer was lurking. It made running that much more challenging but sure did make the early morning woods look incredibly beautiful.

I was going to write more but, damn, that trail looks inviting. Doesn't it?

I gotta run.

week 20

2011-05-24T22:54:00.000-04:00

I don't want to pass too much judgment on the last week. Just report it and move on to the next. Weather and family obligations laid waste to Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but I got a great road run in on Thursday and too pretty satisfying trail runs over the weekend.

I'm going to have to climb the learning curve quickly if Laurel Highlands is going to be anything more than another humbling day in the woods.

Bright side? Who couldn't use another dose of humility?

Thursday, May 19 - Quick (at least at my current fitness) mid-day run...really stoked on consistent splits.

Saturday, May 21 - Three loops at Speedwell Forge County Park...rediscovered the smooth, undulating singletrack - forgot to restart the GPS on the second loop so probably shorted myself 1.2 miles on the log.

Sunday, May 22 - Running Pump and State Game Lands with Jefferson - legs held up but I definitely could feel the effort of the day before - early season heat is proving more challenging than it should.