not small at all.

Being in the woods makes me happy.  Sometimes simply not being indoors is enough.

Add a predawn start with a bunch of good companions (including my favorite four-legged pal) on a favorite local ridge finally beginning to rally to life after a punishing winter and, well, things couldn't get much better.

Except sometimes the body doesn't cooperate.  It's tired, disinterested, unresponsive. And sometimes, no matter how non-competitive or goal-oriented a runner you might be, you bog down on not performing the way you hope to and allow frustration with momentary physical weakness to be a bigger, a MUCH bigger, deal than it should be.

By "you" I mean me and "sometimes" was Saturday.

Yes, I muddled through another 2700+ feet of climbing in a challenging season in which miles have been hard and hard to come by.  Yes, I am on track for what spring and summer have in store (on track, not nearly all the way ready).  I know that, but I stopped knowing it for a time on Saturday morning because instead of heeding the signs that my body needed a day off, instead of listening, I shouted over those indications with the noise of more of the very thing that had me worn down in the first place.

That's what ultrarunners are supposed to do, right?  Gut it out, suck it up.  Push harder, work harder, BE harder.  Keep moving.  Get back up.

Over and over and over again.

I get it.  I like all that and wouldn't be out doing the things I do if that weren't the case, but...

...boy, do we ever miss out on all the lovely small things when we get so hyper-focused on the big thing that (shhh, don't tell anyone) isn't really a big thing at all.  We should know better than most that from time to time energy lapses and the indestructible body proves destructible, the unwavering mind wavers and, surprise!, life goes on anyway.

I smiled for my friends and genuinely enjoyed their company but, make no mistake, my attention was inexcusably distracted by not being able to enjoy the movement because it wasn't the quality of movement I expected of myself.

Which is ridiculous.

 Thankfully, even my numb skull can warm with enough exposure to the glow of life's little wonders.

The coffee waiting at home tasted just as good as it always does.

A book pulled off the shelf for ten minutes of reading before Lindsay and the girls were ready to accompany me to the diner for breakfast did what books so often do, floored me with the power of words orchestrated by a conductor finely attuned to not just language but also to the essence of human interaction.  The words wouldn't have been any more or less stirring had I charged through my earlier workout instead of bumbling and muddling along.

The thaw continued at breakfast with relaxed laughter, a recap of the girls' individual adventures at school that week, and the sweet, reassuring touch of a daughter's hand in a shared restaurant booth.

Off to the rock climbing gym from there.  I resigned my tired body to belay duty while Lily and Piper were their normal roller coaster rides of grit teeth determination alternating with who-could-care silliness.

They were having fun, purely reveling in play and exploration, too busy to bother measuring the fun they were having by increments of accomplishment.  Hard to think of that concept as a "small thing" when you're forced to examine it, but too often our stressed-out by everything adult minds fail to grasp that simple wisdom.

Seen off by a round of hugs, Lindsay left the gym for a shift at the hospital and we three who remained headed back to the house to pick up Sugar Pie and then together we returned to the forest to retrieve the dog leash that I'd forgotten at the top of Molehill that morning.

Sugar Pie whimpered her want to move fast, fast, faster, but I and my battered legs were far more content to slowly amble along the Horseshoe Trail while the girls flitted about in search of scavenger hunt targets.

Hours before I had surveyed the ground beneath my feet through the narrow lens of a runner's eye, seeking traction and confident footfalls in a threatening landscape of ice, snow, mud and rock.  Now, with my daughters by my side, the terrain was full of hope and promise.  Receding snow revealed little pockets of life below and Spring suddenly seemed not so far away.

It wasn't that Lily and Piper were more attuned to the small things so much as they seemed enamored of everything.  Of ALL things.  I marveled at just how many different things caught their attention, at Lily's endless stream of questions, and Piper's tenacious tracing of every one of her big sister's strides.

We scavenged, successfully, finding most everything on our list, including Suge's leash.

My legs ached, they must have, but that isn't part of my recollection of our time together.  

The thaw was complete and I was lost again to living in the moment.  Lily was actually the one to remind me that I was tuckered out by suggesting that when we got home I sit and relax while she and Piper rode their bikes and played on the playground of the old decommissioned elementary school behind our home.

I could not and did not argue with her.  It sounded like a great idea.

That's when another not so small thing happened.

Lily decided that she didn't need her training wheels anymore which was news to me.  But, take them off we did, and except for a few fairly harmless slow-motion tumbles, she figured it out despite being perched atop a bike that seemed two sizes too small for her growing-too-fast-for-mom-and-dad legs.  It seemed like I should make a really big deal out of the accomplishment, but she seemed satisfied by my wide grin and more interested in riding than hearing me heap parental praise upon her.

She and Piper Bea whooshed around and around and around the small playground until hungry bellies won over their will to keep pedaling. I was hungry too but could have gone on watching them at play forever.

Lily dashed towards the house as I shuffled behind with two little bikes in tow.  Piper had been right by my side so I was taken aback when my asking her if she'd had fun went unanswered.  Looking back over my shoulder, I found her summiting a lingering pile of plowed snow at the edge of the schoolyard.

"What are you doing, Pipe?," I asked.  "Why'd you climb up there?"

"Why not?," came my answer as she thrust out her arms to beckon for rescue.

"Why would you climb up there if you can't get down?"

"I figure it out once I get up."

Yes.

My child, a small thing herself (for now), had blessed me yet again with another not small at all example of why life isn't so much about how well or how poorly you climb the hill so long as you appreciate the gift of a hill to climb in the first place.

thoughts thunk.

See beauty where others have tarnished it, taken it for granted or overlooked it entirely.

Familiar roads need not be entirely forsaken for those less traveled by.

Your eyes are always open.  Remember to listen now and then to what they have to say.

There IS a worthwhile "what" in blue blazes.

Don't be too impressed or disappointed by fleeting numbers.  They'll matter little tomorrow.

thirty-eight is enough.

Last year, I celebrated my birthday by running my age.

At the time, 37 miles marked the farthest I'd gone at one time and I'd considered making the effort an annual event, thinking maybe I could keep adding a mile each year for another few years at least.

Another trip around the calendar later, I was going to be hard pressed to find the time to squeeze in a run of that length in the middle of a work week, especially while trying to get my handle on the boatload of work that needs done ahead of next week's Summer Outdoor Retailer trade show in Salt Lake City and TransRockies, gulp, just two weeks after that.

So, I needed a different kind of status check and it made sense that it should be something that doubled as training for the 120 miles that await in Colorado next month.  While I don't have access to any altitude here in Pennsylvania, there are climbs to be had everywhere even if it demands that you go up, down and back up again.

Over and over and over.

I gave Jefferson a ring early in the week to let him know what I was planning and to see if he wanted in.  The idea was to match the elevation gain of the longest stage at TransRockies, 4900 feet, but to condense that climb into a shorter distance.  Basically, I was thinking that I'd try to make up for not being able to train in altitude by upping the severity of the climbing.  Flawed logic, I know, but at least it would be hard work.

I met Jefferson right around 5:00 AM and we hiked in the half mile on the Horseshoe Trail to the top of Molehill.  In my pack, I was hucking a mini aid station consisting of Gatorade, peanut butter, Gu, Honey Stinger waffles, granola bars, Swedish Fish and dog knows what else.  Either as a birthday offering, a reminder for me to keep an eye on my nutrition or as a goal to work towards, Jefferson had also brought a bottle of Mountain Lightning, the mystical knock-off of a certain caffeine-heavy, day-glo-colored carbonated beverage that came to my rescue when all hell had broken loose in my bowels at Laurel Highlands.

I appreciated the gesture but decided not to carry it to the trailhead.

During a couple of hill sessions the week prior, my Suunto had clocked the ascent at Molehill at around 430+ feet in a little over 4 tenths of a mile, so I was looking at something like 12 reps to make it to 4900 feet of climb.  The most laps I'd managed to crank out without switching from running to walking was 4, so I knew that I'd be doing some power hiking before the morning was over. I'd brought along my Black Diamond Z-Poles, thinking it would be a good chance to see if I could finally get the hang of using poles while moving swiftly...or trying to.  To start, though, I'd see how far I could go on the run.

It was still too dark to manage without a light, so the initial hike and the first couple of trips up and down the hill were headlamp lit.  As much as I wanted to barrel the downhills, I knew I'd need my quads to participate throughout the effort and, instead, I concentrated on clean footfalls on the descents.  A storm that had passed through the previous day had littered the trail with debris and Jefferson and I spent some time clearing out downed limbs on our initial trip down to the bottom.

We chatted the entire way down and most of the way up, as we cranked through the first lap.    I headed right back down, knowing that, whatever the reason, my second rep has always proven to be my most sluggish.  This day was no different and I toiled on my second ascent and thought I might end up hiking sooner than I'd anticipated.  I paused at the top to get a quick drink and use the Sharpie I'd brought along to make note of which lap I was on...I'd failed to take that step on past repeat sessions, lost track of the number and ended up doing extra laps to make sure that I covered the ground I'd planned on in the first place.  I had too far to go this morning and too little time before work to afford to lose the count.  Realizing I didn't have any paper with me, I marked two notches on my arm, replaced the cap and jumped back on the course.

The third time up the hill went far better and I was psyched to see Jefferson plugging away too.  He's conquered Molehill several times by now, but hadn't gutted out two on-the-run reps on any prior visits.  Here he was topping out for the third time and he'd get one more before having to part ways to get back home to start his day.

Soon after Jefferson left, I ran up the hill a fifth time and felt like I could manage one more before likely having to resort to hiking.  I snuck a quick peek at my watch, did some quick math (not my strong suit) and suddenly understood that, short of being late for work, I was going to be hard-pressed to log 12 laps in the allotted time.  Had I bothered to do that simple math the day before, I might have started earlier, but it was a little late for that now.

Down and up, down and up, down and up I went.  I wasn't flying by any means (a nearly 21% grade'll have that effect), but damned if I wasn't still running.  Or at least going faster than hiking.  I wouldn't have even thought about continuing to run if this had been an actual race, but this was something different altogether so I just kept at it.

I continued hitting the Gatorade and thieving food from my aid station.  And I was shocked to still be feeling good.  My feet were getting a bit sloppy on the downs but my legs kept chugging on the ups and my heart and lungs managed to keep up too.  I added notches though I was sweating away the earliest of those notches almost as quickly as I was acquiring new ones.

I kept repeating my "make it to the top of the hill on the other side of this hill" mantra, despite the fact that this day was all about just this one brutal hill.

Regardless, the mantra was working.

Eight, nine, ten times I summited Molehill before having to accept the fact that the clock had caught up with me and I was going to have to get off the trail, into the car and off to work.  But not before a quick archival photo of me on my favorite downed log/resting post.

I was thirty-eight, alright.

Maybe halfway home (or further) if you prefer to look at things that way.  I don't, for the record, but regardless of how little or much I've got left, I'm pretty pleased with still feeling frisky and still well in possession of grit teeth and stubborn will.  Guess I could have slept in for my birthday, but not getting up and moving is a gift I'd just as soon not receive.

I hadn't planned appropriately to accomplish exactly what I'd set out to do, but I'd buried my former idea of what I was capable of on that beloved/dogforsaken hill, running every damn step.  And 4495 feet of climb in 8.78 miles is no joke for boy or man (girl or woman).  

No joke at all.

If anything, it was worth a raised glass.  A celebratory drink.

And I had just the thing.