sunny side of the possum.

That Henry Miller had a way with words, didn't he?

Like these, for instance:

"If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored.  One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things."

We ultra runners, even us not-so-good ones, are always busy coming and a'going and as much as I enjoy (and I do) taking part in that physical aspect of what we do, I find that Mr. Miller's concept of eternal anchoring may play at least as key a role in my love of our "sport".  It touches on that point of connectivity that keeps me showing up for races, even after seemingly miserable failures, in ways that the allure of another t-shirt, medal or buckle have not and will not.

It's all about people, People (at least for this people person), and maybe the "sunny" side of the mountain is just the one on which you happen to be presently situated, whether in content solitude or in good company.

Take a looped course like the one at the Oil Creek 100, consisting of three 50K loops and a 7.7-mile finishing 'go round.  Fill the trails and the aid stations with a myriad of personalities, each one possessing a unique and interesting story (or two, or five, or more!) to share, and then throw in heat, humidity and physical discomfort that eventually leaves you far more interested in being told stories (preferably while in a prone or, at the very least, seated position) than staggering any further to the tune of your own ragged breathing and semi-quiet whimpering.

Well, let's just say that not continuing on stops looking like THE worst idea in the world.

Mostly because it isn't.

You'll likely be told otherwise by some grizzled trail veteran or a motivationally-minded bystander.  Your own inner demons, have you any (you do, trust me), will also vehemently argue otherwise, but sometimes they'll be wrong.

You may not be making the RIGHT decision, but that doesn't mean you're making the WORST decision.

As a quick aside, some well meaning person (not a demon...not hardly) this past weekend kindheartedly let me know that "only God can judge you."  For whomever finds those words reassuring, it is with apologies that I say that I find that statement preposterously erroneous.  Leaping right past any arguments about deities and higher beings, I will confidently state that ANYONE can judge you and, quite likely, most people are doing just that.  The good news is that only you can judge whether or not being judged by others (including your god or just some ornery possum) matters to you.  More importantly, with respect to your finishing or not finishing a race, NOBODY can sentence you respective to whatever judgment he or she makes.

If the judgment of others really truly does matter to you, respond accordingly.  

If it doesn't, shrug it off.

I do.  I do solemnly shrug.

On Saturday my inner demons, apparently, were either off elsewhere or not feeling up to a counter argument with my aching back.  Fifty miles into the Oil Creek 100, after roughly ten miles (and the too-too many minutes required to cover those ten miles) of initial here-and-gone-again back spasms that ended up morphing into the here-and-not-going-away-again variety, I handed over the keys and hitched a ride back to the start/finish area to break the news to Jefferson (my one-man crew) and all the other friends assembled there.

Folks, as usual (yes, I have more than my fair share of DNF experience), were kind and encouraging.  I make a point to never turn down kindness, but I really didn't need any encouragement.

All I was craving at that point was laughter and those stories that I knew were there, RIGHT THERE, waiting to be told and others, for that matter, still waiting to be written (to be fair, I was also craving, oddly, Mountain Dew Code Red, but that is a strange tale for another day).

I'd arrived and there would be no more departing.

I listened and I laughed, shared some stories of my own and was listened to and laughed with (at?) in return.  Between the running that I DID do, the new relationships that were forged and the existing friendships that were revisited and fortified, I had been gifted another wonderful day in the world, still firmly anchored to what I perceived to be the sunny side of the mountain.

Buckle or no buckle.

I know the ultra rhetoric well enough to know that I was supposed to spend some time berating myself, combing back over every detail to determine what went wrong and resolving how to prevent it next time.  That's all well and good and perhaps cathartic for many, but, I've never been big on doing what's expected and definitely not when my heart isn't in it.  Feels like play acting to me and life is theater enough without conjuring.

I'm good.

Upstairs, between my two hard-of-hearing ears, I'm good and have decided to skip past the beating myself up (or pretending to) and jump right back into enjoying my day, tomorrow and the day after (today not tomorrow, people, remember?).  Didn't really require a decision actually.  It just happened.

One's destination is just the way we look at things, right, Henry?

Photo courtesy of Jefferson Stoltzfus

And while we're busy quoting other (real!) writers and shrugging off passed judgment, here are some words from Jacques Prevert that might well have blurted right outta my very own noggin, though less articulately:

"I am what I am

I'm made that way

When I want to laugh

Yes, I erupt with laughter...

What more do you want

What do want from me?"

I'll be back again next year, Titusville, erupting in laughter.

Count on it.

trying to make it all last.

So, everything's packed.

I've got "...a long sleeved shirt
with horses on the front
and some gum and a lighter and a knife
and a new deck of cards (with girls on the back)."

Or wait, no, those are Tom Waits lyrics (Shore Leave).

Anyway, I believe I'm all packed for Titusville, home of the Oil Creek 100 Trail Runs.  One of those three races is the 100 miler and that's the one at which I'll be toiling away most of Saturday (beginning at 5 AM, ET) and the first portion of Sunday in pursuit, of all things, a belt buckle, a purty one, but still....

How that remains the 100-mile award of choice, I'm uncertain, but so it is and off a chasin' it, I will go, knowing full well that it'll never be asked to hold up a single pair of pants so long as we three (me, the buckle and my pants) shall live.

Last year's successful effort was shockingly calamity-free (though slow) which likely means all hell will break loose this weekend.

thisbeesknees - Oil Creek 100 2012 race report

Hell breaking loose makes for better blog fodder anyway, right (though god in possum form is pretty good stuff)?  And better blues songs:

"Baby, I'm so far away from home

and I miss my baby so

I can't make it by myself...."

And that's why, while my baby (all my babies) will be at home, cheering from afar, Jefferson'll be there to help me get back to Titusville and, eventually, Mount Joy Road and Sporting Hill.

If you'd like to cheer along too or you just get tired of watching the proverbial (or actual) paint dry, peek in a time or two at the webcast.

Here's the link:

Oil Creek 100 2013 webcast

Bear in mind that it will likely be running hours behind if working at all.  That's no swipe at quite capable race director Tom Jennings or the exceptional volunteers at Oil Creek, but just a fact of life in "real time" ultra webcasts as the aid stations are remote, electrical outlets are sparse and satellite feeds are spotty.

Besides, everyone's plenty distracted with other things.  You know, like Bib #132 (me) will be quite busy"pacing myself, trying to make it all last".

For the record, and to my wife's chagrin, I am packing my long-sleeved shirt with horses on the front.  Oh, they're ducks.

Same difference.

Giddap, giddyup, GIT THEE UP!  Quack, quack, quack.

fi-los-uh-fee

My good friend, Jefferson, accompanied me to Titusville last weekend for my first 100-miler.  

The first time we'd ventured out to this part of western Pennsylvania together, we had attended out our first beard competition, had an absolute blast and made a ton of lasting friends in the process.  All of which was quite a surprise, as we had arrived in Oil City unsure of what to expect.

This weekend actually felt similar in that regard.  The difference this time was that we already had friends waiting for us.

The longest race I'd run previously was a 54 miler.  I'd started but failed to finish a 70 mile race earlier in the year, so there were plenty of internal question marks.

Jefferson had paced for me and another friend at the Labor Pains 12-hour event but that course was held on a 5-mile loop that provided nearly constant access to food, drinks and friendly faces.  Oil Creek would be less accommodating.

Because this post isn't specifically about the race, I'll jump ahead and say that Jefferson had a few growing pains during the "crewing" portion of the race, but I deliver that news with a grin on my face.  He did just fine, but crew chief extraordinaire Jo Agnew, in doing her best to give Jefferson a crash course on crewing, actually managed to cast a spotlight mostly on what he wasn't doing "right" (whatever that means).

Hell, he'd never crewed before and I'd never been crewed for before.  How smoothly were things gonna go?

Once he could lace up his own shoes and get out on the trail as my pacer, Jefferson shined.

He didn't get to do nearly as much running as he expected to as pain in my feet converted me to more of a power hiker than a runner over the last 30 or so miles, but I set a pretty mean hiking pace (yes, I did say so myself) and he stuck with me, in the process surpassing his previous longest distance by a good half marathon, logging nearly 38 miles.

He was everything I needed him to be which was mostly just a calm, comforting presence, a by-my-side friend who didn't say a single thing to lower my spirits or shake my confidence.  I felt pain, for sure, but never  enough to pull me completely into a solitary place of suffering and I believe having Jefferson there with me was a huge factor for staying out of that place.

Jefferson never delivered my favorite stolen-from-Deadwood "the world ends when you're dead" reminder, but he didn't need to and it wouldn't have made sense if he did.  He didn't quote any Neitzsche either even though it must have been tempting, considering the fact that Friedrich had penned quite a bit of content that might seem relevant in the dark of the night AND had sported a moustache eerily similar to the one that currently resides on Jefferson's upper lip.

No, there weren't any specific quotes offered up in the middle of the night, but, after the fact, Jefferson did hand me an interesting passage from Neitzsche that I'm now going to share with anyone still reading along:

"There is as much wisdom in pain as there is in pleasure:  both belong among the factors that contribute the most to the preservation of the species.  If pain did not, it would have perished long ago; that is hurts is no argument against it but its essence.  In pain I hear the captain's command:  "Take in the sails!"  The bold seafarer "man" must have mastered the art of doing a thousand things with his sails; otherwise he would be done for in no time, and the ocean would swallow him.  We must learn to live with diminished energies, too:  As soon as pain gives its safety signal the time has come to diminish them; some great danger or other, a storm is approaching, and we are well advised to "inflate" ourselves as little as possible.

True, there are people who hear precisely the opposite command when great pain approaches: Their expression is never prouder, more warlike, and happier than it is when a storm comes up; indeed, pain itself gives them their greatest moments.  This is the heroic type, the great pain bringers of humanity, those few or rare human beings who need the very same apology that pain itself needs--and truly, one should not deny it to them.  They contribute immensely to the preservation and enhancement of the species, even if it were only by opposing comfortableness and by not concealing how this sort of happiness nauseates them."

Now I'm not going to go so far as to side with the bit about comfortableness making me nauseous but I do like the idea of facing the storm head on, weathering it and then taking the time to restore those diminished energies after the storm has passed.

And so, having done my part to preserve and enhance the species (who knew?), I'm savoring this recovery week, pondering endurance and...

...wondering who would be a better ultra-runner, Neitzsche or Al Swearengen?

excuses isn't just a river in egypt.

The fluttering butterflies in my stomach feel more like flailing winged walruses.

That may not be fair.

No walrus has been given an opportunity to show its flying skills.  Not as far as I, Google or Wikipedia have been able to confirm.  At least not with its own wings.

But should one of those fine (I'm assuming) swimmers wake up with built-in flying apparatus, it likely, I suspect, would go crashing off the sides of ice shelves and rock faces in a fashion similar to the way my nerves are battering against the insides of my stomach.

Why?

The Oil Creek 100 Trail Runs looms.

https://sites.google.com/site/oilcreek100/

Just another two nights of (semi)sleep before my inaugural one hundred miles of "can-you-do-this, you scrawny little bastard?" and  I, guiltily charged, have no idea.

I'm not completely unprepared.

I've got two functioning legs (currently) with feet properly connected to the ends of them (currently), an archived trail of long runs over the last few weeks and month, a fresh pair of shoes (with a back up), a more than capable crew and a cast of supportive friends, ample food and hydration and blind enthusiasm.

And, I've got an HBO-delivered mantra that I turn to with frequency and that I expect will play in my head like the cliched gerbil in its wheel all day long on Saturday and into Sunday.

Leon, why ain't you up and running again?

Dude, my left #$%*@*&! arch has called it quits.

Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair or #$%*@*&! beatings.

So, why ain't you up and running again?

This is ridiculous.  I've been out here for hours, the sun's been down forever and I'm still six miles out from my drop bag and a headlamp.  This is NEVER going to end.

The world ends when you're dead.

Now, why ain't you up and running again?

I puked my guts out and am having a helluva time keeping anything down, man, even water!

Forty more miles to the finish and...until then you got more punishment in store.

LEON, why in the HELL ain't you up and running again?

These hills are endless...I'm freezing...There's just no way I can keep my eyes open another minute longer...I've pooped 20 times in the last 12 hours and I think I may have just, yep, I definitely just did crap my pants!

Stand it like a man and give some back.

I'm assuming that isn't meant as a suggestion to shit a 21st time on (or just to one side of) the course, but a reminder to fight back, to keep going.

To give some back by just simply not giving in.

Rest and recover tomorrow...and the next day...and, if need be, the next few weeks.

I've got no firm finishing time goals, so much as I really just want to not only make that finish line but also come away from the event--if not more enthused about running than ever then at least--still wanting to run.

If I find that I never want to go a full 100 miles at one time again, no harm done.

If I end up on the shelf for an extended period of time or, worse yet, suffer a complete loss of motivation because of the race THEN I will be disappointed...though I'll take time on the shelf for physical reasons over just plain listlessness.

Taking a long, long time to get to the finish line and suffering (perhaps immensely) along the way, but GETTING to that finish line?  That sounds like a win to me.

Should any of you have any desire to follow along (either out of concern, curiosity or in expectation of confirming and celebrating my failure), you can check in on the webcast of the 100-miler at the following link, keeping in mind that updates will be infrequent and, as with any of these types of races, logistical complications can lead to erratic or incorrect posts:

http://www.runrace.net/findarace.php?id=12287PA&tab=a5&lstpart=3919#lPrt

I'll be the scrawny little bastard sporting bib #105.

The scrawny bastard trying to give some back and praying the world doesn't end.