the weather aboveground.

The weatherperson was hinting at snow in a way that made it apparent that there wasn't actually going to be any.  I can't bear the way weather segments, like everything else on TV or in print these days, needs to vie for our attention with maybe-just-maybe drama angling that rarely proves out.

Don't we just want to know what the weather is likely to be, as opposed to being teased with not-going-to-happen hopes for snow or sunshine or whatever else the meteorologist thinks we'd prefer?  And while I'm ranting (and then I'll move on, I promise), when did the person who was the weatherman morph from a homely character I couldn't help but trust even though he was wrong at least 50% of the time into a surgically enhanced spokesmodel who leaves me doubting he or she possesses proper weather foretelling credentials?

There will eventually be a tie-in to running here, I think.

Sundays are running days and, should that offend anyone, go ahead and consider that for me running is resting and so, if nothing else, I'm honoring my Christian upbringing on a technicality.  Growing up in "the church", I've seen enough bending of the rules to not think that logging double-digit trail miles on the 7th day of the week on our modern calendar is enough to banish me to hell. 

Not all on its own.

Sundays with snow?  THAT is a gift from heaven, but not one likely to happen tomorrow.  Admittedly it was only through a television screen, but I looked right into the eyes of Weather Woman and she wasn't fooling me.

The mild winter has enabled me to get in a ton of miles at varying efforts and I'm feeling really good about my current conditioning.  Tomorrow should bring more miles and build on the endurance that is my current point of focus.

BUT, I'd trade it for a day of play in the snow.

Those daydreams led to me digging through the files on my computer looking for run/snow photos and I found a short video clip from a trip west I took last April.  Down (and it's all relative when the "low" elevation on the trip was 7,000 feet) in Escalante, Utah, the temperatures were brisk and the wind was a constant.  No snow, though.  Which is why I hopped in the rental car and drove an hour further southwest to the beautiful Bryce Canyon.

Never been?  Go.

Starting from Rainbow Point (9,115 ft), I encountered the snow I was craving and it accompanied me for several miles as I descended the breathtaking Under the Rim trail. 

I was nursing an Achilles strain at the time and even running downhill I could feel the effects of altitude, so the going wasn't fast.  Throw in a bit of snow and ice and scenery that made me want to stop every five seconds and that pace slowed even further.

At some point I decided to see what my point-and-shoot camera could capture on its video setting and here's what I got:

Just by getting out tomorrow, I'm going to have a blast.  The time outdoors (time NOT indoors) and shared moments with friends is blessing enough.  But, I know my mind will mull over from time to time how much more fun we could be having if there was just a bit of the white stuff to plow through.

So, cut the crap, weather folk, and bring me some winter before it's too late.

once you get started you can't sit down.

Staring out the window at mid-day and taking in the rare sight (this year) of snowflakes falling with conviction, I knew I needed to find a way to sneak in a run.  Never mind the fact that the temperatures hovered just above freezing and it seemed unlikely that accumulation would amount to much.

No matter.

Snow was hard to come by and I was going to get out in it.

It wouldn't happen then, not with work stacked figuratively and, judging by the state of my desk, also literally to the ceiling.  I made a call to Lindsay to confirm her schedule for the rest of the day and allowed the dangling carrot of a night run to keep me hopping along happily until quitting time.

A few hours later I had several hundred acres of private and public land all to my lonesome.  The snow had continued to fall and the mercury had dipped enough to allow something close to an inch to pile up.  At slightly higher elevations, as much as two inches clung to the trees and added surprising visibility even with the nearly full moon mostly obscured by clouds.

I'd half-heartedly sent out an online invite to the "tribe" but wasn't disappointed to be on my own in the pristine conditions.  As is often the case when I run alone at night, I settled into a slightly slower than usual pace with the intent of maintaining that pace all night long.  Pulling a Lionel is what I've taken to calling that and it never fails to make me grin a stupid grin before I cringe slightly at the fact that I'm finding myself funny.

Still, the grin is genuine.

I crossed above Hammer Creek on Route 322 and hooked a quick left onto the Horseshoe Trail, pleased to find not a single set of tracks before me.  I hung another left and dug into the steep, rocky climb that peels up and away from the Horseshoe Trail.  The legs felt fresh and I soon topped out, crossed the power line and headed into the wooded state game lands on the other side.  Before long I took yet another left and followed the long descent that eventually returns to the banks of Hammer Creek and leads to the intersection with the Sharp Valley Trail, my first right turn of the run.

The snow served up a lovely, crisp lullaby underfoot and I marveled at the stillness and silence of everything else but the murmured chattering of the creek.  A far off train whistle, probably originating from the same train and tracks that called to me through the bedtime window of my childhood, just barely made itself heard above my footfalls.

Sharp Valley eventually led to the Big Timber Trail and after clambering up a rocky ascent, I found myself on the old logging road that skims Camp Mack and climbs its way back toward the Horseshoe Trail.  Before getting that high, I turned right onto the Explorer Lodge trail/road and followed it all the way back to the point where I'd first strayed from the Horseshoe Trail.

Feeling exceptionally at ease in the woods and still full of energy, I decided against returning to the car and instead began climbing up, up the Horseshoe Trail to Eagle Rock, headed east from there along the ridgeline and then came all the way back down the logging road again to the Big Timber Trail and retraced (in reverse) some of my earliest miles.

Somewhere along the way, I glanced down at my Garmin and realized that the clock had struck midnight.  At that same moment, I realized that it was now February 9th, the day that would've been my father's 60th birthday.

That hadn't crossed my mind at all, at least not consciously, before that very moment and its arrival jolted me out of my dreamy state.

I'd covered more than 10 miles by the time I arrived back at the car and had held my pace throughout, but the remaining turns and trails chosen after realizing the date had blurred and failed to register.  My head never quite settled back into its earlier peaceful state.

Instead, I pondered what it would be like to playfully give Dad a hard time about being an old man but discovered that I couldn't actually conjure up a vision of that happening.  There are photographs to remind me of how my father looked and, though I don't go out of my way to visit the mirror, it's hard not to see at least a bit of him when I cross one's path.

But in my mind, and I can't even begin to express how disappointing I find this, he often lurks as the 49-year old man in a coma that I visited every day for the last 5 months of his life.

You have a lot of time to look, really look, at someone when they lie prone and motionless for days, weeks and months on end.  You look as close as you should've looked all along but, sadly, you no longer have the opportunity to see anything more than the cold exterior shell and it really drives home how much life and beauty lives in gesture and movement, in the magical whatever-it-is that eyes are able to convey.

I looked too late to fully appreciate the magic.

The flicker of that magic in photographs is a poor reproduction of what is no more.  There's a reason that live shows transcend studio recordings and I'll take raw vulnerability over doctored perfection any and every day.

But, sticking with the music analogy, we don't get to see every band play live that we'd like to.  Even those acts that we were privileged enough to see perform aren't waiting in the wings for us to call them out for an encore.

Poor reproduction or not, recordings do still contain magic, however, and, if nothing else, they retain the ability to transport us back to those first listens, chill-inducing concerts or moments that became indelibly connected to specific notes or musical passages.

I love that about records.

And, I love that about photographs.

Especially when it's all I've got left. 

Miss you, Pops.

there's a hole in my bucket.

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.

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....

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?

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.

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.