Here’s the thing: because I am slow, and usually come rolling in at the back of the pack, I never, ever, ever get to be one of those guys sitting in a nice comfy camp chair in my flip-flops cheering other runners as they come in. On Saturday, at about 4 pm, I was sitting in a nice comfy camp chair in my flip-flops cheering other runners as they came in. Oh…and I was eating a hot dog (or two).
I signed-up to do the Triangle 12-hour adventure trail run mostly because I felt it would fit nicely into my training for my second 100 attempt in Feb. Instead, it convinced me that I could wait a bit on that hundred, that it wasn’t going anywhere, that I really enjoyed running and needed to get that feeling back without the pressure of the 100 sitting there. Staring at me. Unblinking. Like a raggedy-assed lycanthrope. I didn’t hate the ten hours I spent out running this Saturday; I loved it. Those 40 miles seemed to just flow by. The lack of a particular distance, and the lack of a do-or-it’s-all-over mindset was wonderful. I found myself running just to run.
Yeah, I cranked off 40 miles in 10:07:36. Yeah, there were rocks and roots and a veritable hailstorm of acorns, and other things that make trail running fun. But, there was also the people – the wonderful fellow crazies that find the best thing – *the* funnest thing to do on a gorgeous Saturday in early fall – is to run around in circles in the woods. Amanda was there, banging out her longest run evar; Bob was there smoking between laps and trying to keep the sucking wounds in his side from being too distracting; Kate – whose pace is just like mine except she’s better at it, and who I discovered lives across the street from me – ran a couple of laps avec moi before digging in and smoking me; Patrick who just blew the field away cranking out 71 miles in 12 hours; the RDs Alex and Scott maestroing to beat the band, and all the incredible volunteers just made the day superb.
So…I’m taking time off from my fanatical pursuit of the 100 miler, and am going to focus on 50Ks, 50Ms, and other stuff that I find fun. First up? The incredibly fun-sounding Backyard Burn Trail Running Series: 4 races, 10M a pop, in 4 different NOVA parks.
Coming in at the end of the race from Peter Shoemaker on Vimeo.
For many years now I've left a trail of flecks across the Internet. Just begun novels; explorations of culture, music, writing, food, the future, mountains, long distances, shallow oceans, deep canyons, oddly-composed music, even more oddly-constructed poetry, impassioned editorials, strident analysis, and a slew of images, sounds, and scribbles. Most of this has passed into the aether, waiting only for some semi-sentient algorithm to pull it from obscurity twenty years hence. In the meantime, there is this lodestone, gathering what it can.