Philip "Lost Dog" Turk's Blog

Blush

2012-02-19T20:45:00.001-05:00

The woman came to visit the man
From the recesses of his shadowland
Finally the moment seemed right
To surrender to grace and today
And now he knows that all this time she was waiting for him
Loving him so patiently
Until he opened his heart to see

And the man began to blush
When she stepped off the plane
And time did not erase
Those feelings that remained
Well he learned his lesson well
From so many years ago
And this time around
He vowed he'd never let go

It became so very clear
That he couldn't live his life in fear
He can't deny this connection
That he sees her and that he hears her
And now he knows that all this time she was waiting for him ... waiting
Loving him so faithfully
Just like the river seeks the sea

Illusions of control
Caused him to run and hide
But he's coming home again
He's coming out from the inside

And the man began to blush
When she stepped off the plane
And time did not erase
Those feelings that remained
Well he learned his lesson well
From so many years ago
And this time around
He vowed he'd never let go

-- Philip Turk

This Was Not How the Script Was Supposed to End

2012-02-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

Last fall, while training for Leadville, I had been battling some problems in my right hip just prior to the taper. A quick visit to a local doctor initially resulted in a diagnosis of hip bursitis so my physical therapist Rob gave me some exercises to do along with my usual stretching. When my taper finally arrived, dialing back the mileage certainly helped. Other than a few Ibuprofen and some Max-Freeze at the race, I didn't give it much thought. The two months of offseason afterward seemed to resolve the issue.

But then training commenced again at the beginning of December and the hip pain came back. As the mileage built back up, the pain became worse than before until I had to see the doctor again. This time, we decided to get an unpleasant procedure done called a hip MRI arthrogram. This was followed up with X-rays and visits to two other physical therapists who specialized in gait and orthotics. Feeling a bit panicky and like I had to be more proactive in my healthcare, I once again called upon the services of Dr. Jack Andrish, the same doctor who did my knee reconstruction in 2010. As anyone who has followed this blog over the past couple of years well knows, my admiration for Jack, both as a person and as a doctor, runs deep. So, last Friday I went to the Cleveland Clinic with my records to meet with Jack and Dr. Wael Barsoum, a hip specialist.

There is no conceivable way to find anything positive in the news I received, even for me, the eternal optimist. I have what is called Femoroacetabular Impingement. In a nutshell, it has caused some calcification and a bone spur in my hip socket. Throw in many years of running and some arthritis and you have the grim news: my right hip is not in good shape. In my case, the initial assessment is that this can't be fixed with surgery (a third orthopedic surgeon weighed in here). It looks as if I continue to run races and log high-volume/high-intensity weeks of training, I will have to have a hip replacement in an estimated 5 years. Accordingly, I have made the decision to stop in the next couple of months, if not sooner.

While I was not told that I had cancer nor lupus, etc., and therefore do not wish to dramatize all that has occurred, this news is very painful for me as running, the way I do it, is a central part of my life. Obviously, I have some serious decisions to make about 2012 as my competitive running time is now quite limited and drawing to a close. My quick reaction to this, one that I am sure will change time and again over the next few weeks, is to try to run Boston IF (and this is a big IF) I can be relatively competitive. What I won't do is cross the finish line fighting to break 4 hours, dragging my leg behind me, a guy who stayed in racing longer than he should have. Of course, this is an intensely personal choice about competing and doing your best versus finishing, one that I will not let be driven by ego and foolish pride.

It is easy to say "Soldier on!", or "Go out with guns blazing!", but somehow those words ring hollow tonight. Believe me when I say I would if I could as this has nothing to do with my spirit nor my mental resolve. The problem is that I am in physical pain when I run, a pain that diminishes my training goals. And now there is mental pain, the fear of knowing that with each pounding stride and footstep, I am chewing up more and more cartilage in the joint. Who among us runners would enjoy training under those conditions? These are the facts and the data and all the tears in the world, all the wishful thinking aren't going to change the way things are.

I have never been hung up on age and death. I accept the fact that one day I will be worm dust, swallowed up by the chasm of time and history. However, I cannot help but confess this incident has me thinking about aging insofar as I have had to forecast well into the future as to my health and the way I want to conduct my life. This was not how the script was supposed to end. No, not at all. The script was supposed to have a happy, aw shucks ending, an ending where I rode off into the sunset with my bottle of Nuun and pair of Brooks after having run Mont Blanc, Western States, Wasatch, etc. In my mind, I was just recently a little kid with my sister out on the swing set in front of my grandmother's house, gleefully dipping my wet finger into a packet of Jello, staring up at the clouds. Or that teenage boy, rolling around on a beach, in the moonlight, making love to his girlfriend after drinking way too much wine. And didn't I just give my father a terribly painted and disfigured clay doll I had made in my elementary school class? Aging isn't something that happens to us. It happens to "them". In our minds, we are forever young, with no wrinkles nor gray hair. And in our running minds, we are forever capable of running a marathon PR or completing a 100-miler.

I told my friend Sarah tonight that this whole mess has really caused me to open my eyes as to how two-dimensional my life has become over the past few years. If I wasn't working 50 to 60 hours a week, I was otherwise training. Running mile after mile by myself, for hours and hours, ever the lone wolf. The trouble is that a day of reckoning comes, over which you have no control, that makes you realize how unbalanced your life can become. Once I am done grieving, and make no mistake, that is what I am doing, I will close this door, and open other new doors and rely on the positive karma within to sustain me and drive forward and to help others drive forward. I will fill the void left by running with low-impact sports, like swimming, biking, hiking, and climbing mountains. There will also be more time invested in music, reading, cooking, and, most importantly, relationships with others. However, before I fill the void, I must feel the void. One purpose of this blog is for me to work towards developing and maintaining integrity, and part of that process entails being truthful about who and what I am, bare and exposed, like it or not. In my opinion we should not always cherry-pick the parts of our lives we present to others. How genuine is that?

I can't think of any other way I would rather end this post than to take a final look back on 2011 and remind myself of how grateful I am to my sister, my friends, to Jack, and all the wonderful people whose paths I intersected in my travels. A year and a half ago, I had given up ever running again after my knee reconstruction. In the truest sense of humility, having tasted fully my wildest dreams with no regrets, I say thank you ... thank you ... thank you ...

Peace of Mind

2012-01-16T10:18:00.000-05:00

I can see there will be no beginning, no end
No words of haste, cloaking the doubting heart
I can see there will be no right or wrong
For one can finally strengthen the other
Although the sting of bitterness may linger from yesterday
Take comfort, for tomorrow allows one to make amends for the past

As the future turns uncertain pages
The joy we've spread will last the ages
And though this world may cease to be
A memory is captured in this melody
Of a time two souls will rarely find
Our friendship, our trust, and peace of mind ...

What is this paradox that we were scared to be as one
And yet so scared to feel the chill only the lonely know?
But I have given to you, and you have given to me
The respect that is synonymous with security
Assured that we haven't invested in love for love's sake
By your touch, my voice, your gaze, our choice

As the future turns uncertain pages

The joy we've spread will last the ages

And though this world may cease to be

A memory is captured in this melody

Of a time two souls will rarely find

Our friendship, our trust, and peace of mind ...

-- Philip Turk

My Heart's in the Highlands

2012-01-01T16:26:00.004-05:00

"Well my heart's in the Highlands gentle and fair,

Honeysuckle blooming in the wildwood air" -- Bob Dylan

Today, on New Year's Day, I went to visit a dear friend, a friend I have called upon and relied on many, many times. I have shared all my wildest hopes and dreams with her, and all my deepest fears and darkest insecurities. Never once did I feel judged, feel "less than", and I always felt safe, with no conditions, and no regrets. As is often the case with many runners, we sometimes fall in love with a special trail for special reasons. The trail I am smitten with is Laurel Highlands Trail.

I began running this trail in earnest at the start of 2011 as I realized I simply had to get serious about Comrades and Leadville. Looking for a moment only at the objectivity of training, and after a solid year under my belt, I proclaim and will always maintain that Laurel is one of the finest and toughest pieces of real estate to prepare for any ultra in this country. Laurel is unrelenting and unyielding. It is a rocky, rooty, gnarly, ungulating roller coaster of a run that demands constant vigilance and attention. One minute of careless diversion and you'll find yourself on your ass in a second. Due to its technical nature, 12-minute miles in the first portion of the trail are a real brag, even for the most seasoned runner. Right out of the parking lot, in the first couple of miles, you begin a climb of almost 700-to-800 feet to an overlook of the beautiful Youghiogheny River, where I have paused many times to reflect on this-n-that.

After a steep descent, there is another climb of over 500 feet, followed by another steep descent. Along the way, there are lovely streams and dirt jeep trail crossings, scenic views, deer and turkey, all in a artful hardwoods setting of maples, oaks, and hickory trees. After about 6 miles, the piece de resistance is an lung-busting, steep ascent of about 1,200 feet plus where no attempt has been made to add switchbacks. By the time the 8 milepost has been reached, you will have truly been tested.

Technical details aside, what I appreciate the most about Laurel is entirely personal. It turned out that I spent a lot of time on Laurel last year alone. It was not that I was misanthropic nor antisocial. In fact, from time-to-time, it's fun to go out with a bunch of people on a group run. It was simply the way it shook out and ultimately ended up being my preferred way to train. For me, when I train, I almost always have a structured agenda spelled out a priori (e.g., do 9 miles at 20% above race target pace with 10 x 100 meter strides). But what I came to discover last year was that when I was on Laurel I was able to gain something far more valuable than increased fitness. I was able work through issues, solve problems of not only a statistical nature, but of a psychological nature. It was free therapy, the letting go, a lesson learned, the hurt that healed, the hope renewed, and finishing the run in a better mindful state than when I started. It was learning about commitment, about patience and unwavering focus on goals, about being comfortable in my own skin. It was about resolving issues from the past and quelling future fears and stress, those two formidable foes of willpower, of today. For last year, Laurel gave to me an order of magnitude more than I could have ever gave her.

It seems so appropriate that this morning, this New Year's Day morn, as the sun came up over those dull Allegheny Mountains that I should be heading up the Laurel Trail. Hello, Laurel! Hello, my faithful friend! My pace was slow and steady as I had no agenda today other than to enjoy the moment. One of the greatest lessons I have learned from Laurel is that sometimes it is ok not to think at all, to simply exist, breath and be. And that is what happened this morning ... mile after mile ... I simply needed to be alone and wipe the slate clean on the start of another year. With the distant white noise roar of the Yough, the damp brown leaves piled on the trail, the occasional deadfall, a chipmunk chirping and scurrying into the mountain laurel. Spits of rain came through and left just as quickly. A few times my mind started to percolate and coalesce. I started to formulate race plans for 2012 but then thought better of it. No, the future does not belong in this fine morning, not now. I thought about New Year's resolutions but decided I have reached a point in my life where I am no longer making them; they seem like such a wasteful substitute for getting things done. Stop thinking ... let go, and just run for a few hours.

My friend Tad Davis, and fellow Laurel runner, probably summed it up best when he remarked in an email that some Bob Dylan song verses perfectly described his connection with Laurel.

"The wind, it whispers to the buckeye trees in rhyme

Well my heart's in the Highlands

I can only get there one step at a time"

"We are waiting for you": Journey to Pico de Orizaba

2011-12-16T16:38:00.005-05:00

This month, I had the opportunity to embark upon a fast and furious, Jack Kerouac-style adventure, that I am sure at the end of my days I will look back upon as among the best. While I could easily write a book about it, I will try to confine this lengthy, long overdue post to the main points ... with a little flavor thrown in.

Pico de Orizaba, also known as Citlaltepetl, or Star Mountain, is a volcanic mountain in southeastern Mexico that I had always longed to climb. At approximately 18, 500', it is the tallest mountain in Mexico and the third tallest in North America. For whatever reason, I had always longed to climb it but like many dreams we accrue, they often end up in the scrapheap unless we fight the gravitational pull of fear masked as busyness. While it is not considered to be technically difficult, anytime you get into that sort of elevation, you run the risk of acute mountain sickness, or AMS, and many people have lost their lives on it. To make a summit, would represent my biggest challenge with respect to mountain climbing yet (I had been previously unable to summit Denali).

After lots of false starts and planning over two years, it turned out that ultimately I would go with Mike Frazier of Harrisonburg, Virginia and Bud Force of Godley, Texas. While I know Mike well, I did not know Bud all that well. Bud was someone I literally ran into hiking up Emory Peak last year in Big Bend National Park. We instantly hit it off and I am now convinced that it was meant to be, through the synchronicity of the universe, that I was to be hiking on that Texas trail that day.

It was arranged that I would fly to Dallas on Thursday (12/08) to meet up with Bud, while Mike would fly to Mexico City separately. I arrived into Dallas late at night and by the time we met at the DFW airport, drove to Godley, ate dinner with his wife Megan, and packed, Bud and I didn't get that much sleep. (I should add that Bud is a freelance professional photographer and writer with a true talent and artist's eye; check it out!)

On Friday, we first flew to Houston and then to Mexico City. My initial impression of the city was frankly grim; it was a HUGE sprawling metropolis bathed in an immense brown cloud of pollution with fingers of humanity crawling up up every visible hillside. We were supposed to meet Mike at the airport at a particular gate but this is where "The S" hit the fan, so to speak. The gate we had designated as a meeting point was in another terminal. So Bud and I spent an hour locating a bus and wrestling two huge duffel bags each into a packed bus for the ride to the other terminal. When we arrived, we then spent another hour tracking down the gate only to discover it had been closed due to construction. Thus, no Mike. None of us had the ability to use our cell phones as we had shut them down due to AT & T horror stories on the Web about international rates; in retrospect, this was a mistake I will never repeat. When we asked airport personnel which gate Mike's flight had arrived at, we were told it was back at the terminal we had left :-( We then made the decision to stand our ground and stay put rather than wander around aimlessly hoping to find him. Bud had gone off to see if Mike had holed up in any of the Internet cafes and I was left to watch all the luggage (a recurring theme this trip!). All of a sudden, I was embraced in a bear hug ... there was Mike! While 4 hours had elapsed, I was so very relieved to see him that I did not care. The three of us then headed out of the airport to get a taxi. Once again, even this seemingly simple task turned into a time suck. By the time we commandeered a taxi, had a white knuckle ride though the frenetic traffic hustle and bustle of Mexico City, and arrived at TAPO bus station, it was getting dark.

Since I speak no Spanish, it was agreed that I would watch all the luggage while Bud and Mike would try to find a bus to Puebla. Frankly, I felt like a complete idiot. A policeman came up to me to apparently ask where I was going (???) and it was then that I deduced that speaking louder and miming with my hands did nothing to facilitate communication. Bud and Mike came back and reported that we could get on bus leaving shortly for a 2-hour ride to Puebla for about $10 USD each. Man alive, I thought. This was going to make Greyhound look like a chauffeured limousine service.

Mike Frazier on 'Da Bus'

As it turns out I was completely wrong. The bus was uncrowded, very comfortable, with a movie playing and a vendor selling soft drinks and snacks! We pulled into the bus station in Puebla and decided that we would try the same strategy where I would watch the luggage while Mike and Bud would head out on a sortie to try to find transportation to the village of Tlachichuca, our ultimate destination. While we were supposed to have met our guides from Orizaba Mountain Guides (OMG) for dinner there, it was becoming apparent that would not happen. Instead, our dinners consisted of bus station nuclear ham-and-cheese sandwiches cut into triangles and some sort of heavy sticky bun shaped like a conch shell. This was not good (see my last post on Racing Weight). In any case, the dynamic duo managed to convince a small taxi (yes, a taxi) to drive us and our mountain of gear the remaining 2 hours to the village for about $20 USD each. It was now about 9:30 PM. So we set off. Shortly, we encountered, fortunately heading the other way, the most massive traffic jam I have ever witnessed, including my slogging it out in the traffic trenches of Chicago for several years. There had been a chain collision and several cars were now shaped like accordions. Since there were no berms, we hurtled past mile upon mile upon mile of cars at a standstill, engines and headlights shut off. Who knows how long they had been there and were going to be there? The country we were driving through was becoming increasingly rural and remote. From time to time, we would pass through a small village where the only sign of life would be small roadside stands where they served tacos al pastor. We would see a few people in these stands sitting around a whirling top, or "trompo", of pork slowly being cooked by what appeared to be a blowtorch. I started to openly fascinate about what it would be like to sample this culinary delight.

Will you just look at this pork! Just look at it!

Finally, at almost midnight, we entered Tlachichuca and it appeared to be completely shuttered for the night. There were narrow cobblestone streets with small concrete houses built up to the edge. We were supposed to find the so-called Hotel Gerar but none of us, including the driver, knew where it was. Sure enough, we came across a trompo stand where a few local ranchers were able to point the way. At the hotel, our taxi driver conveyed via an intercom to the owner that we had arrived. The owner came out and let us into a dark courtyard and (semi-ominously) locked the swinging gates behind us. We were taken to two modest rooms were the three of us collapsed from mental exhaustion, more than anything else. So ended the first day. I would later discover an email from one of the OMG guides that simply said, "We are waiting for you, where are you?"

At 8 AM the next morning, two guides from OMG, Javier Leyva and Alfredo Perea, came to the hotel and took us to the center square of town to a plain, nondescript restaurant. (I will state right upfront that these two gentlemen were fantastic guides from start to finish and if you ever contemplate climbing Orizaba, then I highly recommend them!) In fact, I would never have even known it was a restaurant until we entered it. There, we were treated to one of the best breakfasts I've had in many a moon. It started with dark, rich coffee, served with fresh cut fruit, yogurt and granola. Then, we were served this bread which was soft and light, but had a mildly sweet, full taste to it, quite unlike anything I've ever had. This was also served with a homemade cake. Mike and I thought this WAS breakfast but then another course came out of mushroom omeletes with several homemade salsas, fresh cut avocado, onions, and tomatoes, and pots of warmed, corn tortillas. Fan-frigging-tastic!

Afterward, we walked around town and visited some of the local vendors selling bread, candy, clothes, etc. Pico de Orizaba loomed over the town on this bright, cheerful day. I was really enjoying and appreciating this country and as I would later deduce, my one regret was not having scheduled a day or two just to hang out and absorb the culture.

Walking around Tlachichuca.

The next item of business was to load up all the gear and to begin the drive up to the Piedra Grande hut, i.e., base camp for our climb. We drove out of town through corn fields dotted with corn sheaves and where farmers wearing broad-brimmed straw hats drove buggies pulled by mules. In a short while, we arrived at a small farming village to pick up two men who were to help with attending the base camp and do the driving (Juan and Julio). There were now 7 men and a ton of gear (some of which was now lashed to the roof) shoehorned into the truck. Off we went, creaking and crawling up a very dusty, rough road pocketed with chuckholes that could do serious damage to even the sturdiest rig.

After about 1.5-to-2 hours, we arrived at the hut. There was a lot of activity as December is the high season for climbing and many climbers were milling about, including several international folks other than ourselves. Sitting at about 14,000', the hut was a rough and tumble, three story affair that served its purpose of keeping people and their gear out of the elements and nothing more. Bud, Mike and I rolled out our mats and sleeping bags on the second level and unpacked our bags. Javier and Alfredo quickly started to make lunch and what a lunch it was! Fresh prickly pear, where the needles had been meticulously removed, was pan seared in olive oil. This was served with grilled chicken breast, avocado, and tomatoes with a side of Spanish rice. At this rate, my goal of starting training for the Boston Marathon the next week at 150 pounds or less was becoming increasingly unrealistic. Oh well, I just rolled with the flow.

Piedra Grande base camp

After lunch, the three of us went for a brisk sunset walk in the thin air to take pictures, stretch our legs and to get some high altitude acclimation. Walking past several crosses and memorials was a sobering reminder of the serious nature of the pending climb. As the sun set below the ridge line, the temperature dropped quickly. We went back to the hut, talked about a game plan for the climb, curled up in our sleeping bags by 8:30 PM, and drifted off to sleep.

At 2 AM (now Sunday), I was awoken to a quite a racket. Several climbers were up making breakfast, talking loudly, and assembling gear for their bid for the summit. There was also a trip out into the cold to head to the bathroom due to the Diamox I was taking as a preemptive strike against potential AMS (it's a diuretic). A couple hours later, Julio was snoring so loud I could hear it through my ear plugs! Add this all up and you get a night of light, interrupted sleep. In any case, we were up for good as the sun arose, ate breakfast and decided we would do an acclimation hike of about 2,000' vertical ascent. It was a beautiful morning as we slowly started to poke our way up an old aqueduct long since fallen into disuse. Eventually, the aqueduct gave way to a winding trail that snaked its way up loose grit and small rock to a bench where some climbers prefer to stage the night before a summit bid, the so-called High Camp. To our left was large boulder field called The Labyrinth where many climbers preferred to ascend, while to our right was a steep rocky wall. We continued up the bench into a couloir until we arrived at its head. Here, rock gave way to a snow and ice mix and the chutes leading up to the top appeared quite steep, perhaps 45-to-50 degrees. While not particularly technical nor dangerous, you were exposed and if you fell, there would be consequences. At this point, Javier and Alfredo put on a 20 minute clinic on glacier travel and self-arrest. We all had the opportunity to practice and hone our skills. Finally, we turned around and headed back down to base camp. Mike was starting to experience a touch of AMS (headaches and nausea). All of us had arrived from at-or-near sea level and we had pushed up to over 16,000' this day so I had anticipated one or even all of us experiencing the effect of high-altitude. We made it back down to the hut by 2 PM and ate lunch. A husband, wife, and daughter team from Transylvania, Romania where lounging about and we enjoyed some light conversation as we went through our gear and rested. Mike was feeling better and Alfredo made a monster pasta dinner around 7 that would provide the fuel for the hard day that was to come. I have always had a hard time sleeping the night before an ultra or a big climb and this time was no exception. My mind was filled with thoughts of excitement and anticipation, as I made careful mental note of rechecking my gear for the ascent. It took a few hours before I finally gave way to sleep.

The dawn of reckoning came at 1:30 AM on Monday morning. I had already been up before the alarm went off listening to the soft wind outside the hut. In no time at all, the members of our party had their gear assembled and we gathered around the camp stove to eat an important breakfast that would get us up the initial ascent. By 2:30, we were heading out the door with hardly a word spoken among us. Javier took the lead saying "Let's go" and he slowly started to replicate the acclimation hike from the day before. In the moonlight and with the glow of headlamps, we once again ascended the aqueduct, carefully picked our way through through the loose grit and rocks to the ridge pointing towards the head of the couloir, until we arrived at the turnaround where we had practiced our mountaineering skills only hours before. Now things got serious. We quickly donned crampons and harness in the cold morning air and started to mosey up the icy chute. I was glad it was dark so that I could not visibly comprehend the uncertainty that comes with doing something that has a hint of danger to it when I'm mountaineering. In short order, we all had no troubles getting to virgin territory; that is, the top of the couloir. It was here where the Jamapa Glacier started. At this tail of the glacier, we roped up with Alfredo leading one team where Mike was in the middle and I ran trailer. Javier led the other rope with Bud as the trailer. Mike was looking very strong, much stronger than the day before and he remarked, correctly so, that the coming of the sunrise would provide an "energy booster". Initially, the angle of ascent appeared to be around 30 degrees with no major crevasses evident. As the yellow hue in the sky to the east spoke of the coming of the dawn, streaks of smoke from the city of Veracruz became visible, rising into the air before they were bent at an angle from the winds aloft. The Gulf of Mexico was hidden below the layer the clouds. To the west, distant mountains came into focus including the now-active Popocatepetl volcano and Iztaccihuatl. The massive shadow of Orizaba now radiated across the western plains for miles and the Sierra Madre Occidental range came into focus to the north. I thought of my native Mexican friend from Arizona, Citlali Cortes, and made a mental note to tell her what a beautiful country she was born in.

Javier and Bud with the moon over the mountain shadow.

The pitch became steeper yet as we neared the crater summit, perhaps approaching 45 degrees, and the sun's appearance warmed the morning. My altimeter clicked off the elevation ... 16,500' ... 17,000' ... 17,500' ... I now had the feeling we were actually going to pull this off. Finally, we crested what I thought was a ridge line to the summit at 8:30. At the top, I gazed across a valley to another distant ridge line until I realized what I thought was a valley was actually an immense crater and the distant ridge line was actually the opposing rim of the crater ... spectacular! It was one of the views, one of those moments, that will forever be etched in the deepest recesses of my brain. After another several minutes, we could go no higher. 18,500', the summit of Pico de Orizaba. After Mike and I gave each other a bear hug and high-fived Alfredo, we could only stare at the incredible, and I do mean incredible, 360 view around and below us. Almost directly to the south, we could see the HAWC Observatory perched on a much smaller mountain. As it turned out, this day was Virgin of Guadalupe Day and a multitude of small villages on the mosaic landscape beneath us where shooting off fireworks in celebration, distant echoes of their report audible even from the summit. Bud had been fighting some AMS-induced nausea along with some brutal blisters, courtesy of some ill-fitting mountaineering boots, but had toughed it out and joined us for "the party" at the summit! The fact that he had done this climb essentially coming straight from flat Texas was really remarkable.

Humbling.

Now, as anyone who has read scary mountaineering books will tell you, most accidents occur (predictably) descending from the summit. We made sure to remind each other of this as we began to slowly plunge-step/ sidestep back down the slopes of Orizaba. On my rope, Alfredo had asked me to lead and I had visions of "Touching the Void" going through my mind as I all but crawled down the glacier. While I was determined not to hurry, I also did not want to use the switchbacks we used on the ascent so instead I made a straight beeline for the Sarcofago, a very large fortress of rock we had passed to our right on the ascent. By the time we arrived back at the tail of the glacier, it had become quite warm so we stopped for water and a snack. We decided to keep the ropes on for the purpose of descending the head of the couloir and Mike picked his way down the icy slope, leading us to where snow finally gave way to dirt. There, it was a relief to finally ditch harness, rope, and crampons. A leisurely hike put us back at base camp around early afternoon and we immediately packed up and loaded the jeep for the long ride back to the village.

When we got back, the holiday festivities were in full-swing in Tlachichuca. We jettisoned our gear back at the hotel, had a couple of cups of strong coffee at a local Internet cafe, and made our way back to the restaurant. In keeping with the food theme of this post, I would be remiss if I didn't give kudos to the celebratory dinner we had on this fine night. For starters, we had real tortilla chips and sweet bread with a variety of salsas and queso cheese. A few Negro Modelo beers with salt and lime were added to the mix. Next up was a mouth-watering chicken soup with vegetables and sides of Spanish rice. The main course was pan grilled chicken and several vegetables severed with warm, homemade tortillas (I took a pass on the chorizo sausage). This wasn't any meal you'd get at Taco Bell, make no mistake.

At this point, you'd expect the story to end but there is one chapter remaining: getting back to Mexico City. True to our "fly by the seat of our pants" philosophy, Mike and Bud headed back to the hotel to assemble gear while Javier and I milled around the village square, dodging parades and horses, bidding a trip to Puebla to taxi drivers. After a half hour, we found a young gentleman who agreed to make the trip and in short order, Bud, Mike and I found ourselves in a much too small compact car with gear in every bit of space, including our laps. On the way to Puebla, Mike and Bud were able to negotiate a $150 USD total fare with the driver to take us the entire way to Mexico City, a trip of about 4 hours. Unbelievable! In fact, the driver even knew of a hotel near the airport where he said he would drop us off. The media hysteria about travel in Mexico notwithstanding, I think we were all so tired that none of us actually cared where the driver would take us and simply preferred to trust in him. This trip, and the way it was unfolding, defied every way I usually prefer to travel; planned, logical, and thought out. By now, I had let go, said the Hell with it, and cast my fate to the fast and furious winds ... and I liked it! I can't say I will travel like this in the future, but sometimes things are as they are and you have to accept it ...

Acting like idiots in the back of a cab :-)

At midnight, the driver rolled up to a joint called the Fiesta Inn. It was a gorgeous hotel that had been effectively cordoned off adjacent to the airport. There was a beautiful courtyard with a big outside pool, fountains, and greenery everywhere. Bellhops in clean pressed uniforms whisked our luggage away to our lovely room. The lobby was impeccably clean and designed in good taste. And what might you ask were the damages? $70 USD for the night! I've paid more plenty of times for some rat trap hotel with bedbugs, smoky green carpets, and a broken TV back home. Our driver insisted we get our a group picture taken by one of the hotel staff. Too funny! At midnight, as we were still hungry from the day's climb, we decided to have a second dinner and the restaurant sent us up a spread of food and beer. Finally, at 2 AM, we hit the beds. The next morning, after partaking in the hotel's excellent massive breakfast buffet, the hotel shuttle service whisked us away to the airport where the trip finally came to a close.

I have taken the liberty of putting together a short video that provides a cinematic synopsis of the trip. I've also put a link on the righthand side of this blog to a Facebook photo album. Here is the video:

Tonight, I had a moment to look back through this blog at the many posts. In the past year, I have had the great privilege and pleasure of meeting so many wonderful people, and traveling to so many different places, both in and out of the country. As 2011 draws to a close, I really do consider myself one lucky, grateful man. I cannot stress this enough. I would like to wish anyone who is reading this post a Happy New Year filled with the realization of dreams, spiritual and personal growth, and continued well-wishes on your own journey through life.

Building and Racing Weight

2011-11-29T16:27:00.011-05:00

I was going to write a long, somewhat-scientific blurb on weight and running performance. The reason is because I recently read my second Matt Fitzgerald book, "Racing Weight Quick Start Guide". I've become quite intrigued by his ideas over the past year as my own personal philosophy on racing started to change. That is, instead of trying to run lots of races in order to simply finish, I decided to adopt a quality over quantity approach and to run fewer races as best as I could, within the constraints of my age and my physical ability.

After Leadville, I dialed way back on the training for a few months, an off-season, if you will. During this time, I read several related books and spent many hours perusing the Web as I thought about next racing season and some big adventures I intend on doing in the near future. I came across many opinions and research papers on ideal racing weight and the effect of weight on running performance. Anyone reading this post can also spends LOTS and LOTS of time gaining their own insight into this surprisingly controversial topic (I am not opening that Pandora's box!). It's not my intent to even suggest how one should lead their life. Everyone has to carve out their own path. For me, training to race and to live life to its fullest potential is a way of life, an unbreakable and non-negotiable contract I have made with myself. Again, to each his own.

At the end of October, I decided to give Fitzgerald's ideals a whirl during my 8-week building period for next year and as the Orizaba climb draws near. In synopsis, there are 5 steps to the plan from Fitzgerald's excellent book.

#1. Moderate calorie deficit

After working through some basic calculations from the book and investing in a good scale (with a body fat analyzer), I determined my so-called "racing weight" and further determined that I would operate at a deficit of 300 calories a day during my build. A very helpful app I downloaded on my iPhone is MyFitnessPal. I find that most sources overestimate calories burned in exercise and underestimate calories consumed eating but this app does a nice job of keeping track of all of that.

#2. Strength training

This wasn't a big deal for me because I am fanatical about incorporating strength training in my exercise regimen. Strength and conditioning coach Beth Byron has dialed up some dandy routines to keep me busy twice-a-week and to keep the hip bursitis in check.

#3. Increased protein intake

Fitzgerald suggests 30% of your caloric intake should be protein during this period. The reason is twofold. First, protein reduces hunger. Second, protein will serve to help build muscle while strength training so that the weight that you do lose is body fat.

This has not been a trivial task because it runs so counter to the way I eat; carbs, carbs, and more carbs! Nevertheless, through careful selection of foods, I have been able to pull it off. I've been eating Greek yogurt, soy products (e.g., tempeh), egg whites, cheese, protein bars, and a great protein drink from Peaceful Planet, just to name a few things. And let's not forget my Kashi Golean Cereal!

#4. Sprint intervals

I've still been doing speedwork during the build but not of the same sort as during my training where 10-20% of my milage would be in the form of high intensity 4-to-5 mile tempo runs on a flat ground, for example. Instead, Fitzgerald incorporates weekly hill sprints and hill repeat workouts on a small-scale, for physiological reasons he clearly spells out in his book. For example, this morning I did a run in the following fashion; 15 minutes easy, followed by 10 thirty second bursts up a hill (10% grade) at a Zone 4 speed sustainable through the last repeat with active recovery after each interval, followed by 15 minutes easy again.

#5. Fasting workouts

This might be the more unpleasant component of the build. You get up in the morning and go for a mildly long run without eating anything (e.g., two hours in Zone 2). The idea is to force your body to consume body fat as an energy store as opposed to drawing on available carbohydrates. For a guy that likes his bowl of oatmeal in the morning prior to his workout ... ouch!

I should add a 6th step that I have modified.

#6. Cross training

Fitzgerald has you do a spinning workout ... yes, spinning! Thanks to triathlete Sarah Quesen and her husband Conrad, I was able to get my Specialized bike set up in my apartment on a fluid trainer. A typical workout goes something like this: 10 minutes easy in a low gear, followed by 16 ten second bursts all out in a high gear with a minute's rest, followed by 10 minutes easy in a low gear again. Spinning workouts are done once a week.

I also decided to add two swimming workouts each week. I am not really a swimmer so I don't do anything extreme at all (currently, 10 x 100 on 3 minutes).

In closing, of course it is far too early to tell what the last several weeks have accomplished. I have lost two pounds. It has been body fat. My hip feels pretty darn good. My runs have felt really good and I have a spring in my step. Only time will tell the tale. I confess that as scientist and a statistician I love playing around with this stuff :-)

The 2011 Mountaineer Autumn Classic

2011-10-23T20:56:00.003-04:00

"I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

It was a beautiful autumn morning as the sun rose over Cooper's Rock State Park in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. The temperature was somewhere in the mid-30's as people gathered to sip hot coffee to awaken and stay warm and became eager to start the 12-mile loop through the Appalachian hardwoods. There was more than enough food piled onto the tables to feed a small army (that included Beth Byron and her roommate Lisa's nutty/chocolatey trail mix bars!).

Fog fills the gorgeous Cheat River Gorge.

Fog was swirling about the Cheat River Gorge, taking a long time to burn off as the sun climbed ever higher. The solemn beauty of the autumn colors was radiant and the faint smell of smoke from some distant campfire added to the ambience. People would come into the day use parking lot, take a few minutes to prepare, and head off down the Scott Run Trail to do battle with rocks, roots, and mud, to get the day's adventure started. The "hardcore" runners, true to form and with serious speed, rocked the course from top to bottom; those like Tad Davis and Maria Dalzot (this after a true race effort the day before!) and Ironman/Ultraman Mike Levy. And God love Conrad Quesen for running on broken sesamoid bone in his foot!

My sister Lauren and her husband Randy (the rocking Weavers :-)) drove down from the Cleveland area to experience some West Virginia splendor and to drink a bit of red wine with me the night before in my apartment -- ha! Among some other familiar faces were Anne McAlpine from Chicago (thank you, Anne!) and a colleague from work (Ken) and his faithful black lab (Smoky). The entire Johnson family drove down from Pittsburgh to tread the area where "someone" received a wedding proposal many years ago out on the windswept Raven's Rock (thanks for the story, Andy). Aira and John Burkhart stopped by to show their support. And last, but certainly not least, a shout out to trooper Xiangyi Zhao who, despite losing the map and directions, slogged up the last several miles of the Advanced Ski Trail, sans water.

Raven's Rock

It was also a great time to "break bread" and cross paths with new people and not-so-familiar faces faces. To wit, a very nice nephrologist (Karen) from the local hospital, someone I met at the gym recently (Dick) who was taking his son (Connor) on his longest run distance to date, and a chemist from Pittsburgh (Steve) recently located to the area.

Entering Rock City!

In closing, $350 will be going to the folks down at the food pantry tomorrow; that is, Christian Help of Morgantown, West Virginia. As I remarked in an email to some of those who ran and walked today, each of these people in their own unique way are special people who greatly enrich my life and have now enriched other people's lives in a time of need. Thank you, thank you, thank you ... And the same goes out to those I failed to mention in this post.

Update 10/26/11: An amazing person and humanitarian matched the $350 that was raised and made a donation to their local food bank. That means $700 total was raised for local food pantry shelves.

The Unshakeable Spirit

2011-10-16T14:11:00.012-04:00

"We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of inertia and the irksomeness of action." -- Billings Learned Hand

My sister did a marathon last Sunday. Many people do marathons so, in and of itself, some people might think this is no big deal. However, it is a big deal! It is always a fine line as to how much to divulge on the Internet but I feel comfortable (as would my sister) in at least "paraphrasing" her life over the past several years so as to tell the whole story.

Several years ago my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. As my mother had died of breast cancer many years ago and Lauren tested positive for the BRCA 1 oncogene, suffice to say she was very worried of what the future foretold. What ensued was a battle royal of surgeries, a few of which were major, invasive ones, and oncological treatment. There were times that my sister's spirits flagged but I never heard her bitch and complain about her condition. Through it all she fought the good fight and was officially declared a breast cancer survivor!

Several side effects were very hard on her even after she was declared to be "cancer free". One unfortunate side effect of her treatment protocol was a substantive increase in her weight. There were conversations with doctors who, more or less, told her that was just the way it was going to be.

About a year and a half ago, my sister decided, for her own personal reasons, that she had enough and wanted to take matters into her own hands and steer the ship in another direction. She started to walk a mile for exercise, which lead to two miles, which ultimately lead to weeks were she walked over fifty miles! She took control of her diet and became meticulously careful about what she ate. Early on, she targeted the Towpath Marathon in the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area of Ohio as a goal. Her speed and mileage increased as the hours of training went by, the pounds came off, fifty of them to be exact, and her mental outlook improved.

Last Sunday, I had the opportunity to witness, on a lovely autumn day, my sister cross the finish line and bring to a close one chapter of her life, a chapter whose theme was about not quitting, about walking towards the light, and about reliance on the unshakeable spirit that resides within all of us.

On the day before my sister's marathon, I was distressed that my buddy Conrad Quesen had to pull out of the Oil Creek 100 after enduring a season ending injury (a sesamoid injury in his foot) and (gulp!) a twisted testicle. Even after the aforementioned and some 35 miles, he told his wife, his son, and me that he had felt strong and ready to go. Having logged plenty of miles with Conrad on Laurel Highlands Trail this summer and fall, I can attest that Conrad was lean and well-trained. Here is hoping for an expedient recovery and a new, determined focus for 2012, Conrad.

In other news, I went to see the Cirque du Soleil in Pittsburgh last Friday, courtesy of Sarah and Conrad, and was treated to a wonderful show. While I'll confess I was skeptical at first beforehand, I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it! The athleticism is stunning and the music was riveting. Go if you have the chance ...

Autumn is here, my favorite time of the year, and with it comes some wonderful trail runs and leaf peeping. This morning, Tad and Maria took me over to Swallow Falls State Park in western Maryland. It was GORGEOUS! I did an easy six miles and was treated to waterfall views, aspen turning yellow, and a couple of deer poking through the hardwoods. Since Leadville in late August, I have really enjoyed taking a mental and physical break from training for a few months, and reconnecting with work, people, and nature.

Whitewater, Rock Climbing, and an Ultra

2011-09-15T14:06:00.001-04:00

With the start of the school year, I have been very, very busy and don't get a lot of free time these days to get the 'ole blog up to date. This is just a short post to chronicle the past couple of weeks.

Over the Labor Day weekend, my longtime friend Ann Wojciechowicz flew in from Kenosha, Wisconsin to pay a visit. We got right after business, driving down to the New River Gorge in beautiful Fayetteville, West Virginia, where we took a whitewater rafting trip down the New River. While I wouldn't say this was the most death-defying river I've been on, there were enough class 4 rapids to keep you paying attention!

View of the New River Gorge.

The next day, Ann and I went rock climbing on the Endless Wall. This is a must-do on any rock climber's A-list. While it had been a long time since I had been climbing (years ago south of Bozeman, Montana), I always enjoy the opportunity to do it.

Ann gets started on her climb.

As with the whitewater rafting, we weren't climbing El Capitan, rather 5.5 type of stuff that kept us alert and focused. After several hours of this, we did a cool 90' + free fall rappel off the top. Wowzer!

Yours truly being one with the rock!

The weekend culminated in an Ethiopian dinner in Pittsburgh at Tana (man, do I dig injera). It's always good to reconnect with friends and they don't come much finer than Ann!

I also had an impromptu weekend trip out to Utah to crew for my Laurel training partner and friend Eric Grol who was attempting the Wasatch 100 Ultramarathon. This race is one of the Grand Slam ultras and while it seemed to be a much more laid-back affair than Leadville, it looked to be a really tough course. Eric had run and finished this race last year and confirmed my initial impression. The race started at 5 AM and due to the irregular aid station spacing and limited crew access, I would not be able to see Eric all the way until mile 40. Yikes! So, I spent the morning working on a grant proposal for work and then went for a 10-mile run up the beautiful City Creek Canyon urban trail that starts quite literally in the middle of Salt Lake City. This trail is a real gem; run it if you are ever in the city.

The Utah state capitol building in Salt Lake City. The City Creek Canyon urban trail runs directly from here.

Unfortunately, the altitude got to Eric so he had to pull from the race when I met him at the aid station. When this happens in a race, it's never easy and, of course, the "what ifs" and second guessing begins. But Eric is a tough runner, having completed Oil Creek, MMT, Wasatch, etc., and was comfortable with his decision. I thank him for trusting me enough to ask me to crew for him.

The next day, Eric and I got a chance to sightsee at a history museum in Salt Lake City and also went to a small military museum east of town at Fort Douglas before we headed back the next day. I won't get into my train wreck of a return trip, courtesy of South"worst" Airlines. Time to get back to work ...

He Ran Across the Sky

2011-08-29T11:55:00.001-04:00

It was night time and he was alone, but not lonely. He ran on the top of a very large hill on a trail worn smooth down to reddish dust and with ruts scoured by eons of erosion. The occasional crack of electricity surged across an old powerline, and heat lightning flickered across the sky, a sky that looked like a black curtain pinpricked by thousands of points of starlight. His breathing was more like panting, his throat and the top of lungs were sore from all the hours he had journeyed in the thin air. The trail twisted and turned as it moved up and down along the flow of the land and rocks and tree roots made it necessary to pay attention lest one trip and fall. He forced his pace to be regular, like that of a metronome, because it distracted him from his own tiredness as he ran across the sky.

Clock time had lost its meaning. Occasionally, a feeling of fear or anxiety entered into his mind and filled his heart with panic. Damn it, how much further to go? Damn the miles for loitering. However, he forced himself to let these feelings go for they were feelings, not facts, and to embrace them, to give them large life, meant he would have been consumed by these feelings. Let them come and let them go and don't let the prisoners run the jail. Fear and anxiety take you out of the present moment and are the killers of dreams. He was thirsty and hungry again so he sipped the remnants of now-warm water from his bottle and he ate a small chunk of banana while he ran. Then he realized how hungry he was and was scared that he would run out of food and not be able to continue to run that night. But you can't control what might occur any more than control the rising of the sun, so that feeling too was allowed to drift away. More than once, he caught himself training the beam of his flashlight way out in front of him to see what lay ahead but this too was to live in the future so he eventually told himself to train the flashlight only on the ground directly before him as he continued to race across the sky.

As he rhythmically bounced along his mind began to drift back to the past and all that had transpired to get him here. In what seemed like a different universe, there was point in time where he was going to run on a similar journey off in a different land. But he incurred a terrible wound and was fearful he would never run again. In short order, another health issue came up, and then a personal tragedy arose. It was all part of the ebb and flow of life and sometimes you need to take a step back in order to take two forward. Out of all of this, he resolved himself back then to train and work as hard as he could to race across the sky, for as long as it took, vowing to never give up. Never, ever give up. Over the months, through the rain and the pain and the sun and the snow, though he stumbled, staggered, faltered, and fell, he always got back up, pressing to run a few seconds faster and a mile longer. There were those who insisted that he wouldn't be able to run across the sky, those that offered him no support and abandoned him. But he ignored them and prepared to run across the sky anyway and felt internally stronger because of it, because regret, disappointment and bitterness are past-centered feelings that prevent you from living for today and are the killers of dreams.

He was just happy to run and as he ran he told himself ``Patience and focus'' over and over again like a magic mantra. This kept him focused in the present moment, the only thing over which he had a modicum of control. Realizing that all that we are and all that have is now, with no beginning nor any end. Divorce did not matter. Cancer and other health problems did not matter. Job security did not matter. There were no limits and the only limits that existed were those we set on ourselves. The only thing that mattered was the moment he was living and he loved living and running was a part of his living. He recalled a favorite translated quote from Lao Tzu, in the Tao Te Ching, who said, ``If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you aren't afraid of dying, there is nothing you can't achieve.'' That is how he ran across the sky ... one mile at a time.

Along the way, out of habit, he looked for the front two pointer stars of the Big Dipper in order to find the North Star and sought out Orion in the sky. In his mind, a soothing, stirring verse played over and over again, synchronized perfectly with his pace. Down below in a valley near Turquoise Lake was a collection of shimmering lights known as Mayqueen and it was beautiful. As the minutes passed, he focused on the sounds of his footsteps and breathing. Out in the middle of the night, out in the middle of the Colorado Rockies, he felt a surge of strength and of energy from his sister, his only immediate family, and the friends in his life because they were metaphysically with him. At this moment he was filled with gratitude and humility and felt like the luckiest man in the world. Gone was any doubt, gone were any expectations and pressure, gone like the remnant ribbons of the wind rustling through the pine trees. All through the months leading to this moment, he did what anyone would do in that darkest moment before the dawn ... he clung to hope. The hope of running across the sky sustained him.

It was night time and he was alone, but not lonely. There was comfort in the darkness, in his aloneness, and solace in the salt of his tears. He ran up a climbing, rocky road that entered into the center of the town of Leadville. The houses and and buildings had the appearance of being shuttered up and things were strangely calm and quiet. Finally, off in the distance, he saw a small gathering of people, flashing lights, and heard crys of excitement and joy. Sarah, his unwavering friend and right hand, standing off to the side of the street, was patiently waiting and calling for him. He could stop running now for a little while. All that began long ago came to a temporary end. His run across the sky was complete and his love for himself, his sister and his friends, all of the world, and life, still remained, enduring, and refusing to fade away.

-- Phil Turk, 2011

Tapering Down in the Southwest

2011-08-19T11:58:00.001-04:00

Following is a brief update on the past couple of weeks. As Leadville approached, I decided to go all out and spend some time acclimitizing to the looming high altitude of the race. After all, I have spent so much time training why stop now? Let's push all the poker chips into the center of the table and let 'er rip.

After reading LOTS of papers and articles on high altitude training, I decided to adapt the "sleep high, train low" model. My old stomping grounds of Flagstaff, Arizona is one of the uniquely ideal places in the U.S. set up to use this approach. It sits at over 7,000 feet yet it is an easy hour drive to get to Camp Verde, Arizona at approximately 3,000 feet. I would be able to taper/train there and since I used to work at Northern Arizona University, an old colleague (Roy St. Laurent) and I would be able to get a heavy dose of research done on a stat paper we've been working on. Perfect!

Here is a terse summary of some of the places I was able to visit just in case anyone happens to be in the area and wants a little taste of adventure. I am indebted to Jason Henrie's blog for motivating the first two runs. When running in the desert in the summer, get an early start, take some S-Caps along, and bring plenty of water! If you are by yourself, as I was, tell someone where you are going and when you will be back. Let me preface this by saying none of the runs were particularly hilly. If anyone has any questions about these runs or wants more details, then don't hesitate to email me at
pturk@stat.wvu.edu

Run #1 Towel Creek Trail

This trail is about 14 miles southeast of Camp Verde. I would say a downside of the trail is that it is quite rocky in sections rendering moderate sections of the trail unrunnable.

View of the Towel Creek drainage from above the trailhead.

You will also stand a chance of mixing it up with a rattlesnake so watch your step.

Poised and ready!

However, some positives of the trail are that it is remote so you will have lots of scenic solitude. Also, if you run far enough into the drainge down towards the Verde River (6 miles one way?), you will encounter some Indian cave dwellings. Please respect this treasure and do NOT take any artifacts (e.g., pottery chards).

Run #2 Lime Kiln Trail

Wow! This was one gem of a run and I highly recommend it to any serious trail runner. Running from Dead Horse State Park (near Cottonwood) for about 15 miles northeast towards Sedona, this trail is the quintessential southwest high-desert trail run with lots of runnable red rock, sweeping plains, and scenic vistas. It was built only a few years ago. Run this trail but do pay attention to the cairns.

As good a desert trail run as it gets.

Run #3 Parsons Trail

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness has always been my favorite chunk of real estate in Arizona. Parsons Trail drops you into the heart of the canyon and sends you north along a rare desert riparian zone fed by springs.

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness.

The road to the trailhead (roughly 11 miles west of Old Cottonwood) is rough in spots so I would not recommend taking a nice car here. I had been told the trail was heavily used so I was surprised at how poorly marked and overgrown it was with thorny desert brush (e.g., cat claw). Several times I got lost and spent a considerable effort backtracking before relocating the trail.

One among several springs you will encounter along the trail.

Cairns are quite intermittant so don't count on them. Frankly, Parsons Spring is anticlimatic, ending in a brushy wash.

Run #4 Monument Valley

One of the most impressive areas I have seen in recent memory, Monument Valley sits along the Utah/Arizona border on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Huge spires of red sandstone reach towards the heavens and you can see for miles in any direction. It is easy to see why many old western movies were filmed here.

The Twin Mittens of Monument Valley.

This is area is off the beaten path so plan your travels accordingly. Be sure to take in the excellent visitor's center before leaving! I learned a lot about Navajo history and particularly enjoyed the portion on the Code Talkers.

The vastness of Monument Valley.

The running would take place on the so-called scenic drive so get an early start before the tourists start piling into the place.

Run #5 Wupatki National Monument and Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

This is a pair of gems located about 20 miles north of Flagstaff. There is a scenic
blacktop road that runs for 35 miles in a loop one can take in either direction that connects both monuments. In the northern Wupatki section, one can walk among Indian pueblo ruins from the 1100's, see out into the Painted Desert for miles or see the Vermillion Cliffs, and watch the monsoon storm clouds build over the San Francisco Peaks. Check out the awesome visitor's center near the Wupatki Pueblo; the pottery was amazing.

Wupatki Pueblo.

Further south, you will encounter old cinder cones (e.g., Sunset Crater) with patches of wildflowers some of which spewed large black lava flows that still exist in pristine condition to this day. An idea I have is to run the entire 35-mile scenic drive one day next year. Anyone care to join me? Yes, I am serious!

Desert wildflower.

The Ultimate "A-List Race"

2011-08-03T16:57:00.001-04:00

Last Thursday through Sunday, I was up in Cleveland attending the 3-Day for the Cure. Put on by the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the event raises money for education and research about causes, treatment, and the search for a cure to breast cancer. My sister and her husband volunteer their time for the event and were co-captains of the so-called "lunch station" this year.

Getting ready outside of Cleveland Browns stadium.

In a nutshell, all the event volunteers had to get trained on Thursday in downtown Cleveland. Each of the next three days, breast cancer survivors, their family members, friends, and supporters walk a different 20-mile course through the streets of the suburbs of Cleveland before heading to an area where they are fed and then sleep in tents for the night. All the walkers raises sponsorship money to participate with the money going towards breast cancer research.

A sea of pink tents.

For some of these people (and I say this with all the respect in the world), including those afflicted with breast cancer trudging away in the blistering heat, pounding the pavement for 60 miles is the toughest thing they will ever try in their lives. Along the course, there are aid stations including a bigger "lunch station" where I was at. We, the crew, would get up at 4:30 am and head over to the cook tent for some breakfast. Then, we were bused to our aid station location where we had several hours to set up the Western shelters, prepare the hydration and food, decorate the area, and so on. Walkers started coming in around 10 am until around 2 pm. After that, we'd break down and head back to camp. I'd say we served over 1,200 lunches each day ... it was pretty fast-paced work. The crew I was on rocked!

Setting up ... calm before the storm.

Over the course of Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I met many great people, heard many inspirational stories, and witnessed many acts of courage and strength. Unfortunately, it is all too easy for me to slip on occasion and think I am somehow "special" for running ultras -- damn ego :-( The reality of the matter is that what I witnessed this past weekend was truly special and put things in proper perspective. No ultrarunner nor Ironman had an advantage in the Toughness Department on many of these walkers.

Once all the walkers had completed the course, we all assembled in a large outdoor area in celebration and to remember those lost to this terrible disease. Having lost my mother to breast cancer and then having witnessed what my sister had to endure in her battle with breast cancer, the closing ceremony was quite emotionally moving to me on a personal level.

Honor the survivors.

In closing, I'd like to give a shout out to my sister who has poured herself into this cause now for three years with nary a complaint nor any need to turn the spotlight on herself. Tirelessly, unselfishly, she has spent lots of her time and money to ensure the walkers were taken care of. How refreshing to see that kind of altruism in this day and age. Bravo, sister!

Lauren Weaver in her casual lunch attire.

Maria and Mike

2011-07-13T16:38:00.002-04:00

"Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility." -- Saint Augustine

I'd like to take a moment to call out two friends who have big races coming up this month.

The first is Maria Dalzot, a graduate student in Nutrition at West Virginia University (WVU). I met Maria and her coach/partner Tad Davis last year through school. It wasn't too long afterward that we went out for our first run together. Both are great runners and, more importantly, great human beings. I won't bother citing Maria's running resume here as a Google search will yield all that. Suffice it to say, she definitely had success running cross country for the WVU women's track team.

Unfortunately, Maria incurred a foot injury that required surgery at the beginning of this year. Shortly thereafter, she received an invitation to join the USA Mountain Running Team to compete at the NACAC Mountain Championship to be held this coming Sunday. Lucky her?!?! While it seemed almost inconceivable that she would be able to go from no running at all to running at an elite level in several months time, that is exactly what she has done. Fortunately, I've been blessed to be a voyeur to her determination and to Tad's wisdom and support. After a month of literally and figuratively getting back on her feet, she was cleared to run by her doctor. As I had/have been training many months on the challenging Laurel Highlands Trail for my race next month, Maria and Tad decided it would be a good idea to come out with me every Sunday to do a mile or two. My God, in a very short time (several weeks?) I knew Maria was race-ready when one Sunday on Laurel I watched as she exploded UP a huge hill and dropped me like a sack of flour. Without exception, Maria is the most talented female runner I have had the chance to interact with. I undoubtedly am guilty of wrapping my arms around the sense of simpatico and kindred I feel with Maria due to my own injury problems last year. Nevertheless, it has been inspirational to see this dream all come together ... through the pre-dawn deep water running at the pool, fighting through the aches and pains, and hot, muggy tempo runs on Laurel. You've already "won" in my book, Maria and Tad, but I will be watching and waiting for the Twitter update this weekend.

The most embarrassing photo of Maria I could find :-)

The next person is Michael Levy, whom I met at a party last year. I recall our conversation as being an intense, passionate dialogue on just about everything from career choices, and academics, to alternative energy. This dude is smart (he's working on an MS in Biology at WVU)! During the course of our conversation, I came to discover Mike is a triathlete so it wasn't a surprise that we developed a nice rapport. Periodically, I'd see Mike in the course of a race; the Mason-Dixon Madness 50K and the Run-to-Read 1/2 Marathon come to mind. Mike and I have had some "Panera Summit" lunches whereupon he told me he was training for The Vineman Ironman out in California to be held this July 30th. His commitment to training is quite commendable; I know I've learned about swimming techniques and nutrition (e.g., Paleo Diet). In fact, it seems like every time I hit the organic section at Kroger, there's Mike :-) While this might perhaps seem out of place in a blog post on athletics, Mike is a passionate environmentalist who is active in stopping mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia and is currently researching the effects of fracking in shale drilling on ecological community diversity. Some people bitch, and some people do. Make no mistake, Mike is a "doer".

Great shirt!

What is it about my two seemingly very different friends that ties them together, outside of the fact that both of them have races this month? It is my observation that both of these friends, these athletes, seem to be training in a state of humility. If they have displayed a hint of overt ego, then I have yet to see it ... no glitzy sponsorships ... no constant Facebook posts ... no letting it conveniently slip in casual conversation about their upcoming races ... nothing. Just quietly, quietly, quietly training under the radar all for the love of their passion. How honorable! You two are wonderful! Now go get 'em!

Death Marches, Loops, and Appalachian Trail Magic

2011-07-06T12:38:00.000-04:00

In my life, July 4th weekends have a storied history and this year was no different. Given that this month is going to be the zenith of my training for the year, I was itching to get in some serious base miles/hills last Saturday and Sunday and fortunately I came to discover the running club I belong to, Virginia Happy Trails Running Club, had some training runs scheduled. Buttabing!

Last Friday, the affable Vince Bowman kindly allowed me to crash at his place in what has become my new home-away-from-home, Harrisonburg, Virginia (Sidebar: Try The Little Grill restaurant if you are in the area. This is my type of restaurant, what with the scent of patchouli oil, dreadlocks, fine hemp clothing, and most importantly, kick-butt healthy food!).

On Saturday morning, Jack Broadus and I headed out to the so-called Sophie's Death March organized by Sophie Speidel. In a nutshell, this training run is a 24-mile clockwise loop run out of Whiteoak Canyon in the Shenandoah National Park.

My heart yearns for thee!

There is nothing like a Death March to keep you honest about one's level of fitness and to act as a gauge in one's progress in training for an upcoming ultra. (Sidebar: My favorite Death March was one I used to do in the Spanish Peaks Wilderness when I lived in southwestern Montana. I had an elk hunt I liked to do on the eastern side of the wilderness area that required a middle-of-the-night wade across the Gallatin River, a long slog up a drainage with deadfall up to your neck, followed by a vicious scramble up a rock slide to get into position before the sun came up.) There were over 40 runners congregated at the trailhead, ready to get after business. After the run, I would meet a nice guy (Matt Bugin) who would say it best when he said a big reason he enjoys ultra running events is being able to meet interesting people. Here, here!

In any case, we started west up Whiteoak Canyon towards Skyline Drive. This was a steep, intermittently rocky climb along a lovely creek with waterfalls. Pretty quickly, the runners strung out along the trail. It didn't seem like too long at all before the group of runners I managed to tag along with topped out on the ridge line. We crossed the the drive and headed over to Hawksbill Mountain, the tallest mountain in the park, for some cherry views. The pace was a bit too quick for my weekend agenda, so I decided to peel off and run by myself heading north up the Appalachian Trail (AT) to Skyland Drive. There, I kibbutzed briefly with some thru-hikers where we exchanged stories, Snickers Bars, and hugs. Yahoo!!! Now, here is where things got off track for me. We were supposed to be take a cutoff trail back to the east (Corbin Cabin Trail) but inattentive me zoomed right by it and continued north on the AT. Pretty soon, I came across a trio of thru-hikers in a picnic area (Pinnacles) that didn't look familiar to me at all. Thanks to Harmony, Ben, and Barack and the official AT Data Book they had, we determined that I had just upgraded my run by an additional 4 miles (sniff, sniff). With my tail between my legs (after all, I am Lost Dog), I headed back south where I successfully hunted down the cutoff. I then headed waaayyy down the trail to a scenic cabin near a stream and came to the Nicholson Hollow Trail. It now came to me that I had overestimated the amount of water on-hand and given the temperature and humidity had substantially risen, my mind became unsettled.

Continuing to head east, I startled a large black bear 20' to my left that exploded out of the bushes and ran directly away from me. I don't know if it was due to the fact that I was thinking through a statistical proof at that time or just conditioning but I literally never broke stride. (Sidebar: The first time I ever saw a bear was in Pennsylvania where I became so excited you would have thought The Rapture had occurred. Years later, when I lived in Alaska, fishing the Russian River with a huge grizzly sow within rock-throwing distance wouldn't even merit lifting my head up to look.) Finally, I hit the upper Old Rag parking lot and started to shuffle south along a fire road with a frankly annoying rising grade. I was now down to meting out a sip, i.e., thimbleful, of water every 10 minutes or so to try to quench my thirst. Once I got to the Old Rag Trailhead, I came across a pack of other runners that had been turned around. More or less as a group, we ran down to Berry Hollow and arrived intact back at the original parking lot -- whew!

Afterward, coolers of beverages were unleashed, many bags of chips broken open, fruit cut into bite-sized chunks, etc., etc., by many nice, happy people. Very cool! I met and chatted with several of these fine folks, all with their interesting stories and perspectives, for a couple of hours easy (Matt and his girlfriend Holly, Nicholas Hamblet, Christian Dahlhausen, et al.). Back in Harrisonburg, I ended up eating dinner with several friends, including Dave and Erin Frazier, and capped the evening with a great conversation with my friend Eva over a fine white wine.

Saturday, it was time to get after some more running near the town of Luray, Virginia. This training run was organized by Quatro Hubbard and was called Jeremy's Run Loop, held in the northern part of the park. At 21 miles and with less elevation change, this run was relatively easier in difficulty than the previous day's run. Nevertheless, I felt somewhat tired and my legs didn't have their usual spring as I started up the ever-rising Neighbor Mountain Trail. If I had to make a guess, I'd say there might have been 40 people in attendance? While I ran with several people in this stretch, of particular note was running with the cool Rob Colenso, who had recently run the MMT 100 and was training for the upcoming Grindstone 100. It was in this stretch that another bear encounter occurred; namely, we saw a sow black bear with two cubs hanging off a tree and many excited Japanese tourists with head nets on.

"What in darn tarnation is going on here?" Credit: Rob Colenso.

Once we got to the Appalachian Trail, we headed north to the Elkwallow Wayside whereupon I snarfed down an egg muffin in a nanosecond. (Sidebar: Properly planned, an AT thru-hiker could damn near dispense with carrying food through the entire park and subsist on food from lodges and waysides. This has the added benefit of being able to eat something other than the standard thru-hiker table fare of ramen noodles, oatmeal, gorp, etc.) After heading over west via a cutoff trail, several of us continued west/southwest along the Knob Mountain Trail. Personally, this was my favorite section as it wound its way down towards Jeremy's Run, a lovely creek. Some good convos with both Sophie and Rob, some lively downhill trail running, classic Appalachian views ... life was grand! Whereas the heat and humidity were pretty brutal, many of us opted to take a soak in the creek before heading back to where the cars were parked for a post-run feed.

All told, these two runs provided all the solid base miles and elevation change a guy would need in a weekend. The "modified" Sophie's Death March had an elevation change of 12,000', while the Jeremy's Run Loop chipped in with 8,500'.

The next phase of my journey had me driving to Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania later that Sunday night. My former AT thru-hiking partner had flown in with his wife Alicia and his son Philip to visit Alicia's family who live in the area. Ross and I had decided to spend some time on the 4th of July providing "Trail Magic", or random acts of support and kindness, to unsuspecting thru-hikers. Why, you may ask? Since we were the recipients of trail magic many times during our thru-hike, Ross and I feel it is important to pay it forward. Accordingly, we loaded up on beer, pop, hotdogs, fruit, candy, etc., that night and were headed out the door early the next morning. Due to Ross' diligent research, we selected a road crossing near the town of Pine Grove, and set up our grill and coolers. It wasn't anytime at all before we had our first customer (WIP) followed closely by two more. There could hardly be anything more precious (at least that I could think of) to see the look on a thru-hiker's face when you come springing out of nowhere with cold beer and juicy grilled hotdogs on a hot summer day ... mint!

Our new friends! The clean-shaven Ross (Vast Horizon) is on the far left.

One thru-hiker in particular (Rachel Delucas, aka Catalyst) decided to take an impromptu, so-called "zero day" and sat with us for hours! A sharp, metallurgical engineer and MIT and Boston U graduate, Rachel was taking the time off to hike the trail to think about what she wanted to do in the next phase of her professional life, a not uncommon reason many thru-hikers cite as their motivation for hiking. What an interesting person and I thoroughly enjoyed our interaction. Thank you, Rachel! I'll avoid those mealy Red Delicious apples and be on the lookout for the Green Shamrock cultivar :-)

Vast Horizon and Catalyst in the 501 shelter.

After a day of trail magic and dropping Ross back off at his in-laws, I headed back to Morgantown and arrived in time to watch the fireworks being shot off over the Monongahela River from my boss' deck. So ended a great holiday weekend of good times with good people.

Kaboom!

Alas, on a closing note, the serenity of my country apartment environs was shattered recently by the building of a Pilot Truck Stop directly across from me. Now I suppose this would not necessarily be a bad thing, particularly if you have that 2 AM urge for funny little vials of energy drink with ginseng, soft-core porn, or a Cinnabon cinnamon roll with enough calories to sustain the entire 82nd Airborne for a day. Unfortunately, if you are an assistant professor struggling for tenure, who exercises regularly day and night and who doesn't sleep well to begin with, then this most definitely is a bad thing. With over 3,000 patrons a day, and the accompanying incessant din of idling diesel engines and blaring jake brakes, it will be interesting to see how long I last. My rent is so reasonable and my landlady is such a wonderful woman, that the tradeoff (so far) is worth it (for now).

Welcome home, Phil! View from my front door.

Leadville Training

2011-07-01T14:32:00.000-04:00

Rocky Mountain high ... Colorado! This is my cheesy attempt at an intro to a great trip I took last week out to Colorado to get some "high-altitude training" in.

Rocky Mountain heaven

To get the ball rolling, my fellow runner and friend Antoinette Lucas of Harrisonburg, VA and I had a couple of runs outside of Edwards on Thursday and Friday up the June Creek Road (8 and 6 milers). Her mother, Mary Lamb, lives near Edwards and was a gracious host -- thank you, Mary Lamb! Speaking for myself, the starting elevation of 7,500' had me "gaspin' in the aspen" just in the first mile of these runs. Not an auspicious start :-( Friday night, we drove the Top of the Rockies Highway down to the town of Leadville (10,200'). Leadville is this cool ole' mining town with a bit of dirt under the fingernails; for all intents and purposes, the antithesis of Vail, say.

On Saturday, we did a big 26 mile run on the Leadville 100 course from Turquoise Lake over to Twin Lakes. Honestly, there were two big climbs but nothing particularly daunting given all the hill work and running I have been doing on the Laurel Highlands Trail lately! On Sugarloaf Pass, we encountered occasional snow drifts we had to pick our way through but this added to the Rocky Mountain ambiance. Antoinette is a real strong runner and did a great job running our "unofficial" marathon -- yahoo!!!

Antoinette and I putting our trail faces on!

At this point, I was really glad I came out and ran sections of the course for a few reasons. First, I was surprised by how runnable the course was. It wasn't as rocky and rooty as I thought it would be. Second, I was surprised by the amount of blacktop/dirt roads. In fact, I have decided to not use my Brooks Cascadia trail shoes for the race and to opt instead for my road shoes. Accordingly, I just bought two new pair of Brooks Launches and will make sure they are plenty broken-in by race day.

Read 'em and weep!

Unfortunately, Antoinette caught a 24-hour flu bug that night so I headed out on Sunday by myself. All the runners in Leadville attending the training camp that weekend headed down to the southern terminus of the course and ran up to the top of Hope Pass. There was so much snow up on the pass that one couldn't go any further so I had to turn back. Frankly, this climb was a bitch (almost 3,000' elevation gain) and crossed several steep sections of scree/talus along with a semi-risky snowfield where one slip would send you on an unplanned (and unpleasant) glissade :-(

Gulp ...

On the way back, I hammered it because downhill running is my obvious weakness and I needed to get over any mental angst I had about it. Happily, I had no problems. Then, when I got out on some flat stuff, I held about a 3:15 marathon pace for several miles. Definitely, I was sucking wind but it was uncomfortably comfortable (if that makes sense). All told, I'd say I ran a bit over 13 miles this day. Of course, the scenery was crazy spectacular and I felt very fortunate to be able to be out running ... and that be the Truth! Frankly, this day reminded me of all the years I lived in Montana. At heart, I STILL am a Child of the Rockies and I made sure to "kiss the mountains" for several good friends of mine (you know who you are!).

Above Turquoise Lake on Sugarloaf Pass.

Sunday night, Antoinette and I decided to head back down to Edwards. On Monday, I did about 12 miles on June Creek again ... a nice, easy base run with about 5,000' of elevation change. Later on, Antoinette , her mother and I went to Vail and did a stout 3.5 mile ascent/hike up the local Berry Picker Trail in what shaped up to be a glorious, glorious Colorado afternoon.

Twin Lakes vista shrouded in quaking aspen.

Mr. 24-Hour Flu Bug dropped by and paid me a visit later that night. Just brutal spending some quality time in somebody's bathroom keeled over like a shrimp. Suffice it to say the airplane flight back home early the next morning was, shall we say, unpleasant. When I got into Pittsburgh, I headed over to my friend Sarah's place, where we grabbed some dinner, and then I headed right back to Morgantown. Man, was I wiped!

So ... the big driver in all of this Leadville stuff will be the elevation. I certainly have some strong opinions about this matter as I have lately been combing through some peer-reviewed literature and thinking over my own experiences in years gone by. That will be the topic of a future post. All in all, I'd give the training trip out to Colorado a solid A. Well worth it! Traveling to a beautiful state with a good friend to get some top-notch running in ... what's not to like!

Penstemon wildflowers.

This weekend, the training game plan is to come over to Harrisonburg, Virginia and do the legendary Sophie's Death March over up in Whitetail Canyon on Saturday and Jeremy's Loop Run on Sunday. On July 4th, I am headed up to Pennsylvania to reconnect with my "soulmate" Ross Bricklemyer (aka Vast Horizon) as we plot and unleash some "Appalachian Trail Magic" on unsuspecting hikers. Bwahahaha ...

Comrades!

2011-06-09T09:47:00.002-04:00

Comrades Marathon is a 89K (56 mile) ultramarathon run in the southeastern portion of South Africa. Billed as The Ultimate Human Race, Comrades is the oldest and largest ultramarathon. I had first heard about Comrades last spring and was quite intrigued after reading up on the race via the Internet. Running legend Alberto Salazar won the race in 1994 and was quoted as saying it was his most satisfying win. Blog after blog, article after article, and a wonderful promotional video added to the allure, the toughness of the race and that was all the mental prompting I needed. The race is run between the cities of Durbin and Pietermaritzburg with the direction switched every year. In 2011, the race was a so-called "Up Run" (race start in Durbin). As the name might denote, the course climbs slowly and steadily, with the The Big Five hills waiting to greet runners (Cowies, Fields, Botha, Inchanga, and Polly Shorts). Honestly, last June 9, 2011, just hours prior to having my knee reconstruction surgery, I silently made a promise to myself that if I could be so lucky and blessed as to have the opportunity to run Comrades within a year's time, that I would do it. Fortunately, I was able to realize this goal and my lengthy post here tells the story behind the dream.

The trip over to South Africa looked like this, starting on a Tuesday afternoon (5/24). First, I had a 4 hour drive to Washington, D.C. where my buddy Eva whisked me away to Dulles International (thank you, Eva!). There was then an 8 hour flight to Dakar in the country of Senegal. On the flight I sat next to a guy (Jan) who was in the South African army and was being deployed to the Mozambique border to patrol for poachers in Kruger National Park. Mind you, these aren't poachers like in West Virginia where a kid is sneaking behind grandpappy's barn and popping a deer. The poachers in South Africa are driven by the lure of big money for rhino horns so that some dude in the Far East can pretend he's having better sex. Accordingly, the poachers are, for all intents and purposes, a military unit with semi-automatic weapons, night vision googles, etc. Patrolling for poachers is dangerous work. Jan also told me that as an added bonus he had been charged by an elephant in his previous poacher patrol stint. And you think you are having a bad day when the newspaper is late on your doorstep?

In Dakar, the plane was boarded by security and searched for about 2 hours. Next, there was an 8 hour flight to Johannesburg with another 2 hour layover. Finally, it was an hour flight to King Shaka airport just outside of Durbin. I must give credit where credit is due; the "old school" service on South African Airways was outstanding and this made the two very long flights as comfortable as they could be. In any case, suffice it to say that by the time my head hit the pillow at the Hilton Hotel on Wednesday night, I was wiped as I was all but unable to sleep on the plane.

I awoke on Thursday feeling surprisingly good; I felt no effects of jet lag from the 6 time zone difference. After a light workout in the hotel gym, I decided to go on a hunt for food. Durbin is a city that sits on the coast of the Indian Ocean in the southeastern part of the country. The part of the city I was staying in was pretty developed with lots of modern architecture and skyscrapers. While I was warned there were also parts of the city that were run-down, even dangerous to venture into, I did not encounter these during my trip nor did I ever feel unsafe. Yes, I was well aware a priori that South Africa has a high crime rate but I personally decided not to let that be a major driver in my decision making process while I was there.

It turns out that there is a large Indian population in Durbin, which geographically makes sense. If you love Indian food, then you will love Durbin! I found this cool cafe near the hotel where I had the best breyani in years, a side of dholl puri, and a spicy tomato chutney. While I was eating, this woman came up to my table, sat down across from me, and struck up a conversation! Of course, I immediately suspected something but that turned out not to be the case; all she wanted to do was just talk. Quite interesting! In fact, I met a friendly guy under the same circumstances later on in the trip. I wonder what would happen in this country if I slid into a booth at Eat-n-Park opposite people I don't know. Perhaps this will be an interesting way to liven up my Friday nights?

After lunch, I wandered over to the Comrades Runner's Expo to pick up my race packet. Herein was aisle after aisle of gear, much of it crap, for almost every conceivable aspect of running that you could imagine and I'm sure a person could have spent an entire day doing nothing else but spending it at the expo, particularly if you are a gear-a-phile.

Next, I went for a light and short 2-mile run with the Comrades International Ambassadors down along the beach. It was a bit rainy but it felt good to stretch the legs a bit. African schoolgirls joyfully ran with us for a spell. One of the Comrades USA ambassadors, Mark Bloomfield, was present. Mark had very kindly and patiently helped me orchestrate this trip so it was a pleasure finally meeting him in person. I also had the pleasure of meeting the very interesting Muhammed Akil, a government worker from New Jersey, who had run Comrades before. Finally, there was a tasty dinner then straight to bed it was.

Friday morning, I went on another short run with Vera Murton from Boston, who was here with her mother Janet. Vera is a relative newcomer to ultra racing whom I met at the Glacier Ridge 50K in central Pennsylvania a couple of months ago. Imagine my surprise that day when I discovered she was running Comrades! In any case, armed with a coach and plenty of natural ability and speed, Vera won Glacier Ridge in the woman's category despite it being her first ultra! Wow! As we ran down on the beach to catch the sunrise and a few surfers, it was clear to me she was more than ready to tackle Comrades. I felt good too ... the hay was in the barn, so to speak.

There was then a large bus tour of the course for all the international runners (I believe there were around 1,200 total with around 200 being from the US). While I initially had my doubts about "walking" the course prior to racing it, in hindsight I was glad I went. I sat next to a nice gentleman by the name of Maurice Lee from Oklahoma City and this definitely enhanced the trip. Since Comrades is the world's largest and oldest ultra, there is a deep tradition and history behind the race that has been preserved in various aspects. The tour made stops at such landmarks as the Wall of Honour, and Arthur's Seat. One stop in particular was quite moving, the Ethembeni School for Handicapped Children. Here dozens of handicapped children came out to dance and sing songs for the runners. It certainly put into perspective just how lucky I was to be running this race. Next, there was a stop at the Comrades Museum where Zulu dancers greeted us in the front of the building. The tour concluded at the Pietermaritzburg Oval, a cricket stadium where the race would end. I took care to stay away from the finish line area lest I jinx myself!

Later in the afternoon, Vera, Janet and I went in search of some Indian food and afterward took a walk around an open-air market where vendors were selling bracelets, clothing, and other crafts. Personally, I found this to be quite an enjoyable experience. There was a band playing, billiard games going on, and people milling about ... lots of activity. Very cool!

On Saturday, I went on a safari about a 3.5 hour drive north of Durbin to a place called Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve. What an unusual way to taper for that big run - ha! The drive up passed through the heart of the Kwazulu-Natal Province of South Africa. We passed through miles and miles of sugar cane fields, tree plantations, and pineapple fields. Occasionally, we would pass bands of Zulu huts where people appeared to be headed off to work the surrounding land. There were several people I met in the van; notably, two personable runners from South Carolina, Rick Stroud and Winston Holliday. Upon arriving at the reserve, we were placed in an open-air jeep and off into the African veld we went. Suffice it to say I will never again go to a zoo. I sometimes joke that I hear the students at WVU proclaiming that a pencil is "awesome", or that their caffe latte is "awesome". Not even close. A wild rhinoceros trotting alongside your jeep? Now THAT is awesome ... We saw giraffes, an elephant, a hippo, nyala, zebras, wart hogs, cape buffalo, etc. It was actually overwhelming to see all this. The Zulu guide (Israel) was a walking encyclopedia of factoids and patiently answered all my questions as I was sitting up in the front seat with him. Eventually, we took a late lunch at Hilltop Camp in the northern part of the reserve which commanded a wonderful 360 view of the hills and grasslands. (For those couples out there, this would be a perfect place for a getaway.) By the time we broke camp and headed back to Durbin, it was well into the night.

At 5:30 am on Sunday, a huge crowd of runners amassed in their seeding corrals in the town center of Durbin. There is a protocol and history to the start of a Comrades race that I will dispense with getting into here but I will say I found the experience of listening to the crowd sing the South African national anthem to be particularly moving. From the time the cannon went off to when I crossed the starting line was about 2 minutes. This was tricky race for me to formulate a strategy a priori. There's a difference between a trail race for endurance versus a road race for speed. But factor in the long distance and the hills and Comrades becomes its own animal. All this being said, I felt prepared for what laid ahead, what with the all the quality tempo runs and hill repeats I had done for months prior. As much as it pained me to do so, I stubbornly stuck to 9 minutes miles as the initial stages of the race unfolded. Both sides of the street were packed with crowds, some quarter of a million spectators. This race is a huge deal in South Africa! I think Vera's friend said it best ... Comrades is like the Boston Marathon, the Tour de France, and the 4th of July all rolled into one. All Comrades runners have their first name printed on their bib. Also, my friend/running partner Tad Davis had lent me a singlet with a big USA logo. As I was running through what amounted to a tunnel of people in some instances, I heard "USA! USA!", "Go, Philip. You can do it!" I gave so many high-fives and acknowledgements to the young kids and the crowd in general that I eventually tired of it and had to stop. The crowd support was AMAZING and is something I will never forget as long as I live. It was kinda' like this rolling, surreal party. Beer was flowing, costumed people and tent canopies were camped out right up to the edge of the streets, and smoke from South African "braai" barbecues rolled across the course. (South Africans love barbecues!). Huge (and I do mean huge) aid stations were spaced every 2 kilometers; in fact, I didn't carry my usual pink handheld and opted only to carry a few Raw Bars and some Roctanes in my Fuel Belt pouch, along with some Endurolytes. From time to time, coveys of runners from athletic/running clubs from Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, etc., would appear beside me. In some instances, you would see their spotters or pass their own aid stations. Good grief, here I was, this lone idiot from the US, trudging along! Too funny! But man oh man, that crowd support ... I just felt so adrenalized! Up Cowies, Fields, and Botha I ran with no problems, ever climbing, climbing, climbing, with some great views of the Valley of 1000 Hills as my reward.

The aid stations were stocked with a ton of stuff. Water and Energade were dispensed, not with cups, but in enclosed plastic tubes (satchets) you bit the top off of. What a great idea I wish we embraced in races in this country. They are much, much easier to handle and carry with you, you can easily drink on the run, and they can be packed and kept on ice.

I passed the midpoint in almost exactly 4 hours and was way ahead of my anticipated race goals. Up Inchanga I ran but this time I didn't feel so peppy as I crested out. Unfortunately, a couple of things now conspired to send me into a dark period for a couple miles :-( First, Comrades is run all on blacktop. I don't do much road running back in West Virginia, much preferring trails. Accordingly, my legs were starting to take a beating, particularly my hips. The roads had a marked camber to them so I found it beneficial to run on the flatter berm. Running in the middle of the road, one stood a chance of tripping over "cat's eyes" reflectors. Second, it had become quite sunny and hot. It felt like the temperature was now somewhere in the mid-70s. I had not been taking in enough water (shame on me for drinking only to thirst) which, of course, sets off a chain reaction of unpleasant physiological events, chief of which was severe cramping in my right hip flexor and nausea. Having decided to throw a pity party for myself during this dark period, along came Andrea Moritz from Canada. I had met Andrea and her partner Marc Pelosse back at the hotel a few days ago. Andrea looked at me and said something to the effect of "Phil! Hang in there. You are in the game for a Bill Rowan!" In a nutshell, Comrades gives out medals according to your time. More to the point, those who finish from 11 hours to the cutoff of 12 hours get a finisher's medal, 9 to 11 get a bronze, and 7.5 to 9 get a so-called Bill Rowan medal, and so on. I guess I needed to hear this or perhaps I needed to see about as familiar a face as I was going to get halfway across the world because man, did I get fired up! At the next aid station I decided to wing it and try pounding a couple of Energade satchets. Be it the water, the flood of simple sugars, or the electrolytes, my body instantly came to life and I began to run at my race pace again. The miles rolled by as I ignored my sunburnt shoulders and the heat shimmers dancing off the blacktop. Up Polly Shorts I ran as I started to feel stronger and stronger. Crowds began to build and there were periods of time where I felt quite emotional as the dream I hatched almost a year ago seemed like it would be realized.

Finally, at about 55 miles, I could see the stadium in the distance where the race ended, I could hear the yelling, the din of people, of vuvuzela, of clapping, of hands banging on the side of sheet metal bleachers. Words denigrate the experience of running into that stadium out onto the track for that last lap to the finish. It was a very surreal experience ... seeing a weekend warrior like myself on this jumbotron ... all the people cheering and shouting "USA! USA!" ... of realizing my Comrades journey was about to end, at least for this year. I was waving, high-fiving, fist pumping, something I have been doing a lot of this past year as I just enjoy living so damn much.

I gingerly got myself into the International Runners tent and sat down sipping some water. Comrades rep Brian Swart was a man among men, getting me my drop bag and a cup of hot coffee to boot! Thank you, Brian! Vera came steamrolling in at 9:12 looking no worse for the wear. Congratulations, Vera, your running future is bright! In the spirt of Comrades, many, if not most, of the runners stayed right up until 5:30 PM to cheer on all the runners in their victory laps. Vera, Janet, and I yelled ourselves hoarse! Tom and Cathy Hopkins were another great Canadian couple I had met at the hotel and Tom was nervously awaiting Cathy's arrival into the stadium with camera in hand. She came in with a smile on her face. Congratulations, Cathy! Comrades has a very strict, if not harsh, finishing time. At exactly 12 hours, the executive director stands at the finish line, with his back to the runners, and ends the race with a gunshot. The first nonfinisher gets a handshake and nothing else.

Now for the nitty-gritty ... I came in at 8:44, good enough for a Bill Rowan :-) At 56 miles, Comrades was the longest distance I have ever run; the only datum I have to compare this to is a 50-mile best of 9:33. My 40-49 AG ranking was 438/6859 entrants and overall 1620/19592 entrants. (I do not know how many entrants actually started the race.) I feel very happy and personally humbled, the later not being words I say in a perfunctory manner.

The day after, Muhammed and I did some tooling around Durbin sightseeing and shopping for gifts. We ended up in the Victoria Street Market where the smart shopper can find good deals on day-old goat heads and fish with names I cannot pronounce. All kidding aside, shopping at the market was an enjoyable, if not interesting, experience, particularly if you want to bring something other than the usual gifts you see at the airport back to the US. Speaking of which, in a complete lapse of judgment or temporary insanity, I flew back to the US that evening, donning my compression socks, and I believe this flight was as tough as the race (smile). Do not, I repeat, do not do this! Take a week off after the race and enjoy all that South Africa has to offer.

These past couple of years I firmly resolved myself to do lots of travel and adventure, not as a way of escaping my life, but as a way of enhancing my life. As I have become older, I have observed too many instances with too many people who have become content to let their dreams and hopes die and pile up alongside their endless supply of excuses. Well, I for one, say the hell with that. There are no guarantees that any of us will ever have the time, wealth, and health, occurring together in the future, to implement our plans. You say that you just don't think you have it in you to pull off a vacation to a place you always wanted to visit? Then who else will do it? You say you don't have the time? Then when will that perfect time come? If not now, then when? You say you don't have the money? Then why can't you save the money? After all, there won't be a Brink's truck in your funeral procession. It's tough sometimes to overcome the gravitational pull of habits, to pull away from worshipping at the temple of work. But the price to be paid for these temporary inconveniences will be paid over and over again by what happens inside of you when you realize a dream. Your spirit and soul are intangibly strengthened by an order of magnitude.

It's time to end this "ultramarathon" post ... sorry! I figure I have milked this ACL injury for all she's worth -- LOL! In all seriousness though, I've had several people who have dutifully followed this blog. People I have never met. People with their own knee problems. My heart goes out to you and I hope that you find your own combination of patience, stubbornness, and love necessary to get you back to a place where you want to be. If a goofball like myself can do it, then you can too. Since exactly one year has passed since Jack Andrish worked his magic, I will thank this remarkable doctor one more time here (and soon, in person) and this will be the final time I ever comment on the topic in this blog.

In a few days, I will post a video of this experience to this blog and to Facebook. I also have some additional pictures posted here. So who's coming with me to tackle the Down Run next year?! Your first dinner of "bunny chow" will be on me and I'll throw in a night cap for good measure. Seriously!

Skydive Cross Training

2011-05-24T08:14:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I had, in the true sense of the word, an awesome experience. My niece (Nina Schroeder) went skydiving last year and and had a glowing report afterward. Thus, for her 2010 Christmas gift, I promised her another jump except this time she was going to have to haul along her uncle :-) We tossed about some dates and settled on 05/22/11. While it was touch and go there for awhile with the threat of thunderstorms, off we went to Canton Air Sports in northeastern Ohio. Nina's friend, Corey Turnbull, decided to accompany her.

The nerve center of Canton Air Sports ... "Mission Control".

Things have changed a lot over the years when it comes to this sort of stuff. It used to be you had to sit through a course for half the day and then you would jump off a static line at 3,000'. Well, I discovered it isn't that way anymore. Nowadays, you jump at much, much higher elevations in a tandem freefall skydive with an instructor. We had 10-to-15 minutes of instruction, mostly on how to exit the plane, before we were fitted with jump suits and harnesses. It was decided that due to the size of the small plane, Nina and Corey would jump in the first flight. I, on the other hand, would have to wait ('er, sweat out) my turn by myself for the second flight.

My niece and I walking to the plane. She went first!

Nina and Corey did a great job on their jumps as I waited patiently below. Their instructors rocked some spiral turns before sitting them both on the ground. There were lots of big smiles, high fives, and hugs among all at the drop zone. It was then my turn.

Getting ready in the final minutes before takeoff ... a bundle of nerves!

My instructor's name was Tom Sutton. He was top-notch and reassuring which went a long way in my ultimate enjoyment of the total experience. Our plane took off and then that is when I started to realize the magnitude of what I was doing. My nerves were frayed, I had butterflies in my stomach, and my mouth was dry. I was sitting on my butt facing the tail while Tom did likewise directly in front of me, trying to focus and get my breathing under control. The plane climbed to around 10,000 before Tom wheeled around and instructed me to wheel around. He shouted a litany of last-minute instructions in my ear, none of which I processed. As I put my googles on, Tom engaged all four points of contact and snugged us together. Finally, Tom opened the side door of the plane; all I could see below were the tops of the clouds whipping by. The cabin was filled with wind and its roar. Still on our knees, we eased to the side of the door and Tom carefully placed his right foot on the wheel footstep. Clutching the door for dear life, I placed my right foot on two bolts connected to the strut. We leaned outside the door at a slight angle so that the wind was now blasting me right in the face. Tom nudged me to cross my arms across my chest and grab my shoulder straps. I laid my head directly back on Tom's left shoulder and made my body go limp as Tom, almost imperceptibly, shifted our weight, and throw us out the door and downward so as not to get hit by the tail. And just like that, we were flung out into the heavens ...

Nina's friend, Corey, and his instructor launching themselves out of the plane.

I recall tumbling, the roar of the wind, a feeling as intense as an orgasm of losing myself ... losing all sense of orientation ... of floating ... of every sense heightened, every cell aware ... of my stomach clenched as tight as it could be. There was no fear, only acute awareness. We stabilized the fall with me on the bottom, my legs craned upwards between his, and Tom tapped me twice to deploy my arms out like wings. We hovered ... we flew ... we drifted on the currents of the wind. I saw the curvature of the blue sky where it met the earth and as we fell into the bank of clouds, I felt a slight cool dampness as we plunged through it. The ground appeared and I saw a vast panorama of rivers, lakes, fields, towns, and the sun. I was immersed in an intense, adrenalized pleasure I had never before felt. Our freefall time could not have been anything much longer than 30 seconds before we deployed the chute but it was as if I was in a state of suspended animation.

I love this shot! You can see the plane still above the clouds! You can also see the drogue parachute trailing behind the main parachute to slow our descent.

As the chute deployed, there was an abrupt deceleration. Honestly, I recall being completely relieved by this. There was a small bank of clouds coming in from the west and the wind was still blowing a bit. Tom gave me the hand controls to the chute and then gave me some brief instructions on how to steer us. The slow, lazy descent was wonderful and I finally relaxed enough to the point where I started to let out a few "war cries" :-)

We're coming in! Nice tight spiral to recon the landing area.

The hangar where the plane took off was now plainly visible and I could see people scurrying around looking upward. Tom asked that we discuss and actually practice our landing position. The ground came up quick! We came in like a plane with our legs up and skidded to a stop on our butts ... a perfect landing.

Knees bent, feet together, heels up for a "backside" landing!

Well done! High five! Let's do it again!

Fear gives way to uncontrollable laughter. Someone is awfully happy!

I believe Tom had said he's done close to 6,000 jumps but I got the sense that he could appreciate the jubilation of a newbie completing his first jump. And make no mistake ... I was jubilant. My words frankly denigrate this adventure, an adventure that I will never forget.

Letting Go

2011-05-17T16:41:00.000-04:00

Teaching at a university, you reach an understanding that people arrive and leave and that many relationships you cultivate will be short-lived, at least with respect to daily interaction. Over the last couple of years, I have had the pleasure and the honor to have crossed paths with a couple of great guys and my spirit is richer for it. Life being what it is, our paths have now diverged, for theirs is taking them to greater heights. And now it is time to wave goodbye and to let go ... at least for awhile.

I met Joey Gigliotti, 27 years of age, while he was working on his PhD in Biochemistry. In addition to being really smart, Joey was/is a bit of a health nut, frequenting boxing gyms, weight rooms, and basketball courts. Not surprisingly, we hit it off. Last fall, as I began to plan for my "comeback" from knee reconstruction, Joey offered to run with me. While I have always preferred to run alone, I took him up on his offer. Joey was patiently with me every step of the way all through the winter months as my rehab slowly progressed. Literally, there would be times when the temperature would be in the teens or single digits, the wind would be screaming off the Monongahela River, and there would be Joey, postholing through the snow with me, on a run. He kept me honest and made sure that I was not mailing in my training and rehab. He also kindly volunteered to man an aid station at a charity race in Morgantown I helped organize last December (the Mason-Dixon Madness 50K). Most importantly, I came to discover what a wonderfully insightful person he is, be it through our long, deep conversations on the railtrail or just heading over to Panera for an afternoon coffee. While we had plenty of conversations about his research, on a personal level, I felt honored to hear of his past, his hopes and aspirations, and especially his occasional fears. Many people are afraid to be open and honest about who and what they really are and I consider this to be a characteristic of a person with integrity.

Well, Joey, congratulations, so many times over, on your graduation and new position! The University of Virginia is getting a hell of a doctor and I understand Charlottesville to be one of the coolest places to live. I always said you are much younger and much better looking than I am. Seriously, I have a long memory and will never forget your homemade pasta dishes and your inherent kindness.

Joey thinking about krill oil.

The other person who left Morgantown last week is Gancho Slavov. Gancho is a quantitative ecologist who was working at West Virginia University. I had met Gancho over lunch well over a year ago and knew he was a runner (his moniker among his running buddies is The Bulgarian Beast). However, one day I bumped into a colleague at the gym who informed me that Gancho had recently "taken his running to a whole new level". Apparently, Gancho had been training his tail off, fooling around with his nutrition, etc., and had been starting to rock the local race circuit. This guy can run!

Have you ever met someone and found that within minutes you click and share a sense of simpatico? While it wasn't until the beginning of the year that we started hanging out, Gancho was one of these people. Disarming, and truly nice. We started doing tempo runs together and that led to hill repeats. Good conversation, in and of itself, is a good enough reason to run with a partner. However, since Gancho is a much better runner than I am, as time went on, it made me a better runner. As with Joey, weather was no deterrent whatsoever; I think Gancho and I did the last six weekly hill repeat sessions in a combination of lightning, thunder, or driving rain, or all of the above. He never complained or bitched at all. The thing that impresses me most about Gancho is his modesty. I'm sure he'll blush when he reads me trumpeting his flirtation with a 2:45 marathon and winning races of various distances (e.g., West Virginia Trilogy).

Have fun at your new appointment in Wales, Gancho! Tuesdays will be a bit lonely for some time to come. I like your style when we parted company at dinner the other night. Goodbyes are just a temporary reprieve until the next adventure. See you at Mont-Blanc?

Gancho doing what he does best ... laying down the law at an ultra.

A few years ago, I decided to make a determined effort to let go of any and all toxic people in my life and to replace them with positive, forward-thinking sources of light and energy. As a consequence, it has made a huge difference in my life experience. Perhaps that's why letting go of good people is a bit harder for me than it used to be ... a bittersweet moment. You two will be missed.

Living Big: 2011 Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim Run

2011-04-25T23:14:00.002-04:00

To the left of Mike Frazier's bedroom door is a sign that simply says, "LIVE BIG." More on that in a minute.

I sat down today with all intentions of writing a huge "race report" for a run I did last weekend. Recently, a friend told me that all race reports are more or less the same as long as they remain a race report: went there, won/finished/DNFed, and went home. In this light, I decided instead to focus on creating a video that would do the majority of the talking, and would say in pictures what I often struggle to say in words.

The Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim (R2R2R) run has been a challenge I have wanted to attempt for several years. For one reason or another, it never came to pass. I was going to try it last summer but then (as some of you know) I had my severed ACL replaced last June. Frankly, I was starting to wonder and worry if I was ever going to get the opportunity to try the run.

As I started to regain my health through the winter and the spring, the idea of trying the R2R2R suddenly took on a very real meaning. In my friend Mike, I found an eager partner ... someone free of excuses and "obligations", someone not content to let their dreams and hopes end up on a scrap pile, someone willing to LIVE BIG. Accordingly, we threw the trip together a couple months back and resolved ourselves to do it over Easter weekend.

In a nutshell, last Friday, Mike and I flew out of Pittsburgh to Phoenix. We rented a car, and took a leisurely drive up to Grand Canyon Village which included stops to sightsee in Sedona and to visit friends in Flagstaff. Saturday morning, at 4:30 AM, we left the Bright Angel trailhead and headed down/north to the Colorado River. There, Mike and I were treated to a world-class sunrise few are so blessed to witness; one could almost imagine what John Wesley Powell must have been thinking when he explored these waters in 1869. At that point, the temperature was perfect for running.

We crossed over the river, went through Phantom Ranch, and proceeded to head up the Bright Angel Canyon on the North Kaibab trail. We were fortunate to run a couple miles with ultrarunner Darcy Africa and her pacers as she was attempting to break the woman's R2R2R running record, a goal we later discovered she succeeded in doing by over 30 minutes! Wow, amazing!

The climb up to the snowy 8,000' plus North Kaibab Plateau is never easy; we rested for several minutes before turning around and heading back. Once again, we encountered another ultrarunner, Sue Johnston. This was Sue's fourth R2R2R and she seemed just as enthusiastic as if it were her first. Here's where things fall into the "truth is stranger than fiction" category. Sue and Mike had met on the Appalachian Trail in Vermont last summer and she recognized Mike! We ended up running a considerable distance together to Phantom Ranch.

Unfortunately, the heat had really cranked up and Mike had been feeling the effects a bit. Normal, long-run stuff where water and food was the antidote, thanks to the park ranger/trail angel Della Yurcik :-) So after a breather, we crossed the river again and headed up the Bright Angel trail to the South Rim. Tacking on the run to and from our hotel in Grand Canyon Village, we logged 52 miles.

What follows can only be interpreted in some altered dimension. I am vaguely aware of stopping repeatedly for junk food, of pounding Red Bull and chocolate-covered espresso beans until they had no effect, of driving many miles to Rihanna's "Only Girl" blaring on the radio before arriving at our hotel in Phoenix at about 2:30 in the morning. Hell, at least we got a couple of hours of sleep under our belts before heading to the airport for the return flight east.

Tonight I am tired, but it is a good kind of tired. It's a "LIVE BIG" kind of tired, the type of exhaustion one feels when they live their life in the moment, with a sense of purpose and adventure, fueled by love. I have written too much already ... here is the video. Thank you, Mike, for a weekend I will truly never forget ...

Grinding It Out At Glacier Ridge

2011-04-12T15:06:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to run the inaugural Glacier Ridge 50K located up in west-central Pennsylvania. The race was held in beautiful Moraine State Park on the north shore of Lake Arthur on a somewhat dreary day with temperatures in the the 60's. There was a 50-mile race and a 30K race offered as well. Given that Bull Run Run was the same weekend, I was surprised at the turnout; it was well attended.

Raceday morning at Lake Arthur.

As with the Chuckanut 50K three weeks before, this was not an A-list race for me. All I wanted to do was bank the miles and get a good training run in before Grand Canyon in a few weeks (you ready, Mike Frazier?). For my mindset this is always hard to do. It always seems like I am hanging around the car before the start. Next thing you know, I see all the runners, as I sit there sipping my black coffee. Throw in Metallica blaring on my iPod and I am ready to tear the door off my car to "race". That's what happened here ... unfortunately.

The course was really, really muddy due to driving rain the past few days before the race. And here I was bitching about Chuckanut. That was nothing compared to this course so I retract that prior statement. Glacier is undulating up-and-down trail with lots of 200-to-300 foot hills with a total elevation gain of around approximately 4,200'. The tops of the hills are relatively flat. As the name "moraine" implies there are plenty of rocks to pique one's interest along with a healthy dose of roots. Were it not for the mud, the trail would be pleasantly runnable. Personally, I did not find any of the climbs to be particularly daunting.

My view for much of the morning.

In a nutshell, I ran the first 20 miles way too fast and consequently had to "hang on" for the last 11. When will I ever learn. Nevertheless, I was truly and humbly happy with how I finished. I suppose all the training is paying off, specifically all the hours and tough miles I've logged on the challenging Laurel Highland Trail. Luck, karma, training, whatever causative agent, I'll take the miles and feeling good at the finish every time.

My new nutrition strategy is working fine and starting to get locked into place. Perhaps I'll write more about this strategy later, but as part of it coach Beth recommended I look into Raw Revolution bars and I love 'em! They are a very clean, organic unprocessed food bar that sits well in my stomach and gives me wholesome fuel. (No, I am not sponsored by them!) Alas, I cannot choke down another Hammer Perpetuem tablet. After concluding at about mile 27 last Saturday that I was eating something akin to billiard cue chalk, I pitched the remaining tablets I had onto the forest floor for the field mice, and decided that I'd rather risk toughing out the last few "bonky" miles. Does anyone want the remaining 75 or so tablets I have at home?! Bill Gentry of Harrisonburg, Virginia?! :-)

With the exception of what my feet looked like at the end of hiking the Appalachian Trail, I cannot recall my feet looking and feeling so pulverized ... ever. I'm even going to lose the big toenail on my right foot! Accordingly, Sarah and Conrad Quesen and I decided that we should paint over all the black-and-blue toenails with nail polish. I chose the color Hunter Orange. In those instances where there was no toenail, we simply slathered the nail polish on top of the "raw meat".

Feet of a certain distinguished university statistics professor. Hmmm ...

I was in the locker room yesterday for a swim and I did not get the sense that some of the Neanderthal weight lifters present were impressed with my toenails. Oh well, next time I will try the color Chartreuse.

Finally, I saw lots of familiar faces up on Glacier Ridge. I saw Dannielle Ripper punching the clock on her 50-miler. Eric Grol, looking fit and trim, and I were able to reconnect. I caught sight of Steve Wendall at an aid station late in the race. He was there to support his girlfriend Stacy Gelhaus, who completed her first 50-miler. Congratulations, Stacy! I'm so very happy for you!

Busting My Butt On Chuckanut

2011-03-25T15:47:00.001-04:00

Sometimes you have to make the best of a bad situation. Sometimes you have to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. This is what happened to me recently. A couple of buddies and I had decided to run in the Hell's Canyon Adventure Run out in Idaho. The gist of this fun-run is that a jet boat takes you 31 miles up the Snake River; what with shooting big rapids, half the fun is getting there. You are then dropped off and have to run downstream to the pickup point. The run is completely unsupported and reputed not to be for the feint of heart. Several days prior to my leaving for the run, there was a rock slide in the canyon which closed the trail and the event was cancelled. Accordingly, I had to scramble quick since all my travel plans were locked in. After perusing the Internet, I came upon a race called the Chuckanut 50K, held in Bellingham, Washington on the same day I had wanted to run in Idaho. Briefly, this race is the only 50K offering big prize money and accordingly, per my buddy Gancho, has an "insanely strong field". This year it sold out in 2 hours. Nevertheless, I took a flyer and contacted the race director Krissy Moehl and essentially begged her to let me in. To my surprise, she did!

Last Friday was a long, long travel day. My friend Sarah dropped me off up in Pittsburgh at the crack of dawn ... then it's a flight to Denver ... then it's a mind-numbing layover people watching and grading stat homework I brought along ... then it's a flight to Spokane .... rent a car ... now drive 6 hours west through pelting Cascades rain ... hunt down a motel and some dinner ... lay out all my racing crap for the next morning ... then hope (and I do mean hope) to get a few hours of sleep. In other words, my race preparation was exactly the opposite of how like the day before a race to go (sigh).

In any case, I'll cut right to the chase. The next day, I ran about as beautiful a 50K course as I had ever run. If any runners out there ever want to treat themselves to a real adventure, then run this race. You won't regret your decision. The first 6 miles are gentle crushed gravel that roll along quite nicely. Then the bomb drops. You climb up through a quintessential Pacific Northwest forest with huge pine trees so covered with moss and lichens that you can hardly make out the bark. The forest floor was blanketed by ferns. Since there had been so much rain the day before, the trail was extremely muddy. Pour in rocks and tree roots, and you've got yourself one damn fine trail run -YAHOO!

A picture of Bellingham Bay. What a tranquil ocean setting!

After getting to an aid station around mile 11, there was a long climb on a forest service road. It kept going up, up, up. A persistent skiff of winter snow remained up top and ocean fog had rolled in from the west and had backed up against the mountains. Finally, just after 13 miles or so, you began to run on the top of Chuckanut Ridge itself. This was technical, classic trail running at its finest and went on for many miles. Boulder, rocks, and roots with lots of up-and-down demanding the utmost concentration. The trouble for me initially was that the scenery was just flipping breathtaking. From the ridgeline, one commanded a breathtaking view of the ocean, namely Bellingham Bay. The water was brilliant blue, sail boats bobbed up and down, and small, rocky islands jutted out of the water with a blanket of conifers on top -- they reminded me of the hairy heads of giants standing underwater. I'm a passionate fellow so I found this to be a powerful, moving moment. I was paying more attention to the ocean than the trail, tripped a few times, and decided that I had better bear down and focus on running.

Hurtling down Chuckanut Ridge.

Around mile 20, there was a very steep climb called Chinscraper. The fact that you were made well aware of the presence of Chinscraper via plentiful and colorful signage miles prior to getting there created an air of playful suspense. (In every ultra course, it seems there is a test, an obstacle, a "watershed moment", designed to suck out your soul with some mildly cheesy ominous name like The Guillotine, Stairway to Death, Bunny Boiling Scorned Lover, Abandon All Ye Hope, blah, blah, blah, ...) Once you surmounted this, the course began a long winding descent down a forest road for several miles. Finally, the last six miles were again on gentle crushed gravel and flat ... much to the consternation of the runners.

Elevation profile of the course; 10,200 elevation differential.

The race was very well organized and the food at the end was organic and tasty! This was the first time that I ever stayed to watch the awards ceremony to completion at a race and I am glad I did. I am not at all big into celebrity and name dropping but I will confess it was kinda' cool to finally attach faces to names I have long read about in other blogs and magazines.

Awards ceremony at Chuckanut 50K, Bellingham, WA (03/19/2011). From L to R, Scott Jurek, Jenn Shelton collecting her loot, and RD Krissy Moehl.

This was not an A-list race for me; those are coming up starting next month. My goals were quite simple. Given my new ACL and my first ultra venture of 2011, I wanted to run a good, solid race and finish well without having to taper and take lots of recovery days that would impede my training. I had noticed that I was tentative and awkward on my first several trail runs this year because I was (naturally) scared of re-injuring myself. But this time, I decided to really load and test the knee with lots of jumping and cutting. While my knee was angry afterward, I'm happy to report there are no lingering problems!

One thing that I am constantly having to work on is to be an emotionally mature runner. This race presented an opportunity for me to work on those sorts of things. I decided, regardless of how I felt, that I was going to set my watch and eat 100 calories of something every half-hour. Guess what? No bonk -- surprise! I monitored my Garmin 310 and watched my pacing so that I didn't blow my wad and go out too fast. My aid station passthroughs were limited to 15 second dine-and-dashes. And rather than chase after all those young bucks who insisted on sprinting up the hills in the early stages of the race, I couldn't help but notice I passed many of them many miles later after patiently running my own race.

Patience. What an important quality to have in races ... and in life. Run your own race, don't worry about what is going on around you, and focus on the moment you have because things can so quickly turn on a dime in an ultra. Patience.

A big shout out needs to go to Beth Byron, coach and friend. While I may curse her name from time to time at 6:30 AM a few days of the week, I was gleefully singing her praises for every 1-Leg Bench Squat she has made me do as I marched right up "Chinscraper" with no problems.

After the race, I had the opportunity to visit with some old friends over in eastern Washington for several days. It was good to "sharpen the saw", as they say, and to see what they've been up to. My friend Kurt Holland, his wife Ellen, and their three kids live over near Cheney; they have much to be thankful for. The day following the race, after a breakfast of farm-fresh eggs and a tour of his beautiful property, Kurt and I got to go on a nice run on the Columbia Plateau Trail over near the Turnbull Wildlife Refuge where we had an encounter with a moose.

Kurt and I after a long run on the Columbia Plateau Trail.

Ross and Alicia Bricklemyer, and their son Philip, live in Pullman, Washington. They too have much to be thankful for. Over the course of a couple of days, I got a tour of Washington State University and the town. One morning, I had a great solo run along the Snake River which I'll never forget. Ross and I even managed to squeeze in a walk up to the top of Kamiak Butte north of town afterward. From there, one can see the Palouse Hills countryside and back into Idaho.

Glorious long-run along the Snake River one morning. Got lots of good thinking done. Not a soul in sight.

My future Appalachian Trail hiking partner, Philip Bricklemyer.

I headed straight up to the Cleveland Clinic the morning after touching down in Pittsburgh where Dr. Jack Andrish gave my knee the big thumbs up.

Frankly, while I love to travel, I also love to come back home to my "base camp", renewed and rejuvenated. As I have grown older and wiser, I really do value my alone time ... a quiet evening with a good book, picking some guitar, or just grabbing a half-hour of Frontline on television. Balance is just as important as Patience. I am glad to be back home, getting after some research, and continuing my training for the next adventure :-)

Wild Oak Trail Hoedown

2011-03-08T08:59:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of meeting The Wild Oak Trail, affectionately known as TWOT to the local runners. TWOT is a 27.2 mile loop of thundering, whole-grain goodness located in the George Washington National Forest of central Virginia about 20 minutes southwest of Harrisonburg.

Just when I thought I was all that and a bag of chips for getting a PR at Myrtle Beach Marathon a few weeks ago, I was violently and humbly brought back from orbit. (I like my crow medium rare, thank you.) What was the lesson I learned? For starters, I do quite a bit of running on the rail-trail in Morgantown. It's easy to delude yourself into thinking that when you trot along the rail-trail for a couple of hours that you are logging "big miles". However, make no mistake, it wasn't long into Saturday's run before I recognized the distinct character, shall we say, of TWOT. This might be one of the tougher trails I've run since the Zane Grey 50 and I was definitely caught off guard.

Allow me to introduce the cast of characters in this blog post. The host of the parade was one Mike Frazier who just last month had managed to run three loops at an unofficial race called Cold TWOT. With Leadville as his primary objective, Mike has stepped up his game the past year and accordingly, has blossomed into quite the ultrarunner. Marc Griffin is another damn fine ultrarunner from the area. A few months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Marc at a New Year's Day run over in Shenandoah National Park. He's the first guy I've met who has completed the so-called Beast Series; a series of 6 challenging ultras that have to be completed in a year. Tom Syre is a bright, aspiring Marine officer who I met at the Mason-Dixon Madness 50K several months ago (he won the men's division for the North). He's in the Beast Series for this year. Last, but not least, we have Missy Cummings, Tom's partner in crime. Missy has her gunsights on a 3 hour marathon in Charlottesville coming up soon and this was her first long distance trail run. Suffice it to say I was the weak link in the chain on this fine day. When we convened at a local gas station to convoy over to the trailhead at the butt crack of dawn, the very first line I ever said to Missy was "Today is a good day to die." This was an attempt at my dry Montana humor since it appeared Missy was a bit nervous about her introduction to trail running, much less her introduction to TWOT. But I would live to regret having fun at her expense in about 8 hours or so ...

We're smiling at dawn ... but will we be smiling once we do a loop?
(L to R): moi, Marc Griffin, Missy Cummings, and Tom Syre

The weather was a bit deceptive. Down in the valleys, it was overcast and about 45 degrees or so. However, once up on the ridges, we got locked into misty clouds with a bit of wind. Visibility was limited and the temperature felt about 10 degrees cooler. While I did not get many classic Appalachian views, the few I did get were, of course, pretty. I could imagine this trail would be gorgeous in the fall. True to the name of the trail, there lots of red and chestnut oak all over dropping plenty of acorns. I noticed big decaying stumps of chestnut occasionally and several species of conifers. We put up a few grouse and also saw a wild turkey. There was a vibe of remoteness to the area and I got the sense that if a guy wasn't paying attention and incorrectly took one of the several spur trails along the way, then he could get himself turned around quick!

Beautiful Wild Oak Trail view from Little Bald Knob. Wish I could have seen it!

We ran the loop clockwise and had parked a car at around the 15 mile mark. All of us were doing well up until that point. Due to my new and improved ACL, I noticed I was tentative, lacking confidence, on the downhill stuff and the sections of trail that were rocky; this was the toughest run I've done so far since I started running again in earnest several months ago. Virtually all of my training to date has been speedwork on tracks and roads in preparation for Myrtle Beach. What is the lesson to be learned here? This run served as a mild warning to me that I better get back on to the trails quick and stay on them. Message received, loud and clear!

Pack string of elk heading up the trail.

The next 12 + miles we did were when things started to go off course for me. Those "damn kids" started to pull away from me and I drifted further and further back. At one point, coming up something I believe Marc told me was Lookout Mountain, I had to stop and shoot a gel. Managing my nutrition in an ultra or a long trail run is a struggle for me that I do not yet have perfected. For whatever reason, I tell myself that I can get by on a couple of gels and also my stomach gets upset from time to time. Well, it's finally dawning on me that I can have whatever preconceptions I want but the reality is that I need 150 to 200 calories an hour to do these sorts of runs. Now I was regretting my decision to forego eating the cookies, bananas, and gorp offered to me back at the car by the others.

Marc doubles as a comedian in his spare evenings.

Finally, we were within a couple of miles of finishing the loop. Once again, I bonked, but this one was much worse. My legs were dead, my thinking and judgment clouded, and my heart was fluttering. Again, I stopped and shot a gel, sipped some water, and waited a few minutes. All I wanted to do was lay down in the leaf litter and fall to sleep. Yikes. I chuckled to myself recalling how the lithe pixie Missy had raced by me many miles ago never to be seen again. "Who's doing the dying today, Phil?!"

Marc, Missy, and Tom are smiling at the finish. I'm bonking a mile back in the woods somewhere.

Man, was I glad to see the car. And if someone had told me that I had to do the loop again, I would have told them to jack a shell in me and don't bother field dressing me. What is so funny about all this is a few minutes later in Mike's pickup truck, I felt pretty good (at least I was lucid and not drooling on myself). I WANT A REMATCH, DAMN IT! I've even been thinking about Cold TWOT 100 circa 2012 ... hmmm ...

This ain't yo' mamma's rail-trail. 7,500' up, 7,500' down. Read 'em and weep.

Later that night, I had dinner with a friend in "The Burg" whereupon I ate prodigious amounts of sushi and pad thai. I'm surprised I didn't lick the plates clean and reach over and eat her napkin. Throw in a midnight raid of Mike's cereal supply and I was able to get my tank to at least half full.

My appetizer last Saturday night (smile). I adore the presentation!

Looking for a shakedown run to prep for your big ultra coming up? Look no further cause once you get on TWOT, you'll be shaken like you were in an earthquake, baby.

Myrtle Beach Marathon -- Hanging On For Dear Life!

2011-02-25T19:18:00.001-05:00

Last Thursday, I hopped in the car and headed south on I-79. This was a date I had circled on my calendar many months ago. Time to run the Myrtle Beach Marathon!

Ain't nothing like a ROAD TRIP! Sunset over the New River gorge.

I made it as far as Winston-Salem, North Carolina before crashing at a dump of a Motel 6. The room smelled like it had housed a smoker's convention and some homeys hung outside my door partying for most of the night.

The next day, I drove down to Myrtle Beach. I stopped counting the Waffle House's along the way but I do confess I like their egg white omelet with a splash of tabasco sauce and a side of tomato slices.

I'm here!

I checked into the motel and headed straight to the convention center to pick up my race packet. Myrtle Beach is an "interesting" place. While it sounds good on paper, as I drove around, I found it to be schlocky, touristy tangle of amusement parks, golf courses, and calabash seafood restaurants. Do you like gun shops, next to strip clubs, next to billiard halls (smoking allowed), next to a Bob Evans? Then Myrtle Beach is for you. Do you like saltwater taffy, kettle corn, and boiled peanuts, with a funnel cake or two thrown in for good measure? Then come to Myrtle Beach, and you will think you've died and gone to heaven. To each his own I guess.

Scintillating view from my hotel balcony -- a vacant mall with a roller coaster behind it. Oh, the splendor!

Later in the day, to dissipate my stress, I went for an easy 3-mile run to check out the course. Flat as a pancake and perfect for those looking for a PR or a Boston Marathon qualifying time (a BQ, for short). I caught a bite to eat and headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.

Race morning, I headed down to the starting area, the parking lot of a huge shopping mall complex, for a couple of 5-minute runs and some stretching. Then the magical moment arrived!

Some almost 7,000 runners toe the line in the pre-dawn darkness.

I was concerned about getting caught up in a logjam of runners in the early part of the race so I plowed through the crowd up towards the head of the pack. Then the gun went off.

This is a tale of two very different races. The first 20 miles went about as well as I could have dreamed. I was floating steadily around 7:30 - 7:40/mile and experiencing no difficulty at all. My repaired knee felt fine. Mentally, I felt fine. I was hitting water at the aid stations every two miles. I took in my standard race table fare of Endurolytes and Hammer Gels. No problem. As I neared mile 20, it dawned on me that I was way ahead of PR pace and, for the first time, I began to realize I was within legitimate striking distance of a BQ, a 3:30 for my age group. Looking back, I am not so sure this was a good realization to have.

Then, out from the shadows stepped what my friend Eva and I refer to as "the mean dog". So begins the second race. In general terms, the mean dog is a metaphor for the totality of insecurities, doubts, and fears one feels as driven by an external stimulus. In my case, the external stimulus was the lack of glycogen, i.e., I had hit "the wall". Somewhat predictably, this occurred circa mile 20. Suddenly, my perfectly executed race wasn't so perfect anymore. Suddenly, I felt kernels of doubt that were growing with each foot stride. The mean dog was definitely off its leash. My initial strategy was to ignore the mean dog. Mentally, I worked through the steps to derive the expectation of a quadratic form y'Ay but that did not help. I sang cheesy 80's pop tunes to myself, but that only temporarily masked my growing suffering. Thinking about trips I was going to take in the summer, unrequited love, the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, how many times I've seen the Cleveland Browns play live ... none of it could take my mind off of my own compounding misery.

I became increasingly tired and my feet were becoming harder to lift. My hip flexors were starting to tighten and my calves were engaged in this shaking rigor. The knee with the new ACL was now objecting to this sudden surge in mileage. My panicking mind began to oscillate back and forth between a jumble of crazy, haywire thoughts and lightheaded nothingness. Occasionally, I battled panic and desperation, as I began to run the math calculations through my mind -- "Shit, I just ran an 8. Let's see ... let's see ... that's a withdrawal of 30 seconds from the time I banked. So ... does that get me in at 3:30? What pace do I have to hold then from here on out?" Then, for no apparent rational reason, I began to become cranky, testy, angry ... pissed, actually. I became pissed at the cop who would stop traffic at a major road while it seemed the whole frigging world waited for me to hurry it up for 100 yards to make it safely across. I became pissed at old, blue-haired ladies sitting and clapping in lawn chairs telling me I looked great and I only had a few more miles to go. I became pissed at dozens of Catholic school kids shouting at me and trying to hand me water at every aid station. For the love of God, be quiet, stop looking at me, and let me finish this damn race!!! Around mile 24, I became nauseous. The weather seemed unseasonably warm to me (it did, in fact, reach 72 that day). With every bit of mental strength I could muster, I kept telling myself "Run. Don't stop. Pick it the hell up, Phil. Go. Go!!!" I was putting everything I had out on the course. The words Sarah texted me the night before rang in my head, "Run them down!". The words Joey texted me the night before rang in my head, "Go get it man." The words Eva texted me the night before rang in my head, "The dog may be mean, loud, and strong. But you are stronger."

Finally, I came to mile 25. Then I knew, I knew I had this race in my grasp. My closest friends know the type of year I had last year and several tall hurdles I had to cross. They know, and I know, all the time I spent so utterly focused on this race. It is not at all my intent to lay on the melodramatic sugar to all that I have said here. Suffice it to say that I was so happy and so humbly grateful and as I reflected on these feelings and the path that I've walked, I shed tears that last mile all the way to the finish line at 3:24, a PR by 20 minutes and a BQ by 6.

I hobbled over to the medical tent and had to sit down because I was just trashed. After several minutes, I went and grabbed some food and beverage at the runner's tent, moseyed over to my car and did some stretching, popped some Ibuprofen, and then proceeded to go on a hunt for the tallest, darkest coffee I could find for the ride home.

Damn forest fires I encountered an hour out of Myrtle Beach. The guy on the right decided to relieve himself while waiting.

The culinary crown jewel -- a South Carolina sweet potato

In closing, qualifying for Boston represented a challenge I had set for myself, a goal to shoot for, nothing more, nothing less. Everyone is different, and everyone has different goals they set for themselves. For some, finishing a marathon is a goal. For others, running a marathon for speed is a goal. Both are wonderful accomplishments. Neither is better nor worse relative to the other; they're just different and unique to one's personal universe. My 3:24 would be a joke to runners far better than I am. My buddy Ben wants to be able to someday dunk a basketball. That too would be wonderful accomplishment. There's no patronizing going on here. I take nothing for granted, and am deeply appreciative for any goal that I, my sister and her family, and my friends can meet. And I always ... always ... try to live life one hour at a time.

A Few Thoughts On Winter Running

2011-02-11T13:08:00.000-05:00

I have had several conversations about running in the winter in recent months. While I am far from an expert on the topic, I decided it would be kind of cool to share a few things that might help others in their winter runs.

As some of my friends know, I lived in Bozeman, Montana for nine years, and Anchorage, Alaska for two years. Also, I lived in Flagstaff, Arizona for two years (While talking about Arizona and snow in the same sentence might appear to be oxymoronic, my home in Flagstaff sat at almost 8,000'. I experienced, by far, more cold and snowfall here than any other year I lived in Montana or Alaska!). During those 13 winters, I ran regardless of snow or temperature, learning a lot in the process.

In my opinion, the key to winter running is layering. You then simply add or subtract as the climate so dictates. As for what I wear, I'll start from the top of my body and work my way down.

Head: I wear a synthetic wicking biker's skull cap (Pearl Izumi) anywhere from about 10 to 40 degrees. If it gets much colder than 10 degrees, then I switch to a SmartWool cap. It would have to drop well below zero before I would consider putting on a face mask.

Some people have trouble breathing in cold air while running and even develop coughs as a result. That was never a problem for me so I don't have much to suggest. I fooled around with a heat exchanger face mask when I was on a climb of Denali. Within a few miles, the condensation from my breathing froze up on the mask; I cached it right away and never used it again.

Top: If it's 25 to 40 degrees, say, then I wear a black Patagonia lightweight long sleeve top made out of Capilene. On top of this, I wear a black short sleeve top made out of Capilene. Very good material, easy to clean, and does a great job of wicking. If you are the type that gets cold easily, then you could consider using increasingly popular merino wool base layers. Capilene is wonderful stuff but does suffer from what I call "flashover". In other words, it does such a good job wicking sweat that if you stop, the sweat condenses on the outside of the material as hoar frost. You then get chilled. This isn't a problem for me because I'm never just sitting around on my runs. As far as its positives are concerned, merino wool, in my opinion, doesn't suffer from this as much, keeps you a bit warmer, and provides warmth even when wet. One popular brand among my outdoor/mountaineer buddies in Alaska and Montana is Ibex, but I'm sure SmartWool and Patagonia are good too.

Finally, on top of the two Capilene layers, I wear a Patagonia Nine Trails shell jacket. If it gets below 25, then I switch out the Nine Trails jacket with a nordic ski jacket I have from REI. The jacket is lightweight, and form fitting. The material is built up in the front to block the wind but of a substantially lighter weave in the back and top to allow for venting (this is the same idea as some biker's jackets I've seen). If it gets much colder than 10, then I add another layer of expedition weight Capilene on top of the two base layers.

Bottom: I wear Under Armour shorts all the way down to 25 (by the way, these aren't the shorts I use when racing). At 25 or below, I wear some Under Armour tights and put the shorts on top. For what it's worth, I use Capilene underwear too. If you wear cotton underwear, which absorbs sweat, then you are completely defeating the purpose of layering and wicking. If it got below 10, say, then I wear runner's underwear for men and I add a pair of Cloudveil Symmetry pants. Wonderful pants! This year I tried experimenting with CW-X PerformX Tights when it got below 10.  On me, they run quite snug and tight; I have not made up my mind if I like them yet.

Hands: I use lightweight merino wool gloves from SmartWool from 25 to 40. Below this, I switch to an ice climbing glove from Cloudveil. Much below 10, and I wear the lightweight merino wool gloves inside a polarfleece mitten; you can add handwarmers if it is a long run.

Feet: This is a slamdunk. I like SmartWool merino wool crew socks. I wear these from 40 down to 10. If it gets much colder than 10, then I switch to a heavier grade merino wool hiking sock, also from SmartWool. Some people also like to wear gaiters for extra protection; I do not.

As for shoes, if the rail-trail or roads are relatively bare and dry, then I wear my usual running shoes (Brooks Launches these days). However, if there is more than 2-to-3" of snow on the rail-trail or roads, say, then I wear my trail running shoes (I recently upgraded to the new Brooks Cascadia 6's).

Finally, if the rail-trail or roads are icy, then I wear "cleats". Over the years, I have gone back and forth about cleats. Yaktrax never worked for me -- they either came off or I destroyed them. In Alaska, I switched over to something akin to Get-A-Grip's and those did seem to work. However, I had to replace the carbide spikes regularly. STABILicer SPORT's are nice but they are heavy and will pinch your toes together. Flagstaff was big-time Kahtoola country. While I have no experience with their MICROspikes, I heard some praise. My friend, wonderful ultrarunner Gancho Slavov, uses homemade spikes, or Screw Shoes, with satisfaction.  This might be an inexpensive, good option although it is a pain in the ass to do this if you don't have a power drill. Finally, my friend WVU cross country runner Maria Dalzot showed me what might be the best option of all if you are a serious runner and have the money. They are called Ice Bugs and are essentially a running shoe with the cleats built into the outsole. This is what I'll try next winter.

You need to be careful doing a lot of running with cleats because it changes your stride and gait over the course of time. I tore a hip flexor by running all the time in cleats up in Anchorage a few years ago and it sidelined me for a couple months. This just before a Ranier climb :-(

Winter running certainly isn't for everybody. However, it never hurts to maintain a base heading into next running season. If anyone else has some ideas, then by all means chime in here! I've always enjoyed the silent solitude of a winter run and much prefer it to treadmill work in a gym. Try it; you just might like it! I have some great memories of running along the Coastal Trail up in Anchorage and looking up to see the shimmering Northern Lights, or rounding a bend in the trail to see a moose walking towards me. Those are memories I wouldn't trade for anything.

This and That

2011-02-01T14:34:00.012-05:00

What we call the beginning is often the end.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
- T. S. Eliot

It's been awhile since I have posted anything. We are in the thick of old man winter here in Morgantown, West Virginia and with it comes some tough running through the snow and ice (I'll write more about this topic next time). School is going great guns and I have been blessed with a stellar Linear Models class; our future is safe in their hands ;-)

I saw Sarah McLachlan a couple of weeks ago in Morgantown. Wonderful concert and display of musicianship. She pulled out all her classics but the one song that really spoke to me that evening was a beautiful acoustic rendition of "Good Enough". The closest thing I could find to it on the Internet was this old video. Take a listen if you have a minute. It's just gorgeous:

I finally got to cut my racing teeth 01/09 at the Fairmont Run to Read Half-Marathon. To say I was happy is a complete understatement. My final race time was a 1:33 which was a PR for me by over 3 minutes. While my knee was a bit angry, it bounced back nicely the next day. Really the only explanation I have for this is all the cross training, due to "Coach Beth", and the intelligent small-scale running I have done. Throw in a good dose of pent-up excitement and anger, and you have the perfect synergistic cocktail! Sooooo ... the next hurdle is to hold my breath, take another baby step, and throw the hammer down on an actual marathon. And that is exactly what I am determined to do come 02/19 at Myrtle Beach.

It's been 7 months since the surgery and I would say my knee is 90-95%. I have only one more month of PT, in the form of plyiometrics and agility drills, and then I am officially done with that. There'll also be another visit to the Cleveland Clinic in March. The only lingering aftereffects of the knee reconstruction are occasionally the articulation in my knee is not as smooth as in my other knee. This could be due to some roughness in my cartilage and I have therefore started taking the mildly controversial Osteo Bi-Flex. Also, where the screws were inserted into the tibia to attach the ACL graft gets numb and irritated. A day of rest and some Ibuprofen alleviates this.

Hope Comes With the Dawn, My Friend

2011-01-06T15:04:00.001-05:00

I love to wake up in the morning, just before the sun breaks the horizon, regardless of the weather, and head out on the trail for a run, lost in my thoughts and solitude, listening to the world waking up. There has always been something comforting for me about the dawn. It is the start of a day that has been given given to me as a gift, a day which holds the promise of new discoveries, strengthening relationships, and personal growth. It is said that the darkest hour is the one before the dawn. I find peace in the dawn because the light inevitably turns back the dark, and any worries of yesterday give way to renewed hope. Hope is a fuel that allows us to get through that darkest hour. In the words of Alexander Pope, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast."

Dawn over the beautiful Spanish Peaks wilderness of Montana.

We all experience those darkest moments before the dawn. Adversity comes, challenges pop up and for a bleak moment we lose sight of our way, we lose sight of hope. We forget that we are all really frightened little children, all of us, in a dark room, fumbling for a light switch, even though our egos temporarily allow us to camouflage our fears to those on the outside looking in. Even though we are not alone, we feel lonely. I guess this is when you have to lean on your sense of spirituality and also rely on the insurance policy known as friendship. I stand four-square with you ...

It has occurred to me recently that "dawn" manifests itself in different forms. It comes not only with the start of a new day, but with the start of a new year, a new relationship, a new job, a move to another state, the birth of a child, a commitment to whipping yourself into tip-top shape, etc. You say you are tired of looking for work? Want to be involved in an intimate relationship? Not happy with where you live? Dissatisfied with your body? Where there is adversity, there is always hope just around the bend brought to us by the flowing river we know as time. Be patient. Dawn is coming and with it comes opportunity. This is truly a wonderful aspect of life, its unpredictability. (Sidebar: I remember when I was a grad student back in Montana down to my last package of ramen noodles and found a crisp $100 bill the next morning running out in the middle of nowhere -- it's true!)

We need to view hope with a bit of caution. I could be entirely wrong, but in my opinion, merely relying on hope by itself to save the day or to alter the flow of your life is an abdication of responsibility. In a way, merely relying on hope to improve your lot in life steers perilously close to playing the role of a victim. Ben Franklin said, "He that lives upon hope will die fasting." Put another way by my long since dearly departed mother, "You can pray to God for potatoes, but you first have to grab the hoe." In other words, it is not enough to just cling to hope ... at some point, you have to take full responsibility for yourself and act upon the opportunity that hope delivers to you. Otherwise, hope becomes just another pop-psychology buzzword with no substance nor meaning. And your problems won't go away. They will only reinvent themselves again and again in other manifestations, and you will plow the same ground again and again.

So hunker down, my friend, and hold on. Be patient. Cling to hope, but be ready. The storm will pass soon enough and the sun will come out. It will then be time for you to break camp and start climbing again ...

Dawn comes at 17,200' on the West Buttress route of Denali with Mt. Foraker in the distance.

Making a Difference

2010-12-16T18:32:00.006-05:00

Who would have thought some 75 crazy people would have registered to run a 50 kilometer ultramarathon in the dead of winter in Morgantown, West Virginia? Who would have thought graduate students would wake up before dawn on the Saturday before Finals Week to provide sustenance to said 75 crazy people? That is exactly what happened last weekend as the Mason-Dixon Madness 50K got off the launching pad. A product of many, many hours of hard work on the part of myself and Dannielle Ripper, the race drew people from several different states, including Arkansas and Illinois, to name a few. We were frankly lucky to slip the race into a narrow window of beautiful weather; plus or minus 12 hours and things would have been quite different.

While the race was held all on a flat rail-trail, as long distance runners know, using the same muscle groups over and over again presents its own challenge. Furthermore, there were patches of snow on the course. Nevertheless, it really seemed as if a good time was had by all. There was a scenic, pretty course, lots of camaraderie among the runners, plenty of awesome raffle prizes to go around, and there was a ton of great food at the finish area! Got to love those Jimmy John's subs :-)

Of course, there are many people to thank for all this coming together. As time goes by, I'm sure Dannielle and I will catch up with all these fine folks via a handwritten letter, phone call, or over a beer. However, I'd like to take a minute to thank two groups in particular. First, I'd like to personally thank the runners. Whether you realize it or not, you made a difference in people's lives over the course of the next few weeks insofar as you contributed about $3,800 to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank and the Christian Help food pantry of Morgantown. I have reflected on this deeply over the past couple of days and cannot help but be reminded of the quote by Mother Teresa -- "Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person". For some reason, this seems fitting here.

Dave Frazier, of Harrisonburg, VA, on his way to his 3:32:22 overall first place finish.

Anne McAlpine, of Green Oaks, IL, doing her part to help the food banks.

Next, I'd like to give an exceptional "thanks" to the aid station workers: Chris Grant, Brian Burdi, Dave Saville, Bill Maxwell, Joey Gigliotti, Allen Pettner, Brad Logan and John Burkhart. As far as I'm concerned, these guys are men among men. It's often fast-paced work to make sure you caught that last runner's bib number while trying to open a frozen Camelbak! Those of the aforementioned that are grad students I have interacted with know that I already thought the world of you and you did nothing but elevate yourself in my eyes last Saturday.

Chris Grant gets the turnaround aid station ready in the calm before the storm!

Good times at the Uffington aid station. From left to right, Allen Pettner, Jen Wohlgamuth, Joey Gigliotti, Anthony Quesen, Sarah Quesen, and Brad Logan).

So there you have it in a nutshell. Working to put together an ultramarathon is truly a Promethean task. But the task is made so much easier when a bunch of people come together to make something good happen. It is always easy to bitch about something -- a bill yet to be paid, the car that needs fixed, and the raise you never seem to get at work. What I learned over the years is that just when you you think you have problems, out in the world there will be a million people that will gladly take tickets to switch your problems with their problems. In a second, no less. Take a walk down to your local food bank as evidence of this. Humbly I submit, those at the race last Saturday can all feel a few minutes of satisfaction over what transpired.

The Last Race of 2010

2010-11-28T19:09:00.001-05:00

Last Thursday, my friends Conrad, Sarah, and I, and their very cool son Anthony, piled in the van and headed into downtown Pittsburgh for the annual Turkey Trot run, held in a bone-chilling rain. At 5.5 months post-op, this was going to be my first true test of the success of my ACL surgery. With tongue-in-cheek and some stubbornness, I also decided THIS was to be the last race of 2010, not the Capon Valley 50K I did back in May!

Evidently, things are on schedule with my recovery. I felt physically strong. There was no tentativeness loading the knee and cutting on it. Mentally, I was thrilled to be throwing the throttle open. I kept visualizing how strong the knee was as I ran along and was silently thrilled to feel the burn in my lungs again. When I came around to the finish line, I was sincerely emotional and humbled. All the hours of therapy, all my insecurities and doubts, were washed away in a simple race that I ran solely for me.

My official finish time was 36:17. My Garmin had the course at 5.21 miles and claimed I was moving along at an average (moving) pace of 7:03 (6:58) (in fact, to my complete surprise, this was good enough for first place in my age group).

I understand that, at 46, my fastest runs are probably behind me. I understand that there is a bell-curve of talent in running and that my times would be laughed at by those who reside out in the left-tail of said curve. I understand that I completed the Pittsburgh Turkey Trot fun run, not the Olympics. I understand that a knee reconstruction would be close to last in a list of problems people are facing on a daily basis all over the world. But my gosh did that feel good!

Formal physical therapy sessions ended about 2 weeks ago. For the next 3.5 months, Rob has me doing a 30 minute "trail runner's routine" twice a week that consists of plyiometrics and agility drills.

I have been swimming three times a week, one of which is a formal lesson with Beth. As of now, I am working on everything from speed to endurance to flip turns. The progress is coming but it is slow going. I'll just keep patiently practicing technique and form and do as much learning as I can.

Beth has completely reconfigured my weight lifting; that is to say, now I'll be doing things the right way. I have been doing two whole body routines a week incorporating a myriad of routines. Again, technique and form are important here. Already, the joints in my upper body feel better.

Finally, I have managed to get to a point where I am running 18 miles a week. But the wind direction is starting to change. Next week, I'll reconfigure my running schedule towards the classic 3-run mid-week pyramid with a Friday rest and a weekend "long run". Rather than the short workouts on Tuesday and Thursday being junk miles, I plan on incorporating tempo runs, and fartlick speed work (hill repeats have to wait).

Now that the "return to racing" box is checked, I can start daydreaming about the next rung on the ladder. I don't know where this is all heading because I don't know what my knee is capable of withstanding. Given no big setbacks, I believe a fun-filled racing schedule is on the horizon for next year. All I can do is try to be the best runner I can be, and take it one hour at a time ...

There is much to be thankful for in my life as we end the Thanksgiving holiday; my sister and her family, great friends, improving health, a job I love, and on and on.

ACL recovery - 4.5 month post op

2010-10-28T11:20:00.001-04:00

I've been derelict in maintaining this blog since I've been very busy at work and in other affairs (more on that momentarily). Fall is in the air. My favorite time of the year.

With fall comes football season! I had the pleasure ('er, displeasure?) of seeing my beloved West Virginia University Mountaineers lose to Syracuse. Nevertheless, it was cool hanging out at the stadium and watching the marching band form the outline of the state.

Fall is also a time for some runs. As I mentioned previously, a couple buddies had some ultras on their dockets. Conrad Quesen (below) did a great job running his first 50-miler ever at Tussey Mountainback. I even had the opportunity to pace him for 4 miles. By the way, that's his son Anthony, front and center, in the picture below. I'm the guy lagging behind on the right :-)

The next day, Eric Ripper (below) completed his first 100-miler at Oil Creek. Congratulations to him on this huge accomplishment! It was an interesting experience getting to observe it. Thanks for letting me watch you do this, Eric!

The old knee is slowly coming along. I've still been doing PT three times a week and swimming under the tutelage of Beth Byron. In fact, Beth, being a strength and conditioning coach at West Virginia University, is completely retooling my workout regimen. This will be interesting because of a couple of reasons. First, I am a bit of a control freak (gulp!). Second, it feels like I've been battling chronic, nagging injury this summer above and beyond my knee. I suspect this is due to a number of reasons -- age, overtraining, very infrequent rest days, improper technique, etc. I'm looking forward to seeing how this all plays out. In fact, I'm taking a rest day today ... and already feeling anxious about it!

My runs are now up to 5 miles three times a week. In the past, I've always preferred to run alone but I've been running a lot lately with Joey Gigliotti. Joey is a 26-year-old solid slab who spends lots of time in boxing gyms, weight rooms, etc. Suffice it to say, Joey keeps me honest and makes sure that I am not "mailing in" my runs. In addition to being a wonderful person, he's also working on a Ph.D. in Nutrition so we have these very cool conversations.

Finally, I want to take this brief opportunity to plug a race to be held in Morgantown, WV on December 11. It's called the Mason-Dixon Madness 50K. I won't get into the details about the race here; those are well laid out for you when you visit the website. There are a couple of things I will say. First, this is my first attempt at being a so-called race director (RD) and I am in shock at the sheer amount of work involved. Actually, I am a co-RD. The other co-RD is Dannielle Ripper (Eric's wife) who is a model of drive, organization, and management. Without her, this race would have no chance of being held this year. Secondly, Dannielle and I decided to donate most of the proceeds to two local food banks. This is for a great cause in this stale economy of ours and we are hopeful for a good turnout. So spread the word and help those in need!

ACL recovery - 4 month post op

2010-10-09T12:22:00.001-04:00

I have nothing terribly exciting to say today except that it has been 4 months to the day that I had my surgery. Being that I have had various people email me that they are actually following my recovery I decided to zip off a quick post.

My visit to the Cleveland Clinic was uneventful. Jack Andrish and I discussed what the plan will be for the next couple of months and we decided I don't have to come back until December. He said it was all systems go but to watch the swelling.

Last week was the last time I'll see the PT for one month. Apparently, Rob Acciavatti felt I was ready to go it alone for awhile with the rehab program he designed for me and I couldn't disagree. The program consists of 3 days a week of intensive strength training with weights and lots of plyometrics exercises.

My runs still consist of 3-mile runs (9 min./mile pace) on the rail-trail but next week I will kick it up to 4-miles.

Every swim practice yields a thimble full of progress; it is a tough sport. Beth Byron has been very patient and supportive every Monday night as she paces up and down the pool watching me try my best. I swim at least two times before practice to work on some aspect of my technique. Lately, I have been trying to concentrate on my stroke and breathing. For example, I'll do ten 50 m swims with 45 second rests concentrating on "pulling" myself through the water, carefully watching the position of my hands and elbows.

After I am done with any of these activities, my knee does feel a little sore but it is nothing major. Sometimes I get concerned because the articulation of the joint does not feel smooth. It's almost as if I feel some "roughness", or bumps, when I bend the knee. I have no idea if this is normal or not. Also, the initial area where the hamstring tendon was cut is still numb; it'll take a long time for those severed nerves to find each other again.

In closing, next weekend I have a couple friends running big races: Conrad Quesen will be doing the Tussey Mountainback 50M and Eric Ripper will be doing the Oil Creek 100M. Here's hoping this week is as relaxing as it can be for both of them.

ACL recovery - 3.5 month post op

2010-09-26T18:02:00.001-04:00

The last several days, I feel like I have withstood the initial rigors of my knee reconstruction and have finally turned the corner in terms of recovery. This morning I tried a 3-mile run with some rolling hills and felt pretty good. Once again, I kept it at an easy 9 minute-per-mile pace. In fact, I feel so good that I am about to head over to the pool and get in some practice on my freestyle stroke. My intention is to do two more of these runs this week and see what happens. I am due back to the the Cleveland Clinic on Thursday for a checkup.

Some people have asked how the knee feels and I just tell them it feels "tight", almost as if there were a tensioner in my knee that someone had ratcheted up. On occasion, I'll feel a pop or shift as a tendon seeks its alignment. I can only hopefully assume that there will come a day where my left knee will operate as smoothly as my right one.

As far as my lower body weight lifting routine, I am now moving about as much weight for most exercises as I was prior to the injury. The big exception, of course, would be the seated leg extension exercise. Last week, Rob and I took baseline measurements for the Y Balance Test. We keep increasing the weights and the difficulty of the PT exercises. All cone drills look good so far including the karaoke and the side-to-side movement. Swimming is coming along very slowly but that really doesn't have anything to do with my knee.

When this all first happened, I was concerned that my running days might be over or at the very least, greatly curtailed. Age has never been a limit I have placed on myself whatsoever and those of you that know me surely would agree that this is true. However, being 46, I had no idea of the effect age would have on my recovery. I understand that those PR running times are going to become increasingly precious commodities. I also realize that I have a ways to go before I get back on the trail but what is important is that I now BELIEVE that I will be back racing by January of 2011. If this morning was any harbinger of things to come, then watch out because I am about to unleash a lot of positive energy and love into the world.

Finally, I forgot to mention where I did my run this morning. My sister Lauren, brother-in-law Randy and I went down to the New River Gorge in West Virginia yesterday to see if there were any autumn colors out. It seems like we are about two weeks away. Nevertheless, the scenery and beauty of the area offered a nice 24-hour respite from work. The view from Grandview Point is something I could stare at for hours ...

ACL recovery - 3 months post op ... and beautiful southern Virginia

2010-09-10T17:36:00.001-04:00

It's hard to believe that 3 months have flown by since the surgery. I've done several "walk 3 miles/run 1 mile" routines since my last entry and the knee seems to be holding together. It does complain a little bit if I get after business at a swimming lesson but so far all systems are a go. Next week, I'll start doing 2 mile runs. These are done on flat rail-trail and at an easy 9 minute/mile pace. My lower body weight routine is picking up to the point where I am nearing the weights I was doing prior to the surgery on some of my exercises. Rob has me doing plyometrics galore now as we make our way into the advanced training phase of the MOON protocol. In fact, Rob told me the end of our time together is in sight and he'll turn it all over to me. Beth has me working on increasing my endurance in the pool, by occasionally switching to a 5:1 freestyle stroke, and I am now starting to work on open turns. It seems crazy that only a couple of months ago, Beth had to enter the kid's pool with me to teach me how to put my head underwater! Finally, Jack Andrish has clearly spelled out a logical running program leading to a release date of December 9th that will culminate in my being "race-ready" by next spring. Of course, there are many variables that play into this.

Over the holiday, I had the opportunity to head down to southern Virginia to "slackpack" Mike and Dave Frazier, as they continue their Appalachian Trail thru-hike, from the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area on into the town of Damascus. If you've never had the experience of seeing southern Virginia, particularly in the fall, then you are really missing out. Several times I've been asked what was my favorite part of the Appalachian Trail when I thru-hiked it several years ago. Undoubtedly, I would say southern Virginia, particularly the Grayson Highlands. It is gorgeous ...

The boys and I had a great day. The sun was out, the temperature was in the low 70s, people were out biking the Virginia Creeper Trail. Mint, I tell 'ya. I tooled up and down the J. E. B. Stuart Highway (can you tell you're in the South?!) tracking their progress as best as I could and got some easy hiking in on some of the more benign portions of the Appalachian Trail. The boys gave me the honor of running the last mile into Damascus with them. After arriving into town, we got situated at a hostel whereupon the kind proprietor offered to do the boys' laundry and let them wear some old hospital scrubs in the interim. So we wandered down to a semi-famous outdoor gear shop to do some window shopping before dinner. It was a great way to round out the day. Mike, clad in a set of hospital scrubs, watching Dave and I having an air jam session to Iron Maiden blaring in Mount Rogers Outfitters.

About 480 miles to go, boys. Steady on!

An Ultra And The First Mile Back ...

2010-09-04T15:10:00.002-04:00

With school starting, I've been really busy and a little behind on catching up. Recently, there were two interesting events that occurred.

Without getting into too much detail, last Saturday I found myself waking up at a crisp 4 am at a motel in Punxsutawney, PA getting ready to run crew for what turned out to be several runners in the Baker Trail UltraChallenge, a three-part series of 50-mile ultramarathons held on the Baker Trail in central Pennsylvania (each year one of the 3 parts is run). It was an exciting, albeit long day.

When you run crew, you sit at the aid stations, or some point on the trail, and scan the horizon patiently, waiting ... and waiting ... and then there's a flurry of activity when the runner comes in. "Did you want something to eat?" "Need fresh socks?" "Want some Endurolytes?" "How's your body feeling?" Then, with map in hand, you hop in your car and it's a quick dash to a point 4-5 miles down the trail -- and you repeat the process over and over again, as long as is necessary until your runner gets to the finish line. Biding your time, reading a bit, strumming the guitar, chatting with the aid station volunteers about where they're from and how they ended up doing the same thing you're doing, sipping that now ice-cold coffee you picked up at Sheetz hours ago. And you worry too because you so desperately want to see all your friends succeed, to finish, really.

One of the things I like the most about going to running races is that you meet so many kind, motivated people. That turned out to be the case here as well and without further ado here are some notables. I bumped into Eric Ripper, on and off, for the first several aid stations but he's an ultra veteran so he hardly needed anything but words of encouragement from me. He finished the race in fine shape. Steve Wendell, a really nice guy, finished the race and it turns out this gave him the trifecta; that is, he has successfully completed all three ultras in the challenge. As with Eric, Steve looked good the entire race, commenting only that he was concentrating on taking care of his body when I saw him at the aid stations. I had the privilege of cheering for Tom Parenti and his partner. Then there was the case of Lou Rocco. Lou is a personal trainer, has completed an Ironman, and was looking for a new conquest, so he signed up to do this ultra. In the early part of the race, he was battling a knee problem (a topic all too familiar to me!). Nevertheless, he "manned up" and fought his way to the finish line -- impressive! He had really good crew support with his wife, his friend Stephanie, and his other friend, the affable Aimee Jim, who I had the pleasure of chatting with at many aid stations.

However, I saved the best for last. I predominantly ran crew for my friend Dannielle Ripper, Eric's wife. I could write a tome here about this but I'm not going to because Dannielle has done me the favor of recounting her experience in a local running club's newsletter. Running an ultramarathon can sometimes take you on this emotional roller coaster, particularly if you are a spirited, passionate individual. I know I have yo-yoed between joy and pain, unbridled ecstasy and crushing defeat, laughter and tears. There have been times where I have really felt not much at all. There have been times where "The Dragon" has come into my mind somewhere around mile 42 to wreak havoc on my psyche and to magnify every insecurity I have about myself and my running, trying as hard as it can to get me to stop. And all I can do, hunkered down in the deep, dark cave of my desperate mind, is stare upwards at The Dragon with my pocket knife willing myself to battle. I have felt anger at myself, clapping spectators, old college professors, and ex-girlfriends. There are also times where a switch is thrown and I feel utterly invincible and that absolutely nothing can stop me ... nothing. I could be entirely wrong, but if I had to fathom a guess, and given our similar dispositions, I'd say Dannielle fought The Dragon this race, and I am very proud to say Dannielle finished and "won" ...

Last Sunday, on a hot, beautiful evening in Pittsburgh down at Washington's Landing, at about 6 pm, for the first time since the Capon 50K (May 8), I broke out into a full run and ran my first mile in about 3.5 months, 2.5 months since the ACL reconstruction. Over the past few weeks, there have been moments where I wondered what it would be like, and what I would feel. Would there be tears of joy? Would I crumple to the ground in pain? Well, I'm here to say there was no drama. There were no trumpets playing. There was no pain nor swelling in the knee. Conrad Quesen, a hell of a guy who is training for the Tussey Mountainback Ultramarathon, trotted alongside me, engaging me in pleasant, diversionary conversation. Behind us were Conrad's wife, Sarah, and their 11-year-old son, Anthony. Sarah ... the friend who did my grocery shopping and checked my mail at the post office when I could barely make it up my apartment stairs ... the friend who texted me every night to make sure I was alright ... the friend who ate dinner with me to keep me company ... the friend who led while others disappeared. All was right with the world on my one-mile run ... my goosebumps and a smile from ear to ear ... the sun going down past the river ... the feel and the crunch of gravel underneath my feet ... Conrad and me, Sarah and me, Anthony and me.

ACL recovery - 2.5 month post op

2010-08-20T12:16:00.001-04:00

As of today, I still feel like I am taking slow, steady steps forward in my recovery. The biggest problem has been BOREDOM from doing the same PT routine over and over again, day after day. My knee feels tight and occasionally there will be a "pop" as the knee cap seeks to track correctly again. There is also a numb area where they went in to harvest the hamstring tendon. Unfortunately, there is a chance I may never recover sensation there. PT now consists of a wide array of strengthening exercises from the Moon protocol along with an increasing number of runner-oriented plyometric exercises. I am jumping and hopping (with one and two legs), perching and lunging on pieces of foam, balancing on balls, etc, etc. It is a full-blown workout, in every sense of the word, taking about 1.5 hours.

Below are pictures of the inside of my knee from the Cleveland Clinic. In the first row, first column you can actually see one of the scopes moving around. As was explained to me by Julia, we like to see things looking pearly white. In the second row, first column (notice the labels), the meniscus looks good; that is, it's pearly white and intact. In the first row, second column, you can see the cartilage on the head of the femur looks a bit gray. This phenomenon is known as AGE and there's nothing a person can do about that! (Fortunately, I was told this wearing is really not attributed to my running.) The last row shows pictures of my new ACL. Let's hope she "takes"!

I know the following will sound like either a.) a fabrication, or b.) hypochondria rearing its ugly head, but my right shoulder started bothering me a few weeks ago. Gadzooks! Finally, I went to see Dr. Matt Lively up at the WVU Hospital about it yesterday because it kept getting worse. Apparently, I "pushed" so hard on the upper-body weights and swimming over the past several weeks in an attempt to compensate for my ACL injury that I brought on a case of Shoulder Impingement Syndrome. Imagine my PT Rob's surprise when an embarrassed me came in last night and presented him with a prescription from Dr. Lively to draw up a small program for my right shoulder! The goal here will be to strengthen the rotator cuff particularly since I will be doing a lot of swimming. I don't think either of us are surprised this happened and I plan to keep a watchful eye on this.

The swimming is slowly progressing. Over the past week, I have finally been able to do my first freestyle laps ever, both in and out of the deep end. At the end of a swimming session, my knee definitely complains a bit from all the kicking. What is the bigger issue is each time I swim a lap, my heart races to the point where I feel likes it's going to explode. It's indescribably exhausting and unpleasant; almost as if I'm suffocating. There was a moment awhile back where I questioned whether I should continue but I decided to stick with it. If I can just mentally relax and get the breathing down, then I have a shot at not only swimming for distance but also enjoying it!

So the journey continues. I like to think of this summer as the "Summer of Support". Moreover, it is a summer to support and laud the accomplishments of my friends and acquaintances. I stop to reflect on Mike Saad and his huge bike rides and Eric and Dannielle Ripper as they tear up their ultramarathons. There's Teri Landrum hiking the Grand Canyon and Eric Grol getting ready to run the difficult Wasatch 100. Of course, Mike and Dave Frazier are hiking the Appalachian Trail. Mary Kreis is gearing up for an Ironman while Sarah Quesen looks forward to the Big Shoulders Swim. I hope I didn't forget to mention too many others ...

I also support and laud the accomplishments of others that really matter. My cousin Harold has valiantly fought cancer against grim odds for a year now, Mike and Dave's brother Robert is going to serve in Afghanistan (so all of us can continue to play), and my sister Lauren Weaver has spent a huge amount of time in Race for the Cure, the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, among other cancer support organizations. Bravo!!!

That's the view from here for this week.

A day on the Appalachian Trail with Mike and Dave

2010-08-13T21:16:00.003-04:00

While in the past several weeks I have extensively blogged about my ACL recovery, this week I am going to do something different and focus my energy on two special guys in the midst of an incredible journey -- Mike and Dave Frazier.

One morning last winter, I met Mike working out at the WVU Student Rec Center. He noticed I was wearing a shirt from the Highland Sky run, came up to me, and struck up a conversation (he had also run the race). During the conversation, he told me that him and his brother Dave intending on hiking the entire Appalachian Trail (AT) this summer, a so-called "thru hike". This was music to my ears, and Mike and I became friends from that point on. We met a few times for dinner to go over gear and food lists and talk about stuff that hikers talk about. My initial impression of Mike was that he was a very nice guy with a quiet determination and a big heart, an impression that turned out to be spot on.

The day came and went earlier this summer when the two brothers departed Maine heading south for Georgia. It is vital here to understand the sheer enormity of what these two guys are doing. Sometimes I am unfortunately guilty of patting myself on the back for running an ultramarathon, but the reality is that many people have run ultramarathons and, given enough training, many people can and will run ultramarathons. The same holds true for century bike rides, triathlons, and almost any other sporting event you could think of really. While I would obviously never minimize accomplishing any of the aforementioned (I hope to do a triathlon someday!) and they are all great accomplishments in their own right, the pain involved with participating in any of these events is relatively short-lived. For example, I know that when I toe the starting line of a 50-mile ultra, at the end of the day, a pizza, a beer, and a warm bed await me. However, the AT is a different sort of challenge.

What would you do if I told you that you were about to hike approximately 83 marathons pretty much in a row? And that you had to do it with a 30-pound pack on your back? Now let's up the ante and add in long stretches of rugged, mountainous terrain. You say you ran out of water a few miles back? Well, there ain't no race aid stations out on the AT so you better suck on a piece of hard candy and think about something else besides how parched you are. Are the bloody blisters on your feet bothering you? Too damn bad; keep walking. It's been raining for several straight days and all your gear is soaked through? You can pray for the rain to stop that evening as you lie in your wet sleeping bag. In summary, what Mike and Dave are doing is tough ... really tough.

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to see the guys as they winged their way south. Their friend Mary Kreis and I met them just outside of Duncannon, Pennsylvania shortly after sunup on Sunday. What with my knee still healing, I did the next best thing I could do to help the guys; that is, I took their packs so that they could hike without them and I drove "sag wagon" support. While Mary hiked/ran with them, I periodically met the trio every 5-to-8 miles at strategic road crossings with water and plenty of food that Mary and I had brought along. What a truly wonderful day it was! I had a chance to review a nettlesome manuscript that had been sitting on my desk at work, play my guitar, chat with other hikers, etc. Every couple of hours, here they'd come trotting out of the woods with smiles on their faces ready to tell the tale of what they had seen in the previous section of trail. All told, about 38 miles were covered as we ended the day at Boiling Springs.

What is the point of recounting all this? The energy of this day made my week. It felt good to feel like I was helping others rather than focusing on my own self-pity brought on by my knee surgery. For this, I am humbly grateful to Mike and Dave for letting me share in their vision quest. Life is so spectacularly beautiful and its truths are stranger than fiction. We do not know the reasons our paths are intertwined nor do we know what the future holds in store for us. But if my claim that we were put on the earth to push each other forward, to simply help each other enjoy the pleasures of life and get through the pains of life is even remotely correct, then I definitely felt that sense of kindred last Sunday. And this was the first time I ever met Dave!

Towards the end of day, Mary graciously spelled me on the sag wagon and gave me the opportunity to walk a few miles with the guys (I swear, Doc, it was only "a few" and they were level!). I did not sense any ego. I did not sense any machismo. What I did sense was a simple, innocent joy in hiking amidst the typical hiker chatter. There was no angst over bills yet to be paid, no talk of unrequited love, no worry about what the future might bring. There was talk of hope, of dreams, of adventures, of their commitment to the Wounded Warrior Project, their love for their family, of mountains to be climbed, and more trails to be hiked. In a word, awesome ...

I am glad you are and forever will be my friends, Mike and Dave. You've been a beacon of light for me this summer. And if "The Effect of a Flaxseed Oil Enhanced Diet on the Product Quality of Farmed Brook Trout Fillets" ever gets published, then you will be at least indirectly responsible. This is your time, brother hikers, to rise up! You're over halfway there! Shine! YAHOOOOOO!

ACL recovery - 2 month post op ... and beautiful Vancouver

2010-08-06T18:30:00.002-04:00

I just got back in from beautiful Vancouver, Canada late last night. While I am not a city person exactly, I do enjoy a quick in-and-out visit on occasion. Compared to my trip to Montgomery, Alabama last week, this was quite a contrast, no offense intended to all you southerners out there. If you like cities, Vancouver is a chic, cosmopolitan hub of activity as is the impression I got a priori watching the Olympics. There's no end to things to do if you like urban adventure. Out along the waterfront lies Stanley Park, a runner's dream or even just a nice place for a relaxing walk. Ethnic restaurants, shops, and cultural exhibits abound on every block. I enjoyed walking among the towering thicket of skyscrapers and feeling the energy and seeing the bustling vibe. Hell, I even stayed at a hostel off of the "never sleeps" Granville District to get the complete immersion into city life. There were lots of nice, young kids from all over the world hanging out with their backpacks. Kinda' cool ... I posted a link on this blog to a few pictures; I might add some more later on.

Oh yeah, the ACL recovery. Well, we are fully engaged in Phase III of the Moon protocol now. I was joking with Rob today that his workout is slowly starting to build to a full-blown lower body gym routine I would do if I were completely healthy, and it hasn't even been two months from surgery! Virtually every exercise involves weights and it seems like the weight increases with every visit. Balance exercises are now wickedly difficult. We have also added in jumping, and hopping routines. So far, I have had no problems when I am done for the day with physical therapy.

While in Vancouver, I went for a level 6 mile bike ride out at Stanley Park with my friends Julia and Ben Sharp. My knee felt tight afterward, though I probably went overboard on the walking while I was there.

My swimming lessons are now starting to test me ... seriously. I have yet to do an unassisted freestyle lap but I get the sense that the day is coming when I "lose my virginity". Beth did a great job today mixing up laps with the pull buoy and the kickboard. Yes, kickboard! Recall, I was given permission in my recent doctor's visit to flutter kick. I am still learning how to alternate breath when I am in the water but that will come with time as I get more comfortable. Eventually, all this will get tied together and I won't be so tentative with my knee.

There are two articles I stumbled onto via the Internet that are worth mentioning. The first article is is a blurb from a medical journal that essentially concludes, "An early return to vigorous activities is not recommended in patients undergoing ACLRs (anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction) with hamstring grafts." While there are some statistical details I take issue with, I think the take-home message is clear: push your recovery, and you will more than likely have poor ACL stability shortly thereafter. The second article, from Science Daily, is a bit more positive. Its take-home message is that 15 years after ACLR, 84% of male patients are still highly active. It should be noted that the study focused on those ACLRs with a patellar reconstruction.

Well that's the view from here today. Best of luck to Beth Byron and Sarah Quesen in the Morgantown Triathlon this Sunday!

ACL recovery - 1.75 month post op

2010-07-30T14:46:00.022-04:00

This post will be rather long so I apologize in advance. I have a few things I wanted to talk about.

Rob says my progress is moving along nicely. The tenor of the PT routine has really picked up. Starting earlier this week, Rob added in some new wrinkles, like agility drills, that have made the routine longer and much harder. Most of the exercises involve the use of weights. In fact, I'm really cracking a sweat now! Also, Rob has modified several exercises to simulate the sorts of stressors a trail runner will encounter. For example, it's one thing to do lunges with dumbbells. However, it is an entirely different thing to do them when you have to plant your lead foot on a wobbly piece of styrofoam (I think trail runners sometimes are not aware of all the sorts of twisting and torque they are imposing on their body when they run ... until they are unfortunately injured).

I am still battling through small hamstring pulls. I didn't know this, but Rob explained to me that they didn't just excise a small portion of hamstring tendon. On the contrary, Rob showed that they took out what looked to be a 6-to-9 inch long bundle that wrapped back around underneath my knee. In fact, they have a tool that looks like a plumber's snake to do this. That is why the main incision on my knee is remarkably small.

After my morning workout yesterday, I headed up to the Cleveland Clinic for my checkup with Dr. Jack Andrish and his colleague Julia Brasfield.

These two folks are wonderful medical professionals and people, a point that my closest friends are probably tired of hearing me make. I do not know if anyone ever reads this blog but I would say that if I was ever asked what is the one thing that an active person with an ACL injury could do to increase their chances of a successful recovery, it would be to get the best medical treatment you possibly can. I will save the tale of how I "discovered" Jack for a future post. For now, suffice it to say the Internet can be a wonderful tool. After hours of research, there was no doubt in my mind who I wanted to do the operation and lead my recovery. Yes, it is a pain in the ass to get second opinions, and to get involved in a battle royale with your insurance company because your health care provider is out-of-state, or "out-of-network", to use the vernacular of an insurance representative. Resolve to pay the extra money and DO IT! Think of it this way: what price would you pay for several extra years of running or hiking, say, if you were told you could never do it again?

So what did I discover up at the clinic? All systems are go as of now! The popping I occasionally hear in my knee is probably nothing more than my knee cap adjusting to a different tracking. Jack is not a fan of treadmills for ACL recovery. I believe he said it has something to do with the biomechanics but don't quote me on that one. Alas, my return to running (and spinning) will be delayed for one month. However, the good news is that I can increase the mileage for my walks. In fact, I can increase my mileage incrementally until I hit 4 miles one month from now. As for swimming, I am now allowed to flutter kick (when I get to that point!) but whip kicking is definitely out of the question. What about biking? I can do stationary biking pretty much on an unlimited basis and I have also been given clearance for road biking as long as I don't use toe clips/clipless pedals. Other big news concerns my lower body weight routine; I am now allowed to make reasonable use of my twig of a "bad" leg. Thank God! Of course, it will take me awhile to build up equitable strength in both legs. Any sort of seated leg extension or other similar weight-bearing exercise that puts my knee into the so-called "open chain" form is strictly off limits because the shear force would be maximized on the ACL graft with potentially disastrous consequences. Finally, Jack recommended I incorporate a set each of abductor and gluteal exercises to stabilize the hip joint. Done! :-)

Swimming is coming along very nicely! As unpleasant as they looked, I am happy to say that today I did 8 laps freestyle with the pull buoy, something that would have been almost unimaginable a couple of months ago for a guy who was afraid to put his head under the water. Thank you Beth Byron. Wow! I think I am really going to like swimming and it is an excellent form of cross training. I have a buddy, Ken Boike, who is an exercise physiologist. He's always told me to "work the entire slab" and has espoused the virtues of cross training for runners. I think I've discovered through this injury that he's on to something.

Finally, if you ever have a chance, try working out with resistance bands. After several hours on the Internet doing some research, I bought a resistance band kit a couple of weeks ago: the Terrell Owens Super Strong Man Bodylastics Set. Before you curl up on the floor laughing, I can assure you that if you properly use them you will get every bit the workout you would in a gym. Last weekend I went to Alabama and this weekend I'm heading off to Vancouver. Rather than hoping the hotel has some crappy, beaten Bowflex machine, it's easy to slip some bands in your suitcase and work out in your hotel room. if you've never used resistance bands before, confuse your muscles a bit and give them a try!

That's the view from here for now. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

-- Phil

ACL recovery - 1.5 month post op

2010-07-21T09:36:00.020-04:00

Time for an update of my "diary" ...

Next week I am due for another trip to the Cleveland Clinic to see Jack and Julia. Frankly, I am nervous because I am now in the "danger zone" I had talked about several posts ago regarding the structural integrity of the graft. It's time to remain focused.

Things are all business the past several visits with Rob and his colleagues over at Dynamic. They are wonderful people. I come in, the Tour de France is on the television for that extra bit of motivation, and I have done the routine so many times by now that it's as if I go into autopilot. Lunges? Check. Time on the bike? Check. Squats? Check. And on it goes ...

A sports medicine doctor at Dynamic told me yesterday that I was doing really well. There's been some talk lately that I might be getting closer to some spurts of light running on a treadmill and some new agility exercises. I try not to think about this too much because I don't want to become too excited and not have it happen for some reason. Rob said on my cardio days I can bump up my walking to 1.5 miles along with cranking out 20 minutes on the stationary bike; at least that's something, right!?

I have been asked what rehabilitation protocol I am following. It's called the MOON ACL Rehabilitation Program. The program is built up in five sequential phases where both time and patient progression are used to determine the pace of recovery. Right now, I am just getting ready to look at starting Phase 3.

Swimming lessons are going well. Yesterday, Sarah Quesen (a great swimmer, by the way) told me that I have been using the term "pool buoy" wrong. It's "pull buoy", because you use the buoy to "pull" your lower body through the water. Here's what one looks like:

Yesterday was an interesting day in the pool. Beth (the swim coach) had me squeeze the pull buoy between my legs and dog paddle the entire lap of the pool. This includes the vaunted deep end which I had never been in. With her encouragement pacing the side of the pool, I was able to do it but I was stressed out enough that I think I had the pull buoy squeezed down to a wafer by the time I completed the lap! Later, we even tried some freestyle swimming with the pull buoy. I think I was good for 6 yards - ha! Try it, all you swimmers, if you never have. It's tiring! I wonder what this "swimming" will be like when I can actually use my legs?

I've been surprised at the amount of time all this is taking on any given day. Somedays I am rehabbing/exercising for easily over three hours. However, as I just told a student this morning, my health and recovery come first and that's just the way it will have to be this summer and fall.

ACL recovery - 1.25 month post op ... and then some

2010-07-14T09:35:00.023-04:00

Well, the recovery regimen keeps bumping up in length and intensity. For example, we've added more strength exercises and bumped up the ankle weight to 5 lbs. Yesterday, I pitched the compression wrap and only took a couple Ibuprofen. Every day I feel stronger. This morning I walked a mile down by the river and felt fine. I then went to the gym and after my PT routine I did 20 minutes on the stationary bike! This is a big step in the right direction because I can now finally get in at least a semblance of a true cardio workout.

In a few hours, I will head to the pool in my quest to learn how to swim. Unfortunately, I still can't use my legs but I can use a pool buoy. The swim coach Beth Byron is outstanding and has the patience of Job :-)

This morning I felt a bit distressed not having been able to attempt my first 100M this summer, i.e., the Mohican. It has now been two months since I last ran (The Capon Valley 50K). The past several days I have been reflecting back on that race.

It was wonderful to be out there at the start with the grey storm clouds, the wind blowing, and the rain trickling down my face. At that point in time, there would have been no other place I would have rather been. Dannielle Ripper and I started off together the first couple of miles before we parted company. The first aid station passed. Then another. Then another. I ended up bumping into Eric Ripper and we ran together for a considerable distance. The scenery was really nice and Eric and I were having such an enjoyable conversation that the miles just zipped on by. Finally, the sun broke free just about the time I knew I could finish ... it was quite emotional ... I felt overcome with gratitude for I knew that this would be the last race for many months.

I set no PR that day but I discovered that I am really blessed to have some good friends that have been and are a solid support system. I also realized that there is something about the heart of a long-distance runner. It does not matter how much pain, mentally or physically, you are in. It does not matter if the external forces of life have seemed to have conspired against you. When I am running I feel safe living only in the moment where time is measured only by my footfall. My mind becomes a blank palette and I focus occasionally only on the rhythm of my breathing. And all is right with the world after a good run ...

I patiently wait for that first mile back.

ACL recovery - 1 month post op

2010-07-07T10:59:00.006-04:00

I was reminded by my surgeon Jack this week to take it slow and not push. It's good to get these reminders from time to time because it's easy to become seduced into picking up the pace of recovery.

All this being said, Rob picked up the pace. We are adding more and more weights into my 2-a-day routine.

This morning, after my routine, I finally entered the pool again. Jack told me that this is ok as long as I do not use my legs! Yikes. Therefore, I did some "resistance" walking in the pool, and doggy paddled several laps using only my arms. I actually felt challenged and it certainly beats the hand cycle! I think it's time to bring the swim coach into the mix.

I'm happy to report the swelling and tightness in the knee has greatly subsided. Let's hope it stays that way. I'm looking forward to a nice, leisurely one mile walk along the river tonight ...

ACL recovery - 3 weeks post op

2010-07-01T16:21:00.015-04:00

I just got back from visiting Jack and his colleague Julia Brasfield at the Cleveland Clinic. The stitches were removed and some new x-rays were taken. Following are some random thoughts I have about the visit and the recovery in general:

#1. I tried to get off the Demerol and Ibuprofen as soon as possible after the surgery. I might have been on the former for about three days and the later for a week? The reasons are a.) I humbly submit I have a fairly high pain tolerance; b.) I believe it can mask other problems, and; c.) I don't like pills, in general.

This being said, there is still some swelling in the knee that Jack said could impede progress in my recovery. So, to get rid of the "boggy" knee and to get it looking like the other one, I will take moderate daily amounts of Ibuprofen for the next two weeks, hit the knee with ice at night, and wear a compression wrap.

#2. I am convinced my diet has and will greatly facilitate my recovery. While I am not nearly as militant as I once was, I still do eat a ton of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and try to avoid junk as much as I can. My friend Sarah Quesen keeps me on the honest path about this.

#3. My PT Rob explained the following to me (I am paraphrasing here). The ACL has been replaced by a tendon. Your body "knows" the purpose of this "thing" is to do the things a ligament would do. Therefore, starting at about 6 weeks, the tendon cells die off, the graft is vascularized, and new ligament-like cells start to grow there. At this point, the graft is at its structurally weakest point. This is despite the fact that I may feel fine, the swelling is down, etc. Evidently, this whole metamorphosis takes several weeks. One false move, one yearning for "just a quick run", could sever the graft and I would be back to ground zero. Again ... Patience ... Patience ... Patience.

#4. My sister turned me onto this next tidbit. It was also independently confirmed by Rob. Taking Vitamin E capsules and rubbing them into the surgical wounds will reduce scarring.

#5. I keep getting little micro-hamstring pulls. The reason this is occurring is because of the loss of hamstring tendons used to form the graft. In effect, the muscles of my left leg have less machinery to do their work efficiently. Jack said the lost tendons will, more or less, grow back with time.

At PT this morning, we bumped up some weights and added resistance to certain exercises. That's all that's on my mind today.

ACL recovery - 16 days post op

2010-06-25T13:55:00.009-04:00

Well, it appears the "no brace, no crutches" philosophy has paid off. My strength has dramatically increased the past week. I was given clearance today by Rob to walk one mile on the rail-trail here in Morgantown. Rest assured that I will deeply appreciate this moment as I take that first step later this evening.

The PT sessions ramped up considerably today. We are phasing out some of the stretching exercises and started doing weight training. Most of this entailed simple strengthening exercises with a 2.5 lb. ankle weight but I was quite surprised to be doing reps on an extension horizontal leg press! I also spent 10 minutes on a resistance recumbent cross trainer.

We have also started incorporating balance exercises which are the most difficult type of exercise for me to date. Shoot, I would have had trouble with these even prior to my injury!

My leg has complete extension, and almost complete flexion. Walking is at about 95%, per Rob. I don't feel any real pain and the swelling in the knee has really diminished. It's off to the Cleveland Clinic on Sunday to get all my stitches removed. Yeah!

While everything is proceeding better than I and others could have ever hoped for, now is not the time to get cocky. Now is the time to develop a true sense of patience until that magical 6 month mark, for this journey has really only started.

ACL recovery - 9 days post op

2010-06-18T14:38:00.009-04:00

It has now been 9 days since I have had my ACL reconstruction surgery. Today was typical of what I can anticipate for the next couple of weeks. I was up early and at the gym by 6:00 am. I decided to do a modified upper body weight routine. The modification comes because I much prefer free weights as opposed to machines. However, my doctor (Dr. Jack Andrish of The Cleveland Clinic) understandably said he didn't like that idea and to use the machines instead. As of now, I plan on doing weights 4 times a week; twice for my upper body and twice for my good leg. Here's something I did not know. According to Jack, studies have shown the bad leg still derives a benefit from exercising only the good leg. Interesting.

Additionally, I will get in two-to-three sessions a week on a hand cycle so that I can pretend I am getting in some cardio. I don't know what other people's impressions have been of hand cycles, but this runner can go about 30 minutes before he's bored senseless.

After the routine, it was off to the physical therapist, Rob Acciavatti of Dynamic Physical Therapy in Westover, WV. I couldn't think of a physical therapist better suited to the task at hand than Rob. In addition to being a super nice guy, he is a triathlete who understands my specific needs and how important running is in my life. Rob put me through the wringer this morning for over an hour of stretching and strengthening exercises. At the end of our session, he put my knee in a machine-operated cold compression wrap for 20 minutes. Rob claims I am ahead of the curve in terms of my recovery. I left him in good spirits after booking two more appointments for next week.

Later this afternoon, it's back to the gym to repeat the stretching and strengthening exercises. I'll give the knee one last bag of ice before I hit the sack tonight and maybe pop an ibuprofen to reduce the swelling. My mental outlook remains focused, determined, and positive. At least I am walking, and have full extension of my left leg.

It has now been 6 weeks since I last ran (The Capon Valley 50K). Today I found myself gazing at the web site for the Leadville Trail 100-mile Run. Hmmm... Hey, it never hurts to dream big and have a recovery goal!

A work in progress

2010-06-18T14:35:00.001-04:00

Hello and welcome to my first attempt at creating a blog. Over the next few months, I will slowly be moving and consolidating all my personal "schtuff" to this web site. Wish me luck!