Thanks to everybody who weighed in on my little squabble last week. I knew that posting it would light a powder keg of sorts between me and the person involved, but for some reason it was hard for me to let the matter go unaddressed. However, it felt very much out of character for me to have a spat like that with someone, and even stranger still to have the whole thing play out publicly. So in an effort to drag myself out of the ditch and back onto the moral high road, I’ll probably delete that post very soon.
(Note that I said probably; it’s much easier to say “I’m taking the high road” than to actually do it. But on a related note: if you have no idea what the heck I’m talking about, or if you wanted to go back and see everyone else’s comments, you’d better hurry. I’ll give you 24 hours.)
As far as whether or not to recommend the Big Sur Marathon anymore, that’s a tough call. I respect the proposed idea of boycotting races to protest the conduct of one or more board members, but I also know (and have stated here repeatedly) that Big Sur is a one-of-a-kind marathon experience. There are certainly plenty of other events where you can spend your time and money – but if you do Big Sur, you’ll be certain that you’re getting the best the sport has to offer.
So if you ever decide to do it, have a blast. Just DON’T make any comments about the race shirt – or you’ll suffer the wrath of the board.
For today’s post, I’m moving forward by looking back: specifically, at a couple of photos from my last two races before closing the books on those events for good, and turning my focus to the races still to come.
** “Can you see me now? Move to the side a little bit so you can get a clear picture - Can you see it? Picture me rollin’ … “ - Tupac, “Picture Me Rollin’” (link after post)
In my Big Sur Marathon report, I mentioned that I often take pictures of the Marathon Foto people and send them to the company in hopes that they’ll purchase them. It’s clearly a ridiculous plan on my part, but it’s not too much further fetched than the idea that runners will pay $19.95 for a 5x7” photo of themselves. I'm continually amazed that race photography somehow remains a sustainable business model.
Anyway … nobody has sent me money yet, but there’s another goofy fringe benefit of my little practice: the “photos of me taking a photo” that get posted online after each event.
Here’s one from last weekend:
Obviously, this eliminates the possibility of my ever receiving an action shot that I’d fall in love with and want to purchase – but it’s not like this was going to happen anyway. And if my looking like an idiot makes one of the minimum wage photo reviewers smile sometime, I guess that’s reward enough for me.
The next picture is from the Diablo 50-miler, but allow me to set the stage a bit.
Most of us have been in this situation: barely hanging on during a tough stretch of a race, struggling through fatigue or cramping or severe heat or a giant climb that makes the thought of continued forward progress almost unbearable. Maybe you’ve slowed to a walk or slumped over to one side to compensate for pain on the other. Your confidence is shattered; if there were some place to hide away from it all, you’d gladly seek it out.
Then you glance a little further up the road or trail and see a photographer waiting to snap your picture, and you think, “Crap! Where were they earlier, when I felt better?”
You trudge along a bit, and finally say to yourself, “All right - I guess I’ll straighten up and jog a few steps so I don’t look like a complete loser.”
Sometimes, the results can be pretty sweet:
This was taken at some point on the climb to the Mt Diablo summit – I honestly have no idea where – and it was posted in a gallery shortly after the race. Special props to Calvin, who takes race photos, creates galleries, allows downloads and apparently does all of this for free - vaulting him to the top of my list of extremely cool people who I had no idea existed prior to this year (seriously, he’s right up there with Big B now).
With that, Diablo and Big Sur are in the rearview mirror. The Quicksilver 50M is this Saturday, and Western States is a mere seven weeks later. Training-wise, everything is right where I want it to be – and at this point, I just need to keep moving forward by any means necessary.
** As for the musical portion of this post … it’s Tupac’s rap classic mentioned above, but since the language is completely gangsta, I’m linking to it outside my blog instead of embedding it here. Feel free to get your thug on here.
"Everybody get dangerous, everybody get dangerous ... Boo-ya!” - Weezer, “Everybody Get Dangerous” (video after post)
** I guess if you’re entering a race named after the devil, there’s bound to be a bit of danger involved.
This year, it seemed like harbingers of doom were lurking around every corner and upon every hillside of the Diablo 50. Ultimately, I managed to fight through all of them and finish the race, but in some ways I’m still not sure how I did it.
The most clear and present danger that faced all the runners was the heat, which was oppressive from the very start. I knew it was a bad omen when I walked out to my car in San Francisco at 5:30 AM wearing a sweatshirt and shorts, and thought to myself, “Gosh, I feel pretty warm – I must be overdressed.” From there, it only got worse, with reports of 95 degrees from various locations on the mountain during the day.
There’s much more to say, of course … but there are also a ton of pictures to go through – so that’s the way I’ll tell the rest of the story.
View from the start line. Both the 50-mile race and the marathon were sold out, which brings up an interesting point: chances are, if you host an event that’s guaranteed to make people suffer, there’s no shortage of masochistic, obsessive-compulsive idiots who will pay money for it. Who says there aren’t any recession-proof business models anymore?
On one of the first climbs of the day, I got an early glimpse of some folks I’d see more of later on: fellow bloggers Gretchen and Rick, plus a dude (in the red shirt) by the name of Graham Cooper. You may know him better as the winner of the 2006 Western States 100. What was a guy like that doing so far back in the pack? Read on.
The first hour is spent climbing a narrow single track trail to the top of Eagle Peak – which is an impressive 2000’ climb, but only serves as a warm-up hill during the first 8-mile push to the Mt Diablo summit.
The girl in the tank top is Gretchen, with whom I shared a few minutes of the first climb. She and I first met each other last year in classic boy-meets-girl fashion: boy takes a picture of girl’s rear end, boy posts picture to his website, girl writes to boy and says “That was me!” It’s the kind of thing that happens every day, right?
We kept in touch by e-mail, and this year I finally got to meet her, um, face to face, so to speak. She’s extremely friendly, plus a great writer and runner to boot – it’s no wonder we get along. (And no, I’m not linking to her picture from last year … but it’s still in my race report on the right sidebar if any perverts out there want to search for it.)
Incidentally, the guy next to Gretchen is a newbie ultrarunner who took part in the following conversation with us …
Gretchen: How’s your training going for Western States?
Me: Pretty good, I think – I’m right where I want to be.
New guy: What’s Western States?
It sounds crazy, but I found his question kind of refreshing. It’s nice to know that the whole world doesn’t revolve around the WS100, like it often seems to at this time of year. Then again, by this time next spring, that guy may be as crazy as the rest of us. Insanity is contagious in this sport.
Eventually we reached the summit for the first time – but of course, even when you’re at the top, you’re not done climbing …
… because you still have to climb the stairs to the top.
As you’d expect, the views from the top are killer. San Francisco is visible here in the background at right-center.
I happened to reach the observation tower at the same time as Rick, so we exchanged pictures. There used to be a time when I could keep up with Rick, but not anymore – he’s simply too fast. So even though I bid him farewell for the day, I was still feeling pretty good about things – but keep in mind that the race was less than one-fifth over.
Descending from the summit, there’s a tricky balance you have to strike between enjoying the breathtaking vistas, but not straying too far off the narrow trail that hugs the side of the hill. One misstep through here could ruin your whole day.
Here’s all you really need to know about Diablo: it’s tempting to look at the course profile and think, “Sure, it has a lot of uphill, but you can make up the time going down.” Then you get to trails like this, which drop precipitously downward for several miles at a time, and you feel your quads blowing up with every step. In other words, the uphills are brutal, but the downhills can be even worse. Welcome to Diablo.
Another shot of the first descent from the summit, where you can see the trail continuing to wind downward in the distance. What you can’t see are the thousand or so black flies that decided to swarm me right as I took this picture. They would prove to be a problem for the entire day; in some places, it felt like we were running through a hailstorm – except, of course, that real hail isn’t nearly as disgusting as being pelted with hundreds of little bugs. But maybe that’s just me.
You know how when you’re on a roller coaster, and you’re cresting the first big hill, and the track is so steep that you can’t even see it below your cart? That’s what this fire road is like. The first hill you see here plunges downward faster than you can say California Screamin'. Have I made my point about the downhills yet?
I eventually made my way into a very pretty 5-mile loop, just as the heat of the day was taking a stranglehold on the race. There’s an aid station tent at the beginning and end of this loop; after the race, one of the RDs (Sarah) told me that the temperature in the shade of the tent was 90 degrees.
Have I mentioned before that I like cows? Even though they're off in the distance (under the tree - click to enlarge), you know they'd have to be part of the race report. These guys were smart enough to seek out the little bit of shade that was available – but not all the hoofed creatures were quite so lucky …
I can only guess this is the “Let’s ride our horses on the hottest day of the year” club. Maybe this isn’t a big deal for the horses – but with the amount of sweating I was doing in struggling with the heat, I kind of felt sorry for them. Of course, they weren’t the ones paying money to do this – so who’s the bigger fool?
Rock City is always a welcome sight, as it roughly marks the halfway point of the race. The trouble is, it always much farther away than it seems. From this point on the fire road, you think, “Hey – there’s Rock City! I must be getting close!” And then 30 minutes later, you wonder why in the heck you don’t seem to be getting any closer.
Normally, this rock would be covered with climbers and picnickers enjoying a sunny afternoon. When it’s 95 degrees outside, not so much.
Leaving the Rock City aid station begins a 6-mile out and back (12 miles total) stretch which is a nice place to regain your legs. The trail starts out shady, smooth, and gently downhill. Of course, you’ll have to come all the way back up these trails on the return trip – but that’s a detail you try to ignore on the long descent.
And since this is Diablo, just as you’re getting comfortable, another huge hill is always just up the trail.
The turnaround point is somewhere down underneath those trees. Remember those roller coaster downhills? They’re not limited to the first half of the race. Also by this point, the shade has vanished, and the heat was becoming overbearing.
In fact, even the snakes were seeking out some shade. If you’re keeping track at home, thus far we have a devil mountain with murderous climbs, infernal heat, swarming pests, and now serpents. Good times!
I first met these two guys early in the race: That’s Graham Cooper on the left, and Erik Skaden on the right. Last year, they did this race as a training run, and were co-winners while barely breaking a sweat. This year, they happened to do a 200-mile bike ride on the day before Diablo. At the mile 31 aid station, they were at least considerate enough to look tired for the rest of us – but by the end of the day, they would end up passing all but a few runners.
Many years ago, after watching Jack Nicklaus dominate the 1965 Masters, golfer Bobby Jones remarked that “Nicklaus is playing a game with which I’m not familiar.” That’s how I feel about these two: they’re doing a kind of training with which I’m not familiar. If one of these guys wins Western States this June, come look at this picture to see where the foundation was laid.
(On a related note, I totally respect those guys … but they’re completely screwing up the sympathy meter for the rest of us. I was going to start this post with some remark about having dead legs from a regular training week – but when I heard about the 200 mile bike ride, I didn’t even bother. Basically, none of us can complain with a straight face anymore. This is a bad development for me.)
After returning to Rock City, we begin a long, grueling climb towards the second summit trip of the day. I had been gradually slowing up to here, and on this climb, the wheels completely fell off. I was feeling lightheaded, and could barely muster enough energy to maintain forward progress, nevermind actually trying to jog any of it. I was totally and absolutely drained – and there were still 13 miles to go.
By the time I made it to the Juniper aid station at mile 40, I felt like a dead man walking. This was the first time I have ever contemplated dropping from a race, and the notion was only dispelled by a simple calculation that it might take me just as long to wait for a ride as it would to simply walk myself down the dang mountain.
Before I could go downhill, there was still about a mile and a half to the summit … which took me almost 40 minutes. I think I jogged about 10 steps of it. The trail seemed pretty merciless at this stage.
Finally, I reached the summit for the second time, where a tourist volunteered to take my picture. Since the shot is only from the waist up, you can’t see my legs quivering below. That’s probably a good thing.
Here’s more Diablo charm for you: the last 8 miles are unsupported, and billed as a downhill segment. But see that little hill below? We have to go up and over it as part of the “downhill”” portion. However, as I indicated before, uphill or downhill really didn’t matter at this point – the final miles were going to be painful any way you approached them.
I tried to distract myself with taking in the views for my final trip of the day, and was even able to break into a minor shuffle on the single track descent. I wouldn’t even call it running – my average pace was over 15 min/mile going downhill – but I was making steady progress to the finish, and I knew I’d ultimately get there.
One last look back at the summit on my way down. You know how former Alcatraz prisoners would sometimes return to San Francisco and stare across the bay for hours on end, contemplating their experience there? Seeing the Diablo tower one last time reminded me of that story. I was definitely in a weary state of mind.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been more happy to see a finish line as I was at the end of this race. Wendell (the other RD) was there to shake my hand, and I immediately sought out the nearest picnic table to collapse onto. It was a very long time before I had the strength to get off the table and walk around.
Rick had already been there for an hour, and he hung around long enough to take one more picture. I’m not keeping up with him in races anymore, but as you can tell, I’m much faster than him when it comes to putting away a slice of pizza. So there.
In the aftermath of this race, I wasn’t sure how to feel about my performance. On one hand, I ran a few minutes faster than last year, on what felt like an even warmer day, when a lot of other runners turned in slower than usual times. On the other, I crashed harder than almost any other time I can remember, and that’s an experience I’d rather not go through ever again.
What I keep coming back to is the lesson I learned at this race a year ago: that ultras are meant to hurt. They’re meant to batter your body and break your spirit and test to see if you can keep going when there’s no rational justification for doing so. There might be a bit of danger in doing so, but it’s generally not life-threatening or otherwise catastrophic – consequently, it’s the kind of danger that everyone can appreciate.
At Diablo, things got a little more dangerous than I had bargained for - but in the long run, that’s what makes it a truly memorable race.
**
I’ve been digging up some strange videos lately – first it was the Spanish language Metallica concert clip, and now this one featuring the introductory song lyrics. It’s some random dude’s home mash-up of action movies, but it actually goes very well with the music. If Weezer ever makes an official video for this song, I’ll post it here – but in the meantime, enjoy this very cool homemade version.
"Old habits reappear - Fighting the fear of fear ... Frayed ends of sanity - Hear them calling me." - Metallica - "Frayed Ends of Sanity"
I had a devil of a time at Mount Diablo on Sunday.
That's a polite way of saying that this race nearly killed me. I managed to finish in 11:42, which was a slight improvement over last year on what was generally considered to be an even tougher day than last year's furnace-like conditions.
I've never been so frazzled during and after a race than I was today - and that's including the Ironman triathlon and 100-miler in my past. I was in one of those "I'm never doing this again" places, but I think after a couple of days that feeling should (hopefully) pass.
I have dozens of pictures to go through and about 100 muscle cramps and spasms to work out, but I hope to have a full race report posted here on Tuesday or Wednesday. Until then, feel free to start your week with some classic headbanging riffs, courtesy of Metallica. (Strange link - it's from a Spanish website - but the concert video rips)
Metallica - "Frayed Ends of Sanity" (click to play):
On Thursday, I was lucky enough to enjoy this view:
Taken from Yosemite Point, a side climb at the top of Yosemite Falls, the tallest waterfall in North America. I'll have a separate post about it sometime.
On Sunday, I'll be taking in this one:
Vista near the summit of Mount Diablo, one of the biggest, baddest hills in Northern California ultrarunning.
The timing of these two occurrences probably isn't ideal; taking a six-hour hike on one of the most rugged trails in Yosemite National Park isn't exactly a recommended method of tapering for a tough 50-mile race. However, sometimes you just have to take these opportunities when they come along.
I don't really have lofty expectations for the Diablo race on Sunday. Like last year, I've pretty much treated this lead-up week as a regular training period, and this weekend's race will be opportunity to gague my fitness compared to this point last spring. I'll have somewhat dead legs, and I won't go as fast as I might be capable of, but I'll definitely enjoy the experience.
Just like it's not every day that someone gets to hike to the top of Yosemite Falls, it's not every run that I get to journey up and down the slopes of Mount Diablo all day long. So when you get the chance to do such things, it's probably best to seize the moments when they come, and consider yourself grateful.
“And if you hold on tight to what you think is your thing - You may find you're missing all the rest ... See you and me have a better time than most can dream of - Have it better than the best, so can pull on through Whatever tears at us, whatever holds us down, And if nothing can be done, we'll make the best of what's around.” - Dave Matthews Band, “Best of What’s Around” (video after post)
* At some point, I’ll have to scale back on these endurance races.
Not because my body can’t handle them, but because they take too darn long to report on afterwards. It seems like the longer the event, the more I’m compelled to write – which results in ridiculously bloated posts like a 3000-word Wildflower recap, or a 3-act drama from last summer's Vineman.
That Vineman event took only 11 hours – but at Diablo last Saturday, I was on the course for almost 12 hours. So my challenge for this post is to keep the race report shorter, even though the event was longer. I can’t say that I’m optimistic, but we’ll just see how this goes.
As usual, there’s a backstory before we get to the actual race – which I’ll keep as brief as possible. If you’d rather skip straight to the race, just scroll down until you start seeing pictures. You won’t hurt my feelings. Otherwise, top off your drink and settle in for a long one.
My Diablo preview featured lyrics from Metallica’s “Frantic”, which described to some degree how I felt in the days leading up to the run. It also fit in nicely with my typical M.O. of listening to high-octane music in advance of major races.
Thankfully, it didn’t take me long to realize that this approach probably wasn’t the best mindset to have before an all-day event. So when I was combing through the CD drawer for some driving music, I reached past Metallica’s St. Anger, and grabbed the DMB’s Live at Red Rocks collection instead.
In concert, the Dave Matthews Band plays in whatever manner the spirit takes them. They establish familiar rhythms, then take off on whatever grooves feel comfortable, extending them far past their customary boundaries. Before you know it, a 4-minute single may evolve into a 15-minute jam that seems almost effortless. It was that kind of irreverence that I wanted to channel on Mount Diablo.
I knew going into the race that I needed a different psychological tactic than I usually employ. Normally, I hold on tight to what I think is my thing: my competitive drive, especially as it pertains to my race time and my relative standing overall. But I also knew that if I tried that at Diablo, I’d find that I was missing all the rest – all of the reasons I was doing the run in the first place, and all of the ways to find enjoyment in what some might consider difficult circumstances – as I’ll explain more once this report is all over.
So this time around, I was committed to try something unusual, but it still seemed more complicated than that. I didn’t want to give an all-out race effort, but I also didn’t want to disregard this as just a training day to get through on my way to Western States this summer. I wanted to appreciate this step of the journey for what it really was: the journey itself.
However, I didn’t quite trust myself to let those competitive instincts go, so I enforced one final rule: whenever I felt the urge to reel somebody in, make certain split times, or strain to keep up with somebody else’s pace, I had to stop and take a picture of something. It was the only way I could think of to force myself to slow down and savor the moment.
I took almost 100 pictures on race day.
Before you click away: no, I won’t make you sit through all of them – but I’m incorporating some of them to emphasize certain details of my Diablo experience. This is the type of photo essay I hope to assemble for Western States this summer – so just think of this as a tune-up race report for the big one 11 weeks from now.
Race directors Wendell and Sarah at the start of the race. One of Wendell’s first announcements on the bullhorn was, “This run requires some effort”, which might go down as one of the greatest understatements I’ve ever heard. But by this point, he probably wasn’t going to talk any of us out of it.
About 10 seconds into the race, the trail makes a very noticeable turn in the direction of "up". The hills don’t exactly sneak up on you on this course.
The first 8 miles are a nearly continuous climb to the summit, traversing a rocky ridgeline en route. It’s gorgeous, but there are a lot of bottlenecks as marathon runners and 50M runners are all crowded onto the same skinny trail.
For very long stretches of those first miles, here’s the view you enjoy: single-file runners in close proximity on narrow single-track surrounded by dense foliage. It’s definitely not the most scenic stretch of the race. It’s also in situations like this that you discover many ultrarunners have, um ... how should I say this politely? Some odor issues.
Finally, almost an hour into the race, the course hits some nice wide fire roads, which enables runners to spread out – and allows us all some breaths of fresh air again. We need all we can get, because we’re still climbing to the summit.
This is the main summit trail, which we would travel twice by the end of the day. I wasn’t certain what this white stuff all over the hillside was – but since this trail is called the Juniper Trail, and since Juniper Campground sits at the base of the climb, I took a wild guess that it must be some type of juniper.
Even after you reach the summit, your climbing isn’t finished, as the official course requires you to walk up the stairs to the observation deck. They don’t want the course to seem too easy, you know.
The trip up the steps is definitely worth it, though – because the views from the top are awesome.
Heading down from the summit is almost 5 miles of continuous descent, which sounds like it would be fun. And with the exception of the 4 miles of it that were so steep that I felt like my kneecaps were exploding, I would agree – it was a lot of fun. I also found a lot of pretty flowers to look at.
So I’m sitting at the side of the trail snapping pictures of some poppies, and guess who comes barreling down the hill past me? It’s Rick!
He and I ran in close proximity for the next 7 or 8 miles, which was kind of a good news/bad news thing for me. On the one hand, he’s a great guy, and I enjoyed talking and sharing the day with him as we rolled along. On the other, he and I usually finish very close to each other in the standings – and when he caught me this early in the race, I knew that I’d probably finish far behind him on this day.
I can’t honestly say that it bothered me ... but I did seem to be taking a TON of pictures during those miles with Rick.
We went through some very pretty areas in miles 15-20, some of which reminded me of Monterey County. By this time, it was mid-morning, and I could start to feel the heat of the day pressing down upon the open sections of trail.
Rick and I came into the next aid station (North Gate) together, where I was apparently having some salt issues. It was very shortly after this picture that I wished Rick well, and told him to have a great race ... and then I took about 10 more pictures.
I did a lot of walking to the Rock City aid station that marked the halfway point of the race, and got passed by a lot of people on the way. On the plus side, I got some beautiful shots of the scenery.
Leaving Rock City, the course consists of a 6-mile out and back (12.5 total), moderately rolling section of trail. I had snapped out of my funk by this point, but my mind started doing funny things. For example ...
Take a look at the peak in the distance here. We came over that hill to get here. And at mile 28, knowing that by the end of the day I still had to go up and over it another time, that hilltop just seemed incredibly far away. Even looking through the zoom lens of my Nikon didn’t make it appear any closer. Also ...
See those rocks? Do they kind of look like faces to you? And do those faces seem to be laughing? At mile 33, that’s exactly what I was seeing in the hillside.
Returning to Rock City at mile 37 was one of the highlights of my day, in that I got to meet 21st Century Mom for the first time. She had started her volunteer shift at the aid station, and was incredibly friendly and encouraging. She kept trying to convince me that I looked a lot better than I felt, but I didn’t quite believe her.
Immediately after this picture was taken, she and I turned to each other – almost simultaneously – and said the exact same thing: “It happened.” Bloggers are so weird sometimes.
Continuing away from Rock City started the second ascent of Mount Diablo. By this time, the heat was becoming a major factor, and the trail was almost completely exposed. But just as I was second-guessing my ability to stay focused all the way up, I saw this ...
A local Boy Scout troop was coming down the fire road after hiking to the Juniper Campground, which was a strangely reassuring sight for me. I mean ... none of those Scouts (or Scoutmasters, for that matter) looked like they’d ever be mistaken for ultrarunners. I figured that if they all made it up the hill, perhaps the climb wasn’t as demoralizing as I was making it out to be.
Eventually, I made it to the top again, and even talked some stranger into taking this picture – which actually turned out a lot cooler than I imagined. Sometimes you get lucky like that.
The remaining 8 miles were mostly downhill – but as I’ve explained, “downhill” doesn’t equate to “easy” on this course. Much of the trail was like this: narrow, slippery, technical, across rocky footing that started to chew my legs up after an hour or so. In fact ...
Less than 4 miles from the finish, my legs were hurting so bad that I had to sit down on this rock to let them recover somewhat. I was only here for a few minutes before another runner walked past me ... and I started snapping pictures like crazy.
Eventually, I got my legs back under me, and gradually made my way through the final miles. Once the footing became smoother, I started to feel strong again, and started catching up to the guy who had passed me – but not before I took a picture of this pretty tree for good measure.
I ultimately passed him, and several minutes later I cruised to the finish, feeling very smooth and strong as I crossed the line. In fact, it took me about 20 minutes to remember that I hadn’t taken a picture of the finish line yet (explaining the time discrepancy in the photo).
By this time, the sky was growing dark, the temperature was cooling down, and I honestly felt like I could have gone out and done some more mileage if I had to. I had paced the run well, and restrained myself to the point where I didn’t completely self-destruct from the force of my own effort.
In other words, I had done exactly what I set out to do.
Ultrarunners will tell you all day long that success in the sport is more dependent on mental willpower than physical stamina, and on some level, I’ve always understood this to be true. What I hadn’t really done until Diablo is put that notion into practice.
It’s easy to look at a rugged 50-mile run with 13,000 feet of climbing on the hottest day of the year and fixate on all of the negative elements. In fact, that’s probably what normal people do. But true ultrarunners have somehow – either by natural predisposition or by practiced reinforcement – instead learned to see the same scenario as the best of what’s around.
For the most part, being able to spend an entire day running around on a mountain is a better time than most can dream of. Especially considering that most of these challenges take place in the most beautiful locations in the world, it’s a privilege to merely participate. There are countless people who would love to have the time, determination, ability, and resources to do the same. Truthfully, we have it better than the best - and I think that’s precisely how we pull on through.
Whatever tears at us, whatever holds us down or batters our bodies or bruises our spirit – those are the things we actively seek, if for no other reason than because we hope to be fortunate enough to find them. And when that is our mindset, all those hours on the trail aren’t primarily about trying to tick away the miles as quickly as possible (although make no mistake, I'll always prefer to go faster. I may be Zen, but I'm not a masochist.) Rather, they are about simply enjoying each mile as it comes, and realizing that - as I wrote in the last post - each and every step of the journey is the journey.
It seems like such a simple lesson - it's too bad I had to wrestle the devil to learn it.
** Dave Matthews Band, "Best of What's Around" (click to play):
Obviously, this eliminates the possibility of my ever receiving an action shot that I’d fall in love with and want to purchase – but it’s not like this was going to happen anyway. And if my looking like an idiot makes one of the minimum wage photo reviewers smile sometime, I guess that’s reward enough for me.
This was taken at some point on the climb to the Mt Diablo summit – I honestly have no idea where – and it was posted in a gallery shortly after the race. Special props to Calvin, who takes race photos, creates galleries, allows downloads and apparently does all of this for free - vaulting him to the top of my list of extremely cool people who I had no idea existed prior to this year (seriously, he’s right up there with Big B now).
