Saturday, July 25, 2009

July 25th, 2009

Adventure with nature has been going on with me for a long time. I think my first adventures with nature started when i was a young man doing hikes all over southern California. Mount Baldy was my favorite because i could do it winter or summer. Then the hiking turned into rock climbing and the rock climbing turned in to high altitude alpine climbs and then the climbs turned into ice climbing multi pitch mixed rock and ice.

Of course it did not end there. Once i moved onto a sail boat and learned how to sail I found the pacific ocean full of challenges. So now that my bones are too old to rock climb and my soul has no desire to climb high mountains I find myself doing ultra marathons.

The crazy part about my ultra running and the intense training that goes with it is my mountain bike. If the mountain bike several years ago had not been stolen and i had not been broke I am betting i would never have taken up ultra running which should really be called ultra training.

Today was just another day in which Nature is Nature and does its best all by it's self to kill me which suits me just fine because I would rather deal with Nature on my day off then the insanity of the world.

Over the last two weeks I have started to run 3 long runs during the week and one ultra long run on the weekend. The ultra run on the weekend is a 45 mile run right now which i hope to turn into a 60 mile run. Yes I said 60. The runs take me a good part of the day and when i finish i spend the night doing all i can to repair my poor beat up body.

The current weekend ultra run is two loops of a 22.5 mile course that i measured with a GPS. The only change to the course is me moving around on the fire road which adds small amounts of distance to the entire run.

The run starts out on a single track that helps wake up the old body. The body is not really interested in this ultra adventure stuff it would rather be resting next to a nice cool swimming pool. I then move over to a fire road for a good many miles and find myself going up a super steep single track to another super cool fine thin single track.

The single track is so thin in some sections that i can not see my feet. This is bad because I might step on a snake or I might trip over a rock.

Today was very hot. My first time around was in good time. The split was 3 hrs and 40min. I rested for about 20 minutes before starting the second loop. The second loop was much worse given God and Nature tried to help me and in the process of trying to help me almost killed me.

Given it was Hot and given I have a strange and crazy relationship with God (not the normal christian relationship ... the kind that comes from meeting God at 8,000 meters type relationship) I ask God if there was anyway in this nice hot bright sunny day he could send shafts and shafts of pouring rain.

Well guess what. Right about half way through the single track I started to hear thunder. The thunder got closer and closer and then soon small drops of rain. Given i was super hot and very tired I acted like i am suppose to and got all excited and danced in the rain.. teeny rain mind you but rain.

However, the teeny rain turned into super amazing down pour .. the kind of down pour you see on the national geographic africa specials. I started to run because with the down pour was lightning. Tons of lightning. One of the bolts hit a tree and went all the way to the ground. You ask how close? Ok maybe 10 feet. Too close.

By the time I get to the fire road again the fire road has turned into a big wide river about 3 inches deep. My shoes are about 10 pounds *start at 11oz* and i am running for my life. I still have at least 3 miles to go before I arrive to the car but with good luck the rain starts to let up and I make it back.

The second split of 22.5 took 4 hrs and 20 minutes or there abouts.

Over all a great run. The heat was a bitch and did create some Lactic Acid issues in the legs which I can feel at this very moment. I have plenty of energy and a few hours after the run my heart rate is near normal.

to the adventures of doing!

RankRunnerTeamDistanceMiles/KmState
1homey claus CPTC331.4MilesNew York
2frankbott AVL305.2MilesNorth Carolina
3coop74 CPTC287.55MilesNew York
4sonny67 269.15MilesMichigan
5sonic 261.78MilesOhio
6felice CPTC255.51MilesNew York
7glenn flynn 246MilesNew York
8susanmls CPTC235.9MilesNew York
9trackstar BTUNCPEM232.5MilesMaryland
10pmonster BTUNCPEM232.1MilesNorth Carolina

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