finding familiar

sunshine eases the bite of the cold, crisp air when you first step into it. that moment when you bargain with the temperatures and the threads on your body to see if it's going to be enough, or perhaps too much. modify if needed, but in most cases you simply get on with it. 

those first few movements of the warm-up, that physical check in. the internal dialogue as you move through it, measuring the consequences of the previous days effort. the ghost of past injuries now filled with healthy motivation and willing muscle, bone and tissue. the loose stretch and activation. those first few steps and the beep of the watch as we move off. these routes are familiar but no day is the same. the dogs that always run out to bark at you, the same sign you've watched fade from weather over time, or a fallen tree you've watched slowly get reclaimed by the earth. the feeling of transition off the pavement onto those first few steps of familiar dirt that changes with weather and traffic. crunchy patches frozen from a recent snow hiding in the shade of old trees that have watched me pass thousands of times. animal tracks mingled with my older familiar tread prints. hitch up the effort now and start to find the flow. the watch is covered by sleeves and not needed, the central governor and a present mind sets the pace for the day. familiar landmarks, seen new as the sun sits in a different place. turns come and pace quickens with the terrain. owl on a branch, watching, hoping i'll flush out a snack. feeling the chill when i dip out of the sun's view. warm at the core, mucus from a lingering cold finding it's way out. 

some days, these runs are surprising in how good they feel and familiar terrain raises my confidence. some days they are dizzy with low calorie or high fatigue and I lean on the familiar to know what's coming due with the remaining terra underfoot. 

how many miles, hours, days do I have on these trails and the efficient competency it has carved out? measuring, knowing how much time we have left on this present deposit we are putting into the bank. is it mileage or something more spiritual? moving off the dirt and choosing a gravel shoulder or paved road, or throttling down when I see my truck posted up, awaiting my return. that press of the watch that signals conclusion. 

that feeling of sitting down, warm and damp from the run. pulling off those gloves and loosening those laces. face flushed from the change of temps. the familiar satisfaction of the discipline and motivation.

je ne regrette nien 

proof of life

needed a first hand look. angeles crest has returned to a fall race date and on the schedule for next year, bucket list race that made sense. i was surprised at how motivated to run it made me. 

so, wanted a baseline. had a plan, wanted to take a bite and see what i could chew. 

showed up. found a dive bar, drank a beer and played some pool. grabbed a nap underneath an early starting nervous 100k runner whos pack testing jumps made it sound like they were coming through the ceiling. coffee'd up. stuffed all the unnecessary "mandatory" gear into a waist belt i never wear and waited patiently while 650+ runners were narcissistically funneled through a chute so they could high five the founder. sat back and watched hundreds of runners awkwardly navigate taking out poles for a 20ft dirt road climb. 

*le sigh. 

i don't have the mileage or any long runs to speak of, but i have a healthy body and some consistency on the backend of being injured and burnt crispy last year. 90 minutes into this deal at the top of the first climb behind a conga line of nervous breakfast farts and awkward conversation at 8000 ft i decided to stop taking it so gently and run 100 mile effort. the course was beautiful and trails were excellent. i moved up 200+ places over the next few hours and surprised myself with every buzz of the watch eclipsing each mile. felt smooth the whole time and was still strong at the end. there is still some good running in me after all. 

proof of life. i have an internal plan of what's to come. sweating more in peace time means we bleed less in war. time to see where it leads me. 

de-escalation

the grid consumed me a bit this year. first time burnt out in ages. burned important candles and got burned by some not so important ones, too. lots of night miles in the truck to zip codes and surf breaks, but not as many trail heads as years past. my body felt the consumption and burnout of an emotional mind and physical job and even my compartmentalized stoicism couldn't heal the torn up parts of it for a bit. running didn't feel good, so i rode bikes without a helmet and rode waves without an agenda. yoga lacked flow and the energy in the room wasn't right, so my spirit found sanctuary in meditation and my body in physical therapy my ego thought i didn't need. i let go. de-escalated. 

the baseline is now good as i am about to pass 51 years. i am in love with the process of personal shokunin and am finding the solace of a beginners mind to be freeing. knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, but wisdom is being smart enough not to put it in a fruit salad. 

much love to you all. 

art loeb

art loeb was kind of a pet project of mine for several years. 

you really only got two good shots at it annually. usually a spring run, after the fall leaves had been rotted down by rain but before the overgrowth then usually nothing till fall, when you'd get a cool sunny day before the leaves started falling down low, but were down enough up above pilot that you could navigate the rhododendron overgrowth. summers up on black balsam got a ton of traffic, so the trails were busy with tourist. fall, winter and spring you dealt with ice and fog were issues up high, so you had to find the sweet spot and time it right.

jay curwen ran 5:51 or so. i know marshall green ran 5:55 as well. he was mostly a MTB guy who worked over at the NOC and did a ton of hiking. he was pretty strong and his wife was from brevard. cheri titus/rosenblatt did it in under 6 hours in 1998, but she never admitted her specific time to me other than it took her less than 6 hours and I totally believe her. she was a somewhat of a local legend. cheri's husband owned a bike shop right at the entrance of pisgah and they lived up off of cathy's creek road. she knew the sections between gloucester gap up over pilot to the parkway better than anyone I knew and she had more time on it. cheri rarely raced, when she did it was shut in, which she won several times and grandfather mountain marathon, which she also has several wins at. she loved to trail run and could still break 3 hours at GMM when she was in her early 40s.

my first run through was rough. i got lost above black balsam, blew my quads out and practically walked down to the boy scout camp. after that, weather, traffic, too hard too early, to easy too early, etc I never quite put it together. I had a good run in 2001 which I didn't think I could ever improve on. I would run the sections between the davidson and gloucester gap regularly, so I was strong. I probably ran that section 100's of times in the years I lived in brevard.

I had a crazy streak of running between august of 2004 and march of 2005 where every run I felt like I was being shot out of a cannon. strong, felt good. spirit was in a good place. I was running my bests on all my local trails. I pr'd in road 10K's one weekend and won a 20 mile trail race the next. about 10 days before my fall 2004 run, I finished 3rd in 2:38 at the dupont trail marathon which hosted the USATF trail championship that year. I had given up on breaking 5:40 but decided to give it one more shot based on how my runs had been that fall. the trail was in good shape, leaves hadn't fallen yet and I got beta that the outward bound camp near pilot mountain had trimmed back all the rhododendron overgrowth that we usually had to deal with before the parkway. It is still one of the best days of running I have ever had. I knew I had sub 5:40 in the bag once I hit section 3 and when i started doing the math when I made the turnoff down to the scout camp, I thought low 5:30s was possible. I scared myself with how fast i ran down that hill. 5:31:54 was my final time. 11 days later I ran 2:31 at shut in on very tired and sore legs from my art loeb run. I think was 3rd or 4th. that spring I won uwharrie 20 miler and black mountain marathon then broke my foot jumping mountain bikes into the lake at camp carolina and missed 8 months and that was that.

I moved to oregon in fall 2006 and usually visit brevard every other year or so. I still have a house there. I always visit art when I'm back, but usually only to butter gap and down to the hatchery. there are a couple of old cemetary's from the 1800's just off the trail above the hatchery that most folks don't know about. exploring and finding places like that is what made me fall in love with trail running. I like to go check in on those places when I'm home.

I only did matt's ALTAR completely just once, in 2005. my buddy chad had a xmas tree farm i worked harvest on weekends between thanksgiving and christmas, so I rarely had a weekend off for winter solstice. chad and I started and ran to gloucester gap from 2002-2004, we sold out of trees early in 2005, so I got to go the whole way. I never thought that would be my last one for awhile. 

looking at my old running journals, these were my runs.

Fall 1998: 6:24

Spring 1999: 6:03

Fall 1999: 6:06 (ice on black balsam, fog)

Spring 2000: 5:49

Fall 2000: 5:55 (waited too long. leaves were down)

Spring 2001: 5:41

Fall 2002: 5:53 (living in chapel hill for 6 months. fast, but not strong)

Spring 2003: 6:02

Fall 2003: 5:44

Fall 2004: 5:31 (my best)

Winter 2005: 6:35

I don't know if my 5:31 is THE fastest, but it's certainly my fastest. If folks have run it faster, then the list is probably pretty small. there just were not a lot of people that knew the trail as well as a few of us did, especially between pilot mtn and the camp. easy to blow the wad early and be shattered by the parkway. If the signage improved on the balds, it would make it easier. back in the day, you had to know the way or it would be easy to get off track once up high. It's a rough, rugged, unforgiving yet stunningly beautiful trail in the true spirit of the fellow it's named after. I met some of his kin and they had good stories about his wanderings. rumor has it the whole reason he spent so much time hiking was because he had a moonshine still off of black mountain trail. given the natural springs that are abundant there, I wouldn't be surprised. One side of his family said it's true, the other claimed he was a god faring christian man who never touched liquor in his life. he was a local legend who died young but sure left a legacy. 

update 2023: david hedges got it right. 5:20 in an early spring run. 2/5/2023