Running for the Next Bend

"Anyone can run 50 miles," I said to a small group of people at breakfast.  I said it knowing that obviously not anyone can run fifty miles, but rather to illustrate a point.  My point was that my running is not amazing in the few truly long distance runs I have done, but rather they are experiences in the wilderness that are obtainable to those who want them. 

My breakfast comment met some resistance, the usual, "I can't" response is the easiest to deal with.  I told the group, "that is your first problem, you have already decided without trying."  I know I am being a bit of a smartmouth when I say these things, but the point has to be made.  "How far do you run right now," I ask? 

"Say one usually runs five miles," I continue, "when you finish that, run it again, until you have run it ten times, 50 miles."  This attitude convinces few people, but there are two points to be made.  First, thinking about 50 miles is really hard, but thinking about increments getting there, those are each manageable.  I do not think anyone can truly set off to cover a great distance, those people will probably never see that they are making progress.  Rather, the success at covering great distances comes to those who pursue the next bend in the trail.

I find road running to be drudgery.  I am not a snob about this, I just lack the motivation to plod along the pavement, in pursuit of a distance, a pace, or a time.  I run on trails to experience a new place, or something new in my own mind.  In my pursuit of running great trails though, I, at some point, had to start by forgetting everything anyone ever tried to teach me about running.

My first marathon I ran while in high school, and I did it more or less off the couch.  I do not want to gloat, some people can do things off the couch, and some cannot, I count myself among the lucky.  Regardless, no one claims that running a marathon off the couch is possible, thus my point is simply that I was apparently never very good at listening to stories about what I can and cannot, or should and should not do.  This, is the second lesson in my pursuit of running.

How most people learned to run was by doing laps around a track or gymnasium, while a whistle-weilding adult in a track suit told you to go faster.  It was about going nowhere as fast as you could.  This form of running is purified to it essential elements on the treadmill.  Pace, distance, and television show re-runs are all that matter in the fitness running of conveyor belt health.  Instead of a race to nowhere, why not an experience in going somewhere?

The runner will soon forget about pace, time, and racing.  Meet your run where your running is.  Walking hills is often sensible, not shameful, because there may be another hill just out of sight.  Stopping to enjoy the scenery, chatting with friends, or simply catching your breath is part of the journey.  Forget trite running rules, and instead dream of the best places to run.

In pursuit of the best places to run, I have compiled a list of trails and destinations.  These dreams of better runs of the future power me through painful runs of the present.  Memories of past great runs, create dreams, and a running euphoria that makes present runs better than previous runs.  Running for the journey creates a cycle of better and better runs!

Using a week of free time, Sarah and I are currently doing some reconnaissance travelling and running to investigate a long held dream destination, Switzerland.  In this land of mountains, trails, and easy to use civilization, the potential for trail running seems to exceed what I had hoped.  With just a week, I will walk away from this trip not with an understanding of Swiss culture, the secret sights of Switzerland, or really having even "been to" any place in this country.  I will walk away from this with 13 miles of sun-scorched views of the Matterhorn, trail maps to plan a proper running trip, and dreams and memories for when the next bend in the trail seems like a little too far to go.

(Pictures and stories of Switzerland soon to come!)

Fat Kid

I do not remember the first time I was called fat as a kid. I remember in third grade, Danny, a rail thin kid calling me fat mercilessly. I complained to my mom about it, she listened, and eventually offered that I could make fun of him for being so skinny. Offering the quip, “you're so skinny you have to run around in the shower to get wet.” My mother and I laughed about that, but the reality remains that the fat kid gets made fun of, and the skinny kid doesn't.

Like the extra weight that earned my monicker, “fat kid” stuck. Eventually, I would learn to appreciate being called fat over other names, because I was not trying to hide being fat. In fact, I owned being fat. While other kids were fatter, I could comfortably hate myself publicly for not having a perfect body. Beyond the body shape, I think much of it had to do with being bad at sports. My fatness stemmed not necessarily from my body mass index, but from my inability to hit a small leather ball with a wooden rod, or to not be able to put an orange ball through an elevated orange metal ring. Could I have worked on these, my brother did, so probably, but I can think of nothing less interesting than a group of people committed to the movement of a ball on a court or field.

This attitude does not win prized pecking order posts within the school age community. I was picked last for every game in PE, which was almost always matball, a variation of kickball that I was no better at than the original. Even amongst my cousins I was the game loser in the group of four. Fat transcended the states, and while I was certainly the fattest of my two cousins and Jason, it was really commentary on my prowess at the games that we played.

Accordingly, I abhorred the playing of team sports, and really the existence of these sports in general. In high school, desperate to fit in, I shot rifle, a sport that is “team” only once the scores are tallied. While shooting is not easy, the ability to lay, kneel, and stand in one place for many hours fails to convince almost everyone of unfatness. To increase my marketability to my peers, I was talked into playing baseball my freshman year.

For many of the baseball games that season I was player number ten, meaning that my presence on the team ensured that we would not forfeit. The coach could not be begrudged to play me saving the one inning that another player angered him to the point that he put me in to punish him. Given our record that year, there may have been more dignity for the team if they had forfeited, but Jason got to play baseball his senior year, so wearing tight pants, and watching his games was worth going out.

I never actually played long enough to have a record, and I don't think anyone but parents and girlfriends ever came to a baseball game. Accordingly, baseball did nothing to save me from being a fat kid. What did was Landen. Landen was a smart kid with little ambition in his studies, who chose instead to apply himself to the avoidance of school. To help him and his friends, he needed the credibility of a nerdy kid who never did anything wrong. Landen got my services, in an unspoken exchange of credibility. I could give his antics the cover they needed, and in return he could give me a moniker that was not derogatory. Fat kid, fag, and nerd were nearly replaced by Bad Ass.

Bad Ass, a misnomer that fit my initials, and “BA” for short, became more commonly used than my own name. It was so pervasive in the high school that adults began calling me BA to avoid confusion with the other Brians of my small home town. While the names changed, and somehow being known as Bad Ass seemed to trick a few people into perceiving me as being bad ass, inside, I knew that I was not Bad Ass, I knew that I was still the same fat kid that had been ridiculed for his entire public life.

The fear of being found out is, in many ways, worse than the fear of actually being something. While I was never happy being the fat kid in my class, I was not afraid of losing much. I was already at the bottom of the pecking order. Once I became BA, I had something to lose. I began attempting to hide myself even more than I already was. I was no longer trying to preserve myself as fat, but as actually some sort of cool. I embraced the idea of a Chris Farley or John Belushi, certainly nerdy, certainly not athletic, but cool all the same. The problem with this is that I was not cool, and I knew it.

Belushi and Farley tried to be cool so much that they killed themselves in the process, so even my role models saw the flaw in their cover. My escape was not drugs, but college. In the later years of high school I segregated myself from the students that I had spent my life with. I worked jobs with fervor, and avoided contact with people outside of a small group of friends. I took less than a full load of courses, and graduated early to move away from the fear of being discovered. What I had not realized is that I had become accustomed to running.

In university I would restyle myself as a climber, and general outdoors enthusiast. Like today's hipster kids, I was desperate to find a group that would never think to discover my weaknesses. If everything I did was physical, no one would think that I was actually the fat kid. I started riding my bike, and in an attempt to impress a girl, started running. I was active in white water, and a bunch of clubs. I was anything but the fat kid, and I would sometimes start to trick myself into believing my own cover story, like the undercover cop in so many movies.

With time I would find mountain biking, and distance running. These days I do not climb very much, and my mountain bike sits disassembled in a storage unit in Western Washington. I keep running though. My weight fluctuates with other factors in my life, but I have been able to do some long and beautiful runs. Rationally, I doubt many of the kids who called me fat so long ago could keep up, but that does not matter. Out on the trail, running for the joy of running is never far ahead of running away from the insults of childhood. Sometimes I find myself putting a hand against my stomach, comforted and disgusted to find that my gut has not magically faded since the beginning of my run. Instead I feel an extended truffle shuffle, jiggling along the trail with me. Some days this motivates me to push a little harder, to run a little faster to stay ahead of the past, but most days, a voice inside of me says, “I know who you are, you're the fat kid,” and my run slows to a defeated walk.

Greece, The Mainland

After getting off the previously described ferry, we headed to our hotel in Piraeus.  When most people think of Athens they think of the Acropolis, Olympics, Ancient Greeks, and the foundation of European civilization (which, arguably, would be the Middle East, but that is not the point of this post).  What people do not think about is Piraeus.  Piraeus is scummy.  Athens as a city is dirty, but Piraeus is scummy.  Thus began our excursion into Mainland Greece, walking, at midnight, through the main port of Athens.  Which is scummy.

Our baggage was somewhat unusual for this walk, as our luggage could not accommodate the rocks collected during Sarah's field work.  I was carrying a duffle bag as a backpack (the Patagonia Black Hole, which Air France managed to put a hole in) and a messenger bag.  Sarah had a backpack, and a cardboard box without tape (surprisingly difficult to find on Milos) which was quickly degrading in the humidity.  We wound through the streets of Piraeus, hitting every landmark we were supposed to.  Then, we missed the street.  This would not normally be an issue, but both of us were still dizzy, nauseous, tired, hot, and sick of carrying all that junk around at midnight.  We slogged back to the nicest hotel in Pireaus, a welcome reprieve from the world we stumbled out of when we entered the air conditioned lobby.

In the morning, we checked out of the hotel, loaded as we were the night before, the cardboard box worse for wear, still sea sick, and headed for the metro.  Boarding a subway when sea sick from the ferry ride the night before was nothing I was looking forward to, but it meant Sarah could set down the box of samples, which had torn at two corners at that point.  We transferred trains, then walked to where Google Maps said the car rental was.  Should you ever use Google Maps in Greece, and you think, "that doesn't seem right," it probably isn't.  Luckily, we were not too far off of where Sarah and I thought we should be, and we were at the car rental agency shortly.

We loaded our stuff into the Lancia Ypsilon, and Sarah took the wheel.  We headed north out of Athens with no real map, and Rick Steves' limited directions headed for Delphi.  In all honesty, for as crazy as driving looks in Athens, it is actually pretty straight forward.  There was a bit of adjustment to Greek driving.  First, all traffic laws are suggestions, so one must expect that drivers will only occasionally observe one-way roads.  Second, one does not have to get out of the way of emergency vehicles.  We stumbled onto this custom in Athens only blocks from renting the car.  An ambulance with lights and sirens was taking a left turn from oncoming traffic.  When Sarah stopped for it, both paramedics began enthusiastically gesturing for us to come through, and not wait for them.  Lastly, all roads in Greece are passing roads, and Greek drivers find at least one more lane than is painted on the roadway.  To accommodate this craziness, on moves onto the shoulder so cars may pass in the center, even with oncoming traffic.  With these lessons learned, we navigated north with nothing but Rick Steves.

Rick got a few things wrong, like the number of toll booths, but even when we purchased our Greek road maps, Rick's directions were pretty good.  We arrived in Delphi, getting turned around only once, to enjoy the ruins after the museum had closed, presumably indicating that fewer people were there.  Both Rick and The Lonely Planet suggest staying in Delphi town when touring Delphi.  I could not disagree with this recommendation more.  We headed back about 15 kilometers to Arachova.  While in winter this ski town may be pricier, during the summer season this cute mountain town had more character, more facilities, more hotels, and better views than Delphi for the same or a bit less money.  We found some food at a minimart for dinner, and ate on our balcony watching the sun set behind mountains and the Arachova clock tower.

In the morning we ran through the steep streets and stairways of Arachova, touring the alleys and back streets, then climbed the stairs to one of the towns churches, that housed several cannons in the courtyards.  We ran to the top of the town, then back to our hotel.  We showered off, ate breakfast, and climbed back in the Lancia for the drive over the mountains to Meteora, with promises of spectacular rock pinnacles, World Heritage Site history, hermit monks, and endless trails.

Once out of the mountains, the road to Meteora is flat, and as the miles passed, we began to discuss the fact that most sites are overstated by the guides.  Sarah maintained her generally more optimistic outlook that it would be awesome, I felt my own pessimism rising (this should not be confused with Sarah being an optimist and me a pessimist, just a statement about our anticipation of monasteries perched on sandstone pillars).  We arrived in Kalambaka after crossing the Plains of Thessaly.  My expectations, like the plains themselves, had flat lined.  While some might argue that such an outlook dooms any site to fail to impress me.  While they may have a point, it also lowers my expectations.  So I was impressed by the bluffs.  It is not Zion Canyon, but it is impressive none-the-less.  One also has to be in awe of the monks building these structures as well.  It is an impressive place.  Unfortunately, the most impressive thing about Meteora is not the geology or the monasteries.  It is, in fact, the road.

The road at Meteora is not so much impressive as far as roads go.  In fact, it is not much of a road at all.  The grades are not that steep, nor the corners that tight.  The traffic is not dense nor light, and the view points are impressive, but not notable beyond any other road that climbs a hill overlooking a valley.  What is impressive about the road are the vehicles.  The Lonely Planet suggested that Meteora was the most visited site in Greece (presumably outside of Athens).  All of those people have to get to the monasteries, and walking is out of the question.  Thus, the purpose of this road is to allow dozens of tour buses to get to the monasteries that hermit monks built on top of sandstone pillars hundreds of feet above the valley floor so that thousands of tourists can gawk at their way of life.  The endless monk's trails, now essentially a moot point with the road to each monastery, added up to less than 10 kilometers.  Sarah and I decided to head for Mount Olympus, with the hope of finding the solitude that led hermit monks to Meteora centuries before.

We drove east, towards the home of the old gods, and as Mount Olympus loomed into view, we were struck with essentially the same impression, "that's it"?  The southern, western and northern sides of Mt. Olympus are beautiful, but they do not inspire ideas of the home of gods, or stairways to the heavens.  The towns on these flanks are also unremarkable, saving their crazy traffic patterns.  With the disappointment of Meteora fresh on our minds, we headed for the access point for Mt. Olympus, Litochoro.  The Eastern face of Mt. Olympus does not disappoint.  While it is not a Saint Elias towering nearly three and a half miles above the coast, it is an impressive massif, reminding me strongly of the desert mountains of the Basin and Range.  We found a hotel, and wandered around the town, heading for the gear store.

At the gear store, we gawked the impressive mountain running selection, then spoke with two of the employees who run on Mt. Olympus daily.  We came to the realization that we could summit Mt. Olympus.  We wandered around the town a bit more, then headed back to the hotel.  We decided not to summit Mt. Olympus.  Doing so would require a crazy alpine start, and neither of us had been sleeping well.  We did decide to go for a run on Mt. Olympus, so we set an alarm for 05:00, and went to sleep.

Before the alarm rang we both got up, ate, and headed up Mt. Olympus.  At the parking lot at 1100 m, we started jogging, but the trail soon proved too steep for a continuous run.  We walked the steep sections, and ran the more gentle ones.  Between light rain, and cloud gaps, the sun rose on the summit above us, and the Mediterranean below.  We made it to the shelter ahead of schedule, but not enough ahead to summit.  We continued up until we were out of time.  As the trees thinned, then stopped, the cold wind took its toll.  When we decided to push our deadline a little, the wind chill started to tap our strength, and neither of us was disappointed to head back for the trees when the time came to turn around.

As we jogged down the mountain we discussed our trip to that point.  Cliff jumping on Milos was cool, as was swimming into sea caves and hidden coves.  Driving around Milos was unique, and walking up Profitis Ilias was great.  Obviously the ruins are pretty awe inspiring, but the thing that would bring us back to Greece was Mt. Olympus.  The trail map showed miles and miles of trails that seem good for long runs, and of course the summit still awaits.  We dreamed of running tours of Europe, and talked about including this mountain.  We talked about the lovely Macedonian mountain villages, and how lovely they would be to explore.  On the drive back to Litochoro to shower and check-out, we passed people driving, their horses tied to their bumpers to get the animals back into town.  Unlike a dog gleefully chasing after its owner's car, these horses looked stressed, and we were brought out of the mountain euphoria, and back to Greece.

On the drive back to Athens we drove through countless tolls, on a motorway that could be in any poor nation.  We checked into our hotel in Athens, with sparkly red and black counter tops and harsh, blue LED lighting.  We returned the car, and met up with the wedding's Australian Contingent a bit late, and went out for cocktails.  Introducing us to everyone else who would be experiencing a Greek wedding for the very first time.

Tickets to Greece

Sarah and I bought tickets to go to Greece leaving 3 September for about three weeks.  Much of that time will be spent working in one of her PhD Field Areas, trying to get her a publication out of it.  Her field area is essentially a beach in the Cyclades, so it won't be the worst field area.  We will also attend a wedding of a friend of hers, and possibly see another friend, time and funds permitting.

I am interested in being her field assistant, as I have never done the detailed work that she was/is doing on these rocks.  If it turns out I am not capable of this type of work for long hours, I will probably wander off, and try to justify my time by doing some slightly less detailed work that I will pretend will be useful. It really all hinges on my ability/inability to spend all day, counting the number of crystals in a given area of rock, or some such nonsense that does actually tell one quite a lot about the magmatic processes and eruptions.

Also in the planning stages are a running trip on the Superior Hiking Trail (SHT) in October, and a trip to the Southwest in November, with the hopes of some long runs before Sarah gets too lost in a Minnesota winter. We have talked about the SHT since we first discussed run-packing.  My Dad was concerned that the weather may not be good during our window to do it, and if his knowledge of weather patterns proves accurate, we may come up with an alternative destination.  We are shooting for post-bugs, with fall colors.  I think it may be after the peak of fall colors, but hopefully there will still be some.  This will be our first foray in run-packing, and the trail has enough infrastructure to make it a reasonable choice.

The trip to the Southwest is even more tentative at this point.  It is something we definitely want to do.  However, Sarah has been of no fixed address for years, and I have been off and on since about 2010.  Both of us are getting tired of this lifestyle, and are interested in the idea of living somewhere.  Thus, at some point we will be trying to find "the right place."  Sarah's sister asked me recently if I could live anywhere, where would I live?  That question that has been on my mind, and Sarah's, for years now.

There are two opposing forces in choosing a place to live.  The livability of the place, and the jobs that are available to one living there.  For example, Portland, OR ranks high in livability, but has little to offer in the jobs category.  Of course, we could live in Portland, and continue to work exploration contracts, but since Oregon has a state income tax, it actually becomes less attractive, as short-term contracts in many states and countries complicates state taxes.  Thus, Portland is most attractive to live in if one works in Oregon.  On the flip side, Vancouver, BC has a great job scene, but owing to visa issues ranks low for me on livability (without the visa issue, it ranks very high for livability, as a note).  It seems that one can make an argument to stay in purgatory until a job comes along, letting the place choose you, or one can choose a place and try to make it work.

If the place is to choose, then it is likely that the November trip will happen.  Employers are painfully slow at hiring, and there are not many jobs right now (that are "ideal" jobs).  In this scenario, the November trip will likely happen, as will a December trip, a January trip, and a February/March trip.  In which case, I need to spend some solid hours getting fit for some good desert running.

If we are to choose a place, than October and November will probably be spent trying to answer the unanswerable question, "where would you live if you could live anywhere"?  Then the "trip" would be moving to that place, and I can spend my days leisurely ignoring fitness.

Regardless, it seems that I will no longer have excuses for not posting more regularly to this blog.  While there may be some instances during travel that I do not have time for writing, it should provide something to write about when I return to a place I can sit with Penelope (my netbook), and write.


A note on photographs:  I still have some photos from New Zealand, and a handful from Ontario and Quebec to post.  However, I am using a smartphone hotspot for internet, and the cost of uploading photos would be prohibitive.  This means that there will probably be a flood of photos once I get into a position to upload them all.  As such, I will try to provide links in old posts to relevant Picasa albums so it is easy to find.  Conversely, by going to picasaweb.google.com/aillaud, one can see photographs dating back to 2007.

The Pursuit of Madness: Running Ruapehu

Approximation of the Round the Mountain Track (blue line and elevation profile), and the southern part of the Northern Circuit (red line).  I began and ended at Whakapapa Village (red arrow), and went counter-clockwise. 

Before deciding to do the Round the Mountain Track in a day, I talked about it with a couple of coworkers.  One of them, at the end of the conversation, wished me luck in my "pursuit of madness."  This trip was my longest mountain run, and while there was a lot of doubt after a finishing a challenging marathon of trail, with another 20 miles to go, I am confident that more madness must be pursued.

I will start with the details.  The trail, according to the team I finished with, was 74.99 kilometers, or about 46.5 miles.  I had anticipated doing this distance in not more than 16 hours, owing to a small amount of physical difficult, and a great deal of mental instability, it took about 18 hours.  There was at least 6,500 feet of climbing (2,000 meters according to runningwildnz.com, 9,000 feet according to my highly inaccurate Google Earth track, above).  To put it in terms of marathons, it was six miles short of doing the Equinox, then doing the Equinox again, with the same amount of climbing.  The difference is that the Equinox is on smooth trail in comparison.

On Friday night, I got off the phone with Sarah at about 23:00, set my alarm for 03:00, and went to sleep.  When my alarm went off, I was slow to start, but I was out the door by about 04:30, heading for Tongariro National Park.  About an hour and fifteen minutes later, I was parked at the trail head, having scoped the end of the trail.  I used the restroom, and was on the trail at about 06:00.

The trail begins in the forest, which was slightly overgrown with ferns full of flies that had nested for the night.  In these sections, running through seemingly constant spiderwebs, there was endless buzzing from the flies that were disturbed by my running through their perches.  The flies' black bodies were invisible in my headlamp, buzzing around my ankles, and the experience was disquieting.  After the insect harassment in the forest, the trail emerges onto boardwalks through some alpine bogs.

The boardwalks sparkled with frost and dew in the predawn light, their turns and uneven surfaces a shimmery serpent through the landscape.  On sections of well built, dry boardwalk, the pace can be dialed to 11.  It was an essential part of the plan to make it to Waihohonu Hut before sunset.  Unfortunately, I found that on sections of frosty or wet boardwalk, I had to gingerly corner, and take stairs slowly, as the wood was slick enough that I felt each step slip as I pushed off.   There were moments of concern, even at this early hour, that if the boardwalks did not dry out soon, it might become a problem.  These were fleeting thoughts, as I could not be bothered with such concerns at this point, because every vista was a stunning interplay of light, shadow and alpenglow.

After crossing the Whakapapaiti River for the third time, I hit my first direct sun of the day.  Continuing across the valley, and climbing the far ridges, I was rewarded with views of Mt. Tongariro, Mt. Ngauruhoe, Mt. Ruapehu, and Mt. Taranaki.  These stunning views, combined with the rugged trail, kept the morning amazing, and my only thoughts were of the prospect of maybe having started out on another of my greatest runs.  Soon, I saw the Ohakune Mountain Road, and I was surprised and ecstatic.  Somehow, even with the slick boardwalks, I was way ahead of schedule, then the trail turned in the wrong direction.

Struggling over rough trail, I was starting to grump at the sinusoidal path that I was apparently starting to take to get not very far.  Even so, the views were incredibly, and my legs were feeling strong over what some have described as the most difficult section.  I, perhaps unwisely, even ran some of the steep ups just to see how it felt.

I lost the trail at the river crossing just before the second hut, and went too far upstream, before releasing my mistake.  I crossed, back tracked, then, back on the trail, back tracked again in the direction of my mistake on the other side of a stand of pines.  It did not matter at this point, as the view was constantly back dropped by Ruapehu towering ahead of me.  I had started to wonder when I would hit the infamous waterfall, and the moment I saw it, I knew I was heading for it.  At the base, I filled my water from the mineral-rich, but presumably parasite-free river, and scrambled up the outcrop.  After the waterfall, I had fun in the rough terrain, pondering if it was really better for DOC to not make a trail, and have people trail swarm.

Upon reaching Ohakune Mountain Road, I shook out my shoes and socks, had a snack, and started down the tarmac.  The steep hard surface was too much for my knees, so the steep downhill sections of road were as slow as the steep, trail-less climbs of the previous section.  I made decent time, but was not eating enough, so when I reached the trail again, I had to stop and eat about a thousand calories.

The calories sat in my gut, and I had to take it easy.  The groomed trail was a perfect place to digest, while maintaining a good pace.  I had decided to eat at Blyth Hut, but when I reached the turn off for the hut, I decided to push on, rather than take a side trip.  Now worried about water, I dialed back the food consumption, and struggled with this mistake over deeply eroded trail with the most poorly constructed boardwalk ever conceived by humans.

It was somewhere struggling over crappy boardwalk that I lost my breath.  I found that even the slightest incline put me at my cardiovascular limit.  I started walking even more, but I was not recovering my breath.  I arrived at the next hut, confused about my breathing, and worried about time.  I ate another 1500 calories, drank and refilled water, and talked a little bit with some backpackers.  They said that there was one big valley between this hut and Rangipo Hut, but other than that it was rolling.  I packed up, took a couple of out of breath strides, and slowed back to a walk to let my food digest.

I walked into the Rangipo "Desert."  I entered the first valley, then the second larger valley, then the third larger and steeper valley, then started to wonder if the backpacker's rolling was how a Sherpa may describe the Rockies.  My breath started to come back, but my motivation was lacking.  I was able to run on the flats and the down, but found that running the downs was nearly impossible when staring at the wall awaiting on the other side.  I was struggling with cooling temperatures, thickening clouds, wind, and accepting that whoever put the pickets out to mark the trail had decided to just get it done with the fewest pickets possible, the grade of the trail be damned.

I arrived at the Rangipo Hut feeling rejuvenated.  A hiker came out of the hut, talked to me for a while, called me, "some kind of crazy," and headed back inside to sit by the fire.  I jogged into the twilight worried about time.  Some amazing scenery coaxed me along, but it was more a fast walk than a run, then the sun went down, the temperature dropped, and I was alone, in the dark, with only thoughts of self-pity and doubt.

Like Alice down the rabbit hole, the bottom dropped out, and I wondered when I would hit the bottom.  The trail then turned northeast, away from my destination.  Though the stars were bright, the darkness of my own tired mind consumed me.  I walked, more and more slowly, partially owing to difficulty route finding, and partially owing to my mental wall.  I walked from picket to picket.  Ones with reflective markers at the top were easy to spot, and I would be lured forward to them.  Sometimes picket after picket would be lying on the ground, reflector gone, or facing into the ground, and I would hold a straight line, hoping that there were no turns.  On two occasions, I headed back to the previous picket to try a new line, and in doing this, I saw headlamps coming down the trail behind me.

For a moment I thought my eyes deceived me, then I thought I must have imagined it - lights from the hut, foreshortened in the darkness maybe?  I saw them the second time, and I knew someone was giving chase.  I felt a fleeting surge of energy, as a rabbit in the line of a sprinting carnivore, but it was over before it began.  I then wondered who would be out here.  Was it a SAR mission, and I was leading a team off track?  A ranger concerned about someone heading on into the darkness?  A hunter willing to take a sound shot in the dark?  I sang some Greg Brown, but not even that could bring me out of my stupor.

As the vegetation changed a very cold breeze came up.  The doldrums intensified, and I began to fantasize about building a miserable shelter to bivouac in until the morning light.  I stopped, on an incised section of trail, protected from the wind by scrub and erosion.  I forced myself to eat unwelcome calories, and layered up.  I walked on, and warmed up slightly.  I kicked the hopelessness, but was now accepting the idea of slogging through the night back to the car.

I heard voices.  I heard them again.  Then I saw the lights.  Then I heard the footsteps, they were...running!


The light split into three, a woman said, "hello," and three runners broke pace, and walked with me.  We chatted about our plans.  They had, apparently, been hearing reports throughout the day of an American running well ahead of them.  At Rangipo hut, they were told I was not far ahead, and now they had caught me.  They offered any assistance I needed, which I did not, but allowed me to chase them for a while.

They trotted on, at a comfortable pace, walking the hills and rough stuff.  A little slower than my initial pace, but a world faster than what I had fallen into.  At the brief stops, we talked a bit.  They had been taking the turns hitting the wall, taking turns setting pace, and keeping each other going.  They mostly talked, and I listened, uncomfortable to be adding myself to their group.  On the third stop, I asked if I was not intruding too much by joining, and they unanimously welcomed me into the crew.  We ran on.

For the rest of the night, I stuck to the back, enjoying the motivation of being in a group of people.  A group of people who were doing something as crazy as I.  Having many of the same problems that I was.  They would lament a climb, a stairway, and over-groomed trail.  They under estimated distances.  With each setback, one of the group spurred on to let another fall back.  Two of them were also constantly motivated to keep ahead of the one with gas.

Choosing to mostly stay at the back of the pace line, feeling welcomed, but not wholly part of the group, I suffered through his zesty off-gassing, fueled by whatever nightmare he must have been eating all day to keep his calories up.  When it got bad, I would fall back, then catch up when he shifted forward in the group.  Eventually I found myself in the middle of the group, and it was always happy to be ahead of the aromatic events that periodically interrupted thoughts, pace, and breathing.

Towards the end of the trail, they started dreaming of the showers and beds in their hotel room at the trail's end.  I started dreading the drive home.  We came over the rise above Taranaki Falls, to see the twinkling lights of Whakapapa Village, and cruised the last length of trail back into civilization.  We shook hands, congratulating each other on a run well done.  They went into their hotel wishing me a safe drive back to Taupo.  I plodded to the parking lot, finishing my 18 hour day at 00:00.  I changed out of my running clothes, into the delightful embrace of cotton, emailed people I was back at the car, and headed for Taupo.

I did not make it far.  The car was warm, the seat was comfortable, and the night was dark.  I pulled off the road and took a nap.  Ninety minutes or so later the car had gotten cold, and I was awake enough to carry on driving.  The drive was slow, and felt endless.  I got back to my house, took a sleepy shower, and went to bed, 24.5 hours after I had gotten out of it.

***
A week later, the events seems strangely distant, and almost dream like.  Much has happened in that week, including planning for some more runs (none that long on the horizon).  Even with the dreamy memories of vivid stars in the darkness, I have tried to point my thinking to lessons that I can learn to make the next run even better.

Sarah and I run with an ultralight bag from Cooks Custom Sewing.  The bags are light, and when packed well, reasonably comfortable.  I am not entirely sure what possessed them to design some of the straps as they did, and my lightly bruised collar bones assure me that there are improvements to be made to the design.  Regardless, it seems like it is one of the most innovative ultralight bags owing to its utter simplicity.  There is a roll top bag from OR that I am curious to try, as I think a roll top could solve some of the issues of the CCS bag.  All the same, running behind these three others, I could not help but notice that two of three of them had the Osprey Talon 22, the bag that dominated the field on the Tour Divide.  I am skeptical of this made-in-China, do-it-all bag, but as Pirsig points out that at some point, when you realize everyone is heading in the same direction, you start to wonder if you should go that way too.

I am not sure that doing this sort of trip is the something that everyone else is heading off to do, and the ones who do all using the same pack is not necessarily an indication of what is best.  I do not know if I will switch any gear because of what others are using, but one thing I did see in the other runners, as I have seen in other endurance events, is that with the exception of a few who are driven to win, a group of people who are all the same type of crazy is the best way to keep your body going, when it wants to stop.  I rarely find one other person to do these things with, so I feel like I need to maximize my time with those who will.  I have tried to tailor my life to the pursuit of many things, but after running Ruapehu, I think I need to fill my life with those people who will join me in the pursuit of madness.

Round the Mountain Track

Sunrise over the Emerald Lakes, Tongariro National Park.  Photo: N. Olsen

I am heading back to Tongariro National Park tomorrow.  The mission for tomorrow (weather dependent) is the Round the Mountain track.  It is purported to be a fairly rough 43.5 mile trail described on this website.  The start will be predawn, and the finish will be post sunset.  I reckon the sunrise will not be as dramatic as on the northern circuit (photo), but I am hopeful that sunset will be flanked by two volcanoes, which I look forward to.  You can follow my progress through my SPOT page.  Pictures should follow early next week.