Crotchety

it was a sunny late spring day like this one.
i had just tuned a bike, and the finishing touch was the lubing of the clipless pedals.
i was wearing Nike Free shoes- minimal tread.

I brought the bike into an almost vacant parking lot.
I stood up and pedaled hard, undergoing the usual stress test, shifting under load. After 4 or 5 pedal strokes, my shoes slipped off the freshly lubed pedals, and before i knew it, both feet were dragging on the ground, with all of my weight on my crotch on the top tube of the bike going 15 mph.

Wanting to cry, I coasted to a stop- crotch still on the bar, shoes torn up.
A glimpse of yellow in my peripheral, i looked to the left.

An entire school bus full of high school kids had seen it all.
That must have been the funniest damned thing they had ever seen.
Listen to your guidance counselor, kids.

kp

Of Hulks and Hippies

3 weeks to Infinitus.
I've been asked if I'm ready. I really don't know. The race is too long. Too much can happen in the mountains of VT.



What I do know is that I lived a savage winter. I passed this road every day, and "Become a Savage" kind of became my personal mantra for the winter.

My profile picture is the Hulk in transformation.
I am drawn to the idea of a struggling man hating...and then embracing his dark inner strength. Am I ready to leave the struggle and become something else? I will go to the mountains and lay my ego down at the starting line.

Then, after a few days and hundreds of miles of running, the forest will give me my answer, and I will be grateful for this opportunity, regardless.

kp

No Glory

in retrospect
the finish line is what's glorified

remembrance of jubilation
news articles
and video spots
photos worth a million words
and even more footsteps

how do you prepare for the next
when you only remember the good?

dig deep.
remember the squeaking of wet shoes
socks saturated with dirt
the sting of old bandages creating new blisters

staggering out of bed
on 2 hours of sleep
stuffing swollen feet into damp shoes
for another 20 hour day

the way a mile can last forever
or how you can't squat for a trailside shit
how it's possible to forget germ phobias
sitting in a portapotty
actually enjoying it

when you can't keep your chin up
and your headlight beams down
illuminating fresh bear tracks
hair on the back of your neck stands up
on a cold night, with mist pouring down
and everything is soggy

the owls hoot a sad and lonely song
created solely for the way you feel
and everyone else is living their normal life

and a warm bed is hundreds of miles away

kp

The First

my first ultra was a low key 40 miler in Virginia 7 years ago.
we ran up a mountain, and then down it. It was a 13.33 mile loop that we did 3 times.

it was at a small state park. quiet and beautiful.
i slept in the trunk of my car the night before.

i remember feeling too good the first 35 miles, and even better at the top of the mountain on my last lap when the aid station told me i was in 3rd place...but i did not know what was coming in those final miles:
epic and fantastic meltdown.

i was able to hold onto the podium, but those final miles forced me to learn that it wasn't about place anymore. it was about surviving.

what i wouldn't give to have that ignorance and bliss back. to run unencumbered by the knowledge of limits. simpler times.

ultra running, the supreme metaphor for life.

Infinitus 888k

PEAK is in shambles.

There will probably never be another PEAK 500. Am I sad to see it go? No, because in its stead has risen some other monster.
It's mysterious...scary even.

The distance and cutoff is extreme. 551 miles in 10 days. It's like they took our mileage and finishing pace from this year and tacked another day on top just to see if it's going to work. The course is supposedly more brutal.

Facebook is abuzz with the new event. Many stating that they will be at the start line. Since the first mention of Infinitus, I've been obsessing, as I did that summer, sitting in my tent drinking coffee.

I am asked daily, "What's next?".

There will be no fall goal. There will only be winter training for Infinitus, in May. I snuck through Peak with no specialized training. I have a feeling that no one can sneak through Infinitus. Watch the video. Visit the link.

If that doesn't have serial slaughter all over it, I don't know what does.
This is where people might say "Bring It!".

I know it's going to be brought....not by me. By the course. By the weather. The ticks. The wet and soggy feet and blisters and shitty moods and every single small decision that adds up into possible DNF. There are things that people cannot prepare for: unknowns. And those will surely be brought in force. To the drawing board.

kp

when this whole shithouse burns down

thursday night thoughts.
i sometimes cringe at what would happen if the grid actually went down.
not from the standpoint of finances or entertainment... not even in the survival sense.
humans have done it forever.
probably be better for us anyways.
i cringe because the last time i developed a photo and then stuck it in a physical book was 15+ years ago.
i remember my parents had a basement shelf full of old photo albums.
my kids won't have those to thumb through. they won't know the smell of old musty heavy books full of over-and under-exposed pictures.
in 200 or 2000 years, we may be forced to revert back to living a slower, more natural life where there is no internet.

i wonder if they'll look back at these as the Dark Ages: very little physical evidence in books and photos to keep record of what we did and thought.

500

image from 2011 trail journal

It's August 2, 2011 on a rainy, crappy stretch of weather at 4000 feet, on the side of Garfield.
Barely leaving my tent for 2 days, I've almost drained my entire 10 day supply of coffee in just a couple days.
I'm writing in my journal. And thinking. And when a person has no computer and no tv and no radio and no other thing to focus on but trees and weather and rocks, one becomes a bit...obsessive.

During my Caretaker Summer I racked up nothing but mountain mileage daily, and became one with the woods. One of the best things about the job is coming off the mountain, and feeling how weird it is to walk on flat ground...kind of like when you jump on a trampoline, and then get off it and try jumping. That type of strange.

My routine was this: wake up and drink coffee. Chat with thru hikers and day hikers on their way out of the campsite.
Do radio check and weather postings.
Hike my face off and do any work necessary.
Come back to the site for afternoon coffee and journal before a new wave of trail-weary folks staggered in.

Something stirred in my head that summer. It rattled around, and continued to for years after. Before starting my job in the mountains, I had heard about a race in the mountains of Vermont.
It sounded so stupid.
500 miles of running up a mountain, then down a mountain, over and over again. 120,000 feet of gain. That is not a typo. That's Everest. 4 times.
But I couldn't get it out of my head. And as I honed my rock hopping skills and created an insatiable appetite for meditative, lonesome, long mileage, I decided that it needed to happen.

Here I sit 3 years later, less than a week away from the dumbest thing I have ever done: The Peak 500.
None of my multi day events come close to the difficulty of this, and I go in with absolutely zero bravado. A Deca Iron finish means nothing here. Nothing.

I am scared to death of the mileage and the unknowns, but also excited as hell about the mileage and the unknowns.
The short sleeps, the stomach problems, the downhills, the swollen feet and blisters.

What I cannot wait for is the silent evenings, seeing only what is in my headlight.
Watching the sun come up and feeling the energy of it lifting the spirits. Eating everything.

What will happen, will happen, but one thing is for sure, I will flow with the trail and battle myself and the human condition until the end.
Thank you all for your support and love. This has truly been a magical month.

kp