Tag Archives: Vic’s Too

CT Cronica: Downhill

03 Sunday Apr 2011

Posted by in Colorado Trail

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You rise at 6 am to dress for hiking the first segment of the Colorado Trail.  You laid out your clothes the night before and selected a slew of shirts, extra socks and even multiple hats to make your final dress determination at the trail head.  You make a ham and cheese sandwich and grab a bag of baby carrots for trail food, and stuff it in your pack with clothes, sunscreen and two bottles of Gatorade Perform 02.  You’re out the door and at Vics by 6:30 am for a large cup of half decaf, half real deal for the drive to Sedalia.

You drive about 10 miles west of Sedalia on Hwy 67 to the Indian Creek Trail Head, where your trail guide A Lo Hawk is waiting for you after having camped the night out there.  You spend 45 minutes shuffling a car to the end of the hike, and launch at 3 minutes before 9 am.  A Lo Hawk, who in many ways is more of a spiritual guide than trail guide, takes the lead.  You follow more as if chasing the wind than anything corporeal.  Your expectation is to run as much as the first half of the 16 mile trail, and walk the rest.  But that plan is fluid and will be determined by the terrain and elevation.  You warm up and quickly fall into a fast pace because the trail is noticeably downhill.  Soon you’re flying effortlessly down the single track, and recalling how this trail reminds you of the time you spent regularly running an inner city greenbelt 23 years earlier.  You wonder if this trail will fall downward forever and know that you’ll complete it much earlier than planned if the drop continues.

All downhills end with a corresponding uphill, and this experience is no different.  A Lo Hawk gradually, smoothly shifts gears to maintain cadence as the slope increases and you near the crest.  He talks of trail ultras and the concept of continuum – the notion that each segment, the runs, the walks, and the sit down rests, all comprise equal experiences in your enjoyment of the CT.  As the rise steepens, you look forward to the walking component of the continuum.

A Lo Hawk eventually glides into a walk and you take his picture.  You’ve completed the first quarter of the first segment of the CT.  You don’t know that the quarter metaphor will add up mathematically in terms of today’s hike/run having 4 stops or 4 discrete segments; but you’re thinking more in terms of running an interval track workout of quarter miles.  Such workouts might consist of 6 or 8 quarters, and for whatever reason, you think today’s run might be something like an interval workout.  You’re flexible enough in your use of metaphors to apply the term to the notion of having just  completed a quarter of the trail.  Technically, your first stop came after only 2 or 3 memorable miles – so only an eighth of the trail.  And so far, your gear choice of two layers of thin, high tech shirts – one a red long-sleeve Under Armour jersey, and the second your new crimson red Boulder Spring Half Marathon top – has kept you comfortable.  The air is still chilly but the sun is bright and the wind nominal.  You think about taking the lead for the second quarter.

Breakfast of Champions

09 Wednesday Mar 2011

Posted by in Running

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Is coffee not the best thing ever?  I liked Squeeze’s song, Black Coffee in Bed, before I ever drank coffee as a regular part of my nutritional breakfast.  Think I’m being funny when I call it nutritional?  Read that last link.  Coffee contains a surprising amount of vitamins and minerals – especially magnesium.  I’ve read an article or two (I had a subscription to Runner’s World for awhile) about the benefits of a cup of coffee before exercise.  I forget the details but recall it advising something about small quantities being good before a run.  I’m thinking of this now because I ran 8 miles today after two missed days of running and had a bit of a stitch from the 8 cups of java I had for breakfast.  8 cups probably exceeds the limits of small quantities, I know that.  But I’m just wondering, how good or how bad is coffee for training?

I know too much caffeine is bad, no question.  Especially in Colorado with the dry climate.  In fact, when I determined to seriously return to high-mileage running a couple of years ago, I had to give up caffeine.  I went from 8 cups of coffee each morning to zero – cold turkey.  Such prodigious amounts of joe led to incredible dehydration and headaches.  After a good number of months, I think by Christmas after quitting in the spring, I began to drink decaffeinated coffee.  I used to think drinking decaf was odd, but I get it now.  I love black coffee – caffeine or not.  I’m now even more lax and will drink regular coffee when traveling or I simply run out of decaf.  If I go down to Big Daddy Bagels or Vics, I’ll order half regular and half decaf.  So like with most things I’m pretty flexible.  Still, I’ve crept back up on the quantity of coffee I’m drinking and caffeine or not – I have to wonder what the effects of such voluminous java is doing to my diet – or for that matter my running.  It certainly bounces around in my gut so that’s less than optimal.  I’ve heard stories that caffeine actually makes your body hold onto fat cells, and similar bits of wisdom saying it’s good or it’s not good before a run.  No idea what’s true.  And of course, I’m more concerned with better understanding the effects of coffee sans caffeine.  I’m interested in comments.

The Painter

26 Tuesday Jan 2010

Posted by in Storytelling

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Beautiful Young Woman PaintingMy 18 year old daughter is in NY this week with her mother, auditioning first at NYU and then Syracuse.  I wanted to wish her to break a leg as I dropped them off at DIA at 7:15 am Monday.  It should have been at 6:45 am.  That would have been better for my schedule of a 7am staff call, feeding the 7 year old breakfast, and making all my much more important obligations.  But Brittiboo pulled an all-nighter doing God-knows-what in her room and was late.  And then forgot her driver’s license so we had to turn around.  Plus she kept me up all night knowing she wasn’t asleep.  I really can’t put into words just how pissed I was at her other than to say I dropped Brit off at DIA for what is probably a hugely exciting event for her without saying anything nice.  Did 16 years of IBM make me such a dick, or have I always been this way?

My life was different at her age.  I didn’t work Sunday’s in a trendy coffee shop.  During the 100 degree summers in Texas, I painted houses.  Mostly new construction.  I expected to attend college and never pictured myself doing manual labor when I grew up.  But I never thought myself above my peers and worked hard.  That paint crew taught me to appreciate the quality of our work when we were finished.  We did mostly high-end homes on Cat Mountain and Lake Austin.  The thing about painting, or construction work in general, is afterwards you can see your end product – and feel proud.  But it was 10 hours each day of intense labor.

Something I learned from it, or developed, was work ethic.  I mean, you would think that’s what I learned.  But it’s more complicated than that.  I also learned something that took me years afterward to appreciate.  I had my first experience with the anti work ethic.  I say that because it’s not non-work, it’s a different credo.  I’m not sure how to describe this but I’m referring to how intelligence equates to laziness, or the inverse.  My 1st summer, I worked alongside a HS buddy.  I’d always be hustling, working my tail off.  I’d sweat off 10 lbs. from morning to end of day.  Rob generally worked as hard as me but this one time he questioned me.  We were carrying unpainted doors to another part of the house and I’d clearly outpaced him 2 to 1.  “Ed, what the hell are you doing?  We make $5.25 an hour, and when the day is done, we’ll still be making only $5.25 an hour!”  I’d been racing like some mad dog chasing a ball.  Rob was pacing himself because he’d considered the end game.  We had different value systems.  Or Rob had one and I was still developing mine.  That was over 30 years ago.  He’s a personal fitness instructor and volunteer search and rescue dude now.  He was in the search party for that guy who died from exposure in Oregon a few Thanksgivings ago.  He moved to Grand Junction recently to run some college athletic program and he’s got me into mountain hiking.  He got me to hike my first fourteener – Pike’s Peak.

So I worked hard through high school.  I worked every semester of college – usually delivering pizzas until 3am whilst running varsity Cross Country in the fall and Track in the spring.  I got through a Masters program and to where I am now – which is comfortable.  Brittany left a dirty room for me to clean – knowing the plan was to get the carpets steam cleaned while she was out of town.  But I don’t know.  Is my teenage daughter as lazy as I think?  Or even if she is, does it matter?  Can what’s important today be what was important for me at her age?  Rob taught me I didn’t exactly have a plan when I raced to the end of the day.  Brittiboo wants to be a performer.  On Broadway.  She practices her lines, her songs and her monologues.  She got the lead in her high school play.  She seems to know how to get what she wants.  And she has a plan.  I never did at that age.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not going to ease up on her lazy ass.  I’m a dick remember?  But I will try to appreciate that she knows what she’s doing and will very likely be a star at whatever she does.