Monday, April 30, 2012

4 Guys, 2 Bears

4 guys, 2 bears; As the title suggests, this was a nauseating day on the trails.
 
The signs were pretty obvious - violent heaving for 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday, a Friday night weigh in that confirmed I was still down about 6 pounds, and a still, inexplicably, buoyant attitude Saturday morning.  I try to exercise a lot of caution when dealing with illness or injury.  Usually I bide my time and let things clear up.  It was clear that the only thing working in my favor for our planned 3 Bears route was that I really wanted to run.  So I did.  In a sport where attitude is everything, it was clear that my head was going to have to convince my legs to make it through this day.   
 
We left Chautauqua and headed up the paved section of the Mesa Trail.  Usually this would be an easy jog and a great place to conversate with friends. Instead, I was concerned with the rapidity that I started sweating and the fact that even on this gentle grade, I couldn't find the space in between breaths to chide Steve for my stereotype of lawyers, formed by this scene, which I watched for the umpteenth time the previous night. 
 
The section of Mesa Trail seemed to stretch much longer than the advertised "few" miles.  The shortest steep pitches required Euro-style hiking.  The world seemed to have shrunk to the space between my eyes and the trail.  A strange thing happened though, instead of wallowing in pity, I tried to just enjoy the fact that even on my worst day, I could still move through the Boulder trails with some (albeit plodding) consistency.  There wasn't a point where I "decided" to go slow and smile the whole time, it just happened as a result of there being no other option.  Until Dave Mackey was lurking behind me.
 
As our group left South Boulder Pk, I quickly fell behind.  I suck on technical piles of rock to begin with, whilst lightheaded my lack of speed is a joke. While leaving the summit, two figures came darting past me in the opposite direction, JV and Dave Mackey, two guys with admirable running and climbing talents.  Hellos were exchanged and very quickly they were back on my heels.  JV and my three amigos slowly pulled away, and Dave was left at my heels.  I insisted that he go ahead, but he refused.  I wanted to explain that I felt like crap and blah blah blah, but I didn't have scratch paper to illustrate this graph:   
 
 
Happy Running!

5 comments:

  1. I've had JV, GZ, and DM, Homie, J.Grant, and Schlarb give me a head start up Bear a few weeks ago, which, is always tricky because I don't actually know what time they started. Did they start late? early? It was up shadow canyon, so you can hear them casually chatting up to a mile behind you it seems....getting closer...while you hyperventilate on the verge of throwing up. terrifying.

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  2. What about the rest of the story - you didn't even finish the tail of the 1st Bear?

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  3. Love the graph! Good to see you out there and sorry we had to split so soon at the end, both Dave and I were really tempted to keep going with you guys, but we both (reluctantly) needed to get back. Hope to see you out there again soon.

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  4. Oh, and don't believe Rob, he and Laurie were casually chatting and waiting on us.

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  5. Sorry guys, I blacked out the rest of that run. It's probably for my own good. I'm looking forward to the next Boulder excursion.

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