Going Home

"Going Home" -Sculpture by Tinka Jordy

When we have no real home, we're like an aimless wanderer out on the road, going this way for a while and then that way, stopping for a while and then setting off again. Until we return to our real home, whatever we do we feel ill at ease, just like somebody who's left his village to go on a journey. Only when he gets home again can he really relax and be comfortable. Nowhere in the world is any real peace to be found. That's the nature of the world. Look within yourself and find it there instead. - Ajahn Chah

Rat Race

I spent last week in Orlando at a trade show. My company held it, with all the customers and suppliers and employees coming in from all over the country. 15,000 people! They even rented good portions of two Dizney resorts for all of us to stay in. I discovered something: I am NOT a resort kind of person, especially Dizney (yes, I know I am spelling it incorrectly).

You are trapped. Like a RAT. once inside the resort you are very VERY limited to how you move about. Buses. Everywhere. You are not only inside a resort, but you are INSIDE Dizney "town". It's in Orlando alright, but quite literally Dizney is a town, with miles and miles of its own highways. You go everywhere by bus.

For an ultra runner and outside enthusiast, its awful. Every day, I had to wait for a bus to take me exactly ONE mile to the trade show. Some days, for all the logistics, it would take me an hour and half to move that ONE mile to get to work. There literally was no safe way for me to walk, unless I wanted to dodge buses on all the bridges. Plus, get arrested. Yes. The Dizney folks saw fit to tell you that YOU CANNOT WALK HERE.

But here's the good news. I was there to staff a store within the trade show that sold our company logo merchandise to our customers, suppliers and employees. I have a whole new respect for anyone manning a cash register, or working in the retail business. I worked about 25 hours in three and half days ringing up sales of hats, jackets, and shirts. Sounds like drudgery work, how can that be the good news?

Well, the store was set up as a funding point for a scholarship program. All proceeds taken in to fund people getting education in the skilled trades industries: "Tools for Tomorrow". Personally, I came up through the ranks, working in metal fab shops and warehouses for almost half of my career. I have a special place in my heart for those people who know how to DO. Do things, weld things, bend things, fix things. In this day and age when young people expect to make a living doing not all that much, its great to provide the means and ways for some to go to school and learn how to get their hands dirty. The CAN DO people of the world. The fixers. The people trying to rise above the rat race cycle of unskilled assembly line and white collar data entry sweat shops.

Over the course of that 3 and half days, we raised nearly $90,000 for that scholarship program. Now that was a week well spent, even in Dizney hell.

I'll be going back for sure next year. Maybe we can break 100 grand.

Five Years Old

Have I ever talked about my running group, the Lapham Peak Trail Runners (LPTR)?

It’s such an amazing group of people. I have found that people who are ultra runners all seem to have this positive can do attitude. Maybe its that positive people are attracted to the sport, or maybe you just become more positive by running insanely long distances.

Every time I go to Wednesday night run, I am reminded of so many things that I love about them. To an LPTR member, life is an adventure. Exercise time is play time. It’s a pure joy; of being alive, of sharing that aliveness with others.

Hanging out with them, I have found myself thinking about doing seemingly impossible things I wouldn’t have considered before. I tend to be more ‘forward’ thinking, and not looking so much at my failures except for purposes of adjustment, or sometimes humor.

There are times in your life you see major changes in your path, your longer life path. Joining the LPTR group was one of those for me, and a very positive one.

I’ll never forget it, even when I can’t run anymore.

Foolish Questions

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

"Letters to a Young Poet”, Rainer Maria Rilke

Heavy Metal

So health wise, I'm doing pretty good. Running is going pretty well. I got a 21 and 7 miler in this weekend. Ran into Brother Grub (ran three miles with him), Marcel, JT, and Jimbo; and Robyn, Nat and I did 3 miles together on the trail before I headed out for 15 more.

I have been getting plenty of sleep, exercise, and heavy metals. Well, not really heavy unless you consider that pills are the size of a Volkswagen. Magnesium, Potassium and Calcium pills. Electrolytes.

I am on an ultra-load regime of all three, and for about two weeks so far. After about a month, I should know what the effect is. I think its working. The blips are still there, but not so noticeable, less frequent. I am still rolling with it.

The plan for the year is getting fleshed out, and I'm sticking with it. No need to rush into another over-loaded racing year.

Two Feet

This is a disjointed collection, an ephemeral, wispy list of thoughts about relationships. But its real to me, and it makes sense. Words are so small, thoughts and emotions are so big sometimes. If we let the words try and define the emotions, they always limit, always truncate. Cut off the feet. Distilled. Crippled. We try anyway. That's the trouble with poets.

A relationship can't stand on its own. It has no feet. It has no tongue and it cannot talk. You must feed it, bring something to it every day, but not at the sacrifice of you. You, must be stronger than it, so you can feed and water it properly. Trim it, prune it, and yes even kill it if necessary. If you let it, it will defeat and distill you into a small caricature of yourself. It turns into a monster with a life of its own yelling FEED ME. It will suck you dry. Make you lie, make you sell your soul, or worse become a lackey subservient "for the sake of the relationship".

It lives and breathes from people; yet its fragile, breakable, like a whisper in the dark. It only gets its strength from us. We often think these things are strong, but they are not. We are strong. We can't sacrifice our strength for the sake of something that doesn't exist in the empirical sense. Its personal, and it must always always be a choice to keep feeding it.

Phew. Words and thoughts. I'm only as strong as my thoughts, because my thoughts as are all that I really own. That, and my two feet. These two things, are my only carriage. They've carried me a long way.

Maybe that's the secret I want share. Its not easy, but I don't have to walk it talk it like I am expected to; I have to walk it talk it like I was made to do. If the rest of the world don't like it, well, it can go to hell.

I'll send em a postcard.

Leaving It Out There

So in light of my continued battle with electrolytes and electrical impulses in the ticker, this is a year that I am going to have to stay busy with stuff other than running ultras for competition and speed.

Let’s face it, I wasn’t fast to begin with, and struggled just to stay above the half way mark in many races. OK, so I won some AG awards. Whee. However, if you are a competitor even with yourself, you still want to go out and give it your all and know you tried. Spend yourself. Exhausted, done your best. Double D hates losing, I hate quitting on myself, no matter what my overall spot in a race. Leave nothing on the trail. Nothing.

But this year, I am leaving a LOT on the trail, in a variety of ways.

2012, is a re-direction of energies. Two ‘races’ on the schedule which I plan on doing, but no pressure to perform at such and such a time. Clinton Lake and Chippewa should be fun just because so many of the running gang will be there. Likely, gonna run the whole races with someone from the group just because.

As of April 28^th, essentially life is free to do what ever. Nice. No pressure, no races. Throw a 50K in here or there, but no pressure, sign up last minute sort of thing.

So what to do with time? Leave it all on the Trail.

Here’s the plan. Race Volunteer, Trail Volunteer, Pace. Work at races, and at trail building events. Do at least one per month for the year. Four pacing jobs lined up. And really, the two best events of last year were this: pacing Angela at Kettle, and the Dances with Dirt 50 Mile finish. In that order, too. I truly love pacing, because I get to run 50 miles supported, and for mostly free, and no pressure to finish. Plus the added bonus of running at night with people I love. My favorite shirt is my green Kettle 100, even though I didn't run the race.

The Calendar looks like this:

March 31^st: Clinton Lake

April 15^th Pace and crew Adam M in Pekin 100

April 22^nd: Trail Clean up at Rockport (my local haunt)

April 28^th: Chippewa 50K

May 12^th: Ice Age Volunteer Captain

June 2^nd: Kettle 100 volunteer, pace Tina H in Kettle 100

June TBD: Kettle Moraine Trail work day

July 7^th; Dances With Dirt Volunteer

July 19 – 26^th: Superior Hiking trip

August 18^th: Pace and Crew Adam M Leadville 100

September TBD: Superior Trail Work days

September 15th: Sweep the North Face Endurance Challenge

September 23^rd – 29^th: Dark Canyon Wilderness, La Sal National Forest Utah Trail Project

October 7^th: Volunteer at Glacial 50 mile

November 3^rd Pace and crew Jose V at Pinhoti 100

There are lots and lots of other opportunities as well, to help with trail building. Lapham comes to mind. So does the Kettle. Those trails have given me a lot, and I am going to put some back.

2012. Leave it all on the Trail.