Below: Electrocardiogram of ^z at ... uh, no, that's the approximate elevation profile of the Catoctin 50k race course — vertical scale 500-1800 feet, horizontal scale 0-35 miles. (GPS data by Jesse Leitner)
(click for larger images)
Howdy, pilgrim! No ads — you're in the ^zhurnal (that's Russian for "journal") — see ZhurnalyWiki for a Wiki edition of individual items; see Zhurnal and Zhurnaly for quick clues as to what this is all about. Briefly, it's the diary of ^z = Mark Zimmermann ... previous volume = 0.69 ... complete list at bottom of page ... send comments & suggestions to "z (at) his (dot) com" ... click on a title link to go to that item in the ZhurnalyWiki where you can edit or comment on it ... thank you! RSS
See Catoctin 50k 2008 for gruesome details, including gory photos!
(and for a new experiment in producing a journal, using the <journal> tag of the Oddmuse wiki engine, see Jog Log ...)
- Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 04:56:42 (EDT)
Friend Caren Jew recently shared a marvelous metaphor from John Morelock's column in the August 2008 Ultrarunning magazine:
I knew I could get from [trail] to [trail] in about 90 minutes of easy running, 80 minutes if I paid attention. A hundred minutes was a day of dreams and distractions. And that one day of 76 minutes was like an unwitnessed hole-in-one.
Caren's message led me to some sage advice offered on one of Morelock's web pages (still found in Google's cache, though his domain planetultramarathon.com seems to be defunct at the moment). A few excerpts:
(cf. Slower Runner's Guide (2002-10-30), Running Advice (2003-10-02), Survival Factors (2005-08-26), ...)
- Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 04:51:45 (EDT)
Foolish? My middle name! What other word describes going out for an afternoon trail run on a warm, humid day after 13+ miles in the morning? But hey, Caren Jew and I have foolishly put our necks into the Catoctin 50k 2008 noose, and if we want to make any of the cutoffs it's time to start taking our medicine.
So following the Riley's Rumble half marathon on Sunday morning with friend Mary Ewell, I give CM Manlandro a lift to her home, then return to Che^z for a quick snack and change into dry clothes. Off I go to Drop Zone X-ray, where Caren meets me and we ride north to Gambrill State Park. The slopes of the Catoctin Trail could daunt the strongest heart. Mine quails when I face them. The Tea Room where the race begins and ends is at the top of a huge hill, but we don't know the route down to the Gambrill Park Rd lot so we leave the car there, where the trail is clearer. Today our goal is to test our speed on the hills under realistic race conditions for the first course segment.
A couple of miles later an eastern box turtle crawls across our path—it's making better time than we are. Down and up and down and up again we go, pushing hard, and finally I spy what looks like a road ahead. It turns out to be a shiny pond. Ten minutes later we make Hamburg Rd, 1:50 into our journey. The cutoff here is 1:45, and that's from the official Tea Room starting line. We had a 10 minute head start.
Our return journey is even slower. I'm carrying two bottles and soon all my water is gone. Caren kindly shares from her camelback, for which I bless her. At every stream crossing I pause to wet my head. We trudge up to Caren's car and arrive in 1:54. At a 7-11 on the way home I buy a 32 oz. Big Gulp. My body soaks it up like a sponge. When I weigh myself at home I'm still down 1 pound. D, D, D, Dehydration!/
But the good news: Caren and I both survive the journey, we're within a couple of minutes/mile of the cutoffs, and our program of acclimation to heat and hills is working. The planets just haven't come into alignment yet. Maybe Race Day Magic will save us?
- Monday, August 18, 2008 at 05:21:35 (EDT)
Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods isn't quite up to the high comic-travelogue standard set by Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat—but it often comes close. Bryson and his buddy Katz begin their trek along the Appalachian Trail at its southern origin in Georgia:
It was hell. First days on hiking trips always are. I was hopelessly out of shape—hopelessly. The pack weighed way too much. Way too much. I had never encountered anything so hard, for which I was so ill prepared. Every step was a struggle.
The hardest part was coming to terms with the constant dispiriting discovery that there is always more hill. The thing about being on a hill, as opposed to standing back from it, is that you can almost never see exactly what's to come. Between the curtain of trees at every side, the ever-receding contour of rising slope before you, and your own plodding weariness, you gradually lose track of how far you have come. Each time you haul yourself up to what you think must surely be the crest, you find that there is in fact more hill beyond, sloped at an angle that kept it from view before, and that beyond that slope there is another, and beyond that another and another, and beyond each of those more still, until it seems impossible that any hill could run on this long. Eventually you reach a height where you can see the tops of the topmost trees, with nothing but clear sky beyond, and your faltering spirit stirs—nearly there now!—but this is a pitiless deception. The elusive summit continually retreats by whatever distance you press forward, so that each time the canopy parts enough to give you a view you are dismayed to see that the topmost trees are as remote, as unattainable, as before. Still you stagger on. What else can you do?
Humorous anecdotes are interwoven with philosophical asides, as at the beginning of Chapter 6:
Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way, two miles literally considerable, ten miles whopping, fifty miles at the very limits of conception. The world, you realize, is enormous in a way that only you and a small community of fellow hikers know. Planetary scale is your little secret.
Life takes on a neat simplicity, too. Time ceases to have any meaning. When it is dark, you go to bed, and when it is light again you get up, and everything in between is just in between. It's quite wonderful, really.
Bryson's writing is delightful. Besides laughs, he offers thoughtful reflections on ecology and society, economics and geology. He meditates on evolution and extinction. His math isn't always the best though. In Chapter 10 a tree ten feet in diameter is a bit more than twenty feet around (so π ≈ 2?), and in Chapter 11 he covers 1.4 miles in only a 20 minute walk (far too fast to be credible). But that's quibbling.
Among Bryson's best meditations is one near the end, after his odyssey is complete:
I still quite often go for walks on the trail near my home, especially if I am stuck on something I am working on. Most of the times I am sunk in thought, but at some point on each walk there comes a moment when I look up and notice, with a kind of first-time astonishment, the amazing complex delicacy of the woods, the casual ease with which elemental things come together to form a composition that is—whatever the season, wherever I put my besotted gaze—perfect. Not just very fine or splendid, but perfect, unimprovable. You don't have to walk miles up mountains to achieve this, don't have to plod through blizzards, slip sputtering in mud, wade chest-deep through water, hike day after day to the edge of your limits—but believe me, it helps.
Perfect? No, but close enough ...
(many tnx to friend Caren for lending me her copy of this book!)
- Sunday, August 17, 2008 at 04:03:18 (EDT)
Before dawn CM Manlandro and I rendezvous at the Davis Library. I drive us via back roads to Riley's Lock on the Potomac River. Ken Swab and Mary Ewell meet us there on a moderately warm morning. Standing near friends in line for the portajohn I chat with a young man who tells me that he's just back from the Vermont 100, where he paced the winner for the final 30 miles and then went back to accompany an older gentleman over the same course segment. "Wait a minute," I say, "was that Jim Cavanaugh? Are you the Bryan-with-a-'y' I heard about?" Small world—he was indeed Jim's pacer! Bryan tells me that he was always certain Jim would finish, and that his main contribution was to enforce aid-station discipline and keep Jim from socializing too much with the volunteers.
As the race begins Mary and I trot at a moderate pace and walk the first big hills while CM and Ken blast out of sight. We chat about health and diet, friends and training. Cheerful volunteers offer us water and electrolyte drinks as we attempt to stay hydrated. Don and Kenna Libes distribute ice pops at mile 5+; we see them again at mile 7+ on the return trip. Mary begins to suffer from the heat and humidity. Our 12 min/mi pace slows.
Lucky day: I spy a dime on the ground and pick it up. A "2" mini-pool ball by the roadside catches my eye and I snag it too, but set it down and forget to retrieve it at a later aid station, in my joy at discovering chocolate-peanut M&Ms there. With my sweaty palm stained in splotches of artificial color from the candies I ask Mary, "Are you starting to hallucinate? Do you see anything strange when you look at my hand?"
A young man afflicted by calf cramps at mile 10 stops to massage his legs. Mary and I ask him if we can help; I give him a Succeed! e-cap. Small world—he's the brother of my daughter's violin student! Mary and I proceed onward, our pace decelerating. The Libes van passes by and Kenna offers us ice from her volunteer's cap. We gratefully partake.
As the finish line looms Mary starts to feel significantly better and we run most of the last mile, to come in together at 2:53. Emergency medical technicians are posted nearby with their ambulance, and at my request Mary gets a quick check of blood pressure, blood sugar, etc. They're all fine; perhaps the sudden fatigue she experiences today is due to dehydration or other electrolyte imbalance. CM finishes in 2:25, a huge PR for her, but the stress of running most of the race with Ken (who makes it in 2:20) is significant. I give her a ride home where her afternoon recovery strategy is a good one: pasta, nap, repeat!
- Saturday, August 16, 2008 at 08:18:29 (EDT)
"Mach's Principle" is the rather vague philosophical-physical notion that inertia — how hard it is to push a mass around — is related to other masses in the universe. It's named for philosopher-physicist Ernst Mach, though others came up with versions of it earlier. A classical example: take a bucket of water, set it on a turntable, and spin it. The water sloshes outward. But if there were no other objects in the universe, how could the bucket "know" it was spinning? Would the surface of the water then stay flat? (Easier asked than answered!)
Mach's principle appealed greatly to Albert Einstein, though people argue how significant (or real) the principle is. Never mind; take Mach seriously for a moment. The big trick of Einstein's theory of gravity is that it turns gravity into geometry. "Space tells matter how to move; matter tells space how to curve," in John Archibald Wheeler's mantra. Distances are affected by mass. A ray of light's path bends when it goes near the Sun. The light is still trying to move in a straight line but "straight" is different in curved space.
Which brings me to my tiny-silly idea, hatched during a walk to the subway a few days ago. Science-fiction readers of a certain age (e.g., mine) will remember E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman stories written in the 1930s and '40s. A central feature of those tales was the "Inertialess Drive", a technological plot-device that let the characters travel across and among galaxies quickly enough to fight aliens and save the universe.
So put the three together: Mach + Einstein + Smith. One can clearly work out mass distributions that stretch space locally. Would such a configuration of bodies — you'd probably need to use black holes — cause local inertial properties to change? Could "stuff" inside the magic zone "weigh less" because it's now effectively farther from all the other matter in the cosmos? It's not even a half-baked notion but maybe, with a lot of hard work and calculation, somebody more expert in General Relativity than I could compute examples to show the effect, if it exists. Maybe somebody already has.
(cf. Neighborhood Effects (1999-11-18), No Concepts at All (2001-02-22), LensManic (2001-07-16), Skylark Duquesne (2003-11-01), ...)
- Friday, August 15, 2008 at 05:55:21 (EDT)
The forest path is dim at 5:40am, since rosy-fingered Dawn has only just begun to stretch out her hands to tickle the last-quarter moon. Construction barriers, "CAUTION!" tape, and parked earthmoving equipment are easy to get around. "Honestly, Officer, it was too gloomy for me to read the signs!" I say to myself as I pick my way past the barriers and proceed downhill to Rock Creek Trail, moonshadow trotting in front of me. The Army is fixing the Ireland Dr "Carriage Trail" bridges, which have long been deteriorating as part of Walter Reed Annex, so I slow my pace slightly and avoid falling. I pause to tap my shoe on the newly-poured concrete at one span, to make sure it's solid. On the Rock Creek Trestle of the CCT I find 63¢: two quarters, a dime, and three pennies. The rest of the way home I try to remember something about finite-state automata, which reminds me of a Turkish obscenity that a Caltech student-friend taught me a few decades ago.
(new experiment: instead of "batch mode" jog log entries, which nobody reads and which are hard to search, I'll try to post them individually with the date at the start of the title ...)
- Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 19:52:12 (EDT)
Sometimes less really is more: son Robin points out that, paradoxically, the more ninjas there are in a fight the weaker they become. A castle full of ninjas always falls to a single ninja attacker. Pirates, on the other hand, become far stronger as their numbers increase.
(cf. Delicate Power (1999-12-12), Pirates vs. Ninjas (2004-07-28), ...)
- Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 22:23:17 (EDT)
In his Autobiography Benjamin Franklin offers practical, psychological, and social reasons for not sounding too certain when expressing one's opinions:
My list of virtues continued at first but twelve; but a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud, that my pride showed itself frequently in conversation, that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing and rather insolent, of which he convinced me by mentioning several instances, I determined endeavoring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word.
I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it. I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I adopted, instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so, or it so appears to me at present. When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering, I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared or seemed to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this charge in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly.
The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevailed with other to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.
And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural inclination, became at length so easy, and so habitual to me, that perhaps for these fifty years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression escape me. And to this habit (after my character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow-citizens when I proposed new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public councils when I became a member; for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my points.
(cf. Certainty and Doubt (1999-04-27), Deliberate Opinion (2001-10-14), Discussion and Dialogue (2006-01-07), Franklin on Pride (2008-06-03), ...) - ^z
- Tuesday, August 12, 2008 at 05:57:27 (EDT)
| Left: Caren Jew and Mark Zimmermann mug for the camera at the midway aid station. Note the fashionable dirt-repellant gaiters on our shoes, with patterns selected by Caren's daughters, Ashley and Jenna. ^z's hands are full with potato chips and watermelon. He's cradling two water bottles and has another one strapped to his waist. (photo by Anstr Davidson and Mark McKennett) Below: Electrocardiogram of ^z at ... uh, no, that's the approximate elevation profile of the Catoctin 50k race course — vertical scale 500-1800 feet, horizontal scale 0-35 miles. (GPS data by Jesse Leitner) (click for larger images) |
Good news: Caren and I cross the finish line of the Catoctin 50k half an hour after the ultimate cutoff, so although we complete the course, officially we Did Not Finish. My streak of never-a-DNF is broken at last — what a relief! As ultrarunning legend Tom Green told me at Bull Run Run 2008, if you never DNF then you're not trying hard enough.
Or maybe it's like the straight-A student in school: after a while, the pressure to perform becomes counterproductive. Once you get that first "B", you can relax. Whew!
The Catoctin Trail is arguably one of the toughest in Maryland. It features hills far too long to climb anaerobically and their flip-side, quad-crunching descents. Rock gardens and root gnarls are poised to trip the unwary. Stream crossings cool the toes, if you don't slip and take a sudden plunge. And then there are the embarrassingly-runnable stretches that taunt you after you're too exhausted to enjoy them.
It sounds like a trail you'd love to hate, but in fact it's just the opposite. The varied terrain underfoot is a constant delight, as are the flora, the fauna, the dramatic overlooks, and the ponds that magically appear pathside every few miles. Caren ventures here frequently, and together we've done a fistful of long training runs (cf. 21 Oct 2006, 24 Dec 2006, 18 May 2008, 22 July 2008, and 27 July 2008).
But the Catoctin 50k Race is another matter entirely. It's a rough-and-tumble rumble on the Cat Trail, held in the furnace of late summer starting in Gambrill State Park and proceeding over the ridges of the Frederick Municipal Watershed to descend to a midpoint turnaround in Cunningham Falls State Park. The time limits are daunting to pedestrian runners like us. In all our excursions we're 2-4 minutes/mile too slow to make the cutoffs.
Caren has been training hard, built up her mileage, and thus far avoided serious injury. I'm likewise improving (albeit slowly), increasing my temperature tolerance, and attempting to prepare myself to attack long hills. But still, we both anticipate missing an early cutoff. "Maybe we've earned the first one or two," I suggest, "but everything after that will be a gift!"
I estimate our chances of finishing the race as perhaps 20%. The only factor that can help us significantly is unseasonably cold weather. I suggest begging the race director for permission to start an hour early. Caren categorically rejects the notion.
"Obviously, the main thing is to just enjoy being out there," she reassures me in an email three days before the big event. "Great trail, great company, happy to be alive."
Obviously, Caren's right!
Every race needs a theme song. For unknown reasons during the past few weeks "Roam" by the B-52s has been on heavy rotation inside my head:
I hear a wind
Whistling air
Whispering in my ear
Boy mercury shooting through every degree
Oh girl dancing down those dirty and dusty trails
Take it hip to hip rocking through the wilderness
Around the world, the trip begins with a kiss
Roam if you want to, roam around the world
Roam if you want to, without wings, without wheels ...
That's trail-running-related enough for me! And since literary necessity sometimes trumps chance, early Saturday morning Caren and I are careful to kiss our respective sleeping spouses before setting off to face Catoctin. Shameless setup? You bet! "Around the world, the trip begins with a kiss."
But as it turns out, my tricks are unnecessary: by chance as we approach the starting line Caren's car radio picks up the perfectly apropos "Living on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi:
She says: We've got to hold on to what we've got
It doesn't make a difference
If we make it or not.
We've got each other and that's a lot for love —
We'll give it a shot!
Oh, we're half way there
Whoa, living on a prayer
Take my hand and we'll make it, I swear ...
Absolutely! It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not. Our chances to squeeze past the cutoffs? Next to nil; we're just living on a prayer. So let's give it a shot, eh?
And then, more undeserved luck: race day dawns with showers while a cold front approaches the region. At 0619 on the morning of 2 August Caren and I arrive near-simultaneously at our traditional I-270 parking lot rendezvous. My old car's transmission is starting to make ominous noise so Ms. C-C drives the ~40 miles north past Frederick.
At the Tea Room starting area we marvel at the splendid view of the valley below, pick up our race numbers and t-shirts, and greet friends. Jim Cavanaugh is there, still glowing happy from his first 100 miler a fortnight ago. Mark McKennett and Angelo Witten say "Hi!" — they ran 25 kilometers from the turnaround to here starting at 2:45am this morning.
Shortly before 8am a cool drizzle begins. Runners joke with one another about putting on more layers of clothing. Race Director Kevin Sayers gives the pre-event briefing from under an umbrella. His instructions are simple:
Kevin mentions that his wife Mary passed away a few months ago from metastasized breast cancer. Today's race is dedicated to her; there's a moment of silence. Then Caren and I move to the back of the assembled 131 starters, and ...
After a quick quarter-mile loop around the parking lot the runners head down a black-blazed trail below the Tea Room's south side. The erosion barrier logs are wet and my foot slips on one of them; a runner behind me compliments me on my "root surfing" skill when I narrowly avoid falling. We pass a playground and zig-zag steeply downward for about a dozen minutes until we cross Gambrill Park Rd at the Catoctin Trailhead parking lot, where Caren and I usually begin our training runs.
Now the speedier folk are out of sight and we can settle in to the work of the day: relentless forward progress. We push our pace on the descents, increasing the risk of a fall in exchange for extra speed that we know we'll need. Fortunately drainage on the trail is good and the rocks here aren't too slippery.
Soon we get to know a few other runners in our vicinity. Marilyn Ludwick of Libertytown sets a near-perfect pace for us, aggressive on the hills but not impossible to keep up with. She's finished the Cat 50k before, and we chat about how it was in hot conditions. Marilyn has a 7-year streak going in the JFK 50 miler, which she runs with her daughter. And then we see Kari Anderson, who met Caren at the Seneca Creek Greenway Trail Marathon and other MCRRC races.
We play leap-frog with Phil Hesser, veteran ultrarunner. Phil tells us anecdotes about the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100 miler, which he began eight years and successfully finished four times. It's an incredible challenge, and Phil encourages Caren and me to consider it, perhaps as pacers for other runners along segments of the course. (In my dreams!)
Onward, downward, and then upward we trek. The sun hides behind morning clouds so temperatures stay merely warm, not crushingly hot. Suddenly we see a lake, one that Caren and I remember from our latest training run. It's only about 10 minutes from the Hamburg Rd aid station. Wow! Energized, I trot ahead until I see the road, then wait and join Caren to check in. "We are the champions, my friend!" I sing tunelessly.
Amazingly, we arrive at Mile 6 several minutes ahead of the time limit. In a two-minute whirlwind of activity cheerful volunteers refill our water bottles, make sure we've grabbed chips and watermelon and whatever else we want, then send us onward with their best wishes. I click my stopwatch as we exit, still 3 minutes to the good. Zounds!
The next aid station at Delauter Rd is only 3 miles ahead, with slightly less stressful terrain along the way. Caren and I are cruising now, but we're still pleasantly surprised to get there more than half a dozen minutes ahead of the cutoff. Another rapid-fire refueling, and we're outta there.
We climb to the scenic overlook marked "View" on Caren's PATC map of the Cat Trail. We're walking more, now that we've been blessed with actually surviving the first two time hacks. I remind Caren that her training schedule only shows her doing 24 miles today. Should we turn around at the crest here, mile ~12, and head back? "Let's see how we feel," is her answer.
Leaders begin to appear on their return trip, a few miles ahead of us: a few good men, then First Lady Amy Sprotson. We cheer en passant and I offer anything they might need from my pouch — gel? salt? candy? — but all are happily self-sufficient as they zip by. Caren's friend Mike Acuña announces he's "having a blast!" as he finishes the mega-climb up; Joe Kilcoyne likewise looks fresh. We're about to descend the thousand feet to the turnaround at mile 15.5 now (see elevation chart above) and I ask Caren again whether we shouldn't turn around early and make it a trail marathon instead of a 50k. "Let's see how we feel," she replies.
So down down down (did I say down?) we go, past the denuded blackberry bush that we feasted on a fortnight ago. Approaching the midway aid station we see pink flamingo lawn decorations beside the path down to the Manor area, along with blue ribbon race course markers. My feet get soaked for the first time today as I wade the stream rather than risk slipping on the wobbly stepping-stones.
Comrades Lorrin Harvey, Mark McKennett, Anstr Davidson, and others are lounging here, taking photos and offering help to all. Cruel 100-mile man Jim Cavanaugh sternly rejects my request for a ride back to the start/finish Tea Room. Other volunteers check our status and make sure we've got everything we need. At my request Lorrin takes a picture of my ugly leg. During the past few days I've applied enough hydorcortisone ointment to fail a steroid test at ten paces.
 | At the halfway point aid station I show off poison ivy blisters to all who will look; Caren describes the rash as "Angry!" I was exposed a week earlier, when pulling up weeds in my own front yard. Fortunately the oozing sores don't trouble me significantly today. (photo by Lorrin Harvey) |
Caren and I are now in a state of total amazement: we've reached the third cutoff with five minutes to spare! It truly is Our Day, and we're simply, deeply, profoundly grateful. With handfuls of munchies and replenished bottles we commence the long long long (did I say long?) climb back out of the valley.
Our return trip is a slow but happy one. We give ourselves permission to walk as often as we feel like, especially on rocky hills (and every hill is rocky!). As we approach each aid station I remind Caren that she's already "Overfulfilled The Plan", Stakhanovite-fashion, and has gone far beyond her pace and distance goals. I point out that I'm perfectly happy to hitch a ride back to her car with one of the volunteers. "Let's see how we feel," is still her reply.
At Delauter Rd my watch says we've missed the official cutoff by four minutes. I point this out to the timekeeper with the clipboard, but he just smiles and says, "Keep going!" We fuel up, take strawberry popsicles that have been chilled on dry ice, and carry them cautiously until they're warm enough not to freeze our tongues. The delightful cool weather continues. Clouds begin to thicken.
What do we talk about on the trail? At one point Caren and I debate Sponge Bob versus Hello Kitty: which one is gentler? Like the pirates vs. ninjas controversy, there are good points on both sides. Caren's fingers are getting swollen and I examine them, which leads me into a lecture on J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and what happened to one of Frodo's fingers at a climactic moment. We reminisce about playing contract bridge, Scrabble, and other board/card games. We compare notes on classic-rock music and recent movies. I pontificate on kinetic energy vs. potential energy. And we walk.
Rick and Brian, the designated Cat50k Sweepers catch up with us but refuse to push us to go any faster. We're looking healthy and making steady progress, so they're happy to be out walking the trail today, making sure that nobody gets left behind in the wilderness. We chat with them, then accelerate a bit to leave them behind for a few miles.
Near mile 24 Comrades Phil Hesser and Kari Anderson appear suddenly from a side path. What happened? They took a wrong turn — even though Phil is the author of a humorous essay titled "What the Blue Blazes? A Guide for Navigating the Catoctin 50k Trail Run". He and Kari have lost half an hour or more. Now they risk missing the cutoffs. We wish them well as they rush ahead.
Rumbles of thunder interrupt our musings as a line of storms approach. The rain begins as a barely perceptible patter on the leafy canopy above, then a few drops of wetness, and then: "Is that hail?" we ask one another? It is, baby-pea-sized pellets that rattle down on us. This is fun! It's also cool and pleasant as our dried sweat washes away.
At Hamburg Rd we're more than 10 minutes behind the penultimate cutoff and a veritable deluge has begun. A big white rental truck pulls up as we approach. Volunteers stop stowing leftovers and instead huddle under awnings to stay dry. As lightning flashes nearby and thunder booms I take a square of Reynolds Wrap and fashion myself an aluminum foil helmet; alas, no one has a camera handy, so it goes unrecorded except in memory.
Six miles to go: standing in the aid station Caren and I commence a mini-argument re riding back in the truck. It's our last chance to withdraw from the race. I insist that I'm ready to punt. Caren obstinately refuses to believe me and insists that we keep on keeping on. I salute her. We laugh together, grab some finger foods, and walk on down the trail.
Jolly Sweepers Rick and Brian catch up with Caren and me again, and we join another Rick (from Baltimore) who's suffering and walking the final miles. I pick up trash as we go along, minor detritus such as gel pack tabs, dropped candy wrappers, etc. Brian carries a bright orange t-shirt that someone discarded trailside. We discuss theories of why fingers sometimes swell up: too much salt, or too little? It could be either, according to some medical sources.
Caren and I jog ahead of our escorts once more. Another line of thunderstorms passes by. Bright sunlight shines as rain falls, but there are too many nearby trees for us to see a rainbow. In compensation, I offer a brief lecture on reflection, refraction, and other optical phenomena. Infinitely patient Caren smiles. I force her to take our last energy gel as we enter the final hour of the race. We see a huge tree fallen beside the path which wasn't there on our outbound journey. It must have been a victim of the storm.
Caren points out my tendency, when tired, to say a staccato "yeah-yeah" instead of simply "yes". I start paying attention and discover that indeed I say that, and the related phrase "good-good", about once every mile without even realizing it. It's good-good to learn something about myself!
We catch up with another Rick, a runner from Baltimore who's walking the final miles, and chat with him as we climb out of the last big valley. The sweepers rejoin us and we discover that they've served as sweepers for the Seneca Creek Greenway Trail Marathon/50k which both Caren and I have repeatedly enjoyed running. At 5:15pm we hear a loud air-horn blast. "That's the final cutoff," one says. "At least we're close enough to hear it!"
Based on his experience in many ultramarathons Brian encourages us, "When you feel you've got absolutely nothing left in the tank, you can still go 30 miles!" I ask if that means that, for a 50k like today's, once you get past the first mile are you guaranteed to finish? Nobody answers. We run (loosely speaking) down the slight descent to the Gambrill Park Rd parking lot, and then trudge up the final black-blazed trail segment to the Tea House. Tall spikey mullen plants grow below the balcony (but I only learn their name the following day when I ask a gardener-friend). Caren calls "DFL!" and when I ask she explains that the abbreviation means she claims the right to be "Dead F*ing Last!" When we reach the finish line just before 5:45pm, however, we cross together; Rick of Baltimore is just behind us. The cheerful sweepers have turned aside to remove blue course-guide ribbons.
Everything's shutting down now; the post-race party is disbanded and the white box truck is almost all loaded. There's one veggie burger left in the Tea Room, and I grab it. Caren gets a hot dog and a volunteer in the truck opens the cooler and gives us cans of Dr. Pepper. Raindrops start to fall and more thunder growls. We limp back to Caren's car as buckets of water descend upon us. The drive in the deluge down the narrow park road is more than a little scary, but not nearly as bad as the ice-covered Massanutten Mountain training run of January this year.
Once we reach the main highway the storm passes and our ride home is uneventful. On the way Caren and I muse together, as we sometimes do, about nature, religion, and the meaning of life. I'm reminded of our Easter morning conversation on the trail many months ago. Today has been a glorious, delightful day. We know we're both going to ache tomorrow.
We finish the course but not the race. We do the distance, and we overdo the time. And it's All Good!
The 2008 Catoctin 50k overall victor, Angus Repper, comes in a hair under 5 hours. (Caren and I achieve the double victory of reaching the halfway point before the first finisher, and of reaching the finish line within twice the time of the winner.) Amy Sprotson is First Lady at 5:54. Friend Mike Acuña is strong at 6:52 and Joe Kilcoyne likewise in 7:10. Marilyn Ludwick, our super-nice "pacer" for the first segment of the course, arrives 32 seconds before the 9:15 cutoff — hooray for her! Alas, neither Phil Hesser nor Kari Anderson appear on the list; presumably they can't make up for going off-course and doing an extra mile or two before we meet them returning to the trail.
Catoctin 50k 2008 —Timing Information for Caren Jew & Mark Zimmermann
| split | time | cutoff | dist. | pace | location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1:42 | 1:42 | 1:45 | 6 | 17 | Hamburg Rd |
| 0:46 | 2:28 | 2:35 | 9 | 15 | Delauter Rd |
| 0:37 | 3:05 | - | - | - | Fishing Creek Rd |
| 0:33 | 3:37 | - | - | - | Gambrill Park Rd |
| 0:32 | 4:10 | 4:15 | 15.5 | 16 | Cunningham Falls State Park "Manor area" |
| 0:54 | 5:04 | - | - | - | Gambrill Park Rd |
| 0:39 | 5:43 | - | - | - | Fishing Creek Rd |
| 0:41 | 6:24 | 6:20 | 22 | 21 | Delauter Rd |
| 1:03 | 7:27 | 7:15 | 25 | 21 | Hamburg Rd |
| 2:18 | 9:45 | 9:15 | 31 | 23 | Tea Room finish line |
In the table distances are given in miles and paces in minutes/mile.
Our overall average pace is ~19 min/mi: outbound ~16 min/mi, inbound ~22 min/mi. Caren and I take ~13 minutes to reach Gambrill Park Rd from the starting line, following the pack in its initial loop around the parking lot and then the steep descent down the black-blazed trail. The final return climb demands ~13 minutes to the finish line; it does not require a parking-lot circumnavigation. We spend 2-3 minutes at each aid station.
- Sunday, August 10, 2008 at 07:26:58 (EDT)
In the 9 July 1969 entry of his journal (My First Summer in the Sierra) John Muir rhapsodizes about mountain meadows and the natural profligacy of Nature, and about the sad tendency of man (or man's domesticated animals) to despoil them:
We passed a number of charming garden-like meadows lying on top of the divide or hanging like ribbons down its sides, imbedded in the glorious forest. Some are taken up chiefly with the tall white-flowered Veratrum Californicum, with boat-shaped leaves about a foot long, eight or ten inches wide, and veined like those of cypripedium, — a robust, hearty, liliaceous plant, fond of water and determined to be seen. Columbine and larkspur grow on the dryer edges of the meadows, with a tall handsome lupine standing waist-deep in long grasses and sedges. Castilleias, too, of several species make a bright show with beds of violets at their feet. But the glory of these forest meadows is a lily (L. parvum). The tallest are from seven to eight feet high with magnificent racemes of ten to twenty or more small orange-colored flowers; they stand out free in open ground, with just enough grass and other companion plants about them to fringe their feet, and show them off to best advantage. This is a grand addition to my lily acquaintances, — a true mountaineer, reaching prime vigor and beauty at a height of seven thousand feet or thereabouts. It varies, I find, very much in size even in the same meadow, not only with the soil, but with age. I saw a specimen that had only one flower, and another within a stone's throw had twenty-five. And to think that the sheep should be allowed in these lily meadows! after how many centuries of Nature's care planting and watering them, tucking the bulbs in snugly below winter frost, shading the tender shoots with clouds drawn above them like curtains, pouring refreshing rain, making them perfect in beauty, and keeping them safe by a thousand miracles; yet, strange to say, allowing the trampling of devastating sheep. One might reasonably look for a wall of fire to fence such gardens. So extravagant is Nature with her choicest treasures, spending plant beauty as she spends sunshine, pouring it forth into land and sea, garden and desert. And so the beauty of lilies falls on angels and men, bears and squirrels, wolves and sheep, birds and bees, but as far as I have seen, man alone, and the animals he tames, destroy these gardens. Awkward, lumbering bears, the Don tells me, love to wallow in them in hot weather, and deer with their sharp feet cross them again and again, sauntering and feeding, yet never a lily have I seen spoiled by them. Rather, like gardeners, they seem to cultivate them, pressing and dibbling as required. Anyhow not a leaf or petal seems misplaced.
(cf. Mount Dana and Mono Lake (2004-09-03), Eastern Yosemite Mountains (2006-06-02), ...)
- Friday, August 08, 2008 at 05:53:40 (EDT)
Recently while seeking a movie about marathon running I discovered The Giant of Marathon, a swords-and-sandals spectacle set in ancient Greece and starring Steve Reeves (1926-2000). Bodybuilder Reeves's acting talents are equal to the script and directing of this entertaining 1959 made-in-Italy film. He stars as Phillippides (not "Phidippides" — was the name garbled, or deliberately altered for modern audiences?) and begins by winning essentially all the events in the Olympic games. Reeves then proceeds to unite Athens and Sparta, leads them against the invading Persian hordes, and almost single-handedly saves the day during the land battle at Marathon. Next he rides back to Athens to head off an invasion by sea. On the way he loses his horse during a river crossing and therefore must — you guessed it! — run the rest of the way. The subsequent underwater battle scenes are lovely. So is leading lady Mylène Demongeot.
(cf. Running on the Sun (2005-11-04), Without Limits (2005-02-12), Strawberry Fields (2006-11-07), The Runner (2007-02-07), ...)
- Wednesday, August 06, 2008 at 20:52:16 (EDT)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died yesterday. Much has been (and more will be) written about his life's struggle against the Soviet oppression of Russia. As an author Solzhenitsyn perhaps contributed something toward the crumbling of that oppression; then again, perhaps as Tolstoy argued, those who consciously try to affect the world have less effect than they and others imagine. Perhaps it doesn't matter.
My strongest memory of Solzhenitsyn is a linguistic/literary/metaphorical one. I'm sitting on a bus in 1980 at the Pentagon, that famous American fortress of military bureaucracy, reading the translator's note at the front of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. The book's title in Russian is Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, pronounced something like "ARK-ee-PEL-ag GOOL-ag". Those simple words have a rhythm and rhyme impossible to convey in any other language. "GULag" is the Russian acronym for the USSR's "Corrective Labor Camp" administration. An archipelago is a chain of islands. Together, a perfect metaphor: the Gulag's forced-labor camps stretched like a dotted line across the vast Russian wilderness.
I'm profoundly moved ... wish I could learn a little Russian ... wish I could write a little better. I still wish for both.
(cf. Great Writers (2003-01-02), Single Digit Run (2004-01-05), ... )
- Monday, August 04, 2008 at 06:10:12 (EDT)
They just don't print 'em as big as they used to! Dates on dimes are now unreadable, as are many footnotes. Newspapers are suddenly a challenge in poor light. And the fine print on a medicine bottle? Forget it! The ingredient list on a can of food? Fetch my magnifying glass, please. My new Web friend is the browser shortcut to make fonts larger.
Yet there's a paradox: somehow I've started to see more, and so much more clearly. Sunrises smile at me as they glint off the undersides of dappled clouds. Turtles and chipmunks, harts and hounds, dance for me in the woods. Before, I never noticed toenails and earrings, bald spots and chiseled calves. Now I cherish a glimpse of them. Faded trail blazes on weathered trees jump out at me. "Paint-by-numbers morning skies" are real, not phony-looking.
At this rate of improvement, in a few years when my eyes go completely I'll be able to see everything!
(cf. Seeing and Forgetting (1999-07-15), Opthalmalogic Inheritance (2001-11-23), ...)
- Saturday, August 02, 2008 at 04:37:01 (EDT)
For back issues of the ^zhurnal see Volumes v.01 (April-May 1999), v.02 (May-July 1999), v.03 (July-September 1999), v.04 (September-November 1999), v.05 (November 1999 - January 2000), v.06 (January-March 2000), v.07 (March-May 2000), v.08 (May-June 2000), v.09 (June-July 2000), v.10 (August-October 2000), v.11 (October-December 2000), v.12 (December 2000 - February 2001), v.13 (February-April 2001), v.14 (April-June 2001), 0.15 (June-August 2001), 0.16 (August-September 2001), 0.17 (September-November 2001), 0.18 (November-December 2001), 0.19 (December 2001 - February 2002), 0.20 (February-April 2002), 0.21 (April-May 2002), 0.22 (May-July 2002), 0.23 (July-September 2002), 0.24 (September-October 2002), 0.25 (October-November 2002), 0.26 (November 2002 - January 2003), 0.27 (January-February 2003), 0.28 (February-April 2003), 0.29 (April-June 2003), 0.30 (June-July 2003), 0.31 (July-September 2003), 0.32 (September-October 2003), 0.33 (October-November 2003), 0.34 (November 2003 - January 2004), 0.35 (January-February 2004), 0.36 (February-March 2004), 0.37 (March-April 2004), 0.38 (April-June 2004), 0.39 (June-July 2004), 0.40 (July-August 2004), 0.41 (August-September 2004), 0.42 (September-November 2004), 0.43 (November-December 2004), 0.44 (December 2004 - February 2005), 0.45 (February-March 2005), 0.46 (March-May 2005), 0.47 (May-June 2005), 0.48 (June-August 2005), 0.49 (August-September 2005), 0.50 (September-November 2005), 0.51 (November 2005 - January 2006), 0.52 (January-February 2006), 0.53 (February-April 2006), 0.54 (April-June 2006), 0.55 (June-July 2006), 0.56 (July-September 2006), 0.57 (September-November 2006), 0.58 (November-December 2006), 0.59 (December 2006 - February 2007), 0.60 (February-May 2007), 0.61 (April-May 2007), 0.62 (May-July 2007), 0.63 (July-September 2007), 0.64 (September-November 2007), 0.65 (November 2007 - January 2008), 0.66 (January-March 2008), 0.67 (March-April 2008), 0.68 (April-June 2008), 0.69 (July-August 2008),... ... Current Volume. Send comments and suggestions to z (at) his.com. Thank you! (Copyright © 1999-2008 by Mark Zimmermann.)