This is going to be heavy. Here are some kittens if you’re not in the mood.

Just past 9 miles on my run home today from Forest Park I stopped and had a gel and some drink. I was downtown a few blocks from the waterfront. Legs were feeling really good, bottles were getting low so my pack felt light. I crossed Naito and cut across the grass to the sidewalk and picked up the pace – only 4 miles to home. I could hear someone running close behind me (no tunes as my shuffle died at the race last weekend).

Super fast guy pulled up beside me and and asked, “where you headed this morning?”.
Me: “I was up in Forest Park and now I’m headed up to Tabor.”
Super fast guy: “Have fun!”

Feeling like a bad ass and fast and alive and snappy and solid – the little ego bump made me feel good. Like rolling through an aid station at a race with everyone cheering – no matter how bad you feel, it cheers you up.

As I got closer to the stairs up the the Hawthorne Bridge I saw that the sidewalk had yellow tape across it – fast guy peeled off right to go around it and I followed him. There were some people standing around and then I looked where they were looking. Right outside the public bathroom

A kid. Maybe 16 … 17…18? The paramedics had his clothes cut off – his big baggy camo pants were cut up the front and splayed open. And his 2 sizes too big hoody and his worn out shitty sneakers were laying next to him.

One paramedic is squeezing the oxygen mask and another one – huge guy, maybe 200+ is on top of this kid giving him chest compressions. His limp body is just absorbing the compressions. And the paramedic is not stopping.

Oh no no no no no no no no no. Was all I could think. No no no no.
Fight man. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight. Don’t go.

Walking around downtown these kids look dirty and grumpy and big with their oversized clothes and backpacks – people cross the street to avoid them. With all his clothes cut off – this was just a skinny little white kid. It reminded me of my kids when they get out of the bathtub. Scrawny and white and pure. Just kids.

I had trouble getting up the steps to cross the bridge. I’ve never cried and run at the same time. It’s difficult. You kind of hyperventilate. So I hyperventilated running across the bridge. And I thought about this kid’s parents.. and his girlfriend…and his friends. And all the stupid choices that culminated to get him to the place where a big paramedic is trying to revive you … with every indication that he’d checked out.

And then I thought about all the people who failed this kid. I got angry. You can fuck up a lot of things in life. You can get physically injured, you can be rich or poor... there are unlimited possibilities. But only one thing that takes away every chance you have is when you’re dead.

I had this visceral sense of a soul leaving and it made me really sad.  Of just giving up and giving in and leaving. I would surmise it was an overdose. Bad heroin. I have no idea – I don’t know if he made or didn’t. Sure didn’t look like it, but maybe he rallied. Hope.

(I didn’t post this over the weekend… I checked the internets for anything that went down on Saturday morning and didn’t find anything).

I’m starting to update http://snowriderproject.org/ before the annual Salmon River watershed clean up in September. The mountains have brought me so much joy and really defined my character. The least I can do is start to give back.

I still have a few other projects in various stages, this will be fun though.

In running news:
Easy 5 miler today – legs are feeling solid, just a little bit sore. Trying to find a time to use the $50 massage voucher that I got at the snowshoe race earlier this winter to get some body work done – mostly my legs. I’m in dire need of some deep tissue work on my calves.

I’ve found getting right on the bike after a long run is the best way to work out the sore spots. Totally works … a pool would be better, but I’ve yet to find an accessible lap pool in Portland. Seriously a major ding for Portland and training for big swims. I’d love to go back and swim the Waikiki Roughwater again, but I have nowhere to train. Running it is.

http://www.strava.com/activities/125108372

When one makes false calculation by accepting the recognition of oneself as a being, a dichotomy of active and passive occurs that may be called delusion.

Gorge50k is in the books. What an amazing run!
Recapping a few notes so that I remember for next time.

The course was *extremely* technical. When I lived in D.C. I volunteered at the Massanutten 100 twice. Both times at the 50 mile aid station. I found it to be the time when people really decided to continue or take a perma-seat under the aid station tent. A lot of people pulled the plug at that aid station. It began with stopping to talk… kind of a blank stare at the food table… then they maybe sat in a chair or on a cot…they they just keeled over and rested. I think the fastest way to eject yourself from an ultra is to sit down.

Never. stop. moving.

I never felt like I was going to fold. Ever. I never contemplated stopping until I was finished. That’s the best I could hope for.

In no particular order…

I killed my iPod shuffle. It’s kaput. I think I lost all tunage around mile 15. Maybe it just got wet from the rain … can’t remember if it was raining that early or not. The silence was nice actually. I chatted it up with a few runners and in one section through the forest *the BIRDS* – they were singing so loudly. It was amazing.

Need to start closer to the front of the pack. I stayed in the back 2/3’s because I wanted to keep it slow at the start.. but there wasn’t enough runway to thin out before the trail converged into singletrack and I was behind a line of people walking uphill. It was rough passing… but once I started it became easier. “Pass on the left, please.. (pass)… thank you!” Again and again. I took off with Mr. Chicago for a while … and we rolled for a few miles around a sub-10 minute pace… in another section a woman stuck with me as we passed a few people – I think this was going into the first aid station; “I found you!” she said. You always want to find the person who is going to match your pace. We hung for a while, but then I lost her at the first aid station.

There was snow on the trail 🙂 I passed a group of 3 or 4 people up high crossing a snow slope. I shouldn’t have done that – I could have slipped and fallen on them (or fallen down the mountain myself).

Strategic f’up –  My pace was slower than I anticipated and I was eating and drinking sooner mileage wise than I normally do… so I made a mistake when I blew through the first aid station at mile 9 with one bottle + a little bit in the other. I should have refilled at the opportunity. By the time I got to the 2nd aid station at mile 18 – I had not had anything to drink in about 3-4 miles. That was really dumb. I ate a few Clif blocs with nothing to drink and they just stuck in my teeth. I didn’t feel bad at all – I just wished I had something to drink.

The UD vest is too big. As I became more dehydrated, the vest became looser and the bottle in my left front was hitting my rib and causing a bruise. More annoying than painful. Super annoying. I ran holding the bottle every so often to keep it from bouncing. I ended up only refilling the front right bottle and keeping the left bottle half  / empty so it wasn’t so heavy.

I lost all GPS and pace/mileage/time 🙂
The watch started to go into auto-pause mode b/c I couldn’t reach satellites in the Gorge and yeah… that’s it. I locked the buttons at the start so that I didn’t accidentally stop it and for some reason (still have no idea) I couldn’t push the correct sequence of buttons to unlock it to actually see what time it was.  So I had no idea what time it was (until I finished). Strava recalculated all the blacked out sections and kept the final end time (plus moving time) and only messed up the elevation. Totally unreliable though. Heh.

I left a drop bag at mile 18 and was going to change my shirt (soaked), until I realized I would have to unpin/repin my race number – meh. I decided to just keep trucking. It wasn’t raining at the time and I wasn’t too cold.

The suck.

Coming into the aid station at mile 18 I could hear my girls ringing the cowbells. Sooo awesome. My youngest gave me some M&Ms and my oldest filled up my bottle. And I was out. The next section was about 3 miles on the road — flat with a headwind.  Then the course went into the woods and started climbing on very technical (rocky) singletrack. Major low point. I couldn’t see anyone.. didn’t see any course markers.. the sky was starting to get dark as weather was moving in. This was the low point mentally in the race. I had no idea where I was (no idea what time it was)… knew the biggest climb was coming at mile 25. So yeah. This was the suck.

I’m not sure when it started to hail. The temp dropped, the wind picked up. I was getting cold – so I ate some more Clif blocs and kept drinking. I rolled into the last aid station and kind of stared at the table for a few seconds. It was pouring and I was standing under the shelter. I grabbed some potato chips, drank 2 cups of coke and had my bottles refilled with electrolyte water.  Then I asked a volunteer to pull my shell out of my pack and I zipped up over my pack and rolled out. A mile or so later I asked a hiker to shove my shell back into my pack – I was trying to unclick the buckle on my pack and I couldn’t get my thumb to work b/c my hands were so cold. ** I dumped my iPod and gloves at mile 18. ***Always keep gloves.

Rainbow from the spray coming off Multnomah Falls (from the finish).

The climb was really tough. Up and over Multnomah Falls over the Larch Mountain trail. Really tough climbing on tired legs. Descending was very loose and steep … and wet. Finally the trail smoothed out… it’s usually where the tourists turn around I guessed. It became more runnable.. then turned to tarmac switchbacks. Down and down and down and down and down. Then back up and over to more singletrack – still runnable though. I passed 3 people here and left behind my descent buddy.

That’s mostly it. I crossed the finish line and gave the race director a high five.

sub-5 hour ETA

1 Hour / ~7 miles / gel
2 Hour / ~10 miles / caffeinated gel [Cascade Locks aid station at 9.3, pass through and eat past the aid station]
3 Hour / ~ 20 miles / caffeinated gel [maybe Yeon aid station, big climb] [drop bag / swap bottle / maybe change shirt]
4 Hour / ~ 27 miles / solid food / drink drink (No Name aid station graze or mojo bar) [haul ass to finish]
5 Hour / Finish

There is no try. Only do.

Pre-race jitters (Gorge50k). For a long race there is this point where you try to essentially… outsmart yourself… but you know it’s happening, so it kind of doesn’t work. What I mean is that… your mind is about to f**k your body over. It’s the mind vise and it’s about to go into a different mode. You know it’s going to happen and the only thing to do is make sure your body is prepared.

I’m mostly just trying to remember everything, here’s my list.

• first aid station is at mile 9… that’s too late for me, I need to eat around mile 7. So I may stop early and then just pass through the first aid station and not stop. Aid stations are like black holes… they’ll suck you in and the longer you stay.. the harder it is to leave.
• Remember your dip at mile 11. It’s going to creep up b/c you’re not going to be thinking about… so head’s up. I think I’ll write it down on a piece of tape stuck to my shirt forearm.
• Make a feed chart with time and remember to eat at the right times. Tape it to your shirt. Because guess what… the most difficult thing to do when you’re 20 miles into a run is… math. It’s almost impossible.
• To drop bag or not to drop bag… I’m considering leaving a bottle of cytomax at the 18 mile drop and at the 25 mile drop. And carrying 2 bottles from the start. My long runs are always unsupported and I don’t want to get sucked into the aid station black holes. Keep moving. Don’t stop. No matter what. Keep moving.
• It’s going to be in the high 40’s and raining… consider carrying a second shirt or maybe just a vest to put on when I get to the top of the last climb …so I don’t get too cold descending to the finish.
• The last climb at mile 25 is about 1500 ft. It’s going to hurt. Swing your arms if you’re running – take big strides if you’re power-walking it. Pass some people.
• Relax. Run your race. All systems are a go.
• If things get bad… smile.
• Remember the 3rd rule of fight club. Have fun and try your best.

• Listen for the cowbells (I bought my daughters cowbells for the finish).

At dinner conversation ranged from the JVM to Oculus Rift to OpenGL. I had a headache afterward as a result of too little coffee plus the 3:30am wake up to catch a plane to San Jose.

Back at the hotel I said goodnight to Portland via Facetime and decided to go for a big walk to stretch my legs, pick up some water and get some fresh air. I was walking past Palantir HQ behind 3 visitors from out of town as they remarked how nice the restaurant across the street looked… so modern and open. I passed them as they started to walk over to the “restaurant” which was in fact the Palantir cafeteria.

The alternate universe of techno-utopia. My headache was gone when I got back.

Excellent day on the mountain today.  Blue skies, corn snow, temps in the upper 50’s. Palmer lift was running and my daughter and I skied top to bottom all day. Knackered.

Looking up toward crater rock from the top of Palmer. Sitting down to take in the views and eat a Mojo bar. This is only the 2nd day in 5 years that I’ve ridden to the top of Palmer. Every other time I’ve gone up it has been skinning at 4am in the comforting glow of my headlamp.

We could see a few people up on the Hogsback, but I think most had already summited and descended by mid-morning.