More than Running

My brother Matt takes over the blog with this post on the fiber of trail running and living in general:

“Were fucked.” The usual trail is obstructed by three feet of ice and snow; a natural road block stands between us and wilderness. Two weeks with no time on the trail has transformed our usual desire for wilderness into a constant, anxious craving. Deep within a training schedule for an upcoming ultra, we both understand the importance of putting miles on our legs. I want to run; I need to run. “Were fucked.” We relocate to another trailhead, 100 meters from our original location. This track offers a bit more hope, as the snow appears to be packed down by hikers and wildlife. Our first few steps are uneasy. The snow is deep— at least a foot and a half—but the first few inches are baked solid. We continue to walk on the trail, making it a few steps on the crisp crust before sliding waist deep in the powdery subsurface. “Were fucked.” Neither of us our willing to call it day. No words are exchanged but it’s understood: we are not leaving until we reach the top of this mountain.

We’d come to find that this would require an interesting amalgamation of walking, climbing, running, and shuffling. We take the first ascent at a fast hike. I begin to breathe heavily. Any section of trail that offers stability is taken at pace, until one of us takes a dive into the thick white blanket that covers the trail. Even when we are running, it appears to be more of a delicate tip-toe through already sculpted tracks. With each step, my original frustration and disappointment fades. My concern with miles and numbers and races slips away. I find myself smiling with every foot-fall. There is no thought, just me and the wilderness that surrounds me. There is snow, rock, trees, the occasional deer…and me. We trudge through a stretch of icy sludge and rip through another half-mile of single track. The trail opens and we have reached the top. I don’t think of my pace or the number of miles flashing on the screen of my fancy GPS watch. In fact, I have a feeling that I am probably the closest one can get to not thinking at all.

I take a seat on a snow covered rock and take in the view. I wipe the sweat from my eyes and think— this is why I am out here. Sure, I am here to run, but I am here for much more than that. This week’s time on the trail served as a reminder that trail running is about much more than just running. It’s about excitement. It’s about seeing what’s out there. It’s about discovery. It’s about adventure. Perhaps, most importantly, it’s about learning.

Fresh Tracks

My heart is hammering in my chest.  The sound of my exhausted inhalations nearly drown out the music in my ears.  My legs are heavy, so heavy.  I plunge forward, at places the snow line grasps at my knees.  That familiar primal feeling, almost indescribable, pools in my stomach.  It is only here, on a trail run, absorbed into the landscape that I feel it..  I am swallowed by a sea of dry, dead grass.   I am half digested in the shadow of the approaching wood.  Miles lay behind me and before me.  I am tired and on edge.  Watching the rhythmic clobber of my feet in a hypnotized gaze, it's as if my consciousness has taken a seat deeper behind my eyes.  In my wake I leave the only tracks.  Not the only tracks, the only human tracks.  Under foot, through my glazed panoramic vision weave the fragile foot falls of the birds.  The shifting prints of rabbits lay enmeshed with the memory of frantic stabbing deer hoofs.  In places wind cuts scars in the snow.  In others, it builds drifts that spill over like white-watered shore-break.  I am alone and exhausted.  Electrically alive.

B&B > Hotel

Andy & I decided to take a leap of faith and test the waters of the Bed & Breakfast world.  It paid off. We had been meaning to get away for the better part of a year, so when I had finally found myself with a bit of money, I didn't hesitate and booked a two night stay at the Frog & Hollow.  The small B&B was quaint and remote by North Eastern standards.  The hour and a half drive to it sweeps through Pennsylvania's rolling hills. The unmistakable deep red of country barns litter the landscape.
On our journey we buzzed passed squat hedge rows and clustered gray woods blazing through what felt like the setting of a Natalie Babbitt novel.

I felt oddly nervous as the the minutes spun away.  Making the last turn onto Frog Hollow Drive, I envisioned us cramped into an upper bedroom, furniture piled against the door, "Red Rum" splashed across the wall, waiting for our axe murderer of a host to commit the inevitable.

But I was wrong.  Thank God.  Upon arriving, we were genially welcomed by an older, kindhearted couple and given a tour of the house.  The building was old and as I ducked under the doorways and skirted up staircases I could tell it had been built in a different era.  Our room was simple but perfect in its own way.  We were comfortable and warm and happy to be away.

In the morning we met the other guests, and were quite presently surprised to find both other couples to be in their 20s.  We had been expecting, for some reason or another, to be greeted by an elderly couple! or at least I had...  As the latter half of our bed and breakfast experience was cooking, we all shared good, strong coffee around the fire and told some stories and our thoughts on bed and breakfasts.

It was then (perhaps an effect of the caffeinated ecstasy coursing through my veins) that I was sold on them (B&Bs).  There is something ancient to a bed and breakfast and although you do pay for the experience, while you are there you feel to embody the word guest more fully, more meaningfully.  Staying at a bed and breakfast is more akin to xenia then to the comfortable clientele vibe of a hotel.  And for that reason I plan to weather many more nights in bed and breakfasts.  Hopefully spending the evenings sharing stories with a bunch of equally odd strangers and the mornings drinking great coffee.  Even if that means I must occasionally be burdened with the thoughts of the Zodiac hammering at my door.

Running in the Woods

Matt, Robbie and I took our run to the woods this morning.  We all woke up fairly fresh (having probably drank a few too many pints last night).  Our legs were loose.  Only some 16 hours before we had donned headlamps and extra layers and took to narrow roads winding through the town for a shake out run.

But it is morning now, and woods we had run by the previous night now take on new life.  The sun is low enough to still be cutting sharply through the trees, laying scattered light on the snow.  We pull our sedan off the asphalt, parking it in some 6 inches of stale slush a few feet from road.  The trail head is visible just a few yards behind us. We take off.

The skeletal branches of the trees stream by occasionally clipping us around our face.  Running through ankle deep snow, we choose our own lines, charging sometimes off trail, jumping over frozen streams, the remnants of old growth biting at our calves.  Other times we consciously redirect onto a cut trail, narrow but free of snow covered roots and looming tree boughs.  We push on this way for a few miles, sometimes straying off to break a new path through deeper snow, other times methodically moving over the sloping natural aisle of the marked trail.  I grab a heavy birch and try to swing myself into an acceleration, when my shoe bites a covered root.  I take a quick spill, landing ass in the snow.  I fumble my sunglasses back over my eyes only to see Robbie, blazing past me, Matt another 50 meters or so ahead of him.  He offers me a quick "you okay?" before streaming back out of the clearing and into the deeper woods ahead, I don't have time to answer.  I regain my footing and give pursuit.  For a quarter mile I follow the steps they've both left in the snow ahead, and eventually match stride some 10 meters off Robbie's back.

The day is brilliant.  Since leaving the car, the sun's risen some, warming the air.  We peal over an old wooden bridge.  The bridge sits only a foot over the surface of the water and is caked in ice.  I slow to gain purchase on the old boards.  It works and soon my feet are again covered in the old snow laying on the trail.  The line we've chosen hugs a lake for about a mile.  As we open stride the blurred forms of trees fill our peripherals, their movement standing in strong contrast to the calm, expansive surface of the still water.  Soon, our steps become familiar.  We are nearing the trail head, our car lays close, within a mile.  I offer the suggestion of cutting a direct line to the car, through the denser, congested forest ahead.  Matt and Robbie nod in acknowledgement and plunge ahead through deeper snow.  Within meters, we realize the decision was a poor one.  Winter hardened thorns catch our socks and we slow to a clumsy walk.  Robbie takes point, rooting a hard, misplaced step into a snow covered pond.  He sinks smashing his shin on a submerged log.  Leaning back he twists his soaked foot free from the pond's icy crust, "Cut through the woods, yeah great idea".

We back track our steps and decide to drop into a trail leading behind some old cabins.  The last mile we close fast.  Fanning out we all taking a unique line, hearts pumping hard, breathing steady.  30 meters off my left shoulder Robbie clears the woods, closing on the car.  To my right, Matt closes the gap between us.  I shift my weight and focus and cut perpendicular to my current line.  Snow crunches below my feet.  Old vines grasp at my lower legs while the trees ahead begin to thin. I spring over the lip of a small ridge marking the line of the woods and land firmly on the road.  We're out of the wilderness and back into the town.  Wind spills through the woods behind and the trees groan.  Another good run is in the books.


"The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of it's lonely freedom."

—Theodore Roosevelt

Photo by Robbie Mason