(This is very long - skip the story if you like and go straight to the slideshow)

Last year we headed out for the week between Christmas and New Years to chase snow and spend the week skiing. Having had a great time last year, and successfully finding more than one big snow day the plan was to try and repeat the effort this year. Last year the road trip team consisted of myself, DeAnn, Nancy and Cody.

DeAnn and I were in but Cody was out doing a bike trip and NAN! was out as she has a new home coming and thought she should get some work done at the office and save some money. The weather out west has also been very warm and the ski trip didn’t seem like it had much of a chance of success as there be no snow to chase, which would just make it a road trip for average skiing. I didn’t pressure her as I didn’t have great hopes that we could repeat the adventure of last year, which was going to be hard to beat.

Part of the deal with the New Years ski trip is that we make absolutely no plans until we convene as a group on the 27th, although we throw ideas around and look at forecasts before hand. With the trip looking like it was going to be only DeAnn and I, and DeAnn suffering from delusional night driving the possible locations were going to be a bit closer than if we had a full set of night and day drivers. I figured I could do the night shift and she could take the day shifts while I slept.. and I would rather have 3 good days of skiing with 2 long days of driving than 5 days of ‘okay’ skiing.

I knew that Colorado was having an epic year, but that is 20 hours from Calgary, so I thought Utah was a good second bet and they appeared to have a good base and snow storms in the coming week. This leads me to to one of the predicaments of chasing snow on a road trip, the goal is basically to expose yourself to the worse possible driving conditions possible as that is where the snow will be the best. Paul had mentioned Jackson Hole as a great ski location so I checked it out and it appeared to be having a good year and a miserable weather forecast for the coming week. I proposed Jackson Hole, Wyoming to DeAnn and she was in - from my quick google maps calculation it would be about a 12-13 hour drive in good driving conditions. DeAnn being the awesome teammate that she is thought it was a good idea, with none of the back ground information at all… she just trusted me (dangerous).

I firmed up the idea to her on my cell phone as I was driving from Lloydminster to Calgary while NAN! was in the car with me when suddenly I seen cracks in the foundation…. NAN! was quite interested in this trip but there were some catches. For those that know me reasonable well it was all I could do to not jump on the opportunity and put the full court press to get her to come. Having NAN! on the trip would be AWESOME! Being patient we slowly worked through the logistics and a few hours later NAN! was in. SWEET!

We arrived in Calgary a bit later than expected, 6:30 pm, while DeAnn ran some errands in town for me such as picking up my skis which would be a key piece of equipment to have for this trip. DeAnn was also nice and patient as she waited all day for us to arrive, basically wasting a good driving day and forcing a night trip - this was pretty unavoidable as I feel like I cut the family time short already on the holidays and leaving earlier than the 27th wouldn’t be fair… but she understood that. We decided to take the ‘mountain’ Camry on the trip as it was good on fuel, bigger than DeAnn’s car and the seats in the back folded down making room for the gear. Who needs an SUV when you have a mountain Camry… winter roads, summer tires here we come!

NAN! and I did a quick turn around in Calgary, packed our stuff for the trip and got DeAnn and headed out of town. It was exactly 2 hours from entering Calgary to us leaving again. The goal was to drive through the night and arrive in Jackson Hole (not that we knew exactly where it was, were we would stay, what the roads might be like, etc.)

DeAnn and I sporting some Tim’s getting ready for the drive:

NAN looking ready to skip sleeping in a bed for a road trip in the Camry:

NAN! and I would split the night up into shifts, one would drive while the other slept. NAN! took the first shift, which was really an hour or so outside of town before I would give up the reigns of the Camry, but at the start of the trip no-one is going to sleep as you are just too damn excited. NAN! drove till about 2 am which left me with the shift that seems to be my sweet spot on these trip - 2 am till the morning. The roads were in great shape to start we encountered some less good roads in southern Montana and then over the pass into Idaho Falls we had a basic white out but with the lack of traffic on the roads at 5 am and the interstate highways in the USA being super wide made it not a bad or scary situation at all (easy for me to say I was driving; I’ll let the girls tell their own story).

When we got to Idaho Falls we stopped at a gas station for some directions to the ski hill, which they didn’t really know but they pointed us to the right highway and we were off. We had been on the road now for 1100 kilometers since leaving Calgary and were somewhat tired but we could taste it…. except that it was brown everywhere . (NOTE: NAN! and I had already driven 550 km before arriving in Calgary so we were at almost 1800 km so far.)

On the way to Jackson we went over a pass that lifted our spirits and tested the girls patience’s with my driving as it was once again poor driving conditions and the roads were not good.. but I sensed that if we persevered that we might be able to get a day of skiing in - I didn’t yet share these plans with the girls; the timing wasn’t right during our little mountain drive on icy, snowy roads. As we descended down from the pass we once again had brown fields everywhere, this was quite discouraging.

The last pass before we descend down into Jackson:

On the final stretch on the way to the hill we talked about what to do if the skiing sucked, where we would go and when, and if we were going to ski that day. Everyone reacts to driving through the night, being sleep deprived and complete unknowns in different ways; our group was pretty quiet (and hungry) with me being ‘a bit’ too excited about getting out to go skiing, maybe even a bit annoying. Once arriving the snow looked okay, not great but okay and the hill appeared to have good coverage. We checked the cost of lift tickets - $73 USD!!!! OUCH! We next inquired about lodging, staying at the hill it was going to cost $210 per night, but we could stay in Jackson for $55 per night.. now were talking. We decided to try the hill out and then stay in Jackson that night and play it by ear from there… at this point the ladies are scared of me I think as they feared another car ride further south into Utah.

DeAnn and I headed out to check out the hill while NAN! was going to spend the next hour or so getting her snowboard ready to go. You see, because NAN! had not planned on going on the trip she didn’t have her board at home, it was getting tuned at the shop. She did have her Coor’s Light board that she won at a bar but had never ridden, which meant she had some work to do on the bindings and such - she would also go wax-less for the trip.

My first impression of the hill was that it was big and natural enough that if I didn’t take some of the limited sign-age seriously I might find myself hucking off some cliff by accident (DeAnn and Nancy are smarter than I am so they were at less risk). Jackson Hole has the fairly famous Tram line that takes you from the bottom to the very top of the mountain, DeAnn and I figured that would be a great way to start to the trip so we queued up. We were able to find good snow up top and enjoyed the Tram ride. I was impressed with the amount of terrain that the mountain seemed to have and it look like a steep hill with good skiing.

No sleep; but excited to get up for a day of skiing:

This is the last year of the Tram; we just got lucky catching it this year as the hill will most certainly be different with out it:

Good snow found on day 1 (I’m a bit forward on my skis… I did manage to land it - or so the fish story goes):

We caught up with NAN! at the end of the day, she was also quite happy with her day on the hill. The biggest problem we currently had was that it was pouring rain at the bottom of the hill. The top was great but this rain would destroy the bottom of the hill and that was not going to work for me.

We headed into town, got one night at the Virginian (cheapest place in town apparently) and then went out to get some food. My deal with the girls was that I would get out of bed at 5 am and if there was more than a couple inches of snow on the car we would stay and ski Jackson Hole for at least one more day, if the car was wet we were getting up and driving to Utah where we were looking for some dryer but equally precipitous conditions. So with it pouring rain outside we went to bed fairly early as we had basically not slept in 2 days, skied a full day at a big mountain and drove 1900+ kilometers for NAN! and I and 1300+ for DeAnn. We all went to bed with fear of the car being wet in the morning and being back on the road at an hour that was much too early.

Jackson has more dead stuffed animals than anywhere I have ever been… the Virginian had 21 in its lobby.. here are a few of them:

I dragged myself from under the covers at 5 am feeling awful and not really wanting to look outside but rather close my eyes and hope for the best and get up a couple hours later…. but that wasn’t going to happen. I rolled out of bed; took a deep breath and poked my head out the curtains. SNOW!!! there was SNOW!!… SWEET, now back to sleep for a couple hours.

We got up around 8 am and the ladies were happy to hear there was snow on the car and in fact by 8 am there was 6 inches of the white stuff. We had an amazing ski day and decided that now we would stay for the entire trip in Jackson which looked like a interesting town and it would be nice to be in one place for a week. The forecast for the rest of the week was snow, all was well.

There isn’t much to say except that in 4 days the top of the hill received 47 inches of snow (about 4 feet). Snow chasing doesn’t get any better than this.

NAN! enjoying the snow:

DeAnn wishing she was back at the office:

Enjoying some great turns:

The snow throughout the trip was heavy at the bottom of the hill, it could feel like cement and reasonably light up top -there was generally wet snow or rain at the bottom and thick heavy snow at the top of the hill throughout the trip…. but certainly nothing to complain about. You do notice that 4 days of skiing in deep snow when you are a bit out of shape creates some tired legs but it is amazing what 1 foot of fresh snow can do for finding just a little more energy for one more run.

We spent New Years at a place called the Cowboy bar, I was tired and work had put in me in a way less good mood (read: awful) so I was a party poorer. While we did go out and were out at New Years it was pretty tame.. of course that day I got the ladies up early to get to the hill 1 hour and 15 minutes before it opened - you can read the details below.

New Years eve brought more rain, but lots of snow to the top of the mountain… knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us and being quite tired from 4 long days of skiing we decided to sleep in, get a good breakfast and start the commute back home….. we knew that with the weather it could be a long drive and getting started sooner would work well as we had a couple passes that would be nice go over in the day light. Being late to town wasn’t going to work either I had a flight that I needed to catch and DeAnn and Nancy needed to work the following day.

Poke fun at Marcos story 1:
We got on the road fairly early and I needed to make sure that was in an area with cell reception by 11 am (I think that was the time) for a conference call to deal with the issues that made my new years less fun… the problem when ‘vacationing’ with me is that I always am doing a little bit of work on the side, but the girls are used to (or me). We stopped for breakfast at a little bakery and then got on the road… the problem was that we were running a few minutes late, not bad but I needed to be in this call so I increased the velocity of the Camry to 80 miles an hour which was working well and I was going to be in solid cell reception in time for the call in 5 minutes… until we passed my little friend:

I had to be sneaky so excuse the poor framing of this shot.. it was taken with my small camera as well.. figured he didn’t want to see my SLR sitting on the dash

I wasn’t sure what the damage or repercussions would be but I wasn’t looking forward to what Mr. Police Officer was going to be coming back with… I figured at 20 miles over the speed limit, it might be enough for him to take the my license away - either way I wasn’t looking forward to it. So I took a pic and called into the office letting them know that I would be late. When our friend the police office came back, he let me know that he was going to give me a warning…. A WARNING! I am clearly running out of luck as those who are long time patient readers will know that I also got off the hook when going up to the the Skyline trail with NAN!. My hint to getting out of a ticket - be really really polite and hope for the best.

[Okay I know this is long so if your still reading I’ll try make this interesting]
Poke fun at Marcos story 2:

So DeAnn and I, after waiting in the Tram line for about 40 minutes, we got to the top and decided to try out the Hobart shoots. It was getting later in the day but we thought we might still find some good snow on the left shoulder as most folks head right leaving that shoulder mostly untouched. As we skied down we were tired enough that taking pictures seemed like a great idea as it slows the pace and the snow was so soft that you could huck most drops and not worry about hurting yourself. Knowing this I stopped and encouraged DeAnn to take a jump for me and I could get a couple photo’s off. We had the big camera with us so getting good shots was possible and I really wanted a photo of her taking a jump.

At this point DeAnn let me know that she would pass and while everything looked really soft she preferred that someone had gone over the jump first so she knew what was there. I tried a couple more times to convince her but she was clearly uncomfortable and I didn’t want to be too annoying. I sent DeAnn down with the camera and let her know which ‘lip’ I had planned to go over. As DeAnn rightly pointed out, there wasn’t a lot we knew about what I was about to go over as it as all covered with nice soft snow but I had been going off these all week and this one looked as good as any.

Once DeAnn was set up I headed down and decided to go for the gusto as it was going to be on film, as I approached the lip everything seemed good… until I got right to the end of the lip, which was really a small wall that the snow had hidden from me - SHIT! I came off the lip WAY too far back on my skis and was not going to land this but I wasn’t worried as there was a couple feet of snow below me that would make this a soft landing. The other thought that was in my mind was to ensure I knew where my skies ended up as there was a large chance that one of them might pop off. Either way in the air I was comfortable if not mostly out of control… it is also amazing how much you can think about as you flail through the air.

My landing was not quite as expected - you see as DeAnn rightly pointed out - sometimes it is nice to know what you are going over and where you are going to land…. Well I landed on what wasn’t more than 1 foot of snow on top of rock - not a point rock, thank goodness. This landing popped off both of my skis, which I was quickly able to grab with my hands as they were ready this. The landing also after getting over the initial shock.. winded me and hurt a little bit… Women are simply wiser than men.

Not looking very pretty at all:

OUCH!, that hurt (the dark rock looking thing 8 feet above me is where my ass landed):

Okay fine - I’ll laugh at myself - I deserve it (and I’m okay, just a wuss)

Why DeAnn and NAN! are great teammates:

I can sometimes be a bit intense, and going on a ski trip with me when it is puking snow can increase my intensity (read: annoying-ness) by quite a bit. After 3 days of skiing and getting to the hill a bit later than say first lift - I asked the ladies if they would humor me and wait for an hour in a lift line on our 4th day of skiing when our legs were already going to be crying by lunch and a day that is also known as new years eve. The agreed to humor me and we arose quite early and were at the hill by 7:45; before they were even selling lift tickets and were waiting in line for the gondola by 8am - SWEET! Sure at 8am it felt sweet but the snow was on the brink of rain and after 60 minutes of waiting outside we were soaked to the core and it was going to be quite cold up top… I was loving life.

Getting ready at the car at the hill - I’m sure it wasn’t really that dark out:

NAN! and DeAnn waiting patiently for the life to open:

Me waiting… Nice eyes… not tired at all:

The snow was amazing, and we got several untracked runs… it was all worth it..

… and I will take this time to formally thank the girls for putting up with me and warn others if they think these trips look like fun.. they might be but I can be a pain in the ass .

_______________________________________________

The 3 Amigos:

I can officially declare that we achieved another successful New Years ski trip with almost 4 feet of new snow in 4 days.

The same trip is penciled in for next year and I’m looking forward to seeing where it will take us and who might be on the trip next year….

Good looking Montana landscape:

A while back, when it was still fall/summer here in NYC, Douglas and Ali came up for a great weekend. While we did get mistaken for homeless people on night after several drinks, we also managed to do some other non-conventional ‘fun stuff’.

A definite highlight of their visit was when we rented a plane and Douglas flew over New York City. The flight path was out over eastern New Jersey onto the Hudson River north of the Bronx and then south on the Hudson to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We then did a 180 around the lady and flew back north up the Hudson past the George Washington bridge and back to the airport in Jersey.

Here are some of the photo’s from the flight:

Starting out on the flight, Douglas at the controls and NYC skyline out the front of the plane:

Central Park, the reservoir:

My favorite shot, and my favorite buildings in NYC; The Empire State building taking its proud stance as NYC tallest building:

The footprint of the former World Trade Center:

Looks at the southern tip of Manhattan, our new office is in the white building in the bottom left of the picture:

Looking out the back of the plane, enjoy the smog (Calgarians - if you think our wonderful city it immune I wish I had my camera when I was driving back this October coming back from Banff):

Statue of Liberty face on, we were at 500 feet at this point:

Doing a turn around the lady’s skirt:

Neat little light house north of NYC on the Hudson:

Here are some photo’s from our trip to Redwoods. They are late in coming, I forgot that I did not post them. I still have photo’s from when Douglas rented a plane and we flew over Manhattan… they will be posted at some point as well…

Bridge in San Francisco, I snuck into the city while I waited for NAN!.

Fire, cause I like fire.

Big tree, little NAN!.

After a good solid marathon finish, nothing like a cup of Joe and a cigarette.

We did a little back packing trip into Desolation Wilderness, it was great and super quiet and secluded.

NAN! in camp.

NAN! reading.

My best attempt at looking like a criminal… it wasn’t on purpose but I look like a sleaze bag.

NAN! - the ninja.

NAN! the photographer.

Absolute tranquility. No wind, no birds, no insects, no noise… “So quiet you can hear your ears.” This might be as calm I have seen water, it was neat.

First thanks to everyone for the encouragement and comments. Neat to have a remote cheering crowd…. probably a better way to cheer anyway as marathons are not good spectators sports.

I’m clearly sore so this might end up being a long posting so here is the short version:
I didn’t keel over or cry, I finished in just under 4 hours - 3:59.44 - I had sort of hoped for another 3:45 performance but that was not to be the case… I suspected as much.

Here is the details of my race in summary.

Here is what my pace and body did - I’ll explain more below. (The elevation profile is at the bottom, if I knew how to use photoshop better I would make it match the width of the chart but I don’t know how.)

• Avg Heart Rate - 161 according to the HR monitor, 167 according to the data pulled from it and using excel - not sure which to believe but either way it’s low
• Avg Pace - 9m 08s with a standard deviation of 37 seconds; median pace was 9m 06s
• It was in the 20’s today and sunny so a hot run

My one summary of the race for me would be that the tank was empty from the start. I was not able to push myself at all during the race - with the tiny exception of the last mile and a bit where I could see a sub 4 hour marathon slip away and that made me angry enough to find something and get there with 16 seconds to spare. My heart rate definitely shows this, I should have been in the 180’s for the last 6 miles for sure and I should never have been in the 150’s except for the start where the crowds forced you to go slow, even low 160’s are rare for me as that is where my heart would be on a long slow training run but I had nothing and could not turn my legs over for love nor money… I tried both.

Now to the editorial part of the race:
I got to bed last night at a reasonable hour and set both of the alarms on my alarm clock and the alarm on my cell phone, I didn’t want to sleep in. I set the alarm for 5 knowing that getting out of bed by 5:15 was much more likely. I had a good sleep and got up as expected around 5:15 feeling resting and just as if it was any other morning. I put a pot of coffee on and jumped in the shower to ensure I started the day as clean and chaff free as possible. I had a big bowl of cereal, 6 cookies - actually they are fine chocolate filled wafers and they are delicious! After my coffee and a few glasses of water I headed out. I jumped in a cab and got him to take me to the NYC Library on 42nd (it’s in lots of movies and some day I’ll go inside and take some photo’s of the outside as they are missing from my collection). Upon getting dropped off I started to realize the size of this race, there was a line to cross to street to get in line for the buses - there were literally thousands of people waiting.

It took about an hour to get into a bus and my feet were sore from standing, this was not a good sign but I had resigned myself to fate at this point so it didn’t affect me much as I reconciled myself to sore feet at that point. Upon getting on the bus we made the drive to Staten Island, this was supposed to take 30 minutes, well it didn’t. For those that have run marathons before, you know you load yourself up on fluids before the race - and while during a race the world is your toilet - you would not getting away with going on the street in the line in the morning and the buses were without facilities. On the drive out we were at grid lock on the freeway in Brooklyn to get on to the Verazano Narrows bridge, at this point my bladder was past full but I figured I could not possibly be the in the worse shape and we were surrounded by buses with other runners who must be in worse shape than me. Not but 5 minutes after that thought crossed my mind - JACKPOT!

As we looked out the left window of the bus we seen a young lady (maybe 20’s) frantically rush out of a bus behind us and in what was an extremely comical event she pulled a couple 360’s on the grass looking for a place to ’squat’ knowing that there were literally hundreds of people in buses watching her. She in her moment of panic picked a little shrub which provided her with very little ‘protection’ from curious eyes and the British army looking boys came through with some repulsive comments - even for me. This poor woman was a pioneer though and she literally broke the seal on the buses. The British boys were next out of our bus - this was the moment I was waiting for so I followed them out and the freeway for a short moment in time became a massive public bathroom. We were under an overpass so the men used the public side and the women used the side behind the concrete wall - heck there was even a line up there were so many woman that wanted to get back behind that wall at once… I suspect this has to do with men being less worried about sanitary shoes and the such. Quite an interesting event, and I for one felt much better after this little event of public urination on a NYC freeway.

We arrived at the marathon start after an hour long bus ride and it was foggy out but you could tell once the sun burnt off the fog it would be a hot one. I found a nice little bit of grass and stretched for a bit, drank more fluids, starting taking my Tylenol and getting ready for the race. Marathon starts are great spectacles of public urination and this was not different just on a more massive scale, and I am sure that seen and used the largest urinal that I have ever seen, I think it was 50 meters long (It was basically a U-shaped tube with a diameter of about 16 inches that sloped down hill and emptied straight into a spetic truck and could hold 100 men using it at once, the flow at the end must have been quite impressive … anyway enough about going to the bathroom.

The NYC marathon is organized so well that it is hard to believe that there are 35,000 people running. I would say it might be the most organized and efficient race that I have ever run in. My number let me know where I needed to start and there are 3 routes that groups start on meeting up at the 8 mile mark. It only took me 3 minutes to get to the starting line from the sound of the gun - I thought it would be more like 10 or 15 minutes. It took me literally 10 minutes to get my t-shirt and race package on Saturday and while it took a while for the bus line-up that was more a function of how fast you can get someone on a bus - as all the buses were there waiting.

My strategy for the run was pretty simple - it always is at the starting line. I had no idea what my knees and body would be like so I wanted to take it really easy for the first 10K, I figured if I could get to that point my body should be warm enough and I should be able to avoid pain that would force me to stop. I would then take it easy for the next part of the marathon and hopefully at the halfway point I would feel good enough that I would have some energy to play with and push it if it felt good - with the expectation that I would not really push until the 18 mile mark (30 Km into the run). A good race would be a race with a really solid reverse split - last half faster than the first half; a bad race would be a race that at 10 k I was walking or had to pullout.

The start of the race was jammed, there were people everywhere and you could not get open space at all, it was somewhat frustrating but seeing as how this was my warm up I just sat back and relaxed and went with the flow, slow was good. My feet hurt right from the start but other than that and some stiffness things were going okay and at 10k I was happy with my time and how I felt. A 59 minute 10k is not something I would normally be happy with but I was focused on the legs and knees and they were behaving. The crowds were reasonably thick but the thing that struck me the most was that after 10k there were still runners everywhere and no room to move about freely without dodging, which means you do waste energy going around people and the such.

From 6 miles (10k) through to 11 miles (18k) I felt okay - to the point where I contemplated pushing a bit more, but I noticed that I was unable to push myself at all even if I wanted, I had nothing it was really strange but I figured that I would worry about it when it was time to push it for now we just wanted to feel really good at the half. At 12 miles my right knee instantly seized, it fscking hurt. I didn’t want to stop moving so I hopped on one leg using my right legs when possible and starting to bend it as much as possible until I could run on it again. It probably took 100m for me to put my full weight on it again and now I had something to be concerned about - serves me right for thinking things were going well. I started to exaggerate my kick with my right leg on every fifth to tenth step and kick my right but cheek. This seemed to stretch the IT band enough that things were functional, after a mile the pain went away it seemed…

I hit the half way point at just under 2 hours and I was pretty happy with how things were going minus that little knee problem from 5 minutes ago - I figured at this point that I could aim for a 3:50 finish time and maybe even a little better if I was able to find some juice in the tank.

Carnage on the bridge - the 59st bridge is at 15 miles and has some elevation to it but nothing of note, maybe 150 feet, this appeared enough as there was carnage as we ran through it. I seen two men crumple like paper dolls, 3 folks on their back whimpering in pain and a few other calling out for help from the medics - I have never seen so much concentrated carnage in a race up to that point and we still had lots and lots of race left.

Coming off the bridge I felt okay but my knee was starting to seize more often and I was already thinking that at least my walk would not be too long from here to the finish line. The run up first ave turned out to be good for me, my spirits and my knee which behaved. As I approached the 18 mile marker I realized that I was not going to be able to push it at all and in fact my current pace while not to tiresome or something I was struggling with, was all my body could do. As I previously mentioned this was weird and has never happened to me before - course I am not an athlete so Andy, Geoff or Neall have probably come across this before and can probably give better stories than this one. This was not a bonk as I was able to keep my current effort but trying to turn my feet over faster was impossible, I’ve always regardless of my fatigue been able to run faster than my lungs or heart wanted me to, at which point they would regulate me… this time my heart was at a comfortable 170 bpm and I was not breathing hard, I was sweating but at a normal rate for the type of day and effort but my legs could do no more at all and in fact were starting to be able to do less. It was also somewhat strange that at this point my heart rate had not started to elevate more than it had give I had been at it for about 3 hours by now.

Mile 19 took us up through Harlem, at this point I was starting to hit that wall and all the crowds in the world were not going to help…. what did help was the NYC residents and their treats! The race people tell you not to take food and drink from the fans as it may not be safe, I generally like to believe that humanity is more noble than that and why would someone come out and cheer and do something dumb like that. I also think we live in a world of fear and if we all started trusting each other a bit more I bet the changes would be amazing… plus I was just starting to hit the wall and I was looking for anything . From mile 19 through Harlem up through to mile 20 in the Bronx and miles 21 and 22 back in Harlem I was eating from the buffet! I had a great glass of red Koolaid from a little girl’s juice stand, a piece of gum from a little boy (Juicy Fruit), a zip lock back of pretzel things from a young juvenile delinquent look character (coincidentally these were the highlight of the smorgasbord), and 3 twizzlers. After my little feast I was feeling a bit better and looking at my time thinking that I just needed to do better than 10 minute miles (which are not fast) and I would finish sub 4 hours, I really didn’t want to see a 4 handle on my time. My legs still had nothing though.

At mile 22 I felt better but I could not keep a pace to save my life, I thought doing a little run walk would help - it didn’t I almost could not get going again… not being very smart I tried this again 10 minutes later and the result was worse. I knew I needed to keep running and when I came across the 24 mile mark I realized that I was off my 4 hour time and needed to get going. It was at this point in the race that I got angry, focused and was able to find some fuel in reserve and pick the pace up, at mile 25 I new I needed a mile time in the mid 8 minute mark, which I had not pulled off for a few hours at this point, which made me more angry. It was at this point in the race with 1 mile left to go that I found it and I was finally able to turn my legs over faster than my heart and lungs would be able to maintain which meant a little pacing to push as hard as possible without a blow up. At 400 meters I knew we were talking seconds, there was carnage all around me at this point, and I was also an angry and focused runner and was able to push and finish with a itty bitty bit of time to spare - I was no longer angry - but tired.

Back to the carnage, I am not sure if it was cause it was a warm day, or if it is simply a numbers game but I have never seen so many runner keel over in the last 2 miles - it made the bridge look like a small shelling compared to the bomb that went off in the park. I would guess every 200 meters in the last mile and a half there was a collapsed runner who was being attended to or needed attending to. As per normal for this race it seems, there was lots of help around and it was well organized, even for the wounded. After the race there was stretchers and folks in rough shape all over. There was also lots of folk standing up and at the end of the race it was still tight for running space which was odd.

Overall I think the NYC marathon is a must do, it is a great view of the city, great crowds, super relaxed non-competitive atmosphere, well organized and the route is not a boring flat route but has some contour and I can see why there was so many people from a long ways away that came to this race.

I don’t run for a ‘time’ per say, so while I wanted to get under 4 hours that was more of a mental goal at the time as opposed to a must for a marathon time. I like running marathons cause the make you go to a place mentally that as a people today we don’t do anymore and I think it’s healthy to know what really really wanting to quit feels like and working through it (at least for me). After my current ‘training’ I am more convinced than ever that way more than 50% of a marathon is mental and it’s a game. So I am really happy with my run, I was happy with Redwoods as well, I think I probably ran a better race there, both physically and mentally but NYC was still a great run and I enjoyed it a lot. I do think that I will want to run this race again, maybe as soon as next year - but first NAN! and I need to figure out where the next marathon is going to be for 2006. I can make a promise that next year I will train as this experience creates more grief than I need.

Now it is time to get fat! (well until I start to train for the Haute Route)

Couple last points:

• The new shoes worked well - I have a coupe new blisters but the old healing ones were not aggrevated - minus one that occur between 2 toes on my left foot and all shoes do that for me
• I did manage to get a reverse split… course it was measured in seconds (less than 10) but I will take it
• The medal’s we got are really nice… hehe

My drug consumption is of interest to folks sometimes so I’ll share my actions for this race.

I will also try to get a massage tomorrow as that was successful after Redwoods.

Just a quick trip update:

Drove up the coast highway over the weekend making our way up to Eureka and Humboldt Redwoods Park.

Nan and I cheat and stayed in a hotel the night before the marathon. As neither of us felt particularly trained and didn’t expect much from the race we had a great nights sleep and headed to the park for the race.

As previously mentioned I have not completed a long run (more than 2 hours) in 5 weeks, and I could count the long runs I have completed on one hand - one half marathon in July, one 20 k run, and two 30 k runs. Probably not ideal.

Nan had not completed any runs longer than 21 k or so.

The run went like this for me:

• First 5 k, legs sore, stiff, and the balls of my feet feel like they are poking through my skin.
• 5 k to 21 k - feel pretty good. Course is pretty flat - came across NAN! and was able to confirm that she was 3rd female overall at that point. Knowing NAN! generally saves energy for the end I was hoping she could pull a win out
• 22 k to 31 k, it is all up hill - I am starting to feel tired - I start to sing and grunt out loud and act like a crazy person but am still enjoying myself
• 31 k to 39 k life is not good at all but I’m bearing with it
• 39 k to 42 k - I see hell. I have completely lost it, I must have looked scary and mad as the 6 people cheering looked frighted of me and didn’t say much. IT WAS AWFUL! I wanted to just stop and cry, I didn’t but I wanted to

I finished in 3:45 and change. Which is way better than I expected given the intense training schedule, and below the 4 hours someone asked me to finish in.

NAN! did great, she beat her time in Athens and was the fast woman at this years Humboldt Redwoods marathon. She’s awesome.

Now 3 weeks of rest and I run the NYC marathon - I’m guessing it is going to be a different kind of experience. This run was 200 people, surrounded by massive Sequoia Redwood trees, and for the last half of the race I was basically completely alone and just enjoying the world. I think I finished 50th overall, maybe in NYC I’ll finish in the top 20,000 - there are 50,000 people running.

Check NAN!’s blog out for a brief update of her experience.