Peacocks

I look around me and find that many of the people I was running with just a few years ago are no longer out there on a regular basis. It happens so slowly it is almost unremarkable. An injury, a health problem, the demands of family life, or simply the desire to move on to some other form of exercise. But the facts are clear. People don't last a long time as Ultra Runners. It takes too much time, to great a commitment, to much pain, and, yes, too much suffering. In the end life takes its toll and we lose our running friends, or we fall by the wayside ourselves.

Injuries seem to be the greatest problem. Thigh and hip problems seem to be the most devastating. Cheryl's fight against that is by far the most admirable attempt to keep moving that I have seen. That she is still out there on the trails is amazing. Then there are all the people with foot injuries, and ankle problems. Many of these could have been avoided by better training, or more attention to gear, but for the most part they just happened to seasoned runners. Many were avoidable, like my present knee problems, the result of becoming too involved in a particular race and trying to gain a few extra minutes at the cost of some strained tendons. If you are going to be out there on a regular basis it does not pay to be as fast as you think you can be. It doesn't pay to have too much hustle. Better to just putz along far behind where you think you could be and do the distance, no matter what the time.

It's a young season and we start it with some ridiculously short fast runs. I learned my lesson many seasons ago, and if I run I go slow for many miles, or get out there early and do an extra loop just to warm up. These sprints can tear you up. Look around and listen to the chatter that will develop in the veteran ultra runners, there will be all kinds of minor injuries in the next few months when long distance legs are forced to do short distance fast runs. But I show my age I guess. My knees and hips hate this part of the Trail Series, and I'll likely be standing out somewhere telling people where to go, or misdirecting my friends, or just playing 'table guy', until the races move over 20 miles.

Don't know what this has to do with Peacocks, except it is the race of the season and I am out there already moving slowly up those steeps, packing an extra twenty pounds that I collected during the break after the HURT. It will take me many months to drop back down, to be able to actually walk fast down the hills, to get back my endless legs. Problem is I don't have many months before I am off on some long expeditions. But they are not Peacocks, and even at less than 60, it is the one that waits silently out there in the distance.

........got to Peacocks late Saturday morning, waited for Don, who it tourned out is injured, went up on my own, ran into Rex, Jan, and Julie, and did a fast shuffle out to the Rock Pile and back (12m). Not as far as last week, but I had lots of reasons not to be out there and went up anyway. This time of year, well, that is better than rolling over and sleeping that extra three hours.