Ode to Peacocks

Trail Marking, Taper Run and Pot Luck.

Gordon has asked me to post a request for volunteers to mark the Peacock trail this Saturday Morning. We will be dividing up into groups and heading out of the Airport parking lot at 7:00 as usual. We will then meet up back at the airport at about 11:00 for a Pot Luck. All are invited to come and do a bit of trail marking, a light taper run, or more if you wish, and then we will do a Pau Hana to our Peacock training. You don't even need to go up the Kealia to show up for the Pau Hana.

Gordon needs some volunteers to do A. Upper Kealia and Are's Loop B. Gordon's and Lower loop. C. Cross Over to Rock Piles. D: The Kuaokala Makua Ridge from Balls to Stash.

Race Day Note: If you plan to enter the airport prior to 7:00AM you will be required to present current vehicle paper work. (Insurance, registration, inspection). Please check you paperwork prior to race day so you will not have be barred from coming in due to this preannounced idiocy.

Ode to Peacocks

The mountains have been climbed and re-climbed, the long stretches of twisting trails and fire roads have been memorized, the infinite ups and downs have been suffered and the culmination of another running cycle draws near.

Peacocks, which was so recently an audacious experiment, then born an ambitious 54+ miler, morphs into a full-blown madly-rugged 100+ K, and is now upon us! We've crammed in all the training possible and stand waiting, wondering what to do other than be out running hard along the northern ridges of the Waianae. One last chug up the hill perhaps? One last visit to the panoramic vistas we will have little time to appreciate on race day? Maybe, or are we just yielding to the unbreakable habit of over training?

It is always at this particular point in the cycle that each of us asks ourselves the questions, 'Am I truly prepared? Did I do enough? Will I even finish?' And we are forced to look back on our training efforts and draw some conclusion, post some grade, for better or worse, concerning our preparation in meeting the lofty goals we set for ourselves so many months back. Of course, with Peacocks the answer will always be an honest 'No...'. Even Gordon had doubts as he pushed hard on the last real week of training, and was full of questions about his ability as he headed up Kealia for the second time, hoping to get in a hard forty, one last push, making one final 'Gordon would Go' effort to be ready. Gordon has designed a course that is a nasty test of his own proven abilities; the ultimate statement of Peacocks' incredible challenge.

The inability to answer the readiness question in the affirmative, to always have honest doubts about doing well, or even to question one's ability to finish the race, is what makes Peacocks, a world class race and an instant Hawaiian classic. It fits so well into the tradition of the longer Trail Series races. It is the natural next step in the progression from Maunawili, and Triple Trek, the obvious follow-up to the naive question 'What's next?' It is where the real ultra runners appear, and where many have been born. Peacocks has become the Kukaniloko, the birthing stone, of Hawaiian ultra running. It is on the Kealia, the Kuaokala, Cross-Over, and Long Road that runners come to find their ultra souls, discover the enchantment of the long and the difficult, learn to transcend their own doubts, and proudly regard themselves as ultra runners.

A great race course should be stunningly beautiful, and Peacocks flies beyond this boundary. On almost any day it is hard not to stop repeatedly along the winding trail up Kealia and and stare out over the northern ocean broken by humpbacks at play, or look eastward down the white wave lined North Shore coast, or stare at the far reaching verdant valley of the Wahiawa Plain, the cloud shrouded Koolau blue in the distance. It is impossible to concentrate fully on any run when the color of the pacific enchants the eyes and fills the heart with joy, when one's spirit can so easily drift off and float like the gliders that rip by in the wind toward the far horizons. Then, deep in the high hidden valleys one is surrounded in cool verdant greenery and strides through a timeless natural world that brings peacefulness to the soul. Peacocks, our Po'okelanani.

Beauty is the yin, while hardship the yang of a great race. Peacocks mocks any theoretical level of 'necessary ultra difficulty' offering rockbound hardship guaranteed to inflict deep and permanent emotional and physical scars on any ultra runner attempting the course regardless of training or ability.

Most will agree that a great ultra race should have more than one outstanding physical moment, it must offer a pantheon of harshness where the mind is pulled from its fragile hold on reality and thrown to the wind. For Peacocks such moments are highlighted by the extraordinary; the long unending climbs up the switchbacks and red clay roads of Kealia; Kuaokala with its long draining climb up the western ridge lines that begins deep in the bowels of the dark valleys and ratchets ever higher toward the ridge line summit overlooking Makua; the eternal hard hot and dry trek through the endless valleys of the cross-over; the devastating Long Road repeats and their infinite array of terrible turns and awesome vistas; and the winding harshness of Are's Loop with its deceptive closeness to shore, and then its almost vertical upward conclusion. The list could be refined and expanded but the point is made: Peacocks takes your breath away and leaves you in agony time and time again.

Any truly honest attempt at Peacocks challenges the soul, tears up the heart, and can leave the strongest of runners unsteadily wandering the road jibbering incoherently. Peacocks repeatedly releases runners to the lowland shore, only to sadistically claw at their reserves and force them back into the high hills and valleys where it devours goals and exposes illusions. Peacocks ambushes runners from the trail-side undergrowth, slashing at resolution and eviscerating self assuredness with the stone knife of Kukukinimamaunui, the god of ultra running, offering up many a runner as sacrifice to the god. Peacocks can leave the strong and confident crying for their mama's arms, or begging to dance with any devil who promises release from the mountain. Peacocks is the rogue black panther of trail races that can attack you and drag your soul into some tree high on the Makua ridge, there to feast on it for an eon or two.

Long after the race is complete, Peacocks can steal into your night dreams, gnawing at your insides, mocking you for your gutless failures during the race, and unwinding nightmarish memories of dark moments when you saw through the shoddy facade of your life into the terrible truth of your miserable existence and despaired all. You will awake, heart pounding, sweating and drained, still fearful that your failures have doomed you to treading high tails endlessly among the Marchers of the Night.

Very few Hundred Mile Runs can lay claim to such an impressive list of physical challenges, and very few groups other than HURT would seriously consider this a doable 100+K race course. Perhaps it is just our great fortune for extraordinary geography and beauty here on Oahu, but I believe it essentially arises out of the soul of the mountains of Waialua. The Hawaiian warrior spirit still dwells high in the hills and fills the minds and bodies of all who run this course. It fires our competitiveness and ultimately entices us all to meet the seemingly impossible challenges of the race. Our blood surges and the anticipated glory of Hawaiian victory bursts within and we are one with the glorious past. In another moment the aura of the fabled gateway to Milu, the dark afterlife of Hawaiian mythology, which lies deep in high Waialua, slips up on us in the shadowed reaches of the high back valleys. The despair of the dead as they wend unending on their eternal forced march round the dark fires of purgatory, seeps into the souls of all who traverse these mountains: There are times we run Peacocks not to meet a challenge, but because we have simply come to know nothing else. We suffer the run, because on Peacocks we have come to know only running to suffering.

The sun rises glorious on the Waialua mountains and sets mysteriously far beyond them. The heat of the sun and the power of the warriors' challenge, the dark loneliness of the moonless night and the desperate weariness of the doubtful survivor, lies before us. In one instant we run hard and victorious with Hawaiian knights gloriously meeting all challenges, in the next we push painfully and wearily on alone, fleeing the shuffling dead and their insistent whispers to join them. In either moment the experience of Peacocks is a reflection of the magnificent spirit of these mystical mountain ridges and valleys. We, the living, simply give life to past energies and a reflection on the meaning and power of our beloved island world

The fact is that you can flee to an isolated cave in the distant hills and meditate for years on the your place in this existence, or you can actually commit to suffering through your best effort at Peacocks; in either case you will find humility and walk away with a greater understanding of the meaning of the next of life's breaths. It is said the way to heaven leads through the center of hell. If true, then Peacocks is the Ultra runners trail to transcendence.

Peacocks. An Hawaii race. And until mush brained clowns ruin it, Our race.

In Praise of Youth

Note:  I've been letting this site drag a bit.  I have never been good at journals, though I have been writing.  I'll try and post most of the stuff here, if only so that I can see it all collected in one place.

This is a piece that I did for the weekly HURT training post.

In Praise of Youth

I slogged the western hills this past week-end for the first time in weeks. Injury has had a hold on me, and I have been plagued by aches and pains and was reluctant to go out because there is nowhere on this island where a runner can meet with weakness more directly than on the edgy cliffs and slopes of the northern Waianae range. Unfortunately for us all, Gordon has developed a penchant for the edge, and much of his selected route for the up coming 100K is steeply up, or, for me at least, ever more steeply down.

I found myself running with old friends; Bob McAlester and Rex Vlcek, and it struck me somewhere along the cross-over while pushing to keep up, that I was the newbie. Both Bob and Rex have been around HURT for very long times, and have scores of races and unnumbered volunteer venues to their credit. I've been running with, against, and with the assistance of each of them for as long as I have been on HURT trails.

When running with old buddies it is not uncommon that the chatter will dwell for a time on injuries, healing, rehab, and hopes for the future. We have all been injured, missed months of training, and come back after hard fought mending of our bodies. It's a constant effort. This Ultra stuff is physically demanding and takes a toll on older bodies, but the hard fact is that the mental toughness so necessary for ultra running is not something that is learned well among the younger crowd. Ultra running poses the conundrum of benefiting from age's mental toughness, while punishing age's physical weaknesses; a destructive and somewhat masochistic brew.

Proof of such is easily verified, for if you have been an ultra runner for any length of time you can count at least a few faces that are no longer with you when you hit the trails. And as you get farther along you are bound to miss a few good friends. Of course, some, Rex, Bob, and I among them, have been fortunate to reappear on the trails and push on for a while longer. But there are those who never come back out, or who never seem to make it back onto the trails for any length of time, and who fade from the pantheon of Regulars.

Runners often rue these departures with 'group-hug' levels of sadness, and though individually one may honestly rue the loss of a good running buddy, on the group emotional level the feelings often seem a bit more coarse, and often have a perverse attitudinal inflection that attributes someone's lasting injury to weakness, or worse, failure of will. Perhaps it makes it easier on the tribal mind if fallen breatheren leave us through the subtle accusation of a lack of determination to strive, rather than the more truthful facts of their physical breakdown.

The deception not only allows surviving runners to avoid the truth of injury but also permits survivors to assume the unmerited mantle of toughness, while at the same time humbly laying claim to having more of 'what it takes', all the while avoiding the cruel fact that little more than fortune and blind luck are the primary factors deciding runner's futures. Such myth is a product of the cultural organism and is fabricated to promote its survival as it comes to understand that truth, the antitheses of myth, is no friend of cultural existence. We communally delude ourselves because it is the only way we can continue to rationalize our own self destructiveness.

The weakness that causes us to demonize injury and mythologize simple luck, also runs amok in our attitudes toward aging. The mantra is that we are as perpetually young as we choose to be, that we reach our goals through good training and mental strength, and that given enough training and will power we will continue to be high achievers far out toward the event horizon. Good training is the salve that cures all ills. If one falters, applying more good training will mend the problem.

The fact that we are all navigating sinking ships is rarely honestly addressed. Instead we aggrandize the most foolish or physically adept, or both, and heap praises on those who possesses the most fleeting of qualities; speed. True, on any given day, speed is the easiest identifier of success. But a static measure makes little sense from the point of view of the individual human body since speed is destined to decline quickly over time. None-the-less as a group we are fixated on time, on bettering our own times, and on always using time as the intrinsic marker of success. Unfortunately time has a back side, and all of us are constantly facing that too, as blind to it as we may choose to be. In our unwillingness or inability to face one problem, declining times caused by aging, we create another problem, severe injury caused by the self deluded belief that we are just as fast and capable as we once were. We are not, and failure to realize you are getting older will ultimately ruin your running day.

As you may have guessed by this point, I have little to say in praise of youth. Quite frankly I'm ambivalent with regard to those who may lay claim to experiencing that period in their present lives. I neither praise nor disparage them. But the idea that older men and women can reclaim or hold on to youth is an absurdity that is, in my opinion, very destructive. That it is an entrenched aspect of our running culture makes it even more so.

So the next time you hit a section that you used to romp up or down, take heed. Things have changed since the last time you ventured out and it may pay to listen to your body just a bit more and a little less to the joyful 'I am always young!' voice of your soul. The truth is that your soul is a self deluding butterfly, while your body is fixed in the reality of this world; the very place where the trails run toward the horizon. If you wish that story book run into the sunset then you best listen to what will get you there.

Run Long, Run Hard, but not necessarily fast........ Aloha, Mikem ;)