Down the gullet of Ku; But He Demands More Suffering.

Triptic-- Four times onto the Ewa Plains, Once down the Gullet of Ku and on to the dark plains of Milu where I wandered for a year obsessing over whether I still had it in me. And three 'escapes' as Ku himself gagged and spat me up, demanding I continue with the long suffering task and goaded me on, his breath reeking around me every step I took. Endless dark miles of the Oahu Solos almost every spring for four years now. This time 4/18-4/20 in 50 hours. I don’t know if it makes me stronger, but it certainly makes me more reflective.

I don’t know if it gets easier either. I've gotten slower each time. Some of the pictures of me don’t seem to capture a fellow particularly enjoying himself; and this time I had a distinctive forward lean, kind of a stoop that lasts for seventy miles or more. My back had been acting up for a few weeks, and I guess it decided to present itself a bit. But generally I had a heavy pack on my back, and had been pushing down some ungodly stretch of road before the picture was taken. Anyway when I’m in pain my smiles look like terrible groans of a man in deep despair, which aptly describes some of the moments I endured. We had a section in there where we moved down the railroad tracks and it beat up my feet pretty well. My old shoes were good for the roads but could not protect me from the coarse gravel and uneven railroad ties. My feet suddenly hurt like hell after about 115 miles.

How the hell do you think I'm doing?

This was Rex’s run, I was along for the ride, or the walk in this case. We had practiced together, we knew each other’s ups and downs, we knew how to incite each other into further action. We are a good team. He rallied the HURT team, as I have overdrawn my support quota a bit. It was a well supported race, largely because Rex made the commitmant to it,  and we did much of it with just bottle packs between frequent aid stops. It made a great difference.

I won't go into the whole deal as it is quite boring if broken down one step at a time, or even by hour or section. We had many people join us, much good conversation, plenty of suffering, and too much bone chilling weariness to really be able to describe. If experiences like these teach you anything, it is patience, patient suffering, and a knowledge that even hell has a variety of vista’s that reflect differently on one’s internal pain and suffering. Keep going and things will change, if only what lies by the side of the road. After a while you walk because you have walked, and you know you must walk, and there is nothing else to do but walk, until, too far in the future to really comprehend, you hope for some safe haven which will afford a soft chair. You parse the distance into breaths, or steps, or moments, and ultimately stride along sharp edged sword of time; that moment between the past and future. There is nothing but the walk, and even that is then and when. You march free and untouched, surrounded by suffering, but free of it nonetheless. It is the ultimate meditation. Perhaps the first form of it. As a species we stood upright, looked around, and the real humans walked away from the rest of the crowd. That is still how it still is. You stand up, look around, and walk; patiently suffering on through all the doubt and second guessing, until there is only the walk. And when you finally take your bearings after enduring much, you find that just keeping at it you have come a long way.

It is built into our genetic structure; walking and moving onward are so much a part of us that we can not even fully comprehend it. Walking sets off all kinds of good things in the body and the mind. It’s not just hormones, or physical tissue strength, or good cardio; it goes deeper, and reaches down to how we feel and see ourselves within this world and the society in which we live. Walking helps us think better. If we excise walking from our lives we become smerfs, we lose our humanity, or reduce it. If we can not suffer the walk, can not stand up and move on across the barren hot plain in spite of our fears, then we are doomed to sit down in an ungodly place and ultimately fall prey to the carrion eaters. What we fear, deep down in our souls, is immobility, and what we must seek is change. Unfortunately we can not comprehend the land, the reality in which we live, if we do not move through it on foot. We must lie down it the mud, feel the sticky reality of the place, and understand what it is that makes us so much a part of it, and it apart of us, And then we must move on into other vistas and understand the same things over and over again. That is the simple key to our deepest realities. We must stroke the earth, return to it regularly to suckle and ultimately mate with it. Just because we think, does not make us any less an organic part of this world. Walking is what we achieved with our first steps, and it continues to be the source of our most basic joys, the reenactment of our human birth, the prod and the whip that pushed those among on ahead of the mob and gave us our brains. Thought is an indistinct reality, but walking on two feet and looking around at the world, is about as real as it gets for us, even today. Those who refuse that necessity become trolls or smurfs  people who have lost their hold on the reality of earthly existence and accept what others tell them reality is, or become zombie carrion eaters.

Zombie Carrion Eaters.....

My post run assessment reveals no blisters, no major muscle or tendon problems, a bit of foot swelling, some rashes on various parts of my body. My left ankle is swollen, a result of walking on the left of too many cantilevered roads.  It is my main concern, though there is no pain.

All in all I came through this demi-ordeal very well. Having regular access to muscle milk, V8, and coconut water, and a wide variety of foods, was a great benefit/help.

I supplemented regularly along the way with doses of natural anti-inflammatories, dosage range commercial anti-inflammatories, vitamins, mineral/electrolytes, and antioxidants. I used a lot of Bean-o to deal with gut problems that normally occur under such stress. I lubed up with Cramer’s Skin Lube to deal with chafing, abrasion and rash problems. I slowed down when I hurt, and held back when I felt great. I stopped and dealt with minor problems as they occurred, regularly pulling up my socks, adjusting my shorts, shifting my pack. I changed my shoes twice, using my older trail shoes in the mid section and switching back to my newer road shoes for the last 30. I hydrated with water regularly, watched my urine output, and tried to take solid food on a regular basis. I limited my fruit and sugar intake, avoiding soft drinks, juices, and energy drinks, relying mostly on high protein liquids for nutrition. Though I have to admit developing a taste for coconut water, a non sweetened brand that just went down very well.



This Ultra endurance trek follows a four month training period during which we did at least one 35-40 miler a week and many times two or three of that length. These were all fast paced walks, averaging 14 to 16 minute miles along the route. Occasionally we jogged but it was not ‘training’ appropriate. The training developed our street awareness and hardened our legs to the constant push along pavement.

Through it all I tried to stop briefly to appreciate the beautiful and the unique. If you don’t its just a run, where speed and time become the only values.

Get out, walk half as far as you think you can, and turn around and walk home. If you do that regularly you will experience a part of life you never imagined existed; and you will feel better for it.