Peacock 100K: From the Back of the Pack

Don called me a few days before Peacocks, excited by the upcoming race, more excited than I  that’s for sure.  I was dreading it.  Peacocks had come up on me far too fast, allowing very little training. I’d done Are’s twice, the Lower Loop twice and still didn’t have names for any of the subsections. I just didn’t know the course very well, didn’t think I could finish it, and was mentally only going out to do one loop because Gordon said it was OK if I did only one and then worked the aid station at Long Road.

The only hope was that Rex and I had done the first sections of the first loop and pronounced it ‘doable’.  Doable in that kind of iffy-maybe kind of way that we back-of-the-packers look at these endeavours.  Doable in the sense that if every thing goes just right then maybe, just maybe, we can finish the damn thing before they ring the bell that signals the clearing of the aid station tables, the removal of the chairs and water jugs from the finish line, and an empty field at the finish.  Doable, just doable, and no more.  But that was the outside chance, and I was not cashing any gold shares to bet on my finish.  

My knees have been hurting me on and off for a year now, and I had aggravated them again with some Peacock training and some bad shoe choices. A similar problem had haunted me last year so this year saw an early return to some stockpiled ‘old faithful’ shoes, and I manged to bring back my knees a bit.  But I still could not go down Long Road without a lot of pain and soreness. The fact was I could walk backwards down the damn thing faster than forwards.  The issue of knee pain is bothersome to say the least.  My time-bomb clock it ticking and I know it.  Peacocks is a miserable test of stupidity if you have leg issues.  So, ‘Doable’  is just sad theater, a kind of tragicomedy of an ultra-running sort for old guys with short running lives ahead of them.  And I was doing Peacocks?  It was theater of the absurd, and I knew it!  

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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 ;)

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.

The End of HURT Training is on the Horiizon

At the 'Bench' on the Grassy Knoll above Nu'uanu.

I've been training so much I've been too tired to care about posting to a blog that very few people read, even if it is my diary of the trails. As you can see on the running log to the right of the text I have been out on the trails a few times a week for the last few months. After the 60 hour birthday run Rex and I have done a 60 miler, a 12 hours of Hogsback, another 60 miler, and numerous 20 milers for speed, mixed in with some shorter 10 to 15 miles runs for speed and timing. It has been a long hard process. A process that basically comes to an end about a week from now and a few days before the HURT 100.

Rex, Jan, and Ernst on Last 20 of Training Season at Paradise Stash

Today's run was not for speed, we are both kind of beat up and it seemed to make no sense in pushing too hard. But even with our relaxed pace we were putting down times that are very good and well within the realm of the times we want to be clocking during the HURT. We managed to make it to the three-way at Pauoa Flats in under 60, the bench in about 75, and then did an down and out of Nu'uanu in under 90 minutes. Even in its disjointed order the times speak of a 6:30 or so. Its about what we want to be doing, and if we can do it at a hard pace, rather than a run, then we have achieved our goals. (The opportunity to run, or need to, if the case may be, is there but it takes about 40 percent greater effort and produces only minutes of time savings on each section. Yes it adds up, but the toll on the body is just too great. Better to be smart and go slower at a good hard race walk.

People thought I was nuts when I decided to do the 60 hours of HURT for my birthday run, and Don got down right nasty with me when I decided to do another 60 two weeks later. By the time we did the Hogsback 12 hour night run he had quieted down, and after the last sixty he just gave me a pat on the back and told me I was a lot more crazy and capable than he had thought. Of course the proof will be in the 100 miles we run on the 16 and 17 of January.

The trails are in great shape, so I am expecting a hell of a storm in the week before the run. That's OK, I did three nights of rain on the 60 hour run. It was as cold and wet as I have seen up there on the ridges. It didn't stop us then and I don't see it making much of a difference if it does. Times will suffer of course, but that's just the was it is.

I wish everyone a Happy New Year. Get out and run a bit, or at least walk.

Peacock 54

The Peacock 54 was held on October 24,2009. The weather was very good, a bit hot and humid, but to my liking. There were 40 starters, less than 20 finishers. I was satisfied with my 15th place finish.

I had hoped to do two eight hour loops, but I was hit with some bonking on the way up the Kealia the second time (a 2200 foot climb in under four miles.) and then again on Gordon's loop, the jeep road and single track loop in hours two and three of the loop. I walked almost the entire distance, and still managed to maintain a good pace.

I ran the first loop with Don, Dr. Bill, and Rex. We pretty much stayed together to the bottom of long road, about 16 miles in. The guys had left me behind on the long steep hill of Long Road and I had to hussle a bit to catch them by the aid station. I granted no mercy on the way back up Long Road and pretty much left them all in the dust until the long down of the Kealia, when Dr. Bill and Rex caught up with me again. I lost some time on the cross-over when I ran into Ryan and Brenda. Ryan was in a bad way and I spent some time trying to get some fluids into him and talking to him a bit. We were less than 20 minutes out from the Truck, and I finally left them as it appeared he was capable of making it, and there were three others behind me, if something went wrong. I lost ten minutes there.

Dr. Bill dropped at 27, and I chased Rex out of the aid station at (8:30) Don was just coming in as we started toward the trail head. He was done at 27 but doing a relay with Cheryl, who as being paced by Fish. We were all together just beyond the trailhead and then it got hard.

Coming up on the second loop is always hard for me. Kealia is a bitch and the first section of switchbacks just overpowers me for some reason. I kept ahead of Cheryl and Fish for a while but had to pull to the side and let them by. I took the opportunity to down some energy drink and hoped it would kick in. Rex was having even more trouble, and finally dropped. He had a very hard time on Long Road and then fast paced it across and down. It showed up very quickly on the Kealia. I pushed on alone, knowing it would be hard to catch Fish and Cheryl. I saw them across the valley on the early part of the single track when I was still 15 minutes out.

I had problems on the single track. Nutrition basically. I had been taking my energy drink but had not done enough carbs and protiens. It hit me hard and found myself bent over at the top of the ups, my heart racing and close to gasping. It worked itself out, but it was brutal for a while. I found myself telling myself that if I was going to die to just do it cause it didn't matter much at that point. I took a few moments at the top of one of the ups and downed the protein shake I was carrying. It took a bit to take effect but nutrition was what I needed and I finished off the single track feeling better.

I swigged a few cups of an iced gator aid water cocktail at the Rob's truck and pushed on down the cross over. I felt better and made the trip in the hour that I allot for the west to east run. But I was running late and had to run jog Long Road on any of the more level points I could find, making it to the aid station with 15 minutes to spare before the cutoff of 8:00 PM. (14:00) hours in.

The push back was very hard, and at one point I had to regroup and just look down at the small circle my headlamp made on the road and take one good step at a time. I made it to the top of Long Road in 67 minutes which is not too bad, and was moving well on the cross over. I didn't see any light ahead of me, but knew the girls were just ahead of me, with Cheryl leading them. I was feeling good and pushed hard and steady catching the first group just before Robs truck. I slipped past them, watered, and was on my way before they all really knew what was happening. I pushed hard down the Kealia, jogging a bit on the less steep downs, making it to the finish line at 17:15, by my watch.

One hard race.

A Less Than Optimal Week

It was a week that began to decay in the early hours of Monday, and slowly spiraled down until late Friday night. I developed some kind of scratchy cough, which I hope is not the forerunner of the slime flu I had last fall--which started the same way. Then on Wednesday I was out in the yard mowing the lawn and mulching and when I came in I bent to pick up the dust pan and my back went out. What seems minor now, but had me concerned in the early days of the week was a right knee that was not feeling quite right. Anyway I worked on Wednesday evening and on Thursday I woke up feeling badly, almost unable to straighten up and gimping around a bit. So I had scratched Monday and Wednesday runs, and it was looking bad for Friday. My periodic cough didn't go away so I dropped the Friday evening start and hoped for a 4:00 am start. But Friday evening I knew that wouldn't work either, so I called Don and hooked a ride with him for 6:45 from Kaneohe.

We put in about 12 miles on the Kealia Trail and Gordons loop. The last half was at a good pace and that was a hard pull, I was breathing heavily and at a few points my legs were a bit weak. But my back held up, and my knee seemed to be taking it OK. So now, Saturday evening, its just the lingering cough. The vog was quite heavy today and everyone was sneezing, blowing, and complaining of burning eyes. The dust was up, but we were behind the main group so it was not too bad.

Not a great week for one that I hoped would yield a 100 miles. But I will head to bed early, sleep tomorrow and hope that I can do a run on Monday before I work a full shift at Hospice. Wednesday is a HHH and if I can be physically ok by then it should signal a big week-end. There you go....the ups and downs of trying to train heavy.

Night at Peacocks

I headed out toward Dillingham before the Friday afternoon rush hour fouled the roads and brought the flow of traffic to a standstill. Made it there in less than an hour and with surprisingly easy driving.

Moving along the bottom of long road by 4:10, I was hoofing it up the quickly sloping road with an extra gallon of water on my back. The going was slow, very slow at first, and the longer and higher the trudge the heavier that extra gallon became. If you have not had the pleasure of doing long road I have to tell you that the first mile is pretty flat, and the 1 mile marker sits at the base of a large tree that marks the first real steep. But the road is wide and smooth asphalt making it just a 'dig-in and do it' kind of up. Farther up, at the 1.5 mile marker the road moves through a gate and becomes narrower, older, and rougher, as it turns into the first valley. There the trees get a little taller at the sides of the road offering small patches of shade in the afternoon sun, false promises of relief from the humid warmth that rises off the old asphalt and the heat of the late afternoon sun. Moving toward the back of the valley the road hair-pins and heads up once again on the first of a long succession of switchbacks.

Its a bit deceptive, at first the road slopes up a bit more, but the sky opens up again as one turns out of the narrow valley and the view is of the ocean and the greenery of the coastal plain, the climb is steeper but there is sense of relief in being able to look out and away from the enclosing valley. In less than 2 miles the road probably rises 500 feet, but most of that is in the second mile. Then the switch-backs start up the western side of the valley wall and all calculations are thrown out the window as one begins to face an increasingly steep wall of asphalt.

The second switchback is the longest, hardest section. It must be a quarter of a mile long, with a surface that deteriorates quickly into a patchwork of forgotten lost budget cuts. Near the bottom there are often long fans of loose gravel which have collected during the heavy rains that hit the area on occasion. These patches are a problem going up, and dangerous coming down--a slide through one of these can do serious work on a knee. But the all pervasive fact about the second switch back is its stamina sapping, seemingly unending steepness. It quickly becomes an up that demands a momentary respite, a breather, a moment of bent over agony, as the body scrambles to cope with the sudden rush of a stark breathless reality. As one makes the hot rugged climb one is quickly convinced there could be nothing worse in life than pushing up these switchbacks, and this long second one to be most precise. It is always a bad omen to find oneself looking up and praying for an end, but it is, for me at least, inevitable on the long steep second switch, and by the time one finally sees the turn one has usually been defeated by that stretch of road, and one makes the turn slowly, humbled and thankful to be done with it.

'How can anything else be as bad?' is the thought that rings true, as one makes the turn with the feeling that the worst is behind, heart throbbing relief, and a prayer that the lungs can last a few more minutes. But the road is remorseless, sadistically coy, and after a brief flattering moment, when one wrongly assumes the hill is pretty much history, the road twists and turns upward once again. The grade is almost as steep, but the view is out toward the open ocean where cool breezes blow lightly over the dark waters. But the only water one feels in the hot late afternoon light is the sweat pouring off  one's head and dripping from arms and hands. The road wiggles like a nasty snake, threatening to strike, causing the heart rate to climb and a the breath to become shallow and quick. Somewhere deep in the back of one's mind the crying voice of a child is heard protesting the need to go on, the need to feel so bad. One soothes the angst, but to no avail, moving on despite the nagging cries of an evidently poorly trained spirit.

If one has not been numbed by the disapointment of hard training one may find the need to see the next turn as essential. It is a deceptive turn as it moves around the ridge into a long bowl of the next valley. I don't know why I always look forward to making that turn. Perhaps it's because it opens into a fresh place, another valley that promises something different. It's a false hope. It takes years of going up Long Road before one  admits that it doesn't get any less steep after the turn into the upper valley, and even after too many climbs it is hard to admit it is not less steep, that once one has made the turn it will not be better. But it's not really, and the grade continues close to 15 to 20 degrees. However the road surface is not as bad on that last stretch and the footing is better. So perhaps it can be said that it gets easier, even though any reasonable honest individual would have to say that it is no less steep than the switch backs.

One can see by this description that on the upper reaches of Long Road most thoughts are of the road. How far to go, where it might not be as steep, where one can catch a break and recover a bit of breath, where it would be good to take some water without puking. One may look out over the valley, or toward the ocean, but it is never with much appreciation, never in awe of the beauty or the stunning views. No, one looks out of blankly focused eyes, stinging with sweat, only to refocus the vision on the road, lower one's head, and grind ever so slowly up the hill.

When the road finally does bend around to the right and the gate becomes a promise rather than a myth, one is always defeated, spent, and breathing rapidly and painfully. The legs are jell-O and the back is aching, vision may even be harmonic, vibrating to the pulse of a heart that seems ready to explode. And even then the gate is only a promise, even then one is moving up through belief the end is near, not the reality that it actually is. Then, when finally there is a sight of the gate there is no celebration, no cheering, often not even a feeling of relief. On most occasions one does not even have the strength to remark about it; simply ducking unsteadily through the bars of the gate and standing there wondering how one made it, and if disintegration now follows.

But this is Peacocks, and this is just the beginning. There is the long Cross-over and then the steep down into Dillingham followed by an up that is perhaps more steep than the one one has just negotiated. But its too far away, to long to think about and the knowledge that the next 200 yards is down hill is sufficient as one  stumbles on looking forward, if nothing else, to a different kind of pain.