Tantalust, Part III: Finding Jim
< Tantalust, Part II: Dreams and Reality “Spring… we have a problem…” I slowly inched my way back from the edge, my body stiff, my heart beating up out of my throat. I turned to Spring and I could tell that she understood from my body language that something was wrong. I scanned around for options and couldn’t see any, today was not supposed to be like this. “Thanks Ron” I whispered in reply as I came down the ladder from the sleeping area in the Cabin that morning. Ron was gesturing towards a fresh pot of coffee he had brewing, instructing me to help myself. It was some time after 5am. Myself and Spring had been lazy stirring awake, but when we heard Ron in the kitchen getting coffee ready for us, we got up quickly. We got our breakfast ready and sat down to eat it. I couldn’t tell yet if it was still dark out or if there were just dark clouds low in the sky. As we ate breakfast, relatively slowly, Ron shared a little anecdote with us, he said “You know, when I used to climb Mountains, the time we set to get up at, was the time everyone got up. There wasn’t any waiting around either, we got going right away”. I understood the moral of his story. There is a maxim in mountaineering that goes “It’s later than you think” and Ron was right. If we had a hope to accomplish our lofty goal of summiting Mount Alpha today and then traversing to the Haberl Hut then we needed to get moving asap, but I was stalling as I still wasn’t sure about the weather as it was too dark out. As the dull light of the morning spread I could see across the lake that the clouds were still hanging low on the peaks that rose above it, obscuring their summits from view. Ron returned from a trip outside and said that it was raining now. Myself and Spring made the decision to forgo our attempt on the East Ridge of Alpha. The rock would likely be slick from the rain and the low ceiling of clouds would mean that visibility would be poor, similar to the conditions we had encountered the previous day. We still needed to make the Haberl Hut by that night though so we set out as soon as we’d finished breakfast. After a few minutes of hiking away from the Tantalus Hut we paused at a fork in the trail. Turning right would put us on the route to the East Ridge of Alpha. We took one...
What motivates you?
I can’t believe I almost didn’t get out on the trails today. Let me tell you how the morning started. The alarm went off at 5:30,which thank goodness for the end of daylight savings time, was actually only 6:30. Nonetheless the alarm was set early as Leigh was heading out on a hike/climb with some friends and I decided to take a day to myself (yes sometimes we do things separately). I thought I may as well make the most of the day, get up with Leigh make some breakfast and coffee and then head for an early morning training session at the bouldering gym, as I would probably have the gym to myself at that hour of the morning. Where Jack-o’-Lanterns go to die? How I would have felt if I stayed home. The bouldering gym. Sunlight beams through the trees. This is exactly how it played out as well. I seen Leigh off and was at the gym by 7:45. I played around for an hour, and I say play because it is way too much fun in there to call it training, and then decided to call it after I started to feel a bit sore and too pumped to stay on any of the holds. Made it home by around 9:00 and decided to have a second breakfast, which ended up being a little more leisurely than it should have been, but hey it’s Sunday! It’s always good to take some time for reflection. After a little perusing on the computer I came across an article (check it out here) by a local ultrarunner about staying motivated during the dark, rainy winter season of the PNW. Now today was nothing but sunshine but it was a good thing I read it when I did, because at that moment I was contemplating a nice long nap! I was starting to lose motivation fast, my mind was trying to convince me I was too tired and that I should be kind to myself. This is the oldest trick in the book though, my brain was trying to convince me of something I knew I would deeply regret later, and I almost fell for it. I read through the article and it smartened me up right quick! “The less you do, the less you’ll want to do. The more you do, the more you’ll want to do.” Those words kept buzzing through my head and as I lay on the bed feeling sorry for myself I firmly decided to get up and just put my running gear on. “You know you’ll feel better after you run.” “Just take...
Do it because you can.
I was reading an article in the August edition of Runner’s World Magazine; an interview with Andre Kajlich, the reigning USA Paratriathlete of the Year. In it they discuss how he went from a 24 year old everyday college student with every opportunity before him, to someone who lost both of his legs in an instant in a horrific accident. This article really stuck with me for a few reasons. First for the amazing attitude that Andre has toward his new life. And second the article doesn’t try to canonize him as some stoic figure, but comes across as a thoughtful and honest discussion. The one quote that stuck in my mind was: “It’s an amazing thing, running-especially at that maximum turnover. It’s also amazing to never do something again because you can’t. I’d like to transfer that concept into everyone’s head, because inevitably it will happen to all of us.” You don’t need to be a runner to understand what he is saying. All you need to know is that you need to be doing whatever it is that makes you come alive before you can’t anymore. If nothing else do what makes you happy, do what you feel passionate about, do what gives you purpose and fulfillment…and do it now, because you can! Don’t let another minute pass you by where you aren’t doing what you love or at least planning to do it at the next available moment. I write this not because I have become adept at doing this myself, but because I need to write it out so I can see it plainly for myself. So that I can see how important it is to live life, get dirty, scrape a few knees, laugh and smile at the little things in life. It’s over faster than we can imagine…make it a good one! Read the article here....
Magic number 50
Yes, I have a magic number. Now it’s not magic in that I believe it has any supernatural traits. No, it’s actually more like this number gives me the ability to remember what I am capable of when I am feeding off of my last ounce of energy, physically or mentally. Repeating this number to myself, as if invoking my brain for some special power it didn’t realize it had, is a way of getting myself through some tough challenges. So what is my magic number? Well up until August 10th it was 42 ( and if I am going to be really specific 42.2). That’s right in kilometers that is the distance of a marathon, of which I have run 2. This is no great feat, as many people have run this distance, but it does provide a keen sense of mental awareness of what your body can achieve. Just knowing the distance you can push your body to run, translates to being able to push yourself in so many other aspects of life. For myself it has become a mantra I say to myself when the going gets tough. During a long hard day in the mountains I can draw energy from this number, if I can run that distance surely I can tackle the physical and mental challenge I currently find myself facing. What happened August 10th? Well that was the day of my first 50km ultra trail race, the Arc”teryx Squamish 50. I tried to post updates regarding my training as the months passed, but as I mentioned in a previous post, this did not pan out as well as I hoped it would. Nonetheless race day came, despite my inability to catalog the months and days leading up to the race. So here are a few thoughts on how that day went. Race day was forecast to be 28 degrees (celcius) but feel like 31, so I was concerned about running in the heat. But when I woke up to a cloudy sky in Squamish I was so thankful! Driving down to catch the bus to our respective races, Leigh to his 23km starting line at Quest and me to the 50km start at Alice Lake, we could see the sun streaming through the clouds above the chief. Beautiful though it was, I hoped that the sun would duck back behind the clouds for just a few more hours. Arriving at the start line, with 1/2 an hour to spare, I seen the familiar faces of friends also running the race. It helped to calm the nerves, just a little bit, and the excitement...
Running the Arc’teryx Squamish 50 23k
Photos by Lesley Morgan Loree Photos by Lesley Morgan Loree On Saturday, the 10th of August, I ran in my first ever race, road or trail, the “Squamish 50” 23k. It’s called the Squamish 50 as the main race is 50 miles long, but they also offer variants of the course that are 50km’s and 23km’s in length. Spring, the other half of pebbleshoo, ran in the 50km, a mammoth achievement, and will be posting her thoughts on that also. If you’ve been following this blog you might remember I posted about my reasons to run this race back in January, you can read that original post here: Twenty Three Well, did I hit my goal of losing 23lbs in weight? No. I did not. I’m around 15lbs lighter. I guess something changed between writing that initial post and actually running the race. Weight loss is still happening but I don’t frequently monitor my weight so it isn’t like I’ve set weight loss goals and am keeping track that I’m hitting them. I imagined I might lose around 23lbs by the race simply by being very active. I guess my body is happy with its current weight and doesn’t want it to drop much lower for now. Another aspect is that I don’t like feeling hungry. It’s an unnecessary mental distraction. Since January and when I wrote that first post about signing up for this race I’ve been doing a lot more Skiing, Mountain Biking and Rock Climbing, as well as some Backpacking and Mountaineering. Primarily though, compared to the last 3 years, I’ve cut back on Backpacking and spent a lot more of the Spring and Summer Mountain Biking and Rock Climbing. Generally, when my body is losing weight quickly, I feel hungry. When climbing it made me feel weak and when biking it made me feel shaky. This wasn’t good. I decided that I’d rather feel satiated and enjoy learning to get better at these activities than spend time thinking about food I could be eating. It seems to be working. I’m eating enough and I’m still losing weight, it’s just very, very slow. What has helped is that rather than reducing the quantity of food I was consuming I’ve changed the quality of it. I’m eating a lot more organic fruits and vegetables. I’ve cut out a lot of dairy as well, I consume no milk anymore (replaced it with Almond milk), I eat a little cheese and yogurt and trace amounts of butter. I’ve also cut back on wheat, refined sugars and canned foods. You might have noticed above that I didn’t mention running as...
