Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,
The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain
The pine sings, but there's no wind.
Who can leap the world's ties
And sit with me among the white clouds?
Oct. 9- We run the event horizon… a place I haven’t been to in 3 years: Panthertown Valley. Memories surge within me. We start at Cold Mtn. Gap and run a gravel road, what used to be a trail according to my not-so-old map. This is really confusing. Where there’re trails, now there’re roads. Where there’s forest, now mansions, naked earth, and bulldozers. I’m starting to freak out, but steadfastly I orienteer my way towards the goal: Toxaway Mountain.
I meet a woman walking a road and show her my map and ask her a few questions. This is the fall of Babel, we speak different tongues... No answers here. Hardheaded I grunt through unmarked game trails, old logging roads; we’re actually flowing pretty well... Then we hit Tower Rd., again a trail turned to road. What the hell? We climb to the tippy-top. There would be a really fine view up here, but it’s private property and this poor mountain has a bad case of parasites!
But enough about that, let’s talk about the sushi. Before retiring in Pisgah, I had dinner at
Sora in Brevard. It was delicious; this restaurant is the offspring of one notoriously fine establishment in Ashe-Vegas known as Wasabi. Good stuff. Sushi seems to be a fine pre-run meal. Uwharrie and I camp out just off Yellow Gap and are joined by Chris. We’ve all come to visit the fall foliage on foot along the beautiful Laurel Mountain Trail. After a fine fire and a few brews, it’s off to bed.
Oct. 10- Laurel Mountain Trail did not disappoint. This run was fantastic. I ran up Slate Creek trail and slipped unknowingly through a worm-hole. Suddenly I popped out at Good Enough Gap. I was expecting a descent to a forest road followed by a tough grunt up Pilot Rock. Eventually I realized we had skipped all that with a well-used unmarked trail. Poor Chris thought he was really out of shape for falling so far behind, it was a devious trick.
There was an intense beauty in the light shining through this forest. The translucent fall fireworks exploded silently around us. I thought I was going to have a seizure running downhill through this kaleidoscopic tunnel! Maybe I did. I’m certainly not the same since...
Oct. 11- I don’t remember all that much about today’s run except that it parallels on several levels a run along the same route last week. We ran the Frank Coggins to Coldspring to Tom Miller, Jones Gap across the bridge site... The bridge is coming along nicely. Now we climbed up Bill Kimbal over El Lieutenant. What seemed so eerily similar to last week was my mindset before, during and after this run. I realize that maybe we run in loops and not just physically here...
Oct. 12- It’s beautiful when one can tie running into work. I undertook some campsite clean-up starting on Naturaland and down Oil Camp valley along Pinnacle Pass. We climbed steeply up to the overlook and traversed the wonderful flow zone of the trail. Soon we were carefully picking our way down Ishi and back up Jones Gap cleaning campsites all the way to our pull out at 276. I felt a great sense of euphoria after this run. The week’s weather has been fantastic: cool and sunny.
Oct. 13- Friday the 13th, and it’s been an unlucky day. My heart is full of lead, but mechanically my body wants to run, run, run. I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly: after a certain period of training, running becomes as crucial to life as breathing, eating and sleeping. The body wretches when a day passes without a run. I feel my body sucking up every ounce of the movement, of the dance, and wanting more. At night I massage and elevate my legs; muscles are hardening, something is happening. The inertia is building and I’m OK with this.
The inertia carried me through this afternoon when mind and spirit were impotent. My body mechanically drew me out to the trails. My mind initially rejected any impulse from the life erupting around me. But with the building rhythm and the solar wind blowing through me, the peace of a simple existence calmed my mind. Here we only run. How beautiful! One catch-phrase ringing in my mind today seemed pertinent: “like a bat out of hell.” Not sure how a bat would fly out of hell, maybe kind of like how I ran today.
Oct. 14- We enjoyed an encore of a run this morning out to Gum Gap and thru the Watson-Cooper Heritage Preserve. We timed it perfectly; the brilliant leaves lining the trail absorbed much of my attention today. I just felt so thankful to move healthy through the forest and see the sights we saw. That’s it. I am pretty good at screwing up a beautiful moment. I close my mouth and open myself to disintegrate into the air. Like the smoke from the wood stove, my being floats and disperses; its toxicity diluted into the atmosphere. I’m sorry I’m soot. I’m thankful for this day and this place to absorb my pollution. I know when I come back together I can be a better person... Everyday.
10.26: Drove my death cab out to the top of Sassafras Mountain this morning. The cloud cover provided a nice blanket over the mountains. Uwharrie and I ran 16 miles home to the cabin from Sassafras along the blue spur of the Foothills Trail. This route has many challenging climbs. Dolves Mountain provides the best view along the Foothills Trail. Here I snapped a photo of the brilliant colors exploding out of the French Broad valley. The 6000 ft. monsters in the Great Balsams, the Blue Ridge Parkway and Mt. Pisgah are visible in the distance. Also, smoke can be seen as it rises from the waking town of Brevard. The granite faces of Looking Glass and Cedar Rock peek shyly from behind the middle mountains. This is home! Dolves Mountain is currently my favorite vantage point of the Backyard.
Rejuvenated by the experience, we glided along the double-track all alone in a quiet muffled air filled with reflection. I was home enjoying a hot shower and feasting on local eggs and cheese on fresh baked bread before work. As evening approached, a search and rescue materialized. Simultaneously, DNR along with a band of hunters were following their dogs out to kill a bear in what could very well have been non-WMA-wilderness land. Distracted by the search, the circus successfully got their kill without any questions arising from the rangers. Later at night, I felt guilty for what transpired. After a delicious supper of asparagus, quinoa, beans with sautéed sweet potatoes, apples and onions, I would toss and turn in my sleep as if the wilderness had been shot while on duty...
I tripped on my shoelace
boo! it scares me, does it you?
Maffetone has some very good thoughts on aerobic training. The MAF (maximum aerobic function) training method has worked well for me in the past, there’s definitely some merit to monitoring one’s heart rate while running. I’ve found this somewhat irksome with all the annoying and distracting beeps from standard athletic monitors. Implementing an electronic stethoscope to add rhythm to a custom meditative mix playing simultaneously from an mp3 may be a more pleasant monitoring technique.
It would certainly be an interesting experiment in not just listening to, but performing music while running... Information exists online for how to build an electronic stethoscope. As for the prefabricated back-ups, I’ve been pursuing information on various computer programs to synthesize custom natural sounds. I’m intrigued to read more about Shaman trance music. Interestingly enough, trance music is generally characterized as having a tempo range of 130-160 BPM (beats per minute), which happens to include many folks’ MAF thresholds including my own. I welcome any recommendations on good trance music.
I want my mind to be the field I remember from when I first fell in love with running. I want to run freely, and for this I wish to avoid concerning myself with constrictive time and distance measurement. I’ve been both a stopwatch-slave and a mile-slave in the past. My previous training log program involved a futile attempt at quantifying natural fluctuations in energy levels. Training is a dance of mind, body and spirit, it’s not a war.
Oct. 3- Inner Journey: I need to stop running linearly. I once thought that the spirit powered the weakened mind that powered the weakened body. Running to the beat of my own drum, trying to listen to my heart, I believe the spirit can be recharged by the rhythm of the body, looping the line: the perpetual motion of a running meditation!
Oct. 7-PITCHELL! So it’s come to pass, it’s October and time for Adam Hill’s annual Mt. Pisgah to Mt. Mitchell foot odyssey. It’s a fool moon and it’s time to get loony. Midnight marks the start from the summit of Pisgah where I arrive after getting off work at 9PM. I have to be back to work at 1PM and plan to turn the epic 100K journey into a relay of approximately half the distance. It’s an amazing night: the solar echo of the moon’s burn, the wild autumn wind’s bite, and leaves falling like auburn, ochre and crimson confetti. It’s all quite intense: evaporating whirlpool clouds, and the crazies I meet at this hour (Adam, Brian and Kevin) ready to leave the world as we know it behind.
I sense some madness percolating in us while waiting for the witching hour as we stare at the red beacons of the Pisgah tower. It’s got me a tad nervous. But then we’re off storming down Shut-In: the fervor of life, movement and the crazy camaraderie invigorates me. Soon however, I find myself alone with Uwharrie gliding across the ridge of Goldenrod and White Snake Root. The fog of sleep envelops me. A few staggered steps and the chill of the wind’s bite fills me with despair. It’s too cold to sleep, or walk; I’m too tired to concentrate on running over roots and rocks. What a silly thing to be caught in this catastrophic Catch-22. I covet the twinkling superfluous lights of Asheville below: each to me represents a soft, warm bed.
