Foot and Pedal Disease

FCHPBTH

2012-01-03T20:12:00.000-08:00

5^th Annual Human Powered Brewery Tour for ALS

Saturday, February 4^th, 2012. 10:00 am.

On July 27^th of this year, the finest, most handsome competitors from around the world will gather in swinging, rioting London for the Games of the XXX Olympiad! Oh that we could bethere, to hurl a silvery spear into the steamy yob-filled night, to tossaloft the gossamer weight of a gleaming white plastic ball, to swim, swimsynchronously and true in costumes scant, yet somehow tasteful. I fear I’m mixing up synchronized swimmingand ice dancing. Maybe they should bemixed up. No matter, off subject asusual.

But alas we are no Olympians, merely mortals who like tocompete. So compete we shall, in theFort Collins Human Powered Brewery Tour Heptathlon! In honor of this being an Olympic year wewill transform our annual brewery tour into a quasi-competition and celebrationof international costume and bad accents.

Here, then, are the rules:

1) Choosea country and align yourself with that county. Lean their dress, their customs, their favorite sport, their favoritebeer, their favorite accent. Comeprepared, come dressed up. Medals willbe awarded to the three best representatives. More than one person can be part of the same country. Then you will be a team! Organize yourselves accordingly. My inclination is to represent Ghana ofcourse!

2) Givegenerously to the ALS Association. Every year we dothis as a fund-raiser for ALS and this year, particularly this year,is no exception. 5 years ago Celeste lost her cousin Annie to ALS. Last fall she lost her cousin Bob to the same disease. We honor their spirit and memories by hosting the brewery tour and raising money for the ALS association. We raised over $400 lastyear, and we want to raise over $1,000 this year. Medals to the top three fund-raising countries. That’s a good reason to get together and joina team!!

3) Visitall 7 old town Fort Collinsbreweries by human powered means only. This means anything not motorized! Bike, run, walk, skate, roller-blade, big wheel, pogo stick, kayak, you get the idea. You will cover about 4 or 5 miles if you hit all 7 breweries so crawling or leap-frogging is not totally encouraged. Obtain a coaster or a photo of yourself from each brewery and bring yourcoasters/camera to the Trail Head Tavern for verification. Sampling of beers at each brewery istechnically optional, but, you know, whatever. Participants who visit all 7 breweries will be eligible to medal in theFCHPBTH (Fort Collins Human Powered Brewery Tour Heptathlon). It is not a speed competition. It’s a style competition. A, dare I say, competition de panache. I’llknow it when I see it. You will becompeting in the following events at each brewery.

4) The7 breweries and competitions, you ask? IN THIS ORDER:

a. New Belgium Brewery. 10:00 am. Competitions: Frivolity, Punctuality.

b. Fort Collins Brewery. 10:45 am (ish). Competition: Generosity.

c. Funkwerks Brewery. 11:30 am. Competition: Panache.

d. Odell Brewing Company. 12:15 am. Competition: Levity.

e. Coopersmiths Brewpub. 1:00 pm. Competition: Brevity.

f. Pateros Creek Brewing Co. 1:03 pm. Competition: Orienteering.

g. Equinox Brewing. 2:00 pm. Competition: A certain daring-do, a certain je ne sais quoi.

Yes, everyone starts at New Belgiumat 10:00 am. We have a lot of stops onthis year’s tour, so get cracking (remember on the first year, when there wasonly one brewery in town? Me neither.). Everyone meet at the Trail Head Tavern afterit is all over for awards. Believe me,they’re the only place that will accept us by then.

Oh and, special prizes for legacy members, you know who you are! The prizes will be even more special than last year!

Here are some pictures from previous years:

2008, First, uh, annual!

2009, 2nd annual!

2010, 3rd annual!

2011, 4th annual!

One

2011-10-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

One came out with a new famine video today, thought I'd promote it with a quick post:

Quick comment on the video; why does the cool edgy guitar music represent famine, death and destruction, and the piano music represent redemption, peace, and hope? So typical. I'd like to see that reversed, because, you now, pianos are inherently evil, right? j/k. One is a funny sort of organization, I don't think they take donations directly, but they act as a sort of message-driven outreach voice for African development issues. They're sort of a "celebrity" organization, with Bono from U2 being their most visible supporter, and they spend a lot of time making slick and flashy videos and what not. This can be a little off-putting for some but I think it's fine to use a little star power to get your message across, and I like what they are trying to accomplish. Here is One's mission statement from their web site:

"ONE is a grassroots advocacy and campaigning organization that fights extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa, by raising public awareness and pressuring political leaders to support smart and effective policies and programs that are saving lives, helping to put kids in school and improving futures. Cofounded by Bono and other campaigners, ONE is nonpartisan and works closely with African activists and policy makers."

That sounds fine. So One isn't really on the front lines administering aid. Rather, One works with and supports several dozen aid organizations, including notably (RED), Oxafam, Bill & Meninda Gates Foundation, Water.org, and CARE, US Doctors For Africa, and several dozen others. Ideally this allows One to focus on getting the message out to people like me, and to politicians, and allows the aid organizations to focus on solving the problems on the ground. Of course this can also cause problems, particularly when and if One's messages don't align with their partner's aims and goals. But One tends to keep things pretty generic and simple, by design likely, so there's probably less of a chance of that happening.

The full list of One's aid partners is impressive and comprehensive, indeed. But notably absent from One's list? Doctors Without Borders, baby! Why? I doubt there is any serious schism between One and DWB, I rather suspect it is because DWB strives very hard to maintain absolute neutrality, and therefore can not align themselves with any umbrella organization. Respect. But a quick glance at all of the One partner organizations reveals many worthy aid organizations who are trying to do the right thing.

Just for Bono:

"One life, but we're not the same, we get to carry each other, carry each other, One"
-- One, U2

Johnny got it right:

What's Going On?

2011-10-25T20:50:00.000-07:00

The latest from Somalia:

So what's going on in Somalia, you ask? Ahh, you don't want to know. There's trouble over in the horn of Africa, some of it involving our dear Doctors Without Borders. As you probably know, we got together and raised over $4,000 for DWB at the Runners Without Borders event last weekend. I requested that the money go to Somalia if possible (DWB does critical work all over the world so I'm sure it could be put to good use in many places, but Somalia seems to need assistance the most right now). One of the super-critical and time-sensitive tasks DWB is trying to accomplish in Somalia right now is a massive measles vaccination campaign for children. Yup, that measles shot we all got as babies in the USA, well, they don't get those shots over in Somalia. And measles is actually a nasty and virulent little disease with a very high fatality rate among small children, particularly children who are already malnourished.

So DWB took it upon themselves to try to vaccinate as many high-risk children as they could, focusing efforts on the capital, Mogadishu. But last week heavy fighting erupted (side note, does "heavy fighting" ever do anything besides "erupt"?) in Mogadishu, forcing the DWB doctors to abandon the campaign for the time being. Read DWB's press release here: Somalia: Vaccination campaign Suspended Due to Fighting in Daynile.

Some thoughts from the press release; Daynile is on the outskirts of Mogadishu, and I'm assuming this is where a lot of the refugees are coming from the famine-striken areas. So it's an important base of operations for DWB, since this is likely as close as they can get to the people that are the worst off. Although they have suspended the measles program, they are still at the hospital, providing medical assistance and nutritional assistance as much as they can. I take two things from this. One, the DWB doctors are total bad-asses and I am more proud than ever to support them, and you should be too. Two, the Somalians really need to put down their guns, even for just a little while, so these doctors can save the lives of their children. Priorities, people. It's all very irritating.

The other bit of news from DWB in Somalia is the news of a kidnapping of two DWB staff members from a refugee camp in Dabaab, Kanya, which is serving as a Somalian refugee camp. This happened on October 13th, and as of yet I believe the two staffers are still being held by their kidnappers. You can read this article here:
Kenya: Two MSF Staff Abducted in Kenya (Updated). Dangerous indeed. You can read the article, but the effect of the kidnapping is that DWB has suspended much of their operations in the Kenyan refugee camps until they can get the situation resolved. Maybe the refugee camps need more protection, but DWB tries very hard to distance themselves from the conflicts that cause these refugee crises, and not take sides, but as you can see it's difficult not to get into trouble. Trouble has a way of finding you, I suspect, in places such as these.

What is also interesting to note is that DWB does not want this kidnapping to be publicized, as publicity is not helping their efforts to get the staffers returned. So, uh, I'm not totally sure I should be writing about this, but the story went out on much larger news organizations already, so it's probably ok that I'm bringing it to your attention today, since I expect about, you know, 23 people to read this.

What's my point besides being full of rather depressing news today? I wanted to give you all a greater appreciation of the dangers that the men and women of DWB face in trying to help people in the worst places in the world. Major props to them. Hopefully the money we raised last week will do some good there, hopefully they can get back to working at full-capacity soon.

Runners Without Borders: Recap

2011-10-24T07:15:00.000-07:00

Where do I start? The stats? The donations? The idea? The need? How about the people! At some point during the day Saturday it dawned on me with amazement that whatever the motivation, 97 other people came out to run and do something good. I knew my wife would be there, she helped come up with this plan, and she was the most supportive of my idea, and she was out there running over 30 miles herself on the trails, earning money and generally going way above and beyond. I knew my crazy trail running friends would be there, heck they would have been there anyway, I just gave them a wonderful excuse to do something they wanted to do anyway! And they came out in force. Heck, a few of them just happened to stop by on their regular run and got involved on the spur of the moment. But right away at 8:00 am when the first runners showed up to run 5 and 7 mile trail loops through Lory State Park and Horsetooth Mountain Park for Doctors Without Borders I realized something cool was happening: people whom I didn't even know decided to show up and run. 39 out of 96 by my rough count, 39 people who didn't know me, but heard about the event somehow or through someone, and wanted to participate, wanted to run, wanted to do something good. It was one of those days where I felt that people generally want to do something good; it's just sometimes they need a reason, a little push out the door. I was so happy and proud to help provide that reason, even if just for a day.

And what a day it turned out to be! Apparently it is supposed to snow here on Wednesday, so we may have enjoyed the last beautiful weekend for a while. A thin veneer of clouds kept the sun a bay just enough to keep the temperatures warm but not baking hot. There was just a whisper of wind in the valley, and the cottonwoods along the creeks were in full color. Up in the trees the smell of pine filled the air, as the evergreens seemed to stretch their limbs one last time in the warm sun before donning their white winter cloaks for another season.

I'm not going to lie, if you missed this event, you missed out on one special day. It was a sustaining sort of day, not only realizing that people want to do something good, but also being reminded that what we do matters, what we do can make a difference. And it doesn't really take much to make a difference, not when you have your friends out there helping you out. But don't worry, I think we're going to do this again next year, so you'll have another chance to run without borders.

98 people (including myself) came and ran at least 1 loop, with many running more than one loop. A special mention to 6 runners who ran at least 4 loops: Celeste and Kristel each ran 4 loops, Cat, Mindy and Pete each ran 5 loops, and Shannon ran 7 loops! All told the 98 participants ran a total of 168 loops. We had 50 women and 48 men participate. I was able to sneak out and run 1 loop myself, and enjoyed sharing my loop with Celeste. Also we had 7 dogs run a total of 11 loops!

And we raised a lot of money. $3986.78 at this point, with apparently a few more pledges yet to come. We had 82 people pledge money, at least a dozen of which were not even at the event, and they were some of our biggest contributors! A heartfelt thanks to all of you who contributed, and special thanks to those of you who believed in my vision enough to pledge even though you were not able to participate. Anyway I'll go ahead and call it $4,000 raised for Doctors Without Borders, and it looks like the total will exceed that amount. And that entire amount is going to be matched by Audrey Steele Burnand, so basically what I'm saying is that we were responsible for sending $8,000 to Doctors Without Borders on Saturday.

Even though it was only about two months ago, it seems like a long time ago when I thought I should "do something for Somalia" and thought about going on line and sending them a couple hundred bucks. It could have stopped there, and that would have been great, but I felt so strongly about what I was doing that I knew I had to try to do more. I drew inspiration from my wife and my mom and my friends, who help keep my moral compass pointing North, so to speak. I drew courage from the unwavering support of my best friends, who stepped up with pledges right away, and were always there with encouraging words, and there to assist me in planning and implementing the event. I literally could not have done this without you all -- I certainly could not have ran 168 loops on my own! -- so thanks again. I think this was a pretty neat idea and I'm happy to see so many people participate. And yes, I think we'll crank it up again next year, so stay tuned!

-Slush

Participants:

Pledges:

Famine

2011-10-20T21:09:00.000-07:00

I have hesitated posting this, because the subject is unpleasant for me to write about, much less for you to read about. But in the end I feel that it is important to write a little bit about why I have put so much effort into the upcoming Runners Without Borders event scheduled for this Saturday. I am so very grateful for the tremendous support that everyone has provided up to this point, and I know the event will be a fun, joyous occasion for all, and that is the intent of this fund-raising exercise. And maybe it is best in the end to simply focus on that; the camaraderie, the joie de vivre of the occasion. But some sober reflection is in order as well, for the reason we celebrate life with so much passion is partly because we know that is it precious, and that we are lucky to enjoy it as a precious thing.

If you don't want to get into the heavy stuff today, then stop right here. I will think nothing less of you. Otherwise, brave reader, read on.

I don't want to get too over the top with the pulling of heartstrings and such, because I find that approach manipulative and ultimately condescending. But I do want to express how I feel about famine and why the work that Doctors Without Borders (DWB) does is so important. Famine is a horrible thing. And in this day and age famine is a man-made thing, and should be completely preventable. Say what you will about drought, overpopulation and overgrazing, and climate change and water issues. Those are all contributors to conditions that can cause a famine. And many if not all of those are man-made conditions. But ultimately there is enough food to feed everyone. Famine is inexcusable. So why does it happen? Sometimes we just can't get food to the people who need it. And sometimes people are actually prevented from getting the food they need. Sometimes intentionally.

Голодомор is a word I hope you will never see again after today. I'm not even going to link that word to a web site, for I don't want to encourage you to look too closely into the hollow eyes of famine. I'm not even going to tell you how to pronounce that word. It is a sacred, terrible word. Голодомор means "Killing by Hunger", and it is the word for a devastating famine in the Ukraine that occurred about 80 years ago. The truth will never be known, but is it estimated that somewhere between 2.4 million and 10 million people died of famine -- starvation and attendant disease -- in the Ukraine between 1932 and 1933. Aside from the huge number of people who died, what I find striking is that the death estimates vary so widely. I presume this is because entire towns starved to death and were depopulated, and the town records were subsequently altered or destroyed by the Soviet regime, who were both the cause and the amplifiers of this famine. In my opinion Голодомор represents Josef Stalin's worst crime against humanity, and that is saying something. It was his Holocaust, with comparably grim statistics to boot.

When I read about this famine I shook my head and wondered why this was allowed to happen, as would anyone to comes to know about such horrible things. The causes of this famine are still debated, but the prevailing thought is that the famine was caused largely due to the failures of the Soviet food collectivization programs of the 1930s. Many also believe that the Ukrainians were intentionally starved by the Soviets. Of course in 1932 in the USSR it was rather difficult to obtain credible information about what was happening, much less why it was happening. But for whatever reason, whether because of malice or pride or something else, Stalin and the Soviets denied that the famine happened. They wanted to keep the news of the famine quiet. Голодомор was a man-made famine, entirely preventable, but ultimately preventable only by the Soviets. And Голодомор isn't even the worst famine in history. I use it as an example here to reinforce my statement that famine is ultimately a man-made problem, and requires a man-made solution, and also to illustrate the usefulness of unbiased and credible reporting of famines.

Why is this relevant and how does this compare with what is happening in Somalia right now? In Somalia, a drought in the southern part of the country has created conditions that have led to a famine. The drought alone would have caused hardships, but a civil war and a jihadist militia called Al-Shabaab have essentially amplified the drought into a famine. Furthermore, Al-Shabaab is accused of preventing aid from reaching the most distressed areas, and is also accused of preventing people under their control from leaving the famine zone for the capital or fleeing to refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. Even still, many thousands of desperate Somalis have been able to leave the most affected and closed-off areas, and are now able to receive aid from organizations such as DWB. But many others are stuck in circumstances most dire, and even for those who have fled survival is no guarantee; only a possibility.

This famine in Somalia differs from the Ukrainian famine in one minor and two major aspects. First the minor difference; in Somalia the famine appears to have been precipitated by a drought. In the Ukraine it appears to have been precipitated by the Soviet policy of collectivization. But both situations, combined with tyrannical and repressive governments, have resulted in famines.

The first major difference between the two famines is in terms of information and access, and our collective ability to react to the disaster. In the Ukraine, foreign journalists were not permitted to access or report on the famine. One reporter did in fact try to report on the famine but his reports were discredited by the Soviets and by Communist sympathizers and Soviet appeasers in the free world. The reports became rumors and were ultimately ignored, with the result that the famine was allowed to continue uninhibited.

In 1932 Doctors Without Borders didn't exist. Would DWB have been allowed to go to the Ukraine in 1932? Sadly probably not, but it's difficult to speculate. It is a different world now, a world still in crisis, but a world that now contains organizations like DWB that can fight against famine, or at least mitigate their effects. DWB is on the ground in Somalia, reporting on what they see to a world that listens, because they are viewed as an independent organization with no political or religious agenda. And of course DWB is actively administering aid and saving lives in this most dangerous country. Ultimately DWB can't solve the problem on their own, but they can save lives and bring the issues to our collective attention. They are helping the world realize that there is a problem that needs to be solved. As much as the actual tangible aid helps, so too does the flow of information. Clearly many Somalians would die if DWB wasn't administering vaccines and treating malnutrition right now. And many more would die if no one outside of Somalia knew about this famine, a la the Ukraine in 1932. The work that DWB is doing is both timely and important, and the world is a better place for it.

And the second major difference between the famine in the Ukraine and the famine in Somalia? The famine in the Ukraine happened almost 80 years ago. The famine in Somalia is happening right now. That's a sobering yet galvanizing thought. It is true that Somalians right now are in desperate straits and need help. But it is also true that unlike 80 years ago, we have the ability to help. And luckily and ironically enough, it is easy and even fun to help. All we have to do is get together, run some trails, and raise some money. Thankfully we don't have to look into the eyes of famine to help defeat it. And even if we contribute just a little bit of money, heck, even if all we do is continue to raise awareness about the famine, we're doing something good. It really doesn't take much. Consider that a measles vaccine costs about $1. That may be the difference in saving a life of a severely malnourished child who otherwise may lack the strength to overcome the disease. What we do this weekend matters. So run, laugh, and enjoy the day, and know that with every loop you complete you are doing something good. The work that DWB does is so very important, and the support we give them makes a huge difference. Thank you.

Runners Without Borders: Last Minute Information

2011-10-19T10:39:00.000-07:00

Some last minute questions and answers about RWB this Saturday:

How do I get there?

The official host location of this event is Lory State Park, and we will be at the Arthurs Rock trailhead, which is the parking lot at the farthest end of the dirt road that travels the length of the park. There is a $7 entrance fee so I strongly encourage you to carpool and save money and space!

Also many of you have Larimer County Parks passes, you can park at the Sodeberg trailhead and access the trail from that location. Again, please carpool to save parking space and ease congestion and pollution. You will have to run an extra 0.4 miles to access the loop via Soderberg, and obviously your loops will be offset since you're not starting at the "official" start, so just sign in when you reach the truck at the halfway point of your loop. I'll assume you made it back to Soderberg!

Where do I check in?

It is important that you check in at the big white truck at the Arthur's Rock trailhead at each loop. I or someone else (if I'm running) will have you sign your name and note the time on a log sheet. We need you to log each loop so we can get an accurate count for those people who have made "global-dynamic" pledges.

How do I actually give money?

Someone, usually me, will be at the truck signing in participants and collecting and logging pledges. I prefer checks made out to "Doctors Without Borders" but we will accept cash if necessary. I will bundle up all donations and send them in to DWB on Monday. Also you can go on line and donate directly to Doctors Without Borders if you prefer. Those of you who are pledging based on "dynamic" formulas may not know your pledge commitment until after 4 pm. For those people I will contact you shortly after the event, and post on my blog with your final pledge amount.

What sort of aid are you providing?

In short; not much! I'm not promising any aid in the way of food or drink, I'm going to try to round up some coolers and fill them with water, and I'll get some snacks from the store, but please assume that this is a self-supported event. Bring your own water and food! We will have limited first aid at the truck as well. And massages for $1/minute, with half the proceeds going to DWB! Now that's my kind of aid.

Do I need to start at 8?

No; Unless you're planning on running for 8 hours, you do not need to start at 8 am Saturday. The weather forecast calls for a sunny day with lows in the 30s and highs in the 60s. I expect the temperature at 8 am on Saturday to be in the lower 30s, so if you want to wait for the temperature to warm up a bit, try coming at 10 am or so! It looks like the weather will be really nice Saturday so we have that going for us, which is nice.

Do I need to finish by 4?

I suggest that you do try to finish your last loop by 4 pm, which means you should probably be starting your final loop before 3 pm (see below for loop time estimates). I'll need to sweep the course and take down the signs, and it will start getting dark pretty quickly up there after 4 pm, so please try to finish by then.

How long will it take to complete a loop?

Obviously it is difficult to answer that question for everyone, but I have ran the "grande" loop 4 or 5 times in the past two months, and it takes me between 1:10 and 1:30 to complete the loop, going at a moderate (medium effort) (1:10) to easy (walking the steep bits) (1:30) pace. The "petite" loop is both shorter and easier so I suspect it would take me about 50 minutes at a moderate to easy effort. So if you have ran with me and know what constitutes a "moderate" effort for me, then you should be able to estimate accordingly.

Do I need trail shoes?

I recommend trail shoes for the grande loop, as sections of it are loose and rocky. The petite loop can be ran in regular shoes.

Will the loops be marked?

I am planning on going up Friday afternoon and marking the loops with little tags, particularly the grande loop since it contains many turns.

Will it be fun?

Nope. It will be ultra-mega-dank-fun, and you will all be super-stoked to be there. Your support means a lot to me, and you all can congratulate yourselves on doing something that really matters this Saturday. Not to get too over the top, but your actions are literally saving lives. Feel good about that!

Loop maps:

Le grande loop:

Le petite loop:

Runners Without Borders Update: On Pledging

2011-10-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Only 10 days until Runners Without Borders kicks off on Saturday, October 22nd. I'm very pleased to announce that we have 51 people who have RSVP'd to run for Doctors Without Borders on the 22nd. And I suspect there will be even more who show up, I'm hopeful that we will have over 75 participants next Saturday.

Also we have collected 28 pledges of various types to donate to DWB/MSF on behalf of the runners, and again, I think we will get some additional pledges on the day of the event. I think we have a chance to raise in excess of $3,000 for Doctors Without Borders!

Some of you have mentioned that you're not sure just how this pledge thing works. As you can tell, I'm not charging an entry fee for this event. Also, I'm not providing really anything in the way of support, so, you know, you get what you pay for! What I'm asking everyone to do is show up and run, and also to pledge to give something to Doctors Without Borders. At the end of the day you're on your honor to give the money; if you want to bring a check with you to the event I will mail them all en masse after the event, so you can save some money on postage. Another option is to donate on line from this link: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/. Also if you want to donate cash (I prefer checks), we will accept that as well and donate the funds on your behalf. Someone will be at the loop start/end area from 8:00 am until 4:00 pm to collect and log donations, and log loops.

Logging loops is very important because several pledges are based on the number of loops ran by participants. For example, I am pledging to donate $1 for every runner who completes a loop, up to $250 total. So quite frankly even if you can't pledge to donate any money of your own, simply by showing up and running one loop you are raising $1 for Doctors Without Borders. And much to my pleasant surprise, a bunch of you have stepped up with similar pledges. So much so that as of this point, the first 50 loops are each worth $13.50 for Runners Without Borders. So simply by showing up and running a loop you are earning as much as $13.50 for DWB, and this number is likely to go higher as we get some more pledges leading up to the event. So when you finish a loop, make sure you get it logged!

So how do you pledge? You can email me at srslush@gmail.com to pledge, or just show up and pledge on the day of the event. If you want to keep your pledge anonymous let me know and I will honor your request.

So how much should you pledge? What kind of pledge can you make? Well in general, you can pledge whatever you like.

But pledges have roughly broken down into 4 basic categories, which I will explain here. The categories are; fixed-amount, dynamic-self, dynamic-other, and dynamic-global. fixed-dynamic-what-huh?

Let's review:

Fixed-Amount:

This is easy. Just pledge a fixed amount to DWB. $5. $20. $50. $8.71. Whatever. If you run one lap, if you run 10 laps, if 1,000 people show up, if no one shows up (I'll be there), you contribute a fixed amount.

Dynamic-self:

This is a little more exciting; pledge a certain amount of money for each lap you run, or each mile you run, or even how many vertical feet you climb for the day (yes, one creative participant is pledging a penny for each vertical foot gained). Want to challenge yourself to run 4 loops and pledge $20 all told? Pledge $5/loop. It adds a little excitement to the day. Believe me, I know some of you who have pledged on a per-loop basis, and you will be sorely tempted to run one more loop than the next guy. I encourage this sort of competition!

Dynamic-other:

Want to encourage one of your friends to run a lot, or even show up at all? Pledge 'em. Pledge 'em good. Pledge the hell out of 'em. One person has actually pledged to give DWB $10 for each loop I run. Talk about pressure!!

Dynamic-global:

This is quite exciting indeed! My pledge fits in this category. I'm pledging $1/person/loop, essentially. If 10 people show up and each run one loop, I give $10 to DWB. If 70 people show up and each run 3 loops, I'm in for $210. If one runner leaves Lory at 8:00 traveling South at a rate of 9:00/miles, and another runner leaves Soderberg at 8:45 am traveling North at a rate of 9:45/miles, I will pledge a maximum of $250. I was never that good at practical algebra. At any rate, I won't know my final pledge until 4:01 pm on Saturday 10/22. And neither will 6 other fellow pledgers who have made similar pledges! And one very wealthy lady whom I don't know and who doesn't know me and isn't even showing up but I am including on my list anyway is pledging to match all contributions to DWB regardless of reason between now and November 15th, up to one million dollars all told. Now that's global.

Slush figuring out how much he owes (circa 1993)

Incidentally for those of you doing dynamic pledges, I will post final results on my blog as soon as possible after the event, and will let you know personally what your pledge turns out to be, so you don't have to stick around until 4:01 to find out. But it might be fun to see who cuts it the closest to the cut off time!

Now if you want to see the current list of pledges and participants, avail yourselves to the spreadsheets below. If you don't see your name on the list, let me know and I'll add you! If you are ready to announce your pledge, and/or your intention to run, email me at srslush@gmail.com.

Thanks and see you in 10 days!!!

Slush

Participants:

Pledges:

More information:

Runners Without Borders

And finally, appropo of nothing; Tegan and Sara just kick ass:

One Million Dollars

2011-09-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

Well this is odd; I got a letter in the mail from Doctors Without Borders today. As you may know,I’m attempting to raise money for DWB on October 22^nd at the Runners Without Borders event (click the link for more info). I have donated tothis organization at times in the past, and for their part they, like everyoneelse who wants your disposable income, periodically send me letters exhortingme to send them even more money. I’m working on it, I think, as I openthe letter which states in red bold letters, MATCHING GIFT OPPORTUNITY. Usually this means that they want you to hitup your place of employment for matching contributions from them. That’s all well and good for some, but Ihappen to know my employer won’t do that for me. So I almost don’t even bother opening theletter, since I’m pretty sure I know what it’s going to say.

But the envelope seems thicker than usual, so I openit. And they’ve included a cool map ofthe world, and a letter that contains a pleasant surprise for all of us RunnersWithout Borders participants and donators. Apparently I don’t have to hit up my employer, because a nice lady namedAudrey Steele Burnand will be matching all donations to Doctors Without Bordersbetween now and November 15^th, up to one million dollars! So that includes us!

Andyes, feel free to say that in a Dr. Evil voice. It may not be appropriate but it sure is fun. Is it wrong that the first thing I think of when I read about this incredible act of generosity from Ms. Burnand is Sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads?

In all seriousness, now that is generous. Wow. And you know what? I am includingAudrey Steele Burnand as a pledger (seriously is that a word?) to my RunnersWithout Borders event! Basically we justdoubled this whole thing thanks to Ms. Burnand. I suspect she, like I, is motivated by the seriousness of the situationin Somaliaand the need to get medicine and help there quickly. A tip of the cap to the generous lady, and wewill try to do our part to make her write a check with 7 digits.

Now as of today in our fine event we have 5 pledgers who aredonating one dollar for each person who runs a lap at RWB, up to varyingamounts. Which means simply by showingup on October 22^nd and running a loop you are raising $5 forDWB. And now with Ms. Burnand’s matchinggift, you are earning $10 per loop. Andif you’re pledging a dollar per mile that you run, which is another popular pledge,well, now DWB is getting $2 per mile foryour efforts. A $10 flat pledge justbecame $20. Easy money. Nice.

So if you’re on the fence about joining in and running,please come out, even if you can’t pledge anything. Last Saturday when I started this thing youwere worth $1 to DWB. Now you are worth$10. And if we get some more pledges,well, you do the math. This is prettyfreaking cool.

The older post contains a list of current participants andpledges. To add your name to the list,please email me at srslush@gmail.com orclick “attending, yo” (or whatever the button says) to the facebook event page. And if you have worked out apledge and care to share it with me, also please let me know that as well, thanks!

I’m attaching a scan of the letter for your perusal:

No word on the sharks with laser beams though.

Runners Without Borders 10/22/2011

2011-09-24T20:51:00.000-07:00

Update: check out the event recap here!

Update: as of October 12th, we have 51 RSVPs, and 28 pledges!

Update: as of September 26th, we have 21 confirmed RSVPs, and 9 pledges!

This is so on! Come one, come all, to Lory State Park on Saturday, October 22nd, 2011 for the inaugural "Runners Without Borders"! I've decided to host a trail running event to get all of us runners to together to enjoy our spectacular trails and raise some money for Doctors Without Borders. For a few months now I've read with growing concern about the famine and attendant humanitarian crisis in Somalia. I thought maybe there was something I could do to raise awareness about the issue, and maybe help out a bit. At first I figured I would just write a check to Doctors Without Borders and be done with it, and I still aim to do that of course, but Celeste helped me come up with an even better idea, and that idea became Runners Without Borders!

Here's the plan, and I'll need your help to execute it:

On Saturday, October 22nd, 2011, anytime between 8:00 am and 4:00 pm, for every runner (or hiker or biker!) who completes either of two trail loops (designated below) that span Lory State Park and Horsetooth Mountain Park, I pledge to donate one dollar to Doctors Without Borders! If you complete both loops, I'll donate two dollars (cash) to DWB. If you complete one loop 2 times, that's two dollars. 10 loops, 10 dollars. You get the idea. Sadly I probably need to put an upper limit on my contributions so I'll cap it at $250. And I would very much like to donate $250, so if 250 of you fine folks come out and run one loop each, then we're all set. Or if I can get 25 of you to run 10 loops each, then, well, you're going to need to run pretty fast, because the loops are 6.7 miles long and 5.2 miles long! I'll describe the loops momentarily, but suffice to say the longer loop is more difficult and sports about 1,000 feet of climbing, and the shorter loop is easier and has about 200 or 300 feet of climbing.

Now I'm throwing out a lot of stuff you might find at a normal running event. For starters, there is no entry fee. Instead I encourage you to make a DWB pledge of your own! You don't have to match my pledge of course. You can pledge a flat amount, say $10 or $20. You can pledge a certain amount for each loop you complete, or each loop I complete, or each loop Alex or Ashley or Alene or Mindy or Mike or Nick or Dakota or Brian or Ean completes (you all better show up!). You can get your family or coworkers or neighbors to pledge for you. You can pledge a certain amount if Pete runs a loop in his new red-man suit. You an pledge a certain amount if Pete does not run in his red-man suit. The possibilities are limitless. Too confusing or expensive? You can simply show up and run. I'll donate a dollar on your behalf, and so will some others (see the bottom of this page for current pledges)! Although obviously I encourage you to make a pledge, don't stay away simply because you can't donate any money of your own.

Additionally there is no mass start and there are no prizes for completing the fastest loop or the most loops. You all have from 8:00 am until 4:00 pm to complete your loop or loops. Come for the day, come whenever, enjoy the company, and do your thing. I will have an official log book at the start/finish/aid station at the Arthur's trail-head parking lot in Lory, so we will be keeping count of participants and the number of loops completed for pledging purposes, but we will not be handing out any prizes, except maybe to Pete. And although Mary Boyts has created an awesome logo for the event (thanks Mary!), I'm not planning on doing shirts this year. Though they would look amazing. Hummmm.

As mentioned earlier in passing, I will have a limited aid station at the Arthur's trail-head parking lot with some water and some snacks, and some limited first aid supplies, but please bring your own water and food for the event. There is no water at the Arthur's trail-head parking lot, although there is water available at the Soderberg trail-head, which is only about 0.5 miles from the southern end of the loops, so with about one mile extra of running you can refill there.

Speaking of Soderberg, I know that many of you, myself included, have parking passes for Larimer county / Horsetooth Mountain park, and not Lory. Although the event is officially a Lory State Park event, if you want to park at Soderberg and save the $7 Lory State Park daily fee, I understand completely. Save your $7 and pledge it to DWB instead! You'll have to run an additional 0.5 (easy) miles to get to the southern end of the loop, but just start your loop at the south end of the route and sign in when you reach the parking lot in Lory. I trust that you'll complete the loop, you'll have to in order to get back to your car!

Which brings me to another point; you will have to pay a fee to park at Lory (or Horsetooth). I believe the fee is $7 for Lory. So be sure to carpool! I encourage you to carpool anyway in order to save parking spaces. If this thing goes straight-up-viral, parking will become an issue.

And now, the routes:

La grande route, 6.7 miles, 1,000 feet up/down

The standard route is a 6.7 mile loop featuring about 1,000 feet of climbing. This is a lovely loop that features a flatter eastern side along Lory's West Valley trail, and Horsetooth's Nomad trail, and a decidedly less flat western side featuring a section of Towers Road, Stout trail, Sawmill trail, Loggers trail, and Mill Creek Trail. Mary Boyts has created an amazing map of the loop which you can peruse and download here:

The route can be completed in either direction. I have ran it in both directions recently and I do prefer running it in a clockwise direction, mostly because the majority of the uphill is accomplished on Towers, which is steep but not technical. But both directions are a lot of fun.

La petite route, 5.2 miles, 250 feet up/down (approx.)

The shorter route is a 5.2 mile loop that features the lovely West Valley / Nomad trails just like the grande route, but opts to run back to Lory along the Shoreline and East Valley trails instead of tackling Towers etc. This is a great option for those of you who maybe have not done much trail running as this loop is far less technical and can easily be run in regular running shoes.

As with the other route this can be run in either direction. Mary's map indicates a counterclockwise direction as the standard here, and that is probably the best option but it really doesn't matter.

Weather, safety, mishaps, etc.

In the event of inclement weather, and I mean really inclement, like the October blizzard of 1997, Lory state park and I reserve the right to postpone the date of the event. The likely makeup date would be the following Saturday, October 29th. Also, I should state that although I firmly believe that trail running is less damaging to runner's bodies than road running long-term, there always exists the possibility of acute injuries while running trails. We will have some limited aid available at the Arthur's trail-head parking lot, but if you are seriously injured, wait for help, and someone will come by to assist. We will have course sweepers making sure everyone is off the trails at the end of the day. Having said that, your participation in this event is voluntary, and I, Lory State Park, Horsetooth Mountain Park, Doctors Without Borders, and even Pete are not responsible for your health and well being. Now having said that, let's all watch out for each other out there and take extra water and jackets and hats, etc. If you see a runner in need, please offer them your help.

Getting lost, i.e. alternate routes

I wasn't planning on marking the course just to cut down on trash, but I've since reconsidered, and I will mark the loops somehow. Participants are welcome to execute extended loops. I imagine a trip up to Arthur's rock or Horsetooth Rock or both might be a lot of fun for some participants, and that is great. Ultimately as long as the loop hits the Arthur's trail-head in Lory so you can sign in, and you make it to Towers road / nomad trail junction in Horsetooth mountain park, then I will approve it as an official loop. I encourage you to run the standard loops because I think it will be more fun to see more people on the trails, and quite frankly that is the loop that I will be sweeping at the end of the day!

ok you've made it this far, you're obviously still interested in participating. May I request an RSVP? Please email me at srslush@gmail.com to declare your intent to participate. You don't need to tell me when you plan on showing up or how many loops you plan to run, or where you plan to park (Lory or Soderberg), but if you can tell me that info that would be helpful. This allows me to give the Lory/Horsetooth guys some idea about how many people to expect, and also I and fellow pledgers (is that a word) will have some idea about how much money they're going to have to donate!

And if you're going to pledge something, I would like to know that as well; I am interested to know if this event will be successful from a fund raising perspective, and I think all the participants will enjoy knowing how much money we collectively raised for DWB.

I will track RSVPs and Pledges on these spreadsheets below, and they will update themselves as we get closer to the event.

After the event I will post the "loop log" here as well and total up the pledges.

My goodness, I had no idea running an event required so much writing! For all that, please come out and enjoy the day. Let's keep our fingers crossed for good weather!

Thanks, Slush

Participants:

Pledges:

Results:

Somalia

2011-09-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

Somalia.

What’s the first thing that came to your mind upon readingthe word “Somalia”? I’ve been doing alot of thinking about Somalia lately, so I’m not even certain I know how toanswer that question for myself anymore. My answer is probably “Runners Without Borders”, of which I’ll speakmore about later. Let’s get back toyou. When you read “Somalia”, perhapsyou first thought about Johnny Depp?

You know, Somalian pirates. No? Maybe not rakishly handsome pirates with ahearts of gold and an insatiable lust for the same, but actual real pirates? Apparently the real ones aren't at all like Johnny Depp. We’re talking legitimate bad guys, hijackingunarmed freighters, stealing their cargos, and kidnapping, terrorizing andmurdering their crews. Yes, piracy stillexists. And Somalia, you may know, isthe base for most modern-day pirates that roam the Gulf of Aden, and serve as agauntlet of trouble for commercial fleets travelling between Europe andAsia. Like I said, from all accounts Ican read these are not long-haired, fun-loving, cutlass-brandishing Disneyesqueanimatronic stereotypes brought to life, but extremely dangerous people.

I don’t claim to be an expert on the issue of Somali prates,but I suspect they exist because a) although the risk is great, the rewards aretremendous, b) the opportunities to earn a legitimate living in Somalia proper arefew and far between, and c) there is very little internal Somali governance andpunishment of pirates.

I’m sure we’ll revisit the pirates, but I’m off trackhere. Maybe pirates aren’t the firstthing you thought of when you read “Somalia”. Maybe you visualized the shape of the country itself. It has a funny sort of shape, like a triangleof cheese with a smaller triangle bitten out of it. It is one of several oddly shaped countriesin Africa (I’m looking at you, Zambia and Senegal). It is also one of only two predominantly contiguouscountries whose geographic centroid is (probably) not actually located within the boundariesof the country itself (Croatia being the other “predominantly contiguous”country. Yes, I’m looking at you,Indonesia and the Philippines. I’mlooking at a lot of places, apparently).

In the case of Somalia, I believe its “centroid” is actually in Ethiopia,in a place called the Ogaden. The Ogadenused to be part of Somalia, but Ethiopia successfully lobbied to keep it afterWorld War II. And the remaining part ofthe triangle, so to speak, was for a time separated into two European colonies,British Somaliland in the North, and Italian Somaliland along the East andSouth. I like to think of Somalia ashaving three bits; the former British bit in the North, currently calledSomaliland, the larger bit in in the east and South, the former Italian colonywhich is divided into Puntland, and Central and Southern Somalia, and finally the “missingbit”, that is, Ogaden, where apparently most of the people speak Somali, but istechnically part of Ethiopia.

But once again I’m off subject. Perhaps upon reading “Somalia”, you thoughtneither of Jonny Depp, nor triangles of delicious cheese, but of “BlackhawkDown”. In late 1992 The United States militaryassumed command of a United Nations peacekeeping effort in Somalia. The UN was in Somalia to help deal with the effectsof a terrible civil war, which started in 1990 or so, and by late 1992 had helped leadto a massive famine, and the attendant deaths and displacement of millions ofSomalis. Originally the United Statesprovided logistical support and food and medicine, but gradually as the effectsof the war became worse, and conditions more dangerous for the peacekeepers,the United States assumed a more militaristic role in the operation.

At some point it would appear that the UN and the US tooksides in the civil war, and this led to an attempt to capture the head of oneof the rival militias, Omar Salad Elmi, and his deputy, Abdi Hassan AwaleQeybdiid. On October 3, 1993, the US leda military operation into the heart of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, to do justthat. But as chronicled in the book/movie “Blackhawk Down”, the operation did not go well. The operation was supposed to take only 30minutes, but it lasted for about a day, and the bulk of the operation wasconcerned with rescuing soldiers who became trapped behind enemy lines. At the end of the battle the Somali targetswere not captured, two US black hawk helicopters were shot down (hence the book/movietitle), and 18 US soldiers were killed. The Somali belligerents, for their part, did not treat the few captureddead US soldiers with respect, dragging their bodies through the streets of thecapital. As a result, bilateral appeal for stayingin Somalia and helping to mitigate the effects of or even help solve the civil warwere quite diminished, and by early 1994 the US pulled out of Somalia.

I must note that I never read the book nor saw the movie (though I have heard both are very good), but I do remember the failed military mission, which coincidentally happened while I was living in Africa myself, teaching high school in Ghana for the Peace Corps. It seemed to me to be an embarrassment for the United States along the lines of the failed Iran hostage rescue mission in 1980, and I was in favor of leaving a country that did not seem to want us there, even if the original intent of the mission was to help, not harm.

Now if black hawk down was your first thought, and you are an American, you may not have a very good impression of Somalia and Somalis. Fair enough. But I'm guessing most of you didn't think of pirates, or helicopters, or cheese.

Maybe you thought of this:

or this:

And this is why I'm writing about Somalia today. This is famine, and not to understate things too terribly, it's bad news. Somalia has endured famine before. In fact famine was one of the reasons the United States got involved in Somalia in the early 1990's. And in 2011 famine has returned to Somalia, and believe it or not the United States is starting to get involved again, and more importantly the situation looks pretty bleak for many thousands if not millions of people.

In an article from September 15th, Jeffrey Gettleman from the New York Times reports via the United Nations that is it possible that 750,000 Somalians may run out of food completely in the next few months, because of a failed harvest due to drought, and also due to bad governance and outright malevolent behavior by the various militias currently in charge (read here):

It's bad, and many thousands of Somalis have already died and many thousands more have fled the country into Kenya. And it is about to get worse. The article goes on to state that Somalia is very soon going to enter it's rainy season. At first blush one (like me) would think that the advent of the rains is a good thing. Rain means food means famine over, right? Actually this is not the case. Apparently the onset of the rainy season will spread diseases like malaria, cholera and typhoid, diseases that will cause many more deaths before crops can grow to fruition. So in order to save lives at this point it is important to administer aid in the form of emergency food, but also medicine and disease control.

Jeffrey also reports that even though this is a bad crisis and much emergency aid is needed, that the international aid community is not "stepping up" they way it did back in the early 90's. I suspect this reluctance may stem from the "Black Hawk Down" experience of 1993. Then as now, Somalia was for the most part controlled by militias who answered to no government, prevented aid from reaching recipients, and took aid for themselves. This perhaps is causing some reluctance to provide aid to Somalia. Why give money to help Somalians if the money is simply going to end up in the hands of militias, and not in the hands of the starving and the sick?

And it gets more troublesome. Apparently the largest and most feared militia is "Al Shabab". According to state-side accounts, this militia is disturbingly similar to the Taliban. They are accused of blocking international aid to Somalia, and also accused of preventing Somalians from leaving the country in order to seek aid in Kenya. Again, this tends to give would-be donors pause when thinking about assisting Somalia, and for two reasons; One, the likelihood that aid will be misused seems high, and Two, there is an understandable reluctance to provide assistance to a country that is in part controlled by people that are on the official United States Foreign Terrorist Organization list

And yet for all that, I can not shake the feeling that innocent people are literally starving to death, and that there may be something that I can do to help. One of the few aid agencies that is being allowed into Somalia right now is an organization called "Doctors Without Borders". Well actually they're called "Medecins Sans Frontieres", but no matter how you say it, these guys are in Somalia right now trying to help. They won't be able to save everyone, in fact their task is darn near impossible, but I applaud them for trying.

And I want to do more than just applaud, I want to send them some money so they can try to save more lives in Somalia this year. And I want you to help me. So I've come up with a fund-raising idea I am calling "Runners Without Borders". I will post the details in a couple of days, but the general idea is that on October 22nd, 2011 (date pending), for every person who runs a 6.7 mile trail loop I have measured out in Lory State Park and Horsetooth Mountain Park (west of Fort Collins) I will donate a dollar to Doctors Without Borders. If you run two loops, I'll donate two dollars. 10 loops, 10 dollars (there are several of you who could do that). I will pledge up to $250 total. All you have to do is show up and run, or hike, or ride your bike, and you will earn money for Doctors Without Borders. And if you want to do more than just show up, make a pledge of your own! You can pledge a dollar for each loop I run. You can pledge 10 dollars for each loop I run. (I will probably run two loops). You can pledge a dollar for each loop you run yourself. You can get your family and your coworkers to pledge a dollar for each loop you run. You can get creative with it. And if you're shy and don't like asking people for money, or poor and can't afford to give money to a charity right now, just show up and run. I'll chip in a buck for you.

I hope to get official approval from Lory in the next few days. At that time I will post the details of the route. At this point I can tell you that there is no entry fee, this is not a timed event and there are no "winners". You have from 8 am until 4 pm to complete your loop or loops. You will have to pay to park (or use your pass), we will have one basic aid station, and the route encompasses both border crossings between Lory and Horsetooth. The official loop start and end is at the south lot of Lory State park but the loop passes very near the Soderberg lot at Horsetooth so that is a viable place to park for those of you who have Larimer Country passes.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you on the trails next month!

-Slush

Leadville 100: Judgement of the Stars and Moon

2011-08-26T12:03:00.000-07:00

A Pacer's Report:

“Alex left Winfield at 4:45.” Finally, some communication from the mAy Team! It is 6:00 pm, and I am standing on a quiet street in Leadville, Colorado. It’s raining ever-so-slightly. My friend Alex May is running the Leadville100 trail race today. My wife Celeste is his crew chief, and his family including his wife Ean and our friends are also here helping him out and pacing, including Mindy, Cat, and Kyle. In fact dozens of my trail running friends are up here this weekend, racing, pacing and crewing, including my friend Lindsey, who was pacing her friend Danny. And that’s what I’m doing here as well; I’m standing in front of Mike Hinterberg HQ in Leadville, preparing to pace Mike for the final 24 miles of his attempt at the Leadville 100. Mike has been out on course now for 14 hours and over 60 miles. At this moment my friend Dan is pacing him from twin Lakes to Fish Hatchery and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they are keeping dry. 30 minutes ago I left Dan and Mike at the Twin Lakes aid station at mile 60 of the course, and soon I will meet the two of them and take over pacing duties from Dan at the Fish Hatchery aid station at mile 76 of the course, and hopefully bring Mike the rest of the way to the finish line. But I have a couple of hours to wait, so right now it is time for dinner, a nap, and most importantly a good hot shower.

I needed a shower because although I was getting ready to pace Mike these last 24 miles, Dan and I had already ran a race of our own that very morning; the Pike Peak Ascent. So we had 13 miles and 7,300 feet of climbing and a lot of accumulated dirt and sweat and drool in the books already. Dan and I woke up in Colorado Springs that morning at 5:00 am, one hour after Mike and Alex and Danny and more than 600 other participants began their “Leadvillian” quests to run 100 miles in less than 30 hours. When the gun sounded for our race in Manitou Springs at 7:00 am, they were all ripping through the first aid station at May Queen and making their way up the north shoulder of Sugarloaf Mountain in the cool misty morning air. At 10:00 am I was climbing the famous “16 golden stairs” at 14,000 feet with less than a mile from the finish of my race, which incidentally featured exploding electrolyte tablets, vomiting, general wooziness, and a nip of lukewarm PBR just below the summit. It was fun, I assure you. More on that later. But while I soaked up the always inspirational view from the summit of Pikes Peak at 10:07 am, Mike, Danny, Alex, et al, were making their way from Fish Hatchery to the village of Twin Lakes, running along the east flanks of two other 14ers, Mount Massive and Mount Elbert. And while Dan and I drove from Manitou to Leadville Saturday afternoon to meet up with Mike, they were all hoisting themselves 3,000 feet up and over Hope Pass to the turnaround at Winfield, in order to turn right around and come back over that same ironically named pass to Twin Lakes, and back to Leadville.

Quite honestly Dan and I thought we had no business trying to pace an ultra-runner after racing to the top of Pikes Peak, but we wanted to be part of the excitement. I would have been up at Leadville anyway, just to cheer on Alex and hang out with Celeste, so when Mike asked if I wanted to pace him about a month prior to the actual event, I agreed. And then I drug Dan into the fray as well, although he didn’t really require much convincing, suffering as he does from the same sort of mental illness as I.

That’s how we found ourselves in Twin Lakes at 3:00 pm that day, waiting for Mike to come back over hope pass so Dan could start running with him. Dan was getting much less rest than I, having to pace Mike first, but I had to run farther. I couldn't decide which of us drew the shorter straw, but I wanted to run the later sections to get more experience with night running, in the event I ever decide to do one of these myself someday (that wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no either).

It was hot at twin lakes, hot for 9,000 feet anyway, and I speculated that our runners and indeed all the runners would be having a tough time in the heat. Some clouds were building in the west, and the shade would be welcome so long as it didn’t develop into anything more serious. The previous night Leadville got raked by a nasty thunderstorm that lasted several hours. No one would benefit from a repeat of that tonight, so I kept my fingers crossed and wandered around Twin Lakes in search of a cup of coffee. I was going to be up late tonight.

Mike arrived at the twin lakes aid station, 60 miles into his race, at about 5:00 pm. His shoes and socks were soaked from several stream crossings so he decided to sit down and change his socks, which was a wise move. Barring any deluges from above the rest of the course would be dry, and keeping one’s feet dry is an under-appreciated and important part of long-distance running. Blisters can ruin your day. Mike looked really good, particularly considering he’d already ran farther than I have ever run in a single day, and Dan and he trudged up the short sharp slope leading out of Twin Lakes in fine form.

I was really hoping to see Celeste and the mAy team arrive in Twin Lakes before I left, but as it turns out they were still in Winfield at the time, having paced Alex to the turnaround at 4:45 pm. Although dozens of friends of mine were out on the course, racing, pacing and crewing, I was not able to see them for the most part. I considered waiting around Twin Lakes until they showed up, but I had to make sure I would be ready to run with Mike later, so I left Twin Lakes on my own and headed back to Team Hinterberg HQ in Leadville for a shower, a burrito, another burrito, and a quick stretch and nap on the floor. We thought Mike would make it to Fish Hatchery by 9:00 pm so I left Leadville a little before 8:00 pm just to make sure I would be there on time. Mike’s crew skipped this aid station so I would fulfill crewing duties as well as begin my pacing duties at this point.

Mike was ahead of the teeming masses at this point, probably running in about 30^th place overall, so the Fish Hatchery aid station was pretty quiet and un-crowded when I arrived. I got to see a pretty impressive duel between two of the top female runners, both of whom came in within a minute of each other, and some of the other top male runners came through while I laid out all of the clothing and lights I thought Mike and I would need for our journey. While I waited, dusk settled into the hatchery. The trees began to whisper and the crews got quiet and started putting on their jackets in nervous anticipation of the arrival of their runners. The little rainbow trout and cutthroat trout in the hatchery pens turned from silver and pink into little blurs of grey, their energy, if not their colors, undiminished.

I felt more like a trout and less like a tree, walking back and forth along the aid station in anticipation as well. Finally I’d had enough and started jogging down the road to where Mike and Dan would be arriving from Twin Lakes. I brought along a couple of headlamps because I knew that Dan did not have one, and Mike may have forgotten his as well. That was a mistake on our part, since those two did have to travel about 30 minutes in the dark on the paved road leading up to the aid station. I jogged only about one quarter of a mile before I saw them coming up the road, as silent dark shadows cast against the forest gloom. Arrival at last, and now it was time to get to work. Dan and I got Mike all geared up for the evening and he drank some fluids and had a couple of snacks, and we were off.

Now it was me and Mike, and the night, and 24 miles of road and trail separating us from Leadville and the successful conclusion of his 100 mile adventure. My job was to keep him moving and motivated, distracted and entertained. I love a stage! Right way I started with the exciting and improbable tale of my Pike Peak Ascent race from earlier that same morning. I now present it to you as I presented it to Mike, so please enjoy,

The Tale of the Exploding Salt Tablet, as told to Mike by Slush:

     “So I'm running well, probably in 25th place, heading into the Barr camp aid station [roughly half way up Pikes Peak], when all of a sudden I feel like I'm having an asthma attack on the trail. I'm having trouble breathing, my heart rate shoots way up, and I'm beginning to see stars and get dizzy. I've never had asthma or had anything like this happen to me before so I'm kind of freaking out! I know my effort having just ran this at the Barr trail race in July, so I know I wasn't pushing it too hard, but I don't know what the problem is. I make it to Barr camp, walk a bit, take some Gatorade and eat some grapes and slow down for a minute to see if it gets better. I feel a little better so I start up again, and as soon as I do I start hacking and coughing, and lo and behold I heave a mighty hack, and forcibly expunge a mostly-intact salt tablet that I had ingested a little before Barr camp! And hey, now I can breathe again! Aaah. I ate a salt tablet a little before Barr, but instead of swallowing it as recommended by most runners I must have lodged it in my windpipe!

     “Well, I thought, that could have been a lot worse, as in not being able to breathe at all and what not. So I was happy to breathe again but the salt tablet had mostly exploded on the way out of my mouth, so my throat, mouth and even my sinuses and nasal cavities were now coated with salts, which really stung! Also as you know one way to make people vomit is to force-feed them a tablespoon of salt. So I now quite involuntarily proceeded to go to the side of the trail and puke; the first time I've ever puked while running! Isn’t it nice to get that rite of passage over with? All the while I'm losing time, and position, of course, and now quite frankly I'm freaked out and off my game. But at least I can breathe again!

     “So I start back up again but the fire just wasn't there anymore, sadly. But I made a decent show of it until about one mile to go, and then I started getting dizzy from the altitude and couldn't run without feeling like I was going to fall over, so I power-hiked to the end, and came in at 3:07. I don't think I had 2:45 in me Saturday but I think 2:55 would have been possible without the choking, wheezing and vomiting. But for all that I'm happy with my time and it's something to build on for next year or whenever I do it again. Also I had a nasty headache after I summited, but I think that was due to the fact that I did not get my normal cup of coffee this morning; as soon as I got back to Manitou and got a cup the headache went away. Yes, it could have been the altitude as well but I know the lack of caffeine didn’t help any.”

Well that took up a cozy 5 minutes. All I had to do now is keep Mike entertained for another 5 hours and 55 minutes or so, depending on how long it took us to scale the heights of sugarloaf, wind around the north shore of Turquoise Lake, and trudge back to Leadville.

I quickly learned that at this point, 76 miles into his race, the Mike-machine was equipped with two useful gears; “slow jog” and “purposeful hike”. I idly wondered what sort of shape I might be in after traveling 76 miles. I knew that “stumble about” and “crawl” were also in the gearbox, but I hoped we wouldn’t have to shift into those. We were quietly moving along the flat road towards the steeps of sugarloaf when through the forest I heard the unmistakable sounds of Enya. “Is that Enya?” I somewhat stupidly asked Mike, completely blowing my man-cred. “Yup,” came the reply (utterly blowing his man-cred). Now that headphones are mostly frowned upon during races, some runners like to carry little speakers with them while they run. But this sound was clearly too loud and all-consuming to be coming from portable speakers. Up ahead we saw bands of soft yellow light coming from the source of the music, highlighting the tree trunks at the edge of the road. It was as if the music was actually flowing to us on these bands of light, it was a very eerie and otherworldly scene. And it was so loud! Enya’s music always sounds louder than it actually is, because she overdubs her voice so many times on her songs and creates a huge wall of sound. The juxtaposition of this ethereal music and strange light in an otherwise pin-drop quiet forest was distracting and disorienting. This was a good thing, incidentally. As we approached the source of light and sound, I discovered that we were passing a cabin in the woods, and the music was coming from two very large amplified monitors on stilts, situated in front of a house. The speakers and stands reminded me of little Baba Yaga huts. I could see Enya as a witch. The Enya song ended as we passed by the house, and a familiar guitar melody started up. “I know this, what is this?” I asked Mike. He answered right away; it was David Gray, Babylon. I was encouraged that Mike was still coherent enough to recognize the song that quickly. More than 75 miles into his race and he was still totally in the game.

“If you want it, come and get it, crying out loud.”
-David Gray, Babylon

Soon after that we left the road and turned up towards the climb to sugarloaf. The road was deeply rutted at the beginning, and fairly steep. We made slow but steady progress and picked our way up the road in good spirits. I assumed the role of “pacemaker” and route-finder for Mike, staying a few paces ahead of him on the long climb up.

Lindsey, who paced Cat on this section the previous year, had told me to be wary of false summits on Sugarloaf, so every time the trail began to flatten out I guarded against celebrating and particularly against telling Mike that we had “made it”. But as we reached yet another flat bit I could just sense that we had arrived at the rounded summit of sugarloaf. Even in mid-summer, on these windswept heights I already felt the chill of winter here. I thought that winter probably never really leaves this place, and thought that it was smart that I brought gloves along for the run.

At the summit I briefly turned off my headlamp and my hand-held light, and tilted my head up to the sky. The sky was clear, and since the moon was not yet up I was greeted by panoply of brilliant stars. I looked north to find Polaris, to get my bearings. Above and to the south I could even see the Milky Way, awesome in its mystery. Just then my eyes were drawn to a shooting star, knifing through the Swan of Cygnus, which was making its slow summer nightly flight from east to west above our heads. I realized that while I was pacing Mike, the stars had been pacing me. It was a comfort to know that a graceful Swan had been my faithful guide up the south face of sugarloaf. But we were heading away from Cygnus now. Perhaps the shooting star indicated that Cygnus was handing over pacing duties to the Wolf of Polaris. This seemed less comforting but was maybe necessary, for we had a long and potentially grim journey still ahead of us. The moment was brief but altogether wondrous. I considered that moments like this, moments that maybe last only five seconds, are why I seek out silly adventures such as pacing Mike 24 miles through the night. There are few things more fulfilling than cresting a mountain pass under your own power in the middle of the night and finding yourself bathed in silence and starlight.

The world is a funny place. At my exact moment of bliss, under the same stars, rebel fighters were pouring into Tripoli to unseat Muammar Gaddafi, ready to lay down their lives for freedom. Starving refugees were clambering into Kenya to escape Somalia, in a desperate bid to save their own lives. And closer to me, hundreds of tired and increasingly desperate competitors were scaling the heights of sugarloaf behind us, in pairs of runner and pacer. Danny and Lindsey were back there somewhere, and Alex and Cat, too, perhaps, or maybe Alex and Kyle yet.

It was a nice moment of contemplation, but I did have work to do, so I turned my lights back on, blabbered on about the beautiful stars to Mike for a spell, and led him down the north side of sugarloaf in wide switchbacks to the valley below.

Mike was able to jog a bit on this stretch so we made good time towards the next aid station at May Queen, on the far western corner of Turquoise Lake. As we descended, the waning moon ascended as if we were actually pushing up the moon with each step down towards the valley floor. I briefly marveled at its orange hue before it hid itself behind a band of clouds. I couldn’t decide if the newly noticed clouds were a portent of good or ill. Benign cloud cover helps keep the temperatures warmer, but they can also turn malevolent and rude, like they did the previous night.

At midnight we arrived at the May Queen aid station. After a quick stop, where Mike and I filled up on hot noodle soup and coffee, and stashed some cookies and mini chocolate bars in my pockets, we turned our attention to the final lonely stretch of the Leadville 100. May Queen is the final aid station on the course, and there are still 13 miles of trail separating participants from their goal at this point, with no assistance in the intervening miles. It’s a long dark road ahead, and best not to tarry at May Queen any longer than necessary.
The bulk of the final section winds its way around the north shore of Turquoise Lake, which was relatively flat, but the tail was faint. I had been warned that the trail was difficult to navigate through this section. Now that the moon was up, and the clouds were beginning to build, I had lost my guide, the dog star Polaris. And my swan star Cygnus was long gone, having descended over the mountains to the west for the night. It was up to me to navigate Mike through the old forest on the edge of the lake. A long trudge ensued. We were both quieter now, and colder. I slipped on my gloves, and pulled my hat down tight. On we marched, in “purposeful hike” mode, and periodically I offered Mike cookies and chocolate. Mike was impressive in his quiet resolve and determination.

We finally began to round the eastern shore of the lake, from which vantage point I could look in brief intervals over my right shoulder and spy dozens of lights behind us spread out along the shoreline. The lights, in pairs of two, faded softly into the long dark north shore of the lake, from where we had come. And higher, and across the lake, the lights of racers and pacers descending sugarloaf cascaded down in a serpentine pattern as if someone had set a pinprick to the stars themselves, and let loose a thin stream of lights from the heavens into the lake. It was difficult to tell where the lights ended and the stars began. I knew that somewhere back there one of those lights, probably on the shoreline, belonged to my friend and fellow pacer Lindsey, who was running her friend Danny to the finish. And farther back, winding down the mountain, a twin pair of lights surely represented my friends Cat and Alex, one pacing the other patiently down to the lake.

As I picked my way through the slumbering campgrounds and led Mike on the faintest of trails towards the dam, I thought about Lindsey, and Cat, my fellow pacers, and Danny and Alex, their runners. I thought about Lindsey and Cat in particular though, since the three of us were comrades in arms this night. We were together alone, each going through the exact same experience on the same night, but with different runners to pace, and separated from each other by time and distance, but not by heart. I hoped they were doing well, and I cast one last glance into the gloom over the now-moonlit surface of the lake and sent them all best wishes from the shore. I hoped that their runners were doing well, that they were dressed warmly enough in the rapidly chilling air, and wondered if they were thinking of me too, as Mike and I quite unexpectedly arrived at the dam, and therefore now at the end of our seemingly endless lake excursion. A Crowded House song came to mind, which is not unusual for me:

“Together alone, shallow and deep
holding our breath, paying death no heed
I'm still your friend, when you are in need
as is once, will always be
earth and sky, moon and sea”

- Crowded House, Together Alone

As we approached the road over the dam, a solitary race volunteer, a vigil of the night, sitting in a folding chair by the side of the road and dressed in multiple jackets to fend off the chill, and an orange safety vest to fend off inattentive drivers, motioned Mike and I across to the continuation of the trail on the other side of the road. I knew that we were now close to the finish. I asked her how much farther, and she replied “5 more miles”. Wow. Deep in the night, and all that separates Mike from completing the Leadville 100 is “5 more miles”. I congratulated Mike on this milestone and exhorted him to push the pace and get this race over and done with. I may have used several swear-words in the process of giving my pep talk.

We descended a tricky bit of “trail” that mimicked the length and pitch of the dam to which it was adjacent, and found ourselves on a flat, even runnable stretch of dirt county road. With renewed vigor and a sense that the barn door was ajar and waiting, Mike and I picked up the pace. The finish line is wonderful, but this is probably the moment I savor most of all; when the realization sets in that your runner is really going to make it. I have paced several friends to successful races, Lindsey, Kerry, Dan, and Nick come to mind, and now Mike, and each time my favorite moment comes before the finish. Maybe because in that moment it is still just the two of us, sharing in the struggle for accomplishment. The finish line always fades into soft white, almost out of time and place. The pacer’s work is done, and the runner is wrapped in glory. Whereas the miles right before, when success is all-but-guaranteed but for now nothing else exists but the determined footfalls and the bond between runner and pacer, those moments seem to stand out for me in sharp detailed relief.

But don’t get me wrong, I was elated to watch Mike cross the finish line in Leadville, at 4:11 am, in the dead of the night just over 24 hours after he started. His cheering fans consisted of his family, his pacers, the race organizers, and a couple of foul-mouthed and drunk spectators. I had the distinct pleasure of spending 7 hours with Mike on the trail, and his spirit never flagged. He provided me an example of how to comport myself with both the determination of Polaris, and the grace of Cygnus, should I ever gird up enough courage to try this race or this distance myself. The moon and stars judged in our favor tonight.

“Show them you won't expire
Not till you burn up every passion
Not even when you die
Come on now
You've got to try”
-Joni Mitchell, Judgment of the Moon and Stars

(Photo from Mike's blog)

We took pictures, and then Mike wandered off into the medical tent to get warm, and immediately my attention turned back to Lindsey and Danny, Cat and Alex. They were out there somewhere and more than anything now I wanted to bring them home as well. Tired as I was, it was all I could do not to run back down the course to meet them! But runners are really only allowed one pacer at a time, so I would have to leave them to their own judgments, and bide my time at the finish line in the cold and dark. I started to get really cold myself, standing in the 40 degree chill at 10,000 feet in naught but running shorts and a thin jacket, so I decided to trudge the two blocks up to Hinterberg HQ to put on some clothes.

But when I checked the voice mail on my phone from HQ, elation and satisfaction and nervous anticipation gave way to sadness. The call was my wife; the time of the call was 3:18 am. She was calling to tell me that Alex had dropped out of the race at Fish Hatchery at 3:00 am. Leadville, like most all ultra-races, imposes cut off times at various points along the course. Alex had made it to Fish Hatchery just under the cut off at a couple minutes before 3:00, so he was eligible to continue on to May Queen and hopefully to the finish, but Alex made a tough and courageous choice at Fish Hatchery, and decided to end his race there. My wife was his crew chief, and the emotion in her voice on the phone belied just how much she was invested in Alex and his journey. Runners who do these races really rely on their crew and pacers to keep them going, and they are always very appreciative of the efforts other people give to help them to their goals. But less noted is the emotional investment that crew and pacers place in the success of their runner. They are all in, so to speak. And since the finish rate at Leadville usually hovers around 50%, there were a lot of broken hearts out there in the dead of the night. Even runners who achieve their goals and finish, with arms in the air and all that, will do so with a touch of sadness for their friends who invested just as much into the race as they, but were not able to finish that day. And this emotional intensity lies at the core of what draws me to the sport. Witnessing this first-hand I came away with an enormous respect for everyone who was courageous enough to line up at the start, and put everything on the line.

Deflated, I went back to the finish line to wait for Lindsey and Danny, who I thought were about two hours behind Mike, but the cold and dark seemed colder and darker now, and the disappointed tone of my wife’s voice kept echoing in my head as I paced up and down the final stretch. I made the decision to head to Alex May HQ and go to sleep and be with my wife, whom I had not seen all day. But I wished I had stuck it out at the finish line a bit longer. I missed Danny finishing by about 20 minutes is all, ironically adding just a bit more disappointment to my evening. Not because Danny finished of course, I was really impressed with his performance and happy for both him and Lindsey. It’s just that I could have used another good memory in store as I crawled into bed next to my wife, fully clothed and ice cold, and slept for the first time in over 24 hours. Almost at the exact moment my head hit the pillow, Danny crossed the finish line with his pacer and my friend Lindsey in tow.

No one at May HQ had heard Dan and me come in at 5:30 am, so they were a little surprised when they woke up and we were there. After a huge breakfast and balloon animal festival featuring hearty pancakes and a really impressive balloon monkey with a working prehensile tail, it was time to bid adieu to Leadville and head back home, until next year. I will be back for certain, probably to pace, maybe to run, you never know.

(photo from Ean's blog)

Courage Classic

2011-08-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

Once again, thank you all for your kind and generous support for our Children’s Hospital fund-raising efforts. We had a goal to raise $2,000 for the Hospital, and as of yesterday we were at $1,943! I never thought we would get even that close; you all have far outstripped my expectations and I am honored and humbled to have such fine and generous friends. Thanks. And apparently you can still contribute until the end of August (I thought we were done after the ride) so, if you are interested in helping us get that last $57, then feel free to click either of the links below and make a tax-deductible donation on our behalf. Thanks again.

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

OR

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

But at any rate, the big ride is actually over; it’s been over for over a week now, I’ve been remiss in writing a follow-up, so I’m here to right all wrongs and write about all the thrills, spills, and chills of the Courage Classic Weekend.

And I sort of wish there were more spills to write about. If you know my style, you know that I prefer to write about misadventures and things gone wrong, more than writing about when things go well. You know, happy bike rides are all alike; every unhappy bike ride is unhappy in its own way. Thank you, Tolstoy. Anna Karenina as an allegory about cycling. Of course Tolstoy’s implication is that one really only needs to write one story, if that, about a successful Courage Classic venture, and be done with it. And sadly for my blog, but happily for me, on the whole the bike trip was a grand success. But I’ll see if I can’t tart it up a bit nonetheless. We rode 200 miles over three days, over several classic Colorado mountain passes, in beautiful weather and with great friends. But I think I can cherry-pick some of the unexpected mishaps and make this narrative at least somewhat entertaining for both myself and you all. But alas, no one threw themselves under a train, so right away I’m playing from behind.

As mentioned, the “Classic” took place over three days. Although we stayed in Copper Mountain for the duration, the first day’s ride started in Leadville on Saturday. This necessitated us driving over Fremont pass early in the morning, with bikes in tow, to get to the official start of the ride. We would leave our truck in Leadville all weekend, and ride back from Copper to get it on Monday. So basically this meant that we had to ride back to Copper from Leadville on the first day. These two towns are only about 25 miles apart from one another, but the Classic elects to take a longer route betwixt the two, summiting Tennessee pass between Leadville and Minturn, and Vail pass between Vail and Copper. It was a ride of 58 miles and 4,000 feet of climbing, half of which would be on the Vail pass climb at the hot, sticky end of the day. Vail pass. This could be the chance for disaster I’d been craving. I did ride it just a few weeks prior after competing in the Vail hill climb, but I had a delightful tailwind that day, and was, even after running a 7 mile race, fresher than I would be on this day so I anticipated glorious struggle ahead.

There are probably 2,000 riders in this event, but they don’t all start at the same time – too bad, actually, another missed opportunity for mayhem and chaos. Our little team started the ride at the tail end of the recommended “start window”, which ended at 9:00 am. I think we started at 8:45 am. As the weather was beautiful with very little chance for rain, we figured there was no point in starting early when it was cold. Biking seems to turn me into an instant wuss, particularly in such matters relating to cold temperatures, so I was more than happy to start as late as possible on this day.

No one can accuse the Courage Classic of saving the best for last; the first 20 miles of the ride are arguably the best of the entire course. Any rider who has been will tell you that Tennessee pass is an absolute treasure. Gorgeous scenery, smooth pavement, steady grades, light traffic, great weather; to steal from baseball, it’s a 5-tool road. I was enjoying my day and riding nice and easy when I came up behind two girls who were singing “Don’t stop believing, hold on to that feeling…”, just as I passed them. Without missing a beat, I sang back “Street-light, people-whoah-oh-oooooh!” and just kept going. Celeste and I sing that song all the time, it was pretty surprising and rather awesome to hear some other girls singing the same song and having fun.

Aaah, but that’s too nice. Couldn’t something have gone wrong here? Oh yes, now I remember. As mentioned, the route climbed to the top of Tennessee Pass, and then revealed a long descent to Redcliff, before a short climb up Red Mountain and a steep descent into Minturn. Our team hung together to the top of the pass, and then we all took the descent at our own pace. My teammates Tim and Tony quickly got ahead of me on the way down, as they are much better riders than am I. But I can climb faster than they can. By the time I got to the base of Red Mountain climb I could no longer see them but I thought I would get out of the saddle and see if I couldn’t reel them in nonetheless. Tony I was able to catch part way up the hill, which gave me hope that I could catch Tim as well. Alas, as soon as I put in a really hard effort, or perhaps because, I slipped my chain as I tried to shift into a higher gear. Tim was out of reach as a result. Actually I think he was out of reach regardless, but I can blame the chain. Quite embarrassing, really.

Red Mountain successfully navigated, we all descended into Minturn, hit the eagle river at the lowest point of the weekend at about 8,000 feet of elevation, and started heading back up the Vail valley to the pass. The Classic provides a lunch stop here so we all stopped and took a long and leisurely break. Last year we ate too much at this lavishly appointed lunch stop, so I tried to reign in my deep-seated instinct to eat everything in sight, and opted for a PB&J sandwich, some chips, and some fruit, and a coke. And a cookie. And potato soup. Oh I give up. As we were wrapping up we ran into our friends The Cycling Amers. The Amers are family friends of Tim and Brian from Santa Fe, and they are crazy-good cyclists. Daughter Tess is a competitive triathlete for the University of Colorado, but all of them are amazing riders. The Amers pulled out of the lunch stop just ahead of Tim and I, and I asked Tim if he’d be interested in riding with them through Vail, at least. He was up for the challenge so we put in a little effort and caught up, and rode through Vail in a little pack up the valley, which was delightful. Delightfully boring, you might add. Not to worry; I’m setting something up here.

Vail pass proper is a funny sort of climb. Because, you know, all flat rides are exactly alike, but every hill climb is hilly in its own way. It starts out with a ridiculous pitch, then levels out a bit, then even has a slight downhill section as it crosses under the interstate about 2/3 of the way up the climb. Then the route becomes insanely steep again, before mellowing out ever-so-slightly at the finish.

The initial pitch completely blew up our group, and I found myself chasing Tess’ dad, her brother, and her boyfriend up the hill all on my own. Those three animals ate up vertical like a bear ransacking a cooler full of cheese, and it was all I could do to keep up. Somewhere along the way my little brain blew a fuse, and I decided that I would do everything in my power to keep up with these dudes who were clearly out of my league. Aaah, the competitive spirit comes out at last! I was able to stick to them through that little under-the-interstate downhill bit, but on the near-vertical pitch directly following that bit they started to pull away, ever so slowly. I was broken! But not completely. I kept them in sight and kept pushing. And I had the advantage of knowing that the course does, in fact, mellow out a bit towards the top. I don’t think they knew exactly where the top was, so I perceived that they were starting to ease up a bit as they neared the final pitch. I put in a stupid, drooling, bug-eyed effort and got pretty close to them at the top. Holy crap that was difficult and pointless! I realized then that this is how I would spend the rest of the weekend. Totally sandbagging it on the flats and downhills, and hitting the hills as hard as possible. Why? I seriously have no idea. I like hills? Do what you like.

At the top of the pass the Amers gathered together and then all took off while I waited for my team, and got a free bike tune at the summit (see chain, falling off all the freaking time, above), which was pretty sweet, and actually quite necessary. Team Ziggy thusly congregated, we all started down the East side of the pass to Copper, but were quickly stopped before we could enter the bike path that winds its way down to the resort between the twin strands of interstate. Apparently there had been a collision on the path, and that had snarled up traffic, much less busted up one or more riders, so they were only letting us down the path in small groups. This situation took a little wind out of our sails as we cruised on back to Copper, but I didn’t see any carnage on the trail so hopefully it wasn’t that bad and everyone involved was ok.

That evening we all enjoyed beers and pasta and hot tubbing, and I cut a striking figure in my newly-acquired bike “tan”. More like a bike burn, really. I swear I put on sun screen, it must have sweated off during the day. Ouch. So day one carnage consisted of bike chain slip-age, Vail pass drool-age, and bike tan burn-age. Not Tolstoy-esque, but not bad with a little embellishment.

Sunday was the big day. Tim and I got out of the condo early, as we were the only two who had aspirations on taking on the big 100-mile ride that day. The others, sensibly, slept in and opted for the 50 mile (I think?) option. Tim and I were in the saddle at 7:04 am Sunday, nearly two hours earlier than the day before. The “century” (actually only about 94 miles I think? Whatev, close enough) starts out with a mellow ride down the bike path from Copper to Frisco. Just mellow enough where you don’t really need to pedal. A situation that did me no favors as I was freezing in the shade of the canyon on that initial drop. We started to warm up when we made it to relatively sunny and therefore relatively balmy Frisco, and then Silverthorne. But I didn’t remove my jacket until about 25 miles into the ride as we stopped at the base of Ute Pass.

Ute Pass is another funny sort of climb, isn’t it? Aren’t they all, Tolstoy? Funny in what way, you ask? Well for starters unless you are a miner of molybdenum, Ute pass really doesn’t take you anywhere. A real road to nowhere, Mr. Byrne. Secondly, the road is in such good shape as to seem unreal. The grade is steep, but consistent, and the pavement is pristine, black, smooth, banked in the corners and gleaming without traffic, a delightful side-effect of the not so delightful gigantic mine hidden away on the other side of the pass. As Tim and I climbed towards the pass we salivated at the thought of returning down this beautiful road. Well, I may have been drooling, not salivating exactly, but we were excited nonetheless.

And the descent did not disappoint. Neither did the views form the pass at the snow-capped and spear-tipped legion of the Gore range to our west, the same mountains I spied from the other side with furtive glances from the Vail valley floor the previous day. It was fun to think I had come so far, all under my own pedal power. But this view was not spied, furtively or otherwise, as we sped back down to the valley floor on this most perfect of mountain roads. I’m such a tentative downhill rider but on this stretch of asphalt I was able to release the brakes more than usual, and enjoy a (for me) screaming, barreling, tear-inducing descent back to the blue river valley. Quite frankly it was altogether too fun for this narrative, as I’m trying so hard to wring out the tension and drama from this weekend. But it was pretty awesome at the time, I won’t lie.

Speaking of time, Tim and I felt like we were under the gun a bit on Sunday, as the weather forecast called for a 40% chance of rain that day. I have always wondered if “40% chance of rain” means that the entire area of weather prediction has a 40% chance of getting rained upon during the day, or if instead 40% of the area of prediction has 100% chance of getting rained upon, or if 40% of the area has a 40% chance of being rained upon for 40% of the day? I know it logically means the first clarification, but I amused myself by thinking that since Tim and I were essentially covering the entire area of prediction that day, that being the length and breadth of Summit County, then my chances of hitting some of the “40% area”, however interpreted, were pretty high indeed.

The previous year when Celeste and I rode this same route we did get drenched on the final 15 miles of the ride, and I was not eager to repeat that experience, so Tim and I tried to keep up our pace and out run the predicted afternoon storms. We had what we thought were two more climbs left in our day; a soul-sucking climb from the “mountain shopping experience” of Silverthorne-Dillon to Keystone on a busy highway (where have you gone, Tennessee Pass, a courage classic turns its lonely eyes to you-ou-ou-ou), and the much more pleasant – scenery-wise, at any rate – climb up sawn mountain between Keystone and Breckenridge. As was my mode this year, I kicked it into big-jerk competitive mode on the climbs, and rested on the flatter bits. Our route included an out-and-back to Breckenridge where we finally, 80 miles into our ride, had a sponsored lunch stop. We were both getting pretty tired by then but had avoided getting wet, at least, so although my neck, knees and back were starting to complain about so much time on the bike, we were feeling rather chuffed as we coasted into the parking lot where lunch was served.

Happily for you all, my long-suffering readers, I would soon have something to complain about. This is because I now proceeded to make the near fatal mistake of gorging myself at the lunch stop on room-temperature Asian stir fry, chips, coke, and cookies. Here we go again. The chips, cookies and coke actually were not so bad, but a simple PB&J would have been far and away the superior choice, and that staple was an option. But I was so impressed that the Courage Classic would even attempt to roll out such an exotic spread that I just had to reward their culinary verve with a Gore-range monument of almost-warm vegetable fried rice and young vegetables stewing in cool brown sauce. Yes it was quite nearly as delicious as described. I had a much easier time circumnavigating that mountain of food than I did the actual mountain range that somehow inspired this tacky monument of gluttony. Objectively speaking the food was not good, well, the cookie was good, but after riding 80 miles I laid waste to that quivering plate like a Barbarian horde of One. After pillaging my tender and defenseless Chinese vegetables, my victory was completely satisfying initially, but ultimately pyrrhic in nature. Alas my careless aggression at the buffet table would haunt me for the next, oh, 16 hours or so, and make me persona non grata of the team during that span, not to put too fine a point on it. Now that’s how we wring out the drama!

So lunch was in Breckenridge, but dinner was in Copper, so Tim and I had to saddle up and finish the ride before we could call the day a complete success. Judging from the course profile the span between Breckenridge and Copper looked to be flat, which was encouraging. It was not flat. At least 90 miles into the day what normally might have felt flat felt like another mountain climb. Tim led out and I tried to hang on to his wheel on the pretty and scenic bike path between Frisco and Copper on the final 7 miles of the day. Back, knees and neck were now joined by stomach in a chorus of complaint, led by my legs, which were conducting a symphony which seemed less like an ode to joy, and more like a dirge, if not a full requiem of fatigue. And somehow I had to get up and do this again tomorrow? I marveled at the endurance and stamina of Tour de France riders as the pitch began to finally truly flatten out as we entered the vale of Copper Mountain to finally conclude day number two. 150 miles in the bag, and another 50 to go. And my bike tan was looking even more dramatic, thus proving that not all suffering is in vain.

As Monday morning dawned, I enjoyed a sensible and bland breakfast of toast and vanilla yogurt, and the team, once again together after splitting up on our separate quests of day 2, started en masse on the route back to Leadville from Copper. It was at this point that teammate Chryss became the lucky recipient of our one and only flat tire of the weekend, not even out of Copper Mountain resort proper.

Happy to have that bit of tradition out of the way, we then made the turn towards Leadville, passing by the “A” lift ski runs at Copper along the way. I gave “Far East” a salute as we rode by its grassy green summer ribbon. Far East is one of my all-time favorite ski runs with its broken fall lines and enormous moguls. Of course this being summer the moguls were absent, but I mused to myself about when I was maybe 7 years old, and thought that the ski areas created moguls by piling up dirt into malicious mounds in the summer months, for the snow to collect upon in perfect piles during the winter. I had no idea that they were created by the action of skiers themselves until I was older. But as we rode by I reminisced about all the times, 30+ years’ worth of times, I suppose, that I’d set off down that particular ski run that has always been there to give me a challenge.

far east on the far left of the photo

Riding by that ski slope made me appreciate that I have been fortunate enough to have been able to ski that particular run for so many years. And appreciate, in a more abstract sense, that there are places out there that I can come back to, year after year. I’m all for novelty, and trying new things, but there is something also rewarding in being able to mark the span of years by coming back to a place more or less physically unchanged over time. It’s not home, it’s even better in some ways. After a certain point you really can’t go home again, (to paraphrase Thomas Wolfe, or was it Tolstoy? I’m giving it to Tolstoy. To heck with Wolfe.), because home really does change on you. But you can always go to the Far East.

And I began to consider that this event, the Courage Classic, might start to become one of those events for me. This was the second year of our participation in this event, and we all talked about doing it again in 2012. Of course this was before we hit the main pitch of Fremont pass. Fremont pass separated us from Leadville, and us from our truck, so there really was nothing to do but climb to its mine-scarred 11,000 feet summit. Thank you, molybdenum. Last year Celeste and I rode this together and we sang Journey all the way up. This year I was all business and dispensed with the singing, I think Celeste was singing though. I should have been singing, I think, and I was reprimanded by the Courage Classic spirits in the form of having my chain fall off again, just before attaining the summit. Note to self; next year less grunting, more singing.

Now once again the towns of Copper Mountain and Leadville are only something like 25 miles apart from one another (albeit separated by Fremont pass), but the bike route elected to take us on a scenic circumnavigation of Turquoise lake to pad our ride to something along the lines of 45 miles for the day. Well it’s a lake, how much climbing can there be? Quite a bit, as it turned out. My legs were pretty fatigued from the previous two days’ worth of riding, much less from good old Fremont pass, so I thought I would just take it easy on the final climbs of the weekend and enjoy the rest of my ride at a sedate pace. That attitude lasted for about 5 minutes, and then I was back to my old drooling self as I bested the numerous false-summits towards the high point of the road at the back of the lake. Young habits die hard.

We ran into the Cycling Amers again on the back side of Turquoise lake, they had started their ride from Breckenridge that day and actually had no ride home from Leadville, but didn’t seem too concerned about taking Fremont pass back to Copper and Summit county. Animals. As for us, after a long slog back to Leadville after the lake, we concluded our ride in good form at the Leadville High School. We laid waste to yet another lunch buffet – portabella mushroom burgers this time, no stir fry, thank goodness – and swapped stories and made promises to do it again next year.

So there you have it, our second courage classic successfully navigated, with an eye towards doing it again next year. If you’re interested in joining our team, let me know! My only requirement is that you like to sing. And don’t mind a little drool.

Triple D

2011-07-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

One final update before we head up to the mountains tomorrow in advance of the Courage Classic this weekend! First and foremost, the stats: Celeste and I are now at $1,420 raised for Children’s Hospital, thank you all so very much for your generosity! We are still reaching for that elusive goal of $2,000, so if you’re still considering making a donation on our behalf, you have another day. Once again for your convenience, here are the links:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

After Sunday’s trail running adventure, my legs felt a bit tired, but I wanted to participate in one last crazy adventure before the ride. Luckily Dan Porter and the good folks at Your Group Ride had just the thing; a bicycle time-trial up and around the horsetooth hills west of town. They call it the "DDD TT". The Triple D. I know what you're thinking. That's right. The Triple Deuce. the long-awaited follow-up to the cinematic masterpiece "Roadhouse", which takes place at the Double Deuce.

"hey, mijo"

(note that I just found out that there was indeed a sequel to "Roadhouse". Yikes. Probably not as good as Godfather 2.) But alas, DDD TT stands in this case for the "Double Damn Dams Time Trial". The DDD TT is a 12 mile ride along the Horsetooth Reservoir road (hence the "Dams"), out and back (hence the "Double"), featuring lots of hills (hence the "Damn"). Perfect.

Now mind you these are roughly the same people that hosted the team training ride the previous Wednesday, so I knew I’d be riding against some pretty talented riders. I couldn't hang with them last week, so what the heck was I doing here? But this ride had the advantage (for me) of only being 12 miles long, and being very hilly. I like hills, it’s the flat stuff I have a problem with. So I paid my $10 entry fee (bike racing fees are delightfully cheaper than running race fees!) and signed up. There was a spot for “team name” on the entry form. This was of course supposed to be for your bike team. Lacking a proper bike team to call my own, I could have left the spot blank but I decided to give a shout-out to my courage classic team, so I filled in “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars”.

For the rest of the day leading up to the race I was vaguely regretting my decision. I participated in another of Jeanie’s insane boot-camp workouts that morning so my legs were not fresh at all. I did not relish the thought of being dead last, I felt like I should try nonetheless. Besides, I felt a little like an ambassador from the Trail Runners to the Bike Riders. Again, it's important to go and do things outside of your comfort zone. Mission accomplished.

Jimmy Dan was there, and showed me where to pin my re-usable number (they expect me to do more races, I presume? Ok then!). As usual these days, the sky was filled with thunderous, murderous intent, with bands of rain to the north, and a particularly malevolent looking storm approaching from the south. This set me on edge as I awaited my start. The route we were to race featured by my count 4 distinct steep climbs, each over 10% grade I think, and 3 harrowing descents. One hill in particular unnerved me; the North Dam. This hill is a straight shot down the east side of the north dam of Horsetooth. I think some of the other hills actually have steeper sections, but none of them match the North Dam’s sustained difficulty and pitch. Compounding this was the very real possibility that we might get rained on, and the road might be wet during the descent of this hill.

A wee bit blustry before the start, eh Jimmy?

But it wasn’t raining at the start, so off I went at my appointed time. Since this was a time trial, riders went off at 30 second intervals. I was placed about half-way through the field, so I had riders in front of me I could mark, and I knew that there would be riders behind me trying to catch up to me. Both of these conditions I found to be quite motivating, and I really started to push it up the first two hills as a result. Although I think this is not proper cycling form, I pretty much stood up out of the saddle for the entirety of all the significant climbs. I figured that standing up would allow me to make better use of my trail running muscles, but I knew I would go anaerobic pretty quickly doing that. Whatever, if I go down, I’m going down big.

I couldn’t believe how hard I was pushing my pace on the climbs, and even on the descents. I guess paying $10 and being in a competition really brought out the best of effort in me. I loved it. At least until I reached the crest of North Dam hill. The route was such that we went down North Dam, rode almost to Bellevue, and then went back up North Dam. And North Dam was wet. It wasn’t raining at the moment, but a squall had just passed through, and the road was freshly glossed with summer rain. This set me completely on edge as I coasted down the hill, as a straight arrow probably approaching 40 miles per hour – and that with applying the brakes now and then. I’m sure braver riders regularly hit 50 or more on this hill. The bottom of the hill features a turn to the right, which I was dreading down to my now-wet shoes. But before I could get too worked up in anticipation, I was upon the turn. I tapped the brakes a few more times and cautiously banked into it. The tires held. Of course now I’d lost all my momentum and had to crank it up to get back up to speed, but I survived the hill.

After a fairly comical U-turn on the road (thank you Marcel for volunteering and directing traffic!), I turned around and started the gradual approach back to North Dam hill. It was fun to see the other riders who had started after me coming down the same stretch of road, and we waved to each other and offered encouragement. As I got back to the base of the North Dam hill proper I got passed by one of those riders. I had already been passed by one or two others as well by this point, but that didn’t really bother me. But after getting passed on the North Dam I decided to really put in the effort and try to mark this guy up the hill. I was fairly successful, too, until I crested the hill and attempted to switch back to my big gear; then my chain fell off! Oh what a bother. I really need a tune-up. So I stopped, got off, offered a few choice words to the ether, slipped the chain back on, and continued on.

After cresting North dam there was a long, gradual climb to the top of “monster” hill, then another steep descent featuring a sharp left-hand turn that exposed a precipitous drop over a guardrail into Horsetooth Reservior, and then one final climb up “maniac” hill. The race didn’t finish down at the stadium where we started, it finished uphill, just like a real mountain stage! It was pretty fun. The clouds continued to build from the south, but the rain held off, and I gave all I had on the final climb. I think I may have even drooled a little.

The gang at the finish. The gentleman in black competed on a fixed-gear single-speed. Now that's crazy.

Yeah I've got a number on and everything. It's legit.

Celeste makes fun of me for being so competitive, but it draws out the best in me. I would never push it that hard on these hills if I wasn’t participating in some sort of competition on them. I would never know what I was capable of. I managed to finish somewhere in the middle of the pack on the ride, which I was very happy about. I think I know my strengths, or strength; hills. Bring ‘em on.

Now the courage classic is not a competition, it’s a charity ride. I’ll try very hard not to treat it as a competition. Quite frankly I find it to be bad form to treat a charity ride as a competition. No one cares if you’re riding at the front of the pack on a charity ride, you kind of look like a jerk doing that, actually. But I think I’m ready for the event, and I’m really looking forward to all the climbs that this event has to offer. So once again and once and for all, thank you all for your support, and for reading along with the blog, and I’ll try to fire off an update this weekend while we’re up there riding and having fun. Thanks!

Ziggy Played Guitaaaaaaah!

Two Towers

2011-07-18T07:50:00.000-07:00

Or three towers, or four, aach, who’s counting. We’ll get to the towers momentarily. First, the much-anticipated update regarding our Courage Classic Children’s Hospital fund-raising:

Oh yes, we are now north of $1,000 raised for Children’s Hospital, checking in this afternoon at $1,255. We have until this Friday, I believe, to try to raise the remainder. So if you’re considering donating to our ride on our behalf, please click one of the links below, thank you!

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Last we left off, I was getting my shorts handed to me at the local Fort Collins Cycling Team weekly battle royale, which left me rather stunned and impressed. As an aside, those of you who have seen my biking shorts lately will be happy to know that they have been retired and replaced. I’ll say no more on that subject, other than to say that many of my trail running friends have been recently scarred by the sight of me bounding up hills in my far-too-old-and-baggy bike shorts. You’re welcome, Fort Collins. Where was I? Oh yes, the team bike ride also took me within view of Towers, the Fort Collins Trail Runners bi-weekly group handicapped time trial excursion. And lo and behold, the next day (last Thursday) was another Towers run, so just like two weeks ago, I found myself back on the bike and riding the same hills I rode the previous day, but in reverse direction, to get to towers after work. My legs were plenty tired from the beating they took the previous night, but the weather looked good on a Thursday for once, and I wanted to get some more riding in but still run towers with my gang, so I did both activities once again (hence the sight of me running up towers in my bike shorts). And I managed to stay dry, at least!

And I was rewarded with a golden sunset from the south dam on my ride home. That's the "tooth" on the high point of the ridge there, and towers a bit to the right of that.

My legs felt fairly tired trudging up the hill but not overly so. I have been wondering lately how much cross-over there is between running and cycling. You know, does riding help one’s running and/or vice versa? I’m certain that there are good cardiovascular benefits to doing both activities that translate across, but I can’t shake a suspicion that running only builds cycling strength to a point. In fact in certain situations running may actually be counter-productive to cycling. Situations like, I don’t know, running up towers.

But we wants towers! I can’t live without my precious towers. And I had signed myself up for the Barr Mountain trail run on Sunday at Pikes Peak so I needed some hill climbing practice. I had entered this particular running race long before I committed to the courage classic. The intent was to run Barr Mountain as preparation to running the Pikes Peak ascent in August, since it occurs on the same course. Basically Barr Mountain is the lower half of the Pike Peak marathon course. Barr sports about 3,600 feet of climbing – and descending -- in about 12.5 miles of running, round trip. Our local Towers route, mind you, is about 1,650 feet and 6.8 miles. So Barr Mountain can quite rightly be considered to be, wait for it, about Two Towers worth of running. Barr trail even sports a tunnel with what I must assume to be a giant arachnid lurking in its darkest recesses. Quite coincidentally, Celeste and I have been picking our way through the Two Towers DVD over the past week or so. It’s all towers, all the time with me.

But the affect of the Barr trail race, this weekend, aside from encouraging me to indulge in some of my favorite towers-related activities (luckily I had no access to mashed potatoes with which I could have made a giant replica of Devil’s tower), was to keep me off the bike all weekend. Not good Courage Classic preparation, I know. I got in some riding Friday, mostly my 10 mile work commute plus a few odd-additional miles around town, but no cycling at all on Saturday or Sunday. No cycling Saturday because I knew I had the running race Sunday, and no riding Sunday because quite frankly I was altogether knackered after running Barr.

And I needed all the rest I could get, for after the twin virtual charley-horse of last Wednesday and Thursday my legs were sore! On Friday my legs were completely shot. On Saturday they were marginally better, but I didn’t like my chances for Sunday’s race one bit, even after I was informed by Nick that the field this year was “soft”, and that I was capable of a top-5 finish. Jeez, no pressure.

Now earlier in this post I had speculated here that it is possible that running does not necessarily help one’s cycling, other than to a point. But is the opposite true? Does cycling help one’s running? Again, noting the obvious cardio benefits, I think we may be on to something here. For starters, cycling is far less damaging to the body than is running, even trail running. Provided there are no accidents, obviously. As I get older I may find that I need to cycle more just for that reason alone. And while there’s nothing to replace experience gained by running, but I think maybe, just maybe, hill-climbing strength gained by climbing hills on a bicycle may translate better to running up hills. In the past four weeks, since I ran my first 50 mile race in Wyoming in June, my weekly running totals have dropped noticeably, with the extra training time filled in by more cycling, of course. In the past four weeks I’ve ran an average of about 27 miles per week. This is lower than my average for the year so far by about 20 miles per week, so I’m running about 60% of my usual mileage this past month. Believe me, it’s good that I’m getting a bit of a breather on the miles, actually. I’ve been enjoying the bike riding and although clearly I’m not as accomplished on the bike as I am on foot, I still like doing it and I suspect I’ll improve if I stick with it some more. Which I am happy to do if I find that it does not diminish my running ability, of course!

Which finally brings us to the Barr Mountain trail race. Noting that my weekly running mileage had been dropping, I was a little concerned that I would have some difficulty on the race. I mean, there’s always difficulty on a mountain trail race, it’s a freaking mountain after all. I suppose I was concerned about abnormal or extraordinary difficulties on the race.

So I was a little more amped up than usual waiting around the starting line with Celeste and Brian, with whom I had carpooled from the Fort that morning. Adding to my sense of apprehension was the fact that my gps watch had lost all of its battery charge, so I was flying blind today. Not that it mattered all that much, because I had as usual failed to study the course or determine any time goals whatsoever. Nick suggested I try to beat his time up the hill (64 minutes), which seemed like a good plan, but other than that I was just going to try to put in a hard effort and see what happened.

I am the little speck of green on the far far right

The Barr trail race is a funny sort of race. Like the Pikes Peak marathon, it starts on the pavement of Manitou Springs, and then attains the actual Barr trail a mile or so into the race. The first section of the Barr trail, called the “W’s”, is rather steep and narrow, and it is difficult to pass slower runners on this section of the trail. My legs felt a bit heavy and sluggish on the first mile leading up to the “W’s”, but they started to come around and I felt pretty good after that. I was able to pass a few other runners who had perhaps been a little too aggressive at the start, but I really had no idea how I was doing relative to the field as a whole. Since the race is an out-and-back, as I approached the turnaround point I was able to count runners as they came at me in the other direction. I was happily surprised to discover that I was in 15^th place at the turn-around point. Not 5^th, mind you, but it had a 5 in it!

I am a better uphill runner than downhill runner, but I tried to hold on to my position on the downhill by really extending my stride and keeping the effort honest. I find that I tend to relax too much on downhill grades and this always costs me in races. And today was no exception! I thought I was pushing the downhill, but I got passed rather quickly by a gentleman who was shorter than I, but somehow appeared to have a stride that was three times the span of mine. Then I was passed by a younger guy, who looked familiar to me, and turned out was Nick’s second favorite pacer, the remarkably talented Brendan Trimboli. Who is Nick's favorite pacer, you might ask? Why it's Scott, of course; Scott Jamie, that is.

I was then passed by another gentleman, Brad Poppele (2:42 marathoner), who as it happened was in my age group, and by passing me beat me out of a free pair of shoes, and $50! Big props to Brad, and note to self, run faster next time! Also near the end I was passed by the 3^rd place female runner, Brandy Erholtz, who unknown to me at the time was the two time defending Women's champ and course record holder for this race, and two-time U.S. Mountain Runner of the Year (2008, 2009), and all around general bad-ass. Note that one of the unwritten rules for running this race is that you must have a blog. Anyway, Brandy passed me at the last aid station with about 1.5 miles to go, but I marked her pretty well after that until the final three blocks, which featured a very nasty and steep uphill slog to the finish line. Finally, some uphill.

Noting that I’m a better uphill runner than downhill runner, I found myself quickly catching up to, and then passing Brandy. I felt rather like a jerk, passing her back, so I tried to be a gentleman about it and urged her to pick it up and finish with me. What I think I said as I passed her was “Come on, let’s do this”, but those of you who have heard me “speaking” at the end of a race know that what came out of my mouth was more along the lines of “sghheoeor wraauuah ruuuurha”. Likely for that reason she declined to come with me up and around the corner to the finish. I crossed the line in 1:56:15, arms in the air and all that, happy to come in under 2 hours just because that sounds cool. I ended up 18^th place overall, and 2^nd in my age group. Looking back at the results I had almost reeled in Brad as well, finishing a scant 7 seconds behind him, although I don't really recall seeing him after he passed me and Brandy on the downhill pavement stretch.

Overall the legs felt pretty good, so I was pleased about that, and pleased that all the extra biking and diminished amounts of running do not seem to have taken too much off my running results. Come to think of it, I think I was a gentlmanly 18^th at the Vail hill climb two weeks ago, and a rakishly handsome 14^th at the Bighorn race two weeks prior to that, so I think I have a rough target to shoot for at the Pikes Peak ascent in August.

But before that there is the little matter of the Courage Classic, which starts this Saturday. I may only run once or twice this week, and I have one more special ride planned for Tuesday, but if I’m not ready now than I won’t be ready on Saturday. I think I’m ready, it will be a lot of fun regardless. Thanks again for following along and donating, we really appreciate it. I will probably post one more time between now and this weekend, and I’ll try to post something during the ride itself. Once and finally, the links to donate are here, thank you!

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

If you blew it, don't reject it Just sit drawing up the plans and re-erect it

House of Pain

2011-07-14T07:05:00.000-07:00

First an update on our fund-raising efforts for the Courage Classic: Thanks to you all, Celeste and I have now raised $930 for Denver's Children's Hospital! Our goal is $2,000, so if you're still considering donating, please feel free to click one of our links below and give a little something to Children's Hospital on our behalf:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Eat a big lunch, I told myself yesterday, you’re going to have to put your big-boy pants on today. So I horfed down my usual peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and supplemented that with Monday’s leftover coconut curry stir fry (one of four or five “go to” dinners I can make with some competence, incidentally), hoping the extra calories would help see me through the Pro Velo Fort Collins Cycling Team weekly group ride.

I had asked my friend Dan if there were any “spirited group rides” I could do to get in a tough cycling workout in advance of the Courage Classic, which is how I found myself leaning against my trusty Novara Strada (oh, yes, with a name like “Novara”, it has to be Italian, right? Right??) with 29 other spandex-clad bean-poles Wednesday after work. Quite a few of the riders were wearing the local Echelon Energy team riding kit (expertly modeled by Dan on the web page there), and several others sporting other local bike team apparel. These were like, real riders, on real bikes. These guys (and ladies, of which there were 3 I think) actually train and compete on these things. Oh yes, I was solidly out of my league.

I felt like I was 13 years old again, trying out for my junior high school baseball team (I made the team, backup outfielder, emphasis on the backup part). Quite frankly I had no business being there, but it was too late to turn back now, and besides, what’s the worst that could happen? Well seeing as though there were no other 13-year old kids standing around and waiting to point fingers at me and laugh and make fun of my sub-standard hand-eye coordination (what’s the use of being able to run to the ball if you can’t catch the darn thing?), the worst that could happen is that I could get “dropped”. You see, group biking isn’t like group running. There’s a huge incentive to stay bunched together in a group, or dare I say, peleton, in order to minimize the affects of wind-resistance. At running speeds this affect is far less pronounced, so runners don’t typically feel the need to run in a tight-knit group. Group cycling, on the other hand, is all about the group. And if you’re not fit enough to hang on to the group, well, you may want to consider going on a solo ride. I had no idea if I could hang on to this group, advertised as an “opportunity to ride with some of Fort Collins fastest”, but I was going to give it a try all the same.

I think the Decemberists say it best...

I looked around and went through various scenarios of shame and glory in my head. Worst case; some peroxide-blonde 80s villain jerk takes one look at me and my $750 bike (“but it’s Italian, I swear!” (it's not) ), and declares that I am unfit for the ride, and I slink back to my running friends with tears in my eyes and malice in my heart. Clearly I’m still stuck on the 1983 team sports memories here. Only slightly less humiliating; I am allowed to ride with the group, but am quickly dropped by all 29 other riders as they fly away from me in a monolithic fascist peleton, leaving me as the only person who can not keep up. Somewhat acceptable; I am able to hang on to the back of the pack and actually ride with someone. Maybe not the lead group, but I am actually involved in the ride. Better still; I am in the lead group, I am mixing it up, I even take a turn pulling the front of the peleton. And best of all; I find out that I am the strongest rider of the group, a cycling savant as it were, and they ask me to be their king, and buy me beers and peroxide.

So the ride starts out; so far so good. We are riding through town, heading towards Loveland via Shields, and there are plenty of stoplights so the group stays together. I am in the middle of the pack and feeling guardedly optimistic that I won’t get completely dropped. Mostly I am enjoying doing the cool “watch out for this stuff on the road” hand signals and getting used to riding in close proximity to other cyclists. South of Harmony there is a 2-mile stretch of road uninterrupted by stoplights and featuring a small hill. I find that I have to put in a tough effort to keep up, and I’m getting passed by a couple of cyclists, but I make it back to the pack at the light at Trilby.

Then it happens. The light turns green, and the real ride begins. Oh. My. Goodness. The main group charges out ahead and I am quickly gapped, although I am not last. We are riding into a headwind and I know that it is critical to find some people to ride with in order to take advantage of drafting. I start to put in a huge effort, and I manage to catch up to a couple of other cyclists who have also been spit out of the main group. We take turns pulling each other along and try to make up ground on the lead group, but it’s hopeless. But I keep trying all the same. I’m not going to give up without a fight, so I keep pushing. It’s hot out, I’m sweating like an African zebra being chased by a Tasmanian Devil, my thighs are screaming at me (and this on a relatively flat stretch of road), and I am having trouble keeping up even with my little pack of five. One of the riders, Ryan, notices my distress and offers that maybe I should “hang on the back” for a bit, meaning I should stop taking turns leading the group. He’s being nice, and he’s right, but I want to feel like I’m contributing and not just hanging on, so mainly I ignore him. I’m going down in a blaze of glory, baby.

Our chase group splinters into two groups of 2 and a single rider off the back. I’m in the middle group of two. We’re taking turns pulling each other along Highway 34 west of Loveland and glade road. I can see the lead group of two and I decide I want to try to catch up to them, so I max out my effort once more and reach them where Glade road meets the main Masonville road. Ryan goes right, towards Masonville, and the other cyclist left, back towards Highway 34. I follow Ryan to the right, although I later find out the group route was supposed to go left here. I catch up to Ryan and we catch another rider. “I’m trashed,” I say as I latch on to this new group of three. “No problem,” he says, “we’ll catch our breath a bit and then do some short pulls.” You know, these cyclists are really nice. Very few of them are even blonde. It’s encouraging. It’s all I can do to keep up with my little group of three, but I take my turns leading the pack all the same. If I’m going to participate in the ride I am going to work my share.

Our little group makes it to Masonville and as we begin the climb to Horsetooth Mountain Park I realize that I am completely shot. I have no energy for this relatively minor climb, having spent all of my strength trying to keep up with these spandex-clad crazies on the flats. My two partners quickly leave me behind, and finally, 24 miles into what turned out to me a 38 mile ride, I let them go and start to ride at my own pace.

Now at this point I actually had managed to keep several of the other riders behind me, but now several of them start to reel me in on the hill. And some of the “big dogs” catch me as well, even though I took a 4 mile shortcut to Masonville. Heck, I’m sure some of the really fast riders beat me to Masonville even though they took the longer route.

Up and over Horesetooth mountain park I went, where I could see the top of towers, and I wistfully thought of my bi-weekly group trail run up to that shining landmark. For you see on towers I feel like a hero. Out here on the bike getting passed, I feel more like a zero. But it’s ok. I realize that it’s good to be humbled, to stick out your neck, to try and fail. Fail big, in full color. I got a lyric from Prince stuck in my head, “Whenever you say that you can’t, that’s when you need to be trying”, and that brightened my mood as I separated completely from the group ride at the South dam of Horsetooth reservoir and took a crack at maniac hill, before dropping down to Hughes stadium and thence directly back home.

Prince knows what I'm talking about

So I’d say that the experience fell somewhere between “hanging on to the back of the pack”, and “getting dropped completely”. I’m no king, but I didn’t get laughed at either. I’m happy that I tried to ride with the big boys and girls, happy, even, to have been dropped and humbled by the experience. And I’ll try it again in a few weeks, absolutely.

And once again, the links for our courage classic fund-raising:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Shavawesome

2011-07-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

How has the training for the Courage Classic been going, you ask? Great, if climbing a 14er is appropriate training for a 200 mile bike ride. If not, well, at least we ate a lot of cheese, so the weekend was still a success.

First an update on our fund-raising efforts: Thanks to you all, Celeste and I have now raised $880 for Denver's Childrens Hospital! Our goal is $2,000, so if you're still considering donating, please feel free to click one of our links below and give a little something to Children's Hospital on our behalf:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

In what is now pretty much an annual Summer tradition, Celeste and I packed up the car and met our cousins from Santa Fe, Tim and Michaela, for a jaunt up to the top of one of Colorado's many "14ers", or 14,000 foot peaks. We've done trips to Handies, Elbert and Massive, Quandary and Democrat, and now this year, Shavano, Tabeguache (pronounced "tab-uh-wash," with the accent on the first syllable, I just found out, although I would prefer to pronounce it "ta-wash", so I could sing "ta-wash, ta-wash, ta-wash you want?"), and Antero. In fact last year we were going to climb Democrat, Lincoln, and Bross (and don't forget Cameron!), but as is our style we got started too late and did not feel like we could summit all of those peaks early enough in the day to avoid the temperamental Colorado high-alpine Summer weather. So the original plan this year was to take care of "unfinished business" and climb all of those aforementioned peaks. But the Spring was snowy in and around that area this year, and reports indicated that some of the peaks further South, namely Shavano and Antero, were snow-free and rather more climb-able this particular year. So we changed our plan at the last minute and agreed to meet at the Shavano trail head Friday night to camp.

Celeste and I rolled into the trail head just at dark, where Tim and Michaela had already set up camp near the trail head at the edge of a meadow ringed at all sides by a grove of aspen trees, and dotted with old-growth ponderosa pines, and sporting a close-up view of Shavano. Rather lovely, all told. The weather during the 4-hour drive to the trail head was choppy. We drove through two major rainstorms, one just outside Fort Collins, and another on the way to Buena Vista. The weather lately has been very unsettled, and we all knew that there was a pretty good chance of getting rained upon during our hike the next day, so we agreed that we should get up early and hit the trail before 6:00 am Saturday in order to minimize our risk of getting caught above timberline in a thunderstorm.

So we set our alarms for 5:00 am and settled into bed. Since we were car-camping I brought pillows and our old coleman sleeping bag to sleep on for extra comfort. It was all rather plush and I slept well, until just before 5:00 when I heard the unmistakable sound of ice sloshing violently against plastic; that sound made manifest by an unseen entity dragging our cooler around our campsite. Oh yes, my friends, a bear was trying to abscond with our precious cheese and bud light! First skunks, now this. I'm just glad we decided to leave Ziggy at home this weekend.

I must be the lightest sleeper of the bunch, because I woke up first and said "bear", which although said softly by yours truly, instantly awoke the others into a state of wide-eyed alarm. We all sat in the the tent in silent nervous expectancy (of what? the bear cracking open a beer? or cracking open our tent??) and listened to the sound of the cooler being dragged away. Then the noise abruptly stopped. Tim and I grabbed flashlights and headed out into the dim light of the early morning to assess the situation. We found the cooler on its side, about 30 feet from where we had left it the night before. We didn't see a bear or any other creature, human or otherwise, but we both figured that the cooler was probably too heavy to be dragged 30 feet by a raccoon or lynx or marmot. It didn't appear as though the bear actually took anything, either, but later we did notice that our swiss cheese was missing, although the white cheddar was still intact. So it must have been a Swiss bear. And yes, I know, we made a very stupid mistake in leaving out the cooler, one we managed not to repeat for the rest of the trip. And our tent was a good 25 feet away from the area where we ate and prepared our meals. We actually do know the rules, we just don't always follow them.

Well that was better than any traditional wake-up call, and after a quick breakfast of coffee and cereal, we packed up and headed off towards Mount Shavano. Shavano is the southern-most 14er in the Sawatch range, and is an impressive peak when viewed from the highway leading from Buena Vista to Poncha Springs. And it was an impressive climb as well, featuring 4,400 feet of climbing from our campsite at 9,800 feet to the summit at 14,200 feet in a span of 4.5 miles. The climb was fairly typical for most 14ers: a steep cool ascent through a forest of thin Lodgepole pine and Engelmann spruce, then breaking out of the forest at timberline to a wind-swept tundra of lichen-covered stones and traces of winter's snow, and finally a scramble up the final summit cone, guarded by sharp stones, and finally the summit, already populated by gore-tex laden hikers eating trail mix and enjoying the view.

The Angels of Shavano

Although Shavano was my 14th successful unique 14er summit (a nice bit of symmatry there!), I do not consider myself a "peak-bagger", obsessed with summitting all 50+ 14ers in the state. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I admire the Will that drives people to want to accomplish such things. I think I'm just a little too lazy to seek out all of the far-flung peaks, and find myself climbing the ones closer to home over and over again. For example, I think I've climbed Mount Quandary four times, simply because it is so easy to get to from the highway! But I do enjoy the novelty of each mountain, and I particularly enjoy the unique vistas provided by each mountain in turn. The view from Shavano is similar to the view from Quandary, you know, lots of other mountains and what not, but at the same time the view is wholly unique and special in its own way. For the views, I suppose, I would attempt to climb all of the 14ers. We'll see if I get there.

Ah yes, the views. And the clouds.

And in order to climb all of the 14ers, Shavano guards the approach to another 14er, Mount Tabeguache(-chu want!?!). Tabeguache is only assessable (by normal people) via a high ridge that separates it from the summit of Shavano. So in order to climb Tabeguache one has to summit Shavano, then hike the exposed ridge between Shavano and Tabeguache, climb Tabeguache, and then return via the same connecting ridge to Shavano. It's fairly exposed, but not technically difficult, and the round-trip takes about 1.8 miles. The general rule for 14ers is that one really should be off the summit before noon. After noon, the weather on the peaks gets rather dicey, and there is literally no place to run or hide in the event of a thunderstorm. We had decided that if we attained the summit of Shavano by 10:00 am, that we would allow ourselves to hike the ridge to Tabeguache and summit that peak as well. An in fact we did summit Shavano by 10:00, but since the weather had been so unsettled, we noticed far more clouds than usual on the summit at this time of day. We decided that even though we had made our time goal, that the weather was just too sketchy today, and decided not to try for Tabeguache. In my opinion, a big part of being a good mountaineer is knowing when to turn around. I'm as bad as anyone when it comes to contracting a case of "summit fever", but I know when it's time to pack it in and live to climb another day. So we bid Tabeguache a farewell from afar, with a promise to return someday, and made our way back down the windy summit of Shavano, and back to camp. Not one hour after we made it back we got hit by a short and fierce little rainstorm, which seemed to reinforce our decision.

After a dinner which consisted of an appetizer of cheddar cheese on triscuits, another appetizer of cheddar cheese quesadillas, an entree of cheddar grilled cheese sandwiches, and for dessert, more cheddar cheese on triscuits, we thoroughly secured the campsite and went to bed. The next morning we were originally going to climb either Mount Antero or Mount Princeton, or the high-13er Mount Ouray, but in the end we opted to sleep in and hike the Colorado Trail, which intersected the Mount Shavano trail very near our campsite. Also the weather played a factor in our decision; we got another rainstorm at 2:00 am that night, and woke up to a sky filled with heavy clouds. I'm sure we would have been fine, climbing another 14er on Sunday, but ultimately we decided on the easier and more convenient option of the Colorado trail, since it meant we would not have to drive anywhere or break camp.

That's how you ford a stream!

We enjoyed a delightful 11 mile hike on the famed trail, passing by several groups of people that were "through-hiking" the entire 470+ mile span of the trail from Denver to Durango. We plotted and planned our own through-hike adventure (someday!) and enjoyed several vistas of my new favorite mountain, Mount Ouray. Mount Ouray is not a 14er, but it's darn close (13,961 feet), and it enjoys a prominence that give it an impressive air that many of its taller and more-often-climbed neighbors lack. It is, in short, a beautiful mountain and I intend to climb it; partly because it comes so close to being a 14er and I assume simply by dint of lacking a mere 39 feet of prestige, is almost completely ignored even though it is undeniably more impressive and beautiful than many other peaks that by some accident of commercial standards sit above a completely arbitrary numerical threshold of elevation. What if the length of a "foot" was only 0.3% shorter? Then Ouray would also be a 14er, and would be undoubtedly be one of the more popular ones, to boot. I understand the desire to climb the tallest peaks in the state, for the adventure and sense of accomplishment (and the views!), but I get the feeling there is a significant drop-off between the number of people who climb, say, the 10 least tall 14ers, and the number of people who climb the 10 tallest 13ers. I'm guilty of that as well; I think I've summitted 3 or 4 13ers, and as mentioned, 14 14ers. Maybe it's time to even the score.

Mount Ouray

Well enough prattling on about mountains, I could go on all day. As you can see we spent not a second on our bikes this weekend, but we did "scout out" Freemont pass via automobile, so I guess you could say we did some recon work for Courage Classic. Today, we ride. Hills. I promise.

Many more pictures:

And if you're interested in donating, here are the links once again, thank you!

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Je t'aime, Ziggy, Je t'aime

2011-07-08T07:41:00.000-07:00

Time for an update! I am very pleased to report that we have raised just over $700 for our courage classic ride! You all are most excellent and generous friends, and I will reward you with a story of grand excitement and odors.

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

OR:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Well the big plan for the 4^th of July was to volunteer at our local 5K race in the morning, the Firecracker 5, then ride Rist canyon, then take the dogs up into the mountains so as to avoid the noisy, scary fireworks display. One out of three isn’t bad, right?

The 5K race was a lot of fun and we saw a bunch of our running friends volunteering and racing. Our super hero Nicole won the women’s race and set a course record to boot! Celeste and I were put in charge of the bike storage area, which seemed appropriate considering the courage classic. The race was encouraging participants to ride to the event and provided a secure storage area for bikes, and even a special raffle prize drawing courtesy of REI for bikers only.

Celeste and Lincoln, keeping out the riff-raff

Our plan was to get out of there by 8:30 so we could go on our own ride, but we were not able to escape until after 10:00 am! By then it was getting pretty hot, and we had to drag ourselves out of the house to go for our Rist canyon ride. About oh, two blocks into our ride we decided to scrap the Rist idea, and we rode out only to Bellvue and back, via Bingham Hill on the way out, and “the barrens” on the way back. My local running peeps will know what I’m talking about. It turned into a leisurely 14 mile ride in the heat instead of the 40+ mile epic suffer-fest we’d promised ourselves. Well hey, it was hot, what do you want from us! More suffering and blood, I know. Just wait, you’ll get what you came for.

A leisurely ride to Bellvue and back.

We spent the bulk of the afternoon staying out of the heat and watching the neighborhood fill up with people and cars in anticipation of the fireworks display at city park. We found it amusing that many of our neighbors were putting out chairs and sawhorses and large buckets in front of their houses in order to prevent strangers from parking there. It reminded us both of the North End in Boston, where there are unofficial reserved parking spaces for local men of dubious repute. Since we are new to this neighborhood we didn’t realize how crowded things were going to get, but we didn’t really care because we were planning on vacating the area for the evening.

For you see Ziggy, our newest dog and the namesake of our Courage Classic team, is terrified of loud noises, and we figured it would be smart for all of us if we were nowhere near city park for the thunderous fireworks display that evening. So about 5:00 pm we bundled Ziggy and Duke into the pickup, and headed up the Poudre canyon with Cat and Sarah for a nice evening hike up Hewlett’s Gulch trail.

The trailhead was almost completely deserted by the time we got up there, which was great. We were able to let both dogs off leash (it is allowed there) and let them roam up and down the trail without fear of confrontations with any other dogs. The mosquitoes were rather voracious at that time of the evening, and none of us brought bug spray, but other than that it was a wonderful cool quiet hike up the gulch through cool green forests and meadows, and featuring numerous stream crossings.

At one point some dark clouds rolled over and threatened to rain, and Ziggy got frightened and actually started to turn back to the trailhead. I called for him to return but he was having none of that, so I had to chase him down the trail for a good half of a mile until I could convince him to let me leash him back up and return to the others. After the clouds rolled past Ziggy seemed in good spirits once again so I let him off leash once more. In retrospect that was a big error.

Hewlett’s Gulch trail opens up into a lovely meadow near it’s far point, and we were in the clearing and almost to the high point when we noticed that both Duke and Ziggy were rooting around quite enthusiastically at the base of a bush some 10 feet of the trail and 20 or so feet ahead of us. I started calling the dogs back to us, and Duke came cruising back, licking his mouth like he just ate peanut butter. But I don’t think there was a jar of Skippy under that bush, and anyway I then caught the unmistakable scent of skunk. Crap.

Ziggy came running out of the bush, chasing a small and very irritated skunk. At this point the skunk fluffed up its bushy tail, turned away from Ziggy, and we all got to witness a skunk spray. Ziggy took a shot point-blank to his face. Which deterred him not in the least. Duke clearly had more common sense, having come back to us at the first attack. Ziggy was either too stubborn or too stupid to stop harassing the skunk, for he continued to chase this poor animal across the trail onto the other side of the meadow, proceeding to get sprayed about 3 or 4 more times while we all screamed his name but kept our distance from the fray.

Finally Ziggy decided he’d had enough, and disengaged from the fracas and headed towards us, his normally white head literally stained yellow by the skunk’s spray. And the skunk was so enraged that it was actually chasing Ziggy towards us! Luckily the skunk decided that it didn’t want to spray everyone in the vicinity. Maybe it was bluffing; do skunks have an unlimited supply of spray? We were not going to find out. It was time to high-tail it back down the trail to the truck.

The poor dogs spent a fair amount of time rolling in the dirt, trying desperately to rub that foul stinging odor off of their faces. We tried splashing water on them at the stream crossings, but it was difficult for us to stop because as soon as we did, hoards of mosquitoes descended upon us and proceeded to turn our skin into a reasonable facsimile of bubble wrap. We were concerned that they may have gotten sprayed in the eyes but they seemed ok from that perspective. All we could really do was get them back to home so we could subject them to a tomato juice bath (yes, that actually works pretty well).

The crew, post-skunk-attack

There was no way we were going to let them sit in the cab of the truck so Celeste and I rode in the bed of the truck with the two dogs while Cat drove our truck back down the canyon. I’m reasonably certain it was illegal and I know it was dangerous, but luckily for us the traffic was quite sparse, because everyone was heading to city park for the fireworks, a fact we discovered when we arrived back at our house, just in time for the fireworks display. You know, the thing we were trying to avoid in the first place!

So Celeste took the dogs inside while I drove around my neighborhood looking for a parking spot, and considered that some well-placed chairs in front of my house may not have been such a stupid idea after all. So the dogs got subjected to a triple-horror of skunk, bath, and loud noises. They really haven’t been the same since! In fact Ziggy didn’t even want to leave the house this morning, four days after the fact. It’s a dangerous world out there, isn’t it. And even after the tomato juice bath, which stained their white fur the color of Thai iced tea, I can still detect a hint of skunk in the air. It will just take time to fully dissipate. But the dogs will be fine, and hopefully they will think twice before taking on another skunk. And I will most certainly think three times before letting them off leash in the forest again, particularly at that time of the evening. What a mess.

But this blog is supposed to be about training for the courage classic, is it not? Well you know, a skunk attack is far more entertaining then more accounts of me riding my bicycle. But I will fill you in on my progress nonetheless. It’s Friday today, and the 4^th was Monday, which featured 14 miles of riding between the 5K race volunteering and the skunk incident. On Tuesday I managed my normal 10 miles of commuting, and the same on Wednesday. I was able to ride more miles on Thursday (yesterday), to the sum of 20 or so miles, 5 of which were done in a torrential rainstorm. What is it with getting soaked on Thursdays? So quite frankly I’m not putting in the biking miles I’d like, but I’m probably doing enough to get by. I’m thankful that I got to ride Vail pass last weekend, that gives me some measure of confidence as I approach two weeks until the start of my ride.

Once again, thank you for your continued support, and here are the links you can click to donate to our ride:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

OR:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Je t'aime, Ziggy, Je t'aime

Doble-Vail

2011-07-06T07:35:00.000-07:00

My training for the Courage Classic in 2+ weeks continues, with many detours along the way. First of all, let’s review our progress towards our goal of raising $2,000 dollars for Childrens Hospital:

Celeste and I have raised $580 so far, thank you all so very much! We are over one quarter of the way there! If you are considering making a tax-deductible donation to Childrens Hospital on our behalf, I encourage you to do so by clicking one of the links below:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

And for those of you who have donated, a heart-felt thank you! Your support means a lot to me.

So how has the training been going, you ask? Well, you know, some good, some bad. Last we left off last Thursday I had decided to bike to Towers and then run towers through a dangerous storm, and then bike home through the rain.

Friday was far more sedate, probably too sedate, as I only logged about 13 miles of city riding, much of that during my normal work commute. And Saturday was even worse; housework beckoned so I spent no time on the bike at all, and did fun things like trim the trees and drain the hot tub.

But I made up for my slothfulness on Sunday. Sunday I got up very early and drove to beautiful Vail, Colorado, for the 300^th annual La Sportiva Vail Hill Climb race. Or 30^th annual, I don’t remember. Point being, people have been lacing up their running shoes and climbing the cat trails up the side of Vail mountain long before I even contemplated doing something this nutty. Yes this was not a biking event, so I’m still not really on the ball here. Regardless, it is a good workout; the race climbs over 2,000 feet from the covered bridge in Vail Village to the top of the Lionshead gondola at Eagle’s Nest. There were about 400 competitors lined up at the start, including me and my friends Sarah and Ellen. Thankfully for all involved, the course did not go straight up the ski slopes, but rather chose a twisty route up the service roads, which double in the winter as the “easiest way down” trails with such names as “Cub’s Way”, and “Getalong Road”, and “Eternal Peril” Wait, I must have misread that last one, that doesn't sound right.

No matter, I like to climb hills, and I thought I would be relatively competitive in this event, so I lined up right at the front of the pack like a big boy. I realized quite quickly that I would not be winning this event right after the race started and the leaders blasted out to a 5-minute mile in the first, flat mile through town. I knew what effort felt good for me and let them go, and tried to maintain a hard but sustainable pace. Happily I was able to reel in quite a few runners who may have been a little over-eager at the start, and by about mile 4 or 5 everyone was pretty much settled in to their slots. The road kept climbing up the side of the ski hill, and we crossed under numerous chairlifts, and across bare ski slopes, and through shady groves of trees as the views of the surrounding mountains got more and more impressive. But the more impressive the view got, the less interested I was in enjoying it, as the climb, as climbs are want to do, got more and more difficult. By mile 6 (out of 7.3 miles total) my legs and lungs were at the breaking point. My only thought was not to let those people whom I passed pass me back. A point of pride, I suppose. There were two racers just ahead of me but I could not close the gap on them, no matter my effort.

Ellen cranking it out on the final climb

Sarah looking strong in a picture that is in no way staged whatsoever

I was trying to climb the hill in under one hour, and as I rounded the final switchback and the finish line came in to view, I saw the race clock at the side of the finishing arch, and it read ”59:59”, and quickly rolled over to “1:00:00” before I could muster the strength to cross under the banner. Alas, I came in just over one hour at 1:00:04, finishing a gentleman’s 19^th place overall, and a, uh, gentleman’s 4^th place in my age group.

The weather was beautiful at the top of the mountain, and we enjoyed a nice cool down run on the trails and then took the gondola back down to Vail. Then I ate lunch at the Red Lion bar in Vail Village with Sarah’s family, and then started part two of my Vail adventure.

You may be wondering why all this running, and writing about the same, when I should actually be riding in preparation for the Courage Classic. Fair enough. That’s why I packed my road bike with me on my trip to Vail. I decided that after the run, if I felt up to it, I would ride my bike from Vail Village to the top of Vail Pass and back down. What was I thinking? And of course I had to open my big mouth and tell everyone I was doing that so now here I was, at 1 pm, clipped into my bike and trying to navigate the Vail Village parking garage in order to strike out for mountain adventure number two for the day. Finally, some biking to write about!

Vail pass is a lovely mountain climb that is made even better by the fact that it is a car-free climb. The route uses what I must assume is the old Vail pass road, and then a purpose-built bike trail that parallels the interstate up to the top of the pass. It is also the centerpiece climb of the first day of the Courage Classic ride, so I figured it would be good to know if I could handle this climb on tired legs. I changed from running to biking gear and washed my face of salt and trail grime in the public restroom of the Vail parking garage (how glamorous is my life!), applied another round of sunscreen and thought that any day that required multiple applications of sunscreen is a good day, and as mentioned, wound my way out of the parking structure and pointed my bike towards the hill.

I'll be back here in a few weeks!

And you know what, ultimately it really wasn’t that bad. Indeed I took my time, I think it took me about 1 hour and 45 minutes to reach the top of the pass, but other than being fairly stiff at the beginning of the ride I felt better than I thought I would feel. Of course a large part of this may have been do to the fact that there was a spectacular tail-wind pushing me up the pass, but let us not obsess over minute atmospheric details, shall we? Also I must mention that although Vail pass is significantly higher than Rist canyon in Fort Collins, I think Rist is more difficult.

Having successfully attained summit number two on the day I pointed the bike back down to Vail, and then drove back to the Fort for a well-earned dinner at Enzio’s with the Speights, where we were expertly-waited-upon by super-nice Nicole, runner-extraordinaire and apparent inspiration for many dashed adjectives.

For the 4^th of July the plan was to ride Rist canyon with Celeste, after we volunteered at the local Firecracker 5k. And then take the dogs up into the mountains so they would be out of earshot from the loud and scary city fireworks display, which happens to be staged right in our neighborhood. But nothing went to plan and everything fell apart. But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to read about that because I have to go to work!

Again, thanks for donating, and once more here are the links:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Dumb and Dumber

2011-06-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

Celeste and I are still soliciting donations for our Courage Classic Ride in July. We're trying to raise $1,000 each, $2,000 total. Any amount you can contribute would be just wonderful, thanks! Donate here:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or here:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

And I'm blogging about my attempts to train for this ride. Follow along with my misadventures! And donate!!

Well things got a little crazy today, and probably not in a good way. Today was a Towers day, which means all the crazy trail runners in town congregate at Horsetooth Mountain Park west of town to run up Towers road. It's a beast of a workout, and we do it every other Thursday, rain or shine. I had the hair-brained idea to ride my bike to towers, run towers, and then bike back home. And believe it or not, Alex had the same idea! Hey if another person wants to do it, how crazy can it be? And our friend Jonathan Z does this all the time, so it really wasn't that special of a plan.

So after work I rode to Alex's house, and we biked up to Towers together. The Fort was pounded with a furious rainstorm earlier in the afternoon but things seemed to be clearing up, and our bike ride was dry and uneventful. We got to towers, changed from biking shoes to running shoes, and ran a little one mile warm up. Oh I hate how my legs feel trying to run after a ride, all wobbly and such. Best to work out of that before tackling towers.

Towers is about 3.4 miles one way, and sports about 1,650 feet of climbing. It's a beast, don't kid yourself! I was planning on giving it a nice easy effort today, knowing that I still had to ride my bike home after the attempt, but two things happened that caused me to end up pushing the pace. One, well, hey, it's towers, baby, and I just get excited chugging up that hill! I can't help it, somehow I think this is fun. But second, the relatively nice weather we were enjoying started to turn naughty. First a brisk wind picked up, usually in our faces. Then low ominous clouds started to roll in from the south. We were going to get hit with another storm. I picked up the pace, thinking I could literally outrun the worst of the storm. In hindsight I really should have just turned around. Summit fever, catch it like the plague. Thankfully nothing bad happened to me or any of our group but I don't think we were being very safe out there today. I got to the top of towers and immediately turned around and headed back down.

By the time I got to the bottom the rain had started to come down. Alex and I thought about throwing our bikes into one of the other runners' cars, but ultimately ego took over and we decided we'd ride home through the rain. Last year at the Courage Classic Celeste and I got caught in a tremendous downpour so I figured I could use a little wet riding. Oh what fun it was. I was a little timid on my skinny tires, but Alex and I made it back to town without incident, unless you consider my feet getting soaked and my bike getting filthy incidents. But it was yet another dumb thing to add to the rapidly growing list of dumb things I did today.

So when you add it all up, I got 26 miles of riding with probably 1,500 feet of climbing, and 8 miles of running with about 1,700 feet of climbing, all told. A pretty good day's work. A dumb day's work, but it's a good dumb.

This is for brave little Ziggy, who toughed out the thunder and lightning with Celeste on Towers today. Yes this is pretty much the best painting ever. I'm getting a tattoo of it on my shoulder. Maybe the malamute on one shoulder and the lightning on the other.

Eddie Vedder Opera

2011-06-28T20:53:00.000-07:00

So I'm at the health club this morning taking Jeanie's group strength and cardio class, which is awesome, and not riding my bike; in fact I jogged over to the club (about 1.5 miles) instead of riding even that distance. After work I went to the track for Jane's equally awesome track workout (running). Apparently I'm training for the courage classic by doing a whole bunch of stuff that isn't actually riding a bike. Well scratch that, I did commute to work on the bike so that's 10 flat miles for the day. Incidentally not going to get it done. Whatever.

Actually that's not what I wanted to write about today. First, the pitch: Celeste and I are still soliciting donations for our Courage Classic Ride in July. We're trying to raise $1,000 each, $2,000 total. Any amount you can contribute would be just wonderful, thanks! Donate here:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or here:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Anyway, while I was at the health club I heard a song I've not heard in some time: "Black" by Pearl Jam. It was fairly faint in the speakers so I didn't recognize it until they got to the end bit, where Eddie Vedder sings:

"I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be the sun in somebody else's sky, but why, why, why can't it be, can't it be mine?"

Except of course as you know, he doesn't sing "mine" like that, he sings it like:

"Muhhhhhhhhhh-aaa-aaaah-ahhhh-hiiiii-ja-jaaa, whooo!"

(I had to look up the lyric on line b/c I wasn't completely sure that the word was, indeed "mine", incidentally)

Yeah, you know the part, everyone does! In fact, as I'm listening along I realize that this is a live version of the song, and when he gets to the word "mine", the entire crowd sings along with each and every heartfelt inflection and vocalization of the word, in a grotesque echo of the original. And I would do exactly the same thing if I was there, oh yes. And how that must annoy Mr. Vedder! Actually he's probably come to grips with the fact that every time he sings "black", this totally sincere, passionate, sad, intense, wonderful song, a bunch of idiot frat boys in the front row are going to bellow it right back in his face. I'm certain he's simultaneously touched and appalled! "Black" is one of those songs for me that I really liked, then I hated because I heard it too much, but now it is ok for me to like it again. There's probably 4,000 other songs like that for me, all in various stages of that likability U-shaped continuum.

But I actually had a good reason for hating that song. I was in college when "Black" came out, and suddenly every girl on campus was in love with Eddie Vedder, which was bad news for the rest of us very non-Eddie Vedder types. I heard the song and was impressed with the soulful intense vocal, but the girls heard that song and were instantly smitten with what appeared to be our generation's Van Morrison. Overflowing with smit, I tell you. Believe me, us normal guys had no chance to compete. Oh, I grew my hair our and tried to look grunge, or at least tie a long sleeved shirt around my waist, and write poetry, and say deep things, and look both hurt and angry and cool all at once, but I was a fraud and all the girls knew it. Damn you Eddie Vedder for being so perfect! So I turned up my nose on Pearl Jam and went right to, uh, INXS apparently. Hopeless.

But now I can like it again as I have come to grips with my own inadequacies in comparison to Eddie Vedder. It's tough to be angry with him for stretching out the word "mine" into a 5 second aria, I applaud his verve. Which brings me to my final observation about "black". I've decided that the song is all rather operatic in nature. You may scoff, but the overwhelming sense of sadness and lack of any redemption, lyrically or musically, rather strongly reminds me of some of Puccini's best work. I'm thinking Tosca, but I always think Tosca. Well, here. Compare Placido Domingo with Eddie Vedder for yourself. It's rock vs. opera, but they share the same intensity and passion, and in this case, the same ability to really milk a word for all it's worth.

First, Placido Domingo:

And here is Eddie Vedder:

Maybe I'm the only one seeing the similarities here? Well, it sounds like opera to me. And that's a good thing!

Ok tomorrow I will ride. More than 10 miles. Should be all rather exciting. Hopefully not operatic though.

Oh and one more thing, congratulations to Ft. Collins' own Nick Clark for finishing in 3rd place in last weekend's Western States 100 miles race! Jolly good Nick. See you at Towers on Thursday. I might ride my bike to the bi-weekly suffer-fest on the hill!

How to Train for the Courage Classic Without Really Trying: Part 1

2011-06-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

Don't lean on me man, 'cause you can't afford the ticket, back from Suffragette City!

As you may know, Celeste and I signed up to ride in the Childrens' Hospital Courage Classic charity ride again this summer. We did it for the first time last summer and had a really good time, even though the weekend ultimately entailed about 200 miles of bike riding over several high mountain passes in its three days of road biking mayhem.

Well in spite/because of that, we're back again this year to ride once again. Now, mind you, this is a charity ride and not a competitive ride, so quite frankly I don't feel too terribly stressed out about being in top riding shape when the event starts. Which is a good thing, because I can safely tell you all that I am not in any way in top riding shape right now. I'm in pretty good running shape right now, and I'm sure some of that fitness translates, but running and biking are not the same thing. So I think I'd better train a bit before the event. Now I don't need to be in Jan Ulrich shape in 4 weeks, but I don't want to be miserable out there on those mountain climbs either, so some riding is in store.

Therefore please join me on a little blogging adventure as I try to get myself in biking shape for the Courage Classic. I hope that you will also consider donating to the Children's Hospital on my or Celeste's behalf by clicking on either or both of the links below, and giving generously:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

We're trying to raise $1,000 each -- $2,000 total, and I think as of today we have raised about $270 between the two of us. Not too shabby to start, but we have a ways to go. We're riding as part of the "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" team, whose members number six: Celeste and I, our cousins Tim and Brian, and our friends Tony and Chryss. We named out team after our new dog, Ziggy. We rescued him back in December and we named him after David Bowie because he had one brown and one blue eye. Come to find out that neither of David Bowie's eyes are Brown or Blue, they're both Hazel, and they only look like they're different colors because one eye is permanently dilated due to an old injury. This is David Bowie I'm referring to, not our dog Ziggy.

Regardless, I'm a bit off topic here, which is just as well because I'm not sure exactly how much time I can spend telling you about how badly I'm riding right now, but once and finally I'll get to that bit now.

The training:

So I figure, this Courage Classic features 200 miles of riding and bunches of hill climbs. I've been riding my bike to work most days, to the tune of 10 miles per day, but my commute is rather flat. So today after work I decided to go ride the biggest nastiest local hill climb I could think of. That's right, Rist canyon. I've only successfully climbed this crucible of pain one time ever. In fact it was last summer, when I was once again cramming for the courage classic. So here we go again. Rist canyon is about 2,500 feet of climbing in 10 miles of road. A pretty mellow climb for a run, actually, but nasty stuff on a bike. I've been doing a lot of hill climbing on foot lately so I thought I could breeze up Rist without too much trauma tonight on the bike. I thought wrong. Dang, biking is totally different than running. Maybe I went out too hard, but I fell apart about half way up the canyon. I didn't get started on my ride until about 6:45 pm, so I was actually running out of daylight in the narrow mountain canyon, but I was not able to make it to the top tonight. Heck, I think I only made it about 1/3 of the way up the canyon before I turned around into the calm cool evening.

It was a pretty ride, and I didn't see too many other riders up there tonight. I ended up with about 23 miles of riding and about 1,500 feet of climbing all told. This on top of my 10 commuting miles today makes for a fairly respectable 33 mile day. I'll take another crack at Rist next Monday on the 4th of July, and this time I may drag Celeste and Tony and Chryss along with me so we can all curse Ziggy together. It will be a team-building experience.

So I must admit that I was humbled by Rist tonight. Again, I may be in good running shape, but I am not in really good riding shape. At least not where I want to be. I'll keep you all updated on my training and fund raising progress over the next 4 weeks though, hopefully I'll be able to report good news on both fronts! And yes I'll continue to run as well, I can't give up my true love! I have a Bighorn 50 mile race report (I ran that jewel of a race the weekend before last) that I'll post in due time as well.

But for now let me remind you that while Ziggy played guitar, he never rode Rist.

aaaaaah, Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am (for donating)!

The Ghanaian Rockies

2011-06-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I posted a thorough deconstruction of the “Please Visit Ghana” Post Card #7. So as promised in that post, I present today the “Please Visit Ghana” Post Card #10.

This time we will mix it up a little and present the back of the card first. Please read carefully the post card description:

And I thought I had problems with run-on sentences. But you know what, through all the poor grammar and ramblings, I think Mr. Boateng does a pretty good job of selling Ghana as a tourist destination. We learn from here that Ghana has chiefs, who presumably have some measure of control of the people, who themselves are nice, and religious, and therefore tourists are encouraged to visit the palaces and learn about Ghanaian culture, and don't forget the rich mineral resources, and I think I have fallen into the same run-in sentence trap as Mr. Boateng. This post card business is trickier than it looks.

I know that the grammar is not correct, and it’s easy to scoff and laugh at that, but on the other hand I’m not sure I’d fare much better trying to create a post card of Colorado in Twi for Ghanaian tourists. What I can’t really understand, however, is the front of the card:

I’m no expert at mountains, but I’m no slouch either. Call me crazy, but my Messner-sense tells me I’m looking at St. Mary Lake in Glacier National Park; not Ghana. And once again, I must state that for the record that I did not see all that much of Ghana while I was there. So the possibility does exist that the background scene on “Please Visit Ghana” Post Card #10 is actually located somewhere in Ghana. But I'm guessing this is copied from a post card of Glacier National Park in the USA. This should take no leap of faith from anyone reading this, but I presume Mr. Boateng started with a post card someone mailed to Ghana from the USA. Then he pasted pictures of a Ghanaian soldier, Ghanaian drummers, and an Ashanti throne on to the original card, thus creating a whole new card. At best, it’s almost like the visual equivalent of a rap song that uses samples of other songs to create something wholly unique and fresh. At worst, it is a curiosity, something to be celebrated only with hipster irony and smug condescension.

St. Mary Lake. Just. Sayin.

And yet this crazy mash-up IS Ghana. It’s so Ghana. So my question is this; is the juxtaposition of Ghanaian cultural vignettes and the Rockies art, commerce, silliness, or perhaps some combination of the three? And more broadly speaking, are post cards art? Can art be accidental? What is this thing, exactly? Let’s get our over-analysis on, shall we?

First let’s start with the premise that post cards are indeed art. Although they are produced for commercial purposes, they are designed to be visually appealing and their intent is to give the purchaser and recipient pleasure. I realize that not all art is created solely to provide pleasure, but that is one function of art. A designer of postcards wants to make their product visually appealing so that it will sell. So I propose that the creation of a post card is an artistic act, and it is intentional art, and not accidental art. Art for commerce, but art nonetheless. But what sort of art is this?

Let’s see if we can categorize this post card as something called “naïve art”. Naïve art is an actual defined art form in painting. In its most correct definition, naïve art is characterized by painters who have formal training, but willfully choose to reject rules of “classic” painting, most notably the use of perspective and proper color. Sort of like punk rock painters, I guess. Of course naïve artists generally continue to paint actual recognizable images, unlike abstract art. I’d argue that our post card satisfies some of the criteria of naïve art. Lack of perspective, rejection of realistic color, yes. Recognizable images, well, sort of. I mean, I recognize everything in the post card, but we’re getting closer to Salvador Dali absurdest juxtaposition than Henri Rousseau bucolic exotica here. So I’m not convinced that naïve art is the best term for this particular work of art.

And I think serious “naïve artists” would take offense at this post card being described as naïve art, since Mr. Boateng probably did not make this post card with the intent of making naïve art and rejecting this or that artistic convention and sticking it to the (I assume) stuffy "post card" art establishment. He wasn’t making a statement; he was simply creating a post card. The fact that it looks like naïve art does not necessarily mean that it is naïve art. Intent is important. Artists can be so picky with labels…

So is there another term that fits better? May I present the term “Outsider Art” for your consideration? Outsider art is art created by people who have no formal art training. There are no rules to break for Outside Artists, simply because they don’t know what the rules are. Some people also will interchange this term with “Art Brut”, which is French for “Rough Art”, and also the name of a wonderfully silly English punk band. I am told that the term Art Brut was originally reserved for art created by people in insane asylums, so, you know, it’s probably best if we stick with Outsider Art for the purposes of this discussion.

Note that the definition of Outsider Art really has nothing to do with perspective, or colors, or subject matter, or intent, or any of that stuff. The term is reserved simply for people who make art, but have had no training at how to make it. Perfect. I’m going to assume that no one explained to Mr. Boateng the nuances and traditions of formal post card art. Therefore his wonderfully weird and, yes, naïve creations as less a willful rejection of that stuffy post card establishment, and more an unintentional outsider’s perspective on the form, done without any knowledge that rules were being broken.

By the way, I think I'm going to categorize this post as absurdest art.

Since I seem to think of things in musical terms, I am reminded of a song that provides a perfect musical analogy to my completely over-analyzed post card.

May I present to you the fountainhead of “outside” indie music. Not the Velvet Underground; The Shaggs. The Shaggs were a band from New Hampshire in the 60s. The band consisted of three sisters, who were managed by their father. They had no musical training whatsoever, and not to put too fine a point on it, one can get a sense of their lack of formal training on their 1969 release, called “Philosophy of the World”. I found a delightfully strange you tube animation for the song “My Pal Foot Foot” from this album, which you can peruse at your leisure here:

Listening to the song I am of course struck by the, uh, unconventional song structure and musicianship. Man, that’s weird stuff. But nonetheless it is a willful attempt at writing a song. This didn’t happen by accident, believe it or not. Furthermore, this is not the same as, say, the Rolling Stones writing a song that rejects the rules of rock music. It’s not even punk music in that regard, since part of ethos of punk was a rejection of the “rules” that bands such as the Rolling Stones followed. But even punk understands that there were rules to be broken. Quite frankly it was part of the fun. And even punk music didn't reject all the rules. The Shaggs don’t appear to even understand that there are rules at all. That’s what makes their music so fascinating, albeit difficult to listen to. It's what differentiates the Shaggs from the Velvet Underground, for example. Both bands broke the rules, but the Velvet Underground knew that they were breaking rules. The Shaggs were just making art. And quite frankly, the members of VU were better musicians. But that's beside my point.

So yes, I’m stating that Mr. Boateng’s post cards are the post card art equivalent of “The Shaggs”. Furthermore I’m stating that although it’s easy to mock Mr. Boateng’s post cards (and the Shaggs for that matter), and that it’s quite a lot of fun to do so incidentally, his post cards and the Shaggs music are actually unintentional and unique artistic statements in and of themselves. More for the outsider’s perspectives that they represent than for their beauty or formal quality of course, but art, nonetheless.

Get Him to Jemez

2011-05-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

ed. note: this is a bit of a departure from my recent posts. Last weekend I had the privilege of pacing Nick Clark (read his account here) for the final 14 miles of his victorious performance at the Jemez 50 mile trail run in Los Alamos, New Mexico. I thought the experience was worthy of a blog post, so without further adu please enjoy,

Nick Clark

and

Scott Slusher

Get Him to Jemez!

“Scott - Looks like I was through the ski lodge in just under 6:30 [elapsed time] last year (11:30 am). Hope to be there a little earlier this year - maybe 11:00 - but if you leave Santa Fe at 8:00 as planned then you'll have more than enough time.

See you out there - and thanks again (don't forget the gel).”

-Nick

The gel, the gel. I’ll get to “the gel” in due time. At this moment it is 11:15 am, and I am waiting for Nick on the wooden expanse of the Pajarito Ski Area base lodge deck. It is a gorgeous day, a little chilly at 9,200 feet elevation, but clear and mostly calm. I am ready. Maybe just a quick stop to the bathroom from being utterly and completely ready, ready to pace Nick Clark for the final 14 miles of his title defense at the Jemez 50 mile trail race here in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Nick is looking to win the race again, and also has his eye on setting the course record this time around. And I am here to help him.

Nick and I train together in Fort Collins, and he asked if I would run with him here in Los Alamos today when he found out I would be attending my cousin’s high school graduation in Santa Fe for the weekend. I figured it would be a good way to get in a fast training run as I prepare for my own 50 mile trail race in June, so I agreed to the venture. Nick is a much better runner than I, and normally I have no chance of keeping up with him in a race, which makes my pacing qualifications somewhat suspect. In fact I can think of only two handicaps that would allow me to keep up with Nick during a race. One, if he was significantly more fatigued than I, or two, if he was saddled with lots of extra weight, or perhaps required to lead an old truculent dog around the race course.

The Jemez 50 mile race does not require runners to carry heavy packs, or lead animals, truculent or otherwise, so no luck there, but it does allow racers to have a pacer for only the final 14 miles of the course. So I figured I could probably keep up with Nick as I would only have to run 14 miles to his 50, and I would be joining Nick only after he had ran 36 miles and negotiated something like 10,600 feet of climbing and 8,700 feet of descending. The equation goes something like this:

Nick - (34 miles * 10,600 feet climbing * 8,700 feet descending)

Slush - (0 miles * 0 feet climbing * 0 feet descending)

And yes, you read that correctly. The Jemez 50 mile race course boasts over 12,000 feet of climbing and descending over its 50-mile span. Let’s see if we can put this into perspective. Start with a marathon. Marathons are somewhat difficult, most would agree. Then consider the Pikes Peak Marathon, which contains about 7,000 feet of climbing and descending, and is advertised as the toughest marathon in the known universe, or something like that. Now double that distance and double the climbing and descending. Now you have something approximating the difficulty of the Jemez 50 mile race. Luckily for me, I would only have to climb about 1,400 feet and descend about 3,300 feet in the final 14 miles of the course. I was to be spared the most difficult parts of the course, it seems. Why my 14 miles of pacing seemed downright, uh, normal compared to the first 36 miles of the course. I admit to being a little nervous about trying to keep up with "Mr. October" while I paced him, but I would give it my best shot all the same.

Now I must confess that I did not leave Santa Fe at 8:00 am, as indicated in the email exchange. After briefly consulting the internet after my cousin’s graduation party the prior evening, I realized that I would only need about one hour to get to Pajarito Ski Area from Santa Fe. So I left at 9:00 am, blasted some Sepultura on the car stereo to get pumped up, and arrived in perfect time at 10:00 am. I was there in plenty of time to await Nick’s arrival. I checked in with the volunteers. “Have any of the 50-milers been through yet?” Nope, came the reply. In fact, only a handful of the 50-Kilometer runners had passed through this checkpoint at 10:00 am. Jemez was hosting a 50-K race at the same time, and a half marathon as well. I sat down and watched the 50-K runners arrive one by one. The aid station volunteers rang cowbells and cheered them all in and out of the checkpoint. I didn’t know exactly when Nick was going to arrive, but I figured I had some time to prepare. I ate a cliff bar and some fruit which I brought myself (pacers are not allowed to use the aid station food and water), and made sure I had all of my gear. Wind-breaker. Check. Hand-held water bottle. Full of water, even. Check. Little one-ounce Gu gel pack for me. Check. Super-giant five-ounce EFS gel flask for Nick. Berry-flavored. Check. Pom-pom (for extra motivation if needed). Check. Sun-screen. Applied. Check. Garmin GPS Watch. Check. Watch working. Un-check.

Oh great. I must have forgotten to power down my Garmin after I went for a run in Santa Fe the day before. I do that all the time. My watch had no battery life left in it. Usually it beeps at me when I turn it on, and it’s not even doing that. You know, part of being a “pacer” is the ability to relay the “pace” to your runner during the race. And Nick doesn’t actually run with a GPS watch, he runs with one of those Highgear altimeter watch things instead, so my ability to convey real-time pace information would actually be of some benefit here. As is the case with most trail runs, Jemez doesn’t have clocks on course, or mile markers on the trail, or even actual trail in some spots, so having some sort of independent pace verification mechanism is particularly handy. I’m officially the Worst Pacer Ever and I haven’t even started pacing yet. Well a dead watch isn’t going to do me any good on my wrist so I decide to run back down to my car and put it away. I’ve got to be speedy, though, in case Nick comes through while I’m down at the car.

Then I notice something strange about the garmin when I take it off my wrist. My garmin is missing the little plastic loop on the band that holds the band in place, and this garmin has its loop quite intact. Is this, in fact, my garmin? Suddenly I remember seeing a box at my cousin’s house for the exact same garmin product. I must have grabbed the wrong garmin from their house last night when I was packing for the run. A frantic search through the car produces my watch, which is, happily, fully charged and ready to go. I am now the Best Pacer Ever, and I haven’t even started pacing yet.

Watch procured and dialed in to the satellites, I now turn my attention to my next task. Namely, where to put Nick’s giant EFS gel flask. Nick was very adamant that I would bring with me a flask of his EFS super-gel for him to consume on the race. Hey, no problem, he’s the boss, I'm happy to help. He gave the gel flask to me in Fort Collins, and I brought it all the way with me to Los Alamos. The race has drop bags but Nick didn’t want to waste time rummaging through a bag for this stuff, so he gave it to me instead. The EFS gel flask is huge compared to most running gel products. It contains 400 calories in its 5 ounces of berry-flavored goodness. 400 calories? What’s this stuff made of, anyway? Berry-flavored Butter? Soylent Purple? And the size of the plastic flask is obnoxiously large. I’m suddenly keenly aware that I have no place to put this thing. Wait, my windbreaker has a single breast pocket that will hold the flask. I now look like I have a single flask-shaped boob (left side), but, you know, anything for my runner.

I end up meeting another pacer, a nice lady named Tina who is waiting to pace her friend who is racing the 50-K race. We engage in typical runner chit-chat (races, injuries, shoes, food, etc.) while I keep one eye on the ski slope above us. Nick will be coming down that slope – like literally straight down the slope, on a trail that defies all sense and logic – so I will have plenty of time to get ready for him after I see him coming down. It is 11:15 and I don’t see Nick coming down, so I decide to make one last quick stop to the bathroom before he does show up. That way I’ll be completely ready to pace and won’t need to make a potty break during my run. I ask Tina to watch my hand-held water bottle and I saunter on inside to the ski lodge bathroom. While I’m in there I hear an enormous cheer from outside. This is no ordinary 50-K runner cheer, this is a 50 Mile runner cheer. This is a Nick Clark cheer and I’m stuck in the bathroom. Worstpacerever. I burst out of the bathroom and run out onto the deck just as Tina is running into the lodge with my water-bottle in her hand. “Your runner just came through!” she says, handing my bottle to me. I grab my bottle, say thank you, start my watch, and take off at a dead sprint across the deck onto the trail, in hot pursuit of one of the fastest trail runners in the country. So much for a warm-up. Depending on how far ahead he is, and how fast he is going, there exists the grim possibility that I will not catch him for the next 14 miles. I re-double my effort and kick it into pain-mode. It won’t be the last time I have to do this today.

But the agony is thankfully short-lived. After about one tenth of a mile I can see Nick cruising through the trail ahead of me. I’m gaining on him, I am going to catch him, it’s all good. “Mr. Clark, I presume?” I ask as I settle in beside him on the jeep road. We’re tacking mostly uphill, it’s a gentle grade, and on my fresh legs I can keep pace, and actually push the pace a bit. I’m all excited and blabbing on about god-knows-what. Nick is quieter, to his credit doesn’t give me crap about being in the can when he came through the aid station. I’m thankful that Tina was there to tell him that at least I was in the general area and not completely AWOL. But I’m here now, and I’m pacing. Oh I’m pacing the hell out of Nick and this race.

We continue along in good form, and about a quarter mile from the next aid station (pipeline, for those keeping score at home) Nick hands me his empty water bottle, and instructs me to run ahead of him to the aid station and fill the bottle with flat coke and ice. This I now do. I take off at a solid clip in order to make sure that I can get this accomplished before Nick arrives, so that he doesn’t have to stop at all at the aid station. I barrel on into the aid station and start bellowing out “Coke!” and “Ice!” to anyone who will listen. A nice lady finds an open bottle of coke and starts pouring it into the bottle. It is not all that flat, but it is all there is. Then we go in search of ice. All the while Nick is rapidly closing the distance. This is taking too long. The ice is in a cooler under a bunch of stuff. Nick is here. The nice volunteer plops a few ice cubes into the bottle and hands it back to me. Nick is leaving the aid station. Once again I have to sprint after him, this time while trying to screw the cap back onto a very fizzy bottle of coke.

We’re heading up a rather steep uphill section, and I am able to catch up to him quickly. I hand the bottle back to Nick which is oozing coke foam from the lid and literally squirting foam out of the top, and rather stupidly point out that “the coke isn’t all that flat, but it’s all they had”. I think I’m back to Worst Pacer Ever. Nick is once again very charitable and does not complain.

We find ourselves on what turns out to be the last significant climb of the day, and the only significant climb of the day for me. I guess its called powerline, and it’s a straight-shot up a fairly loose and rocky dirt road. I don’t really know, I didn’t study the course that much to be quite honest. All I knew about my part of the course was what Nick told me; 14 miles, mostly downhill, not too technical. I have no idea how many more aid stations there are, or the distance between them, or anything. Say it with me now: Worst. Pacer. Ever. My usefulness seems to be confined to comic relief and exploding bottles of coke at this point.

It is clear that the prior uphill bits of this course have taken their toll on Nick. Remember that he has already climbed over 10,000 feet today, so his legs are understandably fatigued at this point. But Nick is willing himself to keep running, however slowly, and we pass several 50-K participants on this stretch who are walking this same hill. So the fact that Nick is still running at all at this point is rather impressive. I decide to offer some sage advice at this point about “running from your glutes (butt) because you won’t need them on the downhill”. Yes, I am dispensing running advice to a guy who wins ultra races. I don’t think I could possibly be a bigger jack-ass. Well whatever, I stand by what I said.

And clearly Nick followed my advice because as soon as we crest the top of the powerline hill and start down the other side, Nick decides that it is time to lower the boom, and he jets off down the hill like Keith Richards, wait, strike that, like Aldus Snow chasing down a Swedish bikini model with a handler of vodka in one hand and a joint in the other. Seriously it’s all I can do to keep up. We’re crushing this steep downhill jeep road. One slip and it’s all over. There’s no way I can keep this pace up. Jeez, exactly how fast are we going? I glance at my watch; 5:40 per mile. Ouch, that’s fast. I shout out a pace check to Nick as he begins to gap me by a few feet. Well, it was fun pacing him for 3.5 miles, I guess.

Blessedly the downhill section ends and we start back up another, shorter hill, and I am able to bridge the gap. But it was a wakeup call to me. Seriously, who drops sub-6 minute miles 39 miles into a 50 mile race? The course then leaves the jeep road and turns onto a lovely stretch of single-track trail through the forest. We’re going downhill again but it’s not quite as steep, and the trail is somewhat more technical, so the pace slows up a bit. We realize that we’re about 10 miles from the finish, and Nick does some “race math” and figures that if we can average 7:15 minute/miles from here to the finish, he can break the course record. The trail dips below the trees into the burned-out zone from the massive fire that hit Los Alamos in 2000. It’s pretty interesting to see the new forest starting to emerge from the remains of the old, and the lack of foliage provides a couple of advantages, but one disadvantage. First some advantages; one can see farther along the trail, which is nice because we can anticipate the terrain a little better. Particularly when climbing uphill, it is nice to know where the hill ends so you can gage your effort accordingly. Also it makes it easier to see runners ahead of you. Like I said, Nick at this point is leading the 50 Mile race, but we are passing quite a few 50 Kilometer racers at this point. I am actually able to serve a useful purpose here; although I’m running behind Nick on the single-track, I am able to call out ahead to the 50-K runners in advance or our overtaking them so that they can gracefully step off the trail and let us pass. They are all very courteous and encouraging as we go by, and I return the favor. It’s one of the many things I like about trail racing. Participants are very supportive and kind to each other. Passing each 50-K runner is like getting a little boost, a little ray of sunshine if you will. The only disadvantage to the loss of forest is that there is an abundance of real sunshine, and it is starting to warm up a bit. But because it is sunny and clear out, and the terrain so delightfully clear of obfuscating foliage, I can see 50 miles across the Rio Grande valley back to Santa Fe and the mountains beyond. It’s an impressive view. “Wow”, I blurt out, “the view is amazing up here!” Then realizing that I’m supposed to be pacing, and not sight-seeing, and should also probably be encouraging Nick to watch his footing and not the enchanting landscape, I correct myself and add, “I’ll look for you, you watch the trail. Trust me, it’s nice up here.” There. That’s how you pace! I’ll do anything for my runner, including enjoying the beautiful terrain, just so he doesn’t have to do it.

Nick was very sure-footed on the single-track, I only remember him stumbling one time over a rock. We were not hitting those sub-6 minute mile paces anymore (thank God) but we were motoring along at a pretty good clip. The first mile after the “7:15” estimate was a 7:19, which was very speedy all things considered, but not completely insane. We keep descending the mountain, and the miles peel away. We are hitting the splits. We don’t even bother stopping at the next aid station, we just keep plugging away. I ask Nick if he wants that giant EFS gel flask, which is still in the breast pocket of my jacket. My jacket is now tied around my waist, and the gel flask is positioned perfectly such that it acts like a tiny fist that is pounding my groin at every step. Seriously, why such a large freaking flask of gel! I keep having to rotate my jacket around to protect my, uh, nether-regions from grievous harm. Stupid EFS gel, I don’t care if you are berry-flavored, I hate you. And of course he doesn't want it yet, Nick still has one of his own that he's halfway through.

As we keep descending and keep getting closer, the temperature keeps rising. Heat is no one’s friend, and we’re both getting low on water. There is one more aid station between us and the finish; the Rendija Canyon aid station at mile 48.1. About one mile before that I see Nick taking the top off his Coke water bottle (he’s carrying two bottles). I think he’s trying to get the last drops of coke out of the bottle, and the screw cap is giving him some trouble, likely because it is rather sticky from all the coke foam detritus from my last bottle-filling adventure. Nick tugs it off and the cap slips out of his hand, and it hits the ground and starts rolling down the dusty trail beside him. Nick slows to pick it up. “Keep going,” I say, “I’ll get it.” I deftly swoop down (oh, yes, deftly. You should have seen it) and grab the cap as Nick sucks down the last drops of coke. I grab the now-empty bottle from Nick and move to screw the cap back on. I’ll hang on to the bottle and re-fill it at the last aid station. But the cap is filthy, covered in dirt both inside and out. Crap, now what. I can’t just refill the bottle like that, I’ve got to clean off the cap somehow. I’ve got some water left in my hand-held bottle, not a lot, but enough. I could stop for a minute and clean off the cap, but I’m barely hanging on to Nick’s pace as is; any delay could be the last I’d see of him. So I have to clean off this cap on the run. I’m carrying two water bottles, plus one detached cap, and I’m trying to figure out how to do this. My brilliant solution? Suck in a big ‘ol mouthful of water from my water bottle, and spit it out all over the sandy, dirty cap. And repeat until the cap is reasonably clean. Yes that’s right, make that cap literally spit-shine clean, soldier. Why didn’t I just squeeze the water from the water bottle onto the cap? I can only answer that by asking you to not judge too harshly decisions made in the heat of battle. Or the heat of Jemez.

Now in retrospect it turns out my GPS watch was measuring short. Meaning, when my watch said we had gone, say 10 miles we had actually gone more like 10.4 miles. Ultimately this gave us a pleasant surprise but it nearly killed me in the intervening miles. You see, having successfully, if not entirely sanitarily, cleaned Nick’s water bottle, I was now instructed to run ahead again to the next aid station, the one at Rendija Canyon, and re-fill it once again with coke and ice. Nick told me that the aid station was 1.9 miles from the finish, and I looked at my watch and was informed by it that we had about 1 mile to go until reaching the aid station. I started to make my move and get ahead of Nick, which was not an easy task by the way, since we were descending a series of sandy switchbacks and he was already running them at a sub-7 minute mile pace. I put in a huge effort and start to gap him ever so slowly when I see a sign for the aid station indicating that it is only about a quarter of a mile ahead. I thought I had about three-quarters of a mile. I am so screwed. I immediately take off, once again, at a dead sprint down the switchbacks in order to gap Nick as much as possible. My legs are screaming, my heart is pounding, I have no idea how fast I’m going but I think it’s the fastest I have ever run. I want to look at my watch but I fear if I take my eyes off the trail for even an instant I am going to tumble down the switchbacks the fast way and land in a heap of hurt at the canyon floor. I come barreling into the aid station hoarsely shouting “COKE! ICE! HE’S COMING! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” Actually I don’t shout that last stuff. I probably didn’t shout any of it. Once again the helpful aid station volunteers find the bottle of coke and start pouring. There’s no time for this. As fast as I have ran Nick is right behind me. I’m certain he picked up his pace when I did. That’s not fair; you’re supposed to give me a chance! Slow down! I hate you! Nick is through the aid station before the ice can be located. The volunteers, god bless them, are carefully putting ice cubes one-by-one into Nick’s bottle as he starts up the other side of the canyon. I can’t wait any longer; I grab the bottle, only half-filled with coke and ice, and take off once again at a dead-sprint up the canyon wall to catch Nick.

I manage to reach him but my legs are shot, I am totally spent with the effort. I don’t feel anything recovering as we plod up the canyon, and we’re not really going that fast. I hand Nick his bottle and inform him that if he gaps me, it’s ok, I might not have enough to keep up with him anymore. And I’m ok with that. I’ve paced Nick for 12 miles out of 14, I think I’ve done more good than harm. I think he can handle the rest. Let’s revise the equation:

Nick - (48.1 miles * 11,600 feet climbing * 11,800 feet descending)

Slush - (12.1 miles * 1,000 feet climbing * 3,100 feet descending)

Nick hands me his EFS gel flask for me to carry. As soon as he hands it to me I see a cardboard box cum trash can, and I toss the half-empty gel flask into the box. Wait, did he say carry or toss? “Uh, did you want my to hang on to that thing?” I ask. Because I have a full one giving my crotch fusillade broadsides at every step, you know…”Yup”, he says. I run back down the hill and grab the flask, and fall further behind.

Nick isn’t saying much anymore, by the way. He’s pretty spent, particularly on the up hill bits. And who can blame him; he’s less than 2 miles from completing a 50 mile race, from perhaps setting the course record to boot. But it seems as though the victory is in hand at this point. Earlier Nick told me when he was at mile 14 or so he was 10 minutes ahead of the guy in second place, but neither of us know what that gap is now. As it turns out, the gap was about 90 minutes between Nick and Brendon Trimboli, the gentleman who finished second. Of course at the time we didn’t know that the gap was so large, and more importantly Nick had is eye on a more prestigious goal. He was racing against history now.

Back in 2007, in the second running of the Jemez 50 mile race, a young 22-year old named Kyle Scaggs showed up and ran this brutal course in 8 hours and 9 minutes. 8:09:39, to be exact. The following year in 2008 he came back and beat his own time, running it again in 8:08:15. Later that year Kyle went on to set the course record at the Hardrock 100 mile race (which is to the Jemez 50 as the Jemez 50 is to, say, the Pikes Peak Marathon), with a preposterous time of 23 hours and 23 minutes, a record which to my knowledge still stands. These results, particularly the Hardrock race result, were “game changers” in the sport of ultra trail running, seen as pretty much unbreakable. As I mentioned, in 2010 Nick came down to Jemez and won, with a time of 8:26. Of course he could have ran 8:26 again this year and won again, but Nick felt like he could make a go at Kyle’s 8:08 this time around.

Now with one mile to go, course records and Kyle Scaggs and all that are about the farthest things from my mind. Somehow I was able to finally recover from my aid-station sprint and bridge the gap between Nick and me, but I was feeling pretty used and abused by this point. We were clipping along at a low-8 minute/mile pace along a nice wide dirt trail. Although I was pretty fatigued, I was enjoying myself. Record or not, it was a very nice way to finish the race. Of course never having never ran this race before, nor studied the map, I had no idea what last little bit of fun was in store for us.

With less than on quarter of a mile to go, the trail makes an abrupt turn to the right straight up a rock wall. Seriously? That’s it, I’m out. This is about the most uncalled for thing I can think of. I am sick and tired of uphills, and rocks, and climbing, and trying to keep up with this maniac. We start marching up the steps hewn into the rock, and although I don’t really know how much farther we have to go, I know we are close because all of a sudden there are spectators cheering us on. But I’m done. I give Nick one final piece of advice, “Pour it out!”, and let him gap me once and for all.

Cresting the rock wall the trail makes another turn to the right and into the finisher’s chute. In my opinion it is bad form for pacers to accompany their runners through the finish line, so I courteously slide off to the left and jog up the road parallel to the finish. Honestly at this point I had no idea if Nick was close to setting the course record. Like I said, we weren’t talking much at the end of the race. I thought he may have been mad at me for committing any or all of the following crimes: a) spitting all over his water bottle, b) handing him an exploding bottle of coke, c) throwing away his EFS gel (later recovered, so, not too bad), or d) not even being there at the ski lodge when he passed through.

Ahh, but victory glosses over all faults, and as I jogged up the road I could see Nick crossing the finish line, and I could also see the official finish line clock, and it said “8:07:45”. Course record, baby. Nick beat the course record by 30 seconds. Holy crap that's awesome! He did it! Victory and course record, you just don't see that every day. And by a scant 30 seconds. That’s not a very big gap. It’s a difference of one-tenth of one percent. Unbelievable, dramatic, exciting, inspiring. I’m proud to be a part of it. I can't tell you how inspiring it is to run with Nick and watch him put in the effort to win and set the record. I learned a lot running with him, and I know he was totally psyched to pull it off. And I’d like to think that I helped him pull it off as well. Somehow I got Aldus to the Greek, baby. Now really any pacer would have probably spurred Nick on to the record, and I think a more well-qualified and well-prepared pacer may have helped Nick to an even greater victory, but even if all I did was save him 31 seconds at the aid stations, then I did just enough to help him make it happen.

Nick is running the Western States 100 in June, and also taking a crack at the Hardrock 100 in July. Based on his result in Jemez he has to be seen as a favorite in both races now, if he wasn’t before (which he was, but whatever). And I’m offering up my services as a pacer to anyone looking to break course records. Just don’t ask me to carry your EFS gel flasks. And don’t expect me to actually show up on time, or know the course or anything. But don’t worry, we’ll get it done one way or another.

Vida

2011-05-09T19:43:00.000-07:00

Man this is weird. I’m sitting in the living room of one Mr. Patrick Achempong, bank security guard and taxi cab owner, middle-class (for Ghana) Koforidua resident, and his wife Mary, and their three daughters Vida, Patience, and Doris. Just me and the Achempongs. Patrick speaks a little English, as does Vida, the oldest daughter, but the others, not so much. Mostly we sit and smile at each other. Mary busies about the kitchen making supper, and they offer to let me play my cassette tapes of American music. What would they like? I only brought two tapes with me for my three-day visit with this family; one cassette with the Indigo Girls and Van Morrison, and the other with David Bowie and The Specials. I select the Indigo Girls and press play.

The stereo is cranked super-loud, and for some reason plays the tapes ridiculously fast. Why it’s like listening to a whole new band! Let’s slam-dance to the Indigo Girls! I can’t tell if they enjoy this hyper-caffeinated, totally-blown-speaker version of “Airplane”, but I find it oddly appropriate and amusing. I start to laugh. They have no idea why I’m laughing. That’s the second biggest thing I miss most about home; I don’t share a sense of humor with the Ghanaians. (First is the food) Well they seem to be tolerating the Indigo Girls at least. Or they’re too polite to tell me otherwise. The Achempong family is religious. Evangelical Protestant, I think. I wonder if they think we’re listening to a religious song. Is this a religious song?

"Up on the airplane

Nearer my God to thee

I start making a deal

Inspired by gravity"

Well they say “God” there in the second line, so, you know, close enough. And the Indigo Girl with the “pretty” voice is taking lead on this one, so that’s good, that’s helpful. The other one might scare them. Heck she scares me a little, and I’m American. An American boy, mind you. I always feel like I shouldn’t be listening to the Indigo Girls, like I’m peeking in on the girl’s only clubhouse. But I’m a sucker for harmonies and lyrics. The lyrics on “Airplane” are about traveling, being away from home, so although I’m not currently on an airplane I find the song quite appropriate.

I wonder if they have a song about complete communication breakdown? That might be more appropriate as we all sit and stare at each other. I didn’t bring my copy of Led Zeppelin I with me to Ghana. Seriously I have no idea what to say to these people. I’ve been in Ghana for almost two months now. Our in-country training is wrapping up and we’ll be sent to our volunteer sites in a week or so. In fact just this day I found out where I’ll be living and teaching for the next two years. I’ll be moving to a little town called Boso, in the hills on the border of the Eastern Region and the Volta Region. Not too far from Koforidua, actually. But first I must survive my home stay with the Silent Achempongs. I realize that I’m a bit of curiosity, being all, you know, the white Obruni American and everything, but their curiosity is limited, apparently, to the non-verbal kind.

I am temporarily saved by supper. And it is really quite good; beans and rice, and plantain, and soda! They offer me an Orange Fanta soda. The soda here comes in glass bottles. The bottles are not merely recycled but actually re-used, over and over until they literally break. Then I presume the broken glass is used to make beads or finds some other use. They really don’t throw much away. Food waste goes to the chickens in the yard. Trash is mostly limited to scraps of paper, which is frequently burned in the back yard. I’m told now that trash is more of an issue in Ghanaian cities, which is really too bad.

My Orange Fanta is not cold but it is very delicious. And after supper they offer biscuits! Not American biscuits, flaky and covered in gravy, but English cookies. They call them biscuits here just like the English, and they come in little sleeves, and I think that they actually are from England, and they are just about the most delightful things I can possibly think of. Little shortbread biscuits. I eat like 12 biscuits and consider supper a grand success.

I have my own room in the house, furnished simply with a bed and a strange green fluorescent light on the wall, and a wooden chair, and a print of Jesus – hazel-eyed, chestnut-haired White Jesus, mind you – and that’s it. The bed mattress is foam, covered in plastic with a sheet above the plastic, so it squeaks whenever I move. I try to lie still on my back and sleep. I’m low to the ground and there’s no ceiling fan so it’s pretty hot in there. I always find it awkward to sleep too low to the ground or too close to the ceiling, so I sleep fitfully on my low bed in the heat of the night, and wake up on my own before 6 am, to the sound of roosters crowing and Mary sweeping the porch with a rough whisk broom. I’m not really sure when I’m supposed to wake up, much less where I should brush my teeth, even where to use the toilet – there doesn’t seem to be a bathroom in the house, or a sink? I’m too embarrassed to ask anyone so I decide I’ll just wait to do those things until Patrick takes me back to school, where I’m teaching summer-school students. Problem solved? Sure; if the problem you’re trying to solve is “how to survive in Ghana without figuring out how Ghanaians do things.” I realize I’m sort of mentally shutting down on my host family and the longer it goes, the worse it’s going to get.

I get dressed and enter the living room. I realize when I am presented with breakfast consisting of a warm Fanta, and a plate of English biscuits thoughtfully laid out in a circular pattern upon a plate, that I may have shown a bit much gusto when demolishing all the previous night’s biscuits. Hey, I’m a stereotype! An Ugly American with awful, and expensive, eating habits. Now I feel pretty stupid. What, I inquire, are you all eating for breakfast? They don’t seem to share the same enthusiasm for English biscuits as do I. Cold beans and rice leftover from last night. Well ok, that makes sense. I should refuse the biscuits and Fanta. But I really want them. And they’re already out of the package, and it would be rude to refuse their hospitality, so, ok. Fanta and biscuits for breakfast it is. If you’re going to be a spoiled brat, at least get some biscuits out of the deal.

Eventually I was able to overcome my problems with Ghanaian food, and I did end up eating local for most of my meals. However the one meal of the day I refused to “go native” was breakfast. Every morning at my site I would cook up oatmeal, mix it with powdered milk, and eat it with fresh-squeezed orange juice and bananas. Ghanaians didn’t eat much dairy, and the powdered milk was marketed almost exclusively to mothers to make baby formula, so I’m certain they thought me strange for buying gigantic tins of powdered milk during my stay there. But breakfast remained the one meal of the day I had to have all to my own.

But on the home stay you are at the mercy of your hosts. After school Patrick and Vida picked me up in his taxi, and we went back to his house for Friday night dinner and church. During school on Friday I toyed with the idea of feigning an illness to get out of the rest of my home stay, but ultimately I was ashamed of myself for thinking such things. I resolved to stick it out and try to enjoy my stay with the Achempongs and try to learn something about them. Church was quite enjoyable, there was lots of singing. Traditional western hymns mostly, some in English and some in Twi. I like singing; it’s my favorite part of church, actually. Of course I was a bit of an object of interest at the church, and many people wanted to say hello and shake my hand.

Around this time I began to notice that Vida, Patrick’s oldest daughter, and a young woman probably 2 or 3 years my junior, seemed to always be positioned very near to me. I began to harbor suspicions that The Achempongs might be trying to set me up with their daughter! Oh boy. My suspicions grew throughout the next day when we all went to a funeral for the day. Nothing sows the seeds of love like a good funeral, I always say.

First thing you need to understand about Ghanaians, at least the Akan people, is that funerals are a big deal. Funerals are the social event of the week. Akans spend obscene amounts of money on funerals. I’ve mentioned this briefly before. The Ga people in particular like to make customized fantastical coffins for their dearly departed. Coffins in the shapes of cars, alligators, airplanes, guitars, kenke, you name it, they’ve made a coffin out of it. And the funerals themselves are lavish affairs, lasting all day typically, with dancing, and speeches, and more dancing, and food, and palm wine, and did I mention the dancing? It is important to them to send out their dear family members in style. It’s too bad the object of the funeral is never around to enjoy the party, because I think they would enjoy it. One of life’s little ironies, I suppose. Or death’s, depending on your particular role in the whole affair.

The Achempongs dressed me up like a real African for the funeral, with a proper funeral outfit. This consisted of a gigantic toga, if you will, of brightly colored cotton cloth. Probably three or four yards of material all told, expertly wrapped around my waist and body and shoulder. I was wearing naught but my underwear underneath, and only sandals on my feet. I had a picture of the event which I can no longer find, and I can not begin to tell you how white I looked in that outfit. I appreciated that they wanted me to experience the funeral as a real African, but I felt rather self-conscious and curiously naked, like I was wearing a towel around town all day. And my shoulder got a nasty sunburn, because bring Africa and all, it was rather hot and sunny out.

But the Ghanaians seemed to appreciate the gesture, even if it didn’t originate with me, and the Achempongs seemed pleased that I was “their obruni” for the day. As mentioned, we sat around the funeral for several hours, and I watched the dancing and listened to the speeches, well the ones in English at any rate, and generally enjoyed myself. I didn’t even know who the funeral was for. And Vida was a more-or-less constant companion. She kept bringing me things to eat and I think she would have danced with me with great pleasure had I been brave enough to try that.

I had mixed feelings, at best, about being “set up” with Vida. On one hand I was flattered. Vida was a nice-looking young woman, and what man doesn’t like the attentions of a pretty young woman? But I couldn’t shake the suspicion that maybe, just maybe, the entire reason Patrick Achempong agreed to a home stay was to see if he could introduce a nice, or more importantly rich, American to his lovely daughter. Ha ha, joke was on him, I was neither nice nor rich. Insufferable and dirt poor, more like it. But this offended me somewhat. In retrospect I don’t know why I was so uptight about being set up, maybe that’s just the way things are done in Ghana? And really, who can blame Patrick for trying; I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the most handsome man out there, but I do have one thing that sets me apart from all of Vida’s assumed young Ghanaian suitors; American citizenship.

Basically I was a potential lottery ticket to the Achempongs. If they could get me to fall in love with sweet Vida, and marry her and take her home to America with me, then the Achempongs would be set financially. I could send money back to the Achempongs, or maybe even bring them all with me back to America. Patrick was just looking out for his family, and it’s difficult to fault him for that. But I did fault him of course. I was offended that he would view me as just a ticket to prosperity. That’s not how things work in America, buddy! We don’t marry for convenience; we have to agonize over potential soul-mates, and compatibility, and chemistry. Marriage isn’t a career choice. Not for most of us, at any rate. But Americans are by and large wealthy, and we can afford to care about such frivolous things like love and happiness.

And I just couldn’t see myself being in love with Vida, poor girl! And why not, you ask? Was she ugly? Far from it. Vida was quite pretty, actually. Ghanaians on the whole, in my opinion, are some of the most attractive people I have ever seen. They are athletic and fit, they have fantastic skin, and nice smiles. They’re certainly among the most attractive Africans, and I don’t think I’m being biased, but I probably am. And Vida was a nice looking young woman. A nice looking young Black African Woman. And therein was the problem. How can I put this without sounding racist? I can’t, really. I wasn’t attracted to Vida, in part, because she was black. There, I said it. Don’t hate me. I’m not a bad parson. Everyone has a type, right? It’s biological! If Vida was an American, I still don’t think I would be attracted to her, even though objectively speaking, she was pretty.

But being American probably would have helped her cause. The other big problem was that Vida was Ghanaian. Or more properly speaking, Vida was not American. We didn’t share the same culture. Things I found funny she did not find amusing. I don’t think Vida found anything amusing, actually. We didn’t talk much. I think she was nervous to be around me, she wanted to make a good impression, she didn’t want to offend me. I prefer women who speak their mind, who laugh loudly, who are intelligent and know what they want. Vida appeared to be none of those things, at least while she was with me. And remember, as an American, I can afford to care about things like compatibility and chemistry.

The whole experience was sort of miserable. The funeral lasted for hours, and it was hot, and I was positively boiling sitting there wrapped up in 4 yards of brightly-colored toga, and I was on some sort of blind date that I had no intention of pursuing any further. I felt bad for Vida but I didn’t want to lead her on, so I remained polite but distant. Vida probably had a miserable time as well. Even across cultures she had to sense that I was not interested in any sort of relationship with her. She probably felt like she was letting her family down, because she, for reasons unfathomable to her, was not good enough for me. Heck, maybe Vida wasn’t attracted to White American Men, and was not happy to be set up with me either. I didn’t ask to find out. That would have been an awkward conversation.

And I was annoyed that I was not able to just be myself and enjoy the weekend. I felt like I had to maintain my guard at all times, so as not to let them think that I was interested in Vida, and wanted to take her back to America with me. Which was stupid really, and probably a convenient excuse to remain aloof and detached all weekend. I began to second-guess myself. Maybe this whole match-making thing was all in my head? Was my ego that big to presume that they wanted to set their daughter up with me? There really was no way to ask directly, I suppose. I was best to assume the worst, just in case.

I found out I was right, by the way, a couple of days later. I was back at the school, and it was after class. Us Peace Corps volunteers were playing ultimate Frisbee against the Ghanaian school kids. We were hopeless playing soccer against them, and the Frisbee game employed similar strategy, so we found that ultimate Frisbee was a more competitive game. Anyway as the game was finishing up, one of the school kids came up to me and said that there was a man to see me. I walked to the edge of the field and there was Patrick, standing next to his car. He was alone. He had a gift for me, a sleeve of biscuits. Remember, cookies. Delightful English cookies. Patrick gave me the biscuits and asked if I would like to come and have dinner with his family again. I declined. I told him that it was very nice to meet his family, but that I would be leaving Koforidua soon to go teach at another school, and I needed to prepare for my new assignment. I mean it was true that I was leaving soon, but believe me, there was nothing I could have done to properly prepare for Boso at that point. I felt like I was breaking up with the Achempongs; I could certainly see the disappointment on Patrick’s face. I knew I was right, but it didn’t make me feel any better. Somehow it made me feel like a big jerk. Particularly since I was planning on taking the biscuits anyway. We shook hands and Patrick drove away, and I never saw him, or Vida, or any of the Achempongs again. I guess I got more home stay than I bargained for, but not as much as Patrick would have liked.

Greg Mortenson Speaks

2011-05-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

After writing my post about the Krakauer vs. Mortenson scandal, I started reading several articles that tried to defend Greg Mortenson and/or discredit Jon Krakauer. I read the articles with great interest, and thought that perhaps I had been a little too tough on Greg. After all, his organization did build a lot of schools in Pakistan, right? And what if Mr. Krakauer had it all wrong? I started to feel that maybe, just maybe, I was piling on Mr. Mortenson a bit. So in the interest of being fair and telling Greg’s side of the story, allow me to present an interview with Greg Mortenson, and my comments pertaining to the interview.

Greg gave an interview on his web site regarding the “60 Minutes” television piece and the Krakauer article. You can read the entire interview here (click here). I’ll summarize for those of you who would rather read the short version.

First of all, Greg addresses the allegations that the stories in the book “Three Cups of Tea” are fabricated or at least stretched. In my last post I mentioned the story about Greg getting lost and wandering into a remote village half-dead, and another story about being abducted and imprisoned by Taliban-esque tribesmen. There were other alleged fabrications, but these seemed to me to be the most interesting. I came to the conclusion that these fabrications, if accurately denounced by Krakauer, were ultimately fairly benign in the grand scheme of issues presented. And that is more of an indictment on the more serious issues than an attempt to sweep the stories under the rug. But some people I’ve talked to were quite annoyed by the thought that Greg would “stretch the truth” in order to make his book more exciting and compelling. And I can see their point. The alleged fabrications diminish his credibility, which in turn makes one look more suspiciously at the other, more serious allegations. So it’s a good place to start. So, were the stories made up? Well, sort of. To quote Greg from Greg’s interview,

“What happens then is, when you re-create the scenes [for the book], you have my recollections, the different memories of those involved, you have his writing, and sometimes things come out different. In order to be convenient, there were some omissions. If we included everything I did from 1993 to 2003 it would take three books to write it. So there were some omissions and compressions, and … I don’t know, what that’s called?”

Literary license?

“Yeah. So, rather than me going two or three times to one place, he would synthesize it into one trip. I would squawk about it and be told that it would all work out.”

(Outside Magazine, April 24 2011, Greg Mortenson Speaks, by Alex Heard)

(Note that I'm not sure if I can quote from the web site, so I may have to take these quotes down at some point. I'll try to keep the quotes brief but I want to be as truthful as possible to what Greg actually said.)

Ok, so Greg is admitting that the story is not 100% factual. He also seems to be saying that maybe the co-writer David Oliver Relin had more to do with the fabrications. Which again, I can accept to a point. But let’s get down to brass tacks: Was the story about getting lost and ending up at Korphe/Khane truth or fiction?

But you stand by the Korphe story as it was written?

“Well, there are discrepancies that, again, have to do with compression of events.”

(Outside Magazine, April 24 2011, Greg Mortenson Speaks, by Alex Heard)

And I’ll paraphrase the compression of events from Greg’s perspective. Greg did in fact wander into Korphe, not Khane, making a wrong turn as he approached the village of Askole. He stayed in Korphe for the afternoon and then continued on his way to Askole. About a year later he went back to Korphe and decided to build a school there. So it wasn’t quite the dramatic near-death-school-building-revelatory experience, but a slightly more drawn-out-mundane-gradual-realization experience. Not a compelling story. I’m a little bored just paraphrasing it for you.

And no mention about the Khane village thing, wherein Krakauer accuses Mortenson of promising to build a school in Khane, and then reneging on the deal and building one in Korphe anyway. That’s the more distasteful part of this whole story, but Greg doesn’t get asked that question.

On to the “Taliban” in Waziristan. In “Three Cups of Tea” Greg claims to be abducted and imprisoned. Krakauer claims nothing of the sort happened. The reason this is important is that if false, it indicates that Greg is willing to invent a “bad guy” in order to make his message more urgent.

Greg’s response:

“Anyway, that whole story [about being abducted, etc.] is pretty much accurate. I was detained during my time there. My passport was taken from me, my money was taken from me, and when I was moved a blanket was put over my head. Initially, the first two days, I got really depressed because I didn’t know what exactly was going on. I didn’t try to run away or anything, but I did try to be very kind and befriend the people.”

And

“I wasn’t allowed to leave, and I was kept in a room, very small, with one window and a burlap sack and a bed in it. I always had one or two armed guards with me, smoking a lot of hashish.”

(Outside Magazine, April 24 2011, Greg Mortenson Speaks, by Alex Heard)

What Greg is saying may be technically accurate. Maybe he was initially detained and then was able to talk to and work with his captors and guards, once they determined that they could trust him. Maybe he was detained at a particular checkpoint for some time. Heck that kind of stuff happened to me in Ghana from time to time. Maybe he had to be hidden for a while for his own good, either to conceal his presence from other locals or even government officials. Having admitted to using some literacy license already, one has to wonder exactly how much is made up. The question is, as a potential donor, as a reader of the book, does it bother you? Does it matter? If you knew going into the book that it was “mostly” factual, or even “basically” factual, would you be more willing to accept that maybe not all of these things actually happened, would you still get something out of the message? I think it’s a fair question to ask, and I think it is totally fine to be on either side of this divide. Personally I'm more willing to accept the fabrications but others are less willing, and I respect that.

Greg then goes on the offensive a bit, which I like to see. The interviewer and Greg spend some time explaining how Krakauer and 60 Minutes basically ambushed him for interviews at the last minute, while Greg’s health was (and remains?) poor, and did not give him a fair chance to respond to the allegations:

“On April 13^th [2011, Krakauer] sent me this email saying, I’ve been trying through a mutual friend to get in touch with you, you’ve avoided me, never gotten back, and now I need to meet you by Saturday or Sunday, because we have a story coming out and it’s really important that I talk to you.”

And

“I was at a gathering called the Community Service Leadership Convention at a Hyatt hotel, mostly with college and high-school kids. I got done and was at a book signing with two or three hundred kids, with some adults, too.

Out of the blue, there’s a rush by Kroft and two cameramen. They got on both sides of me and I looked to my right and he said, “Steve Kroft.” I said, “Excuse me?” He said, I’m Steve Kroft and I’d like to talk to you and can you give me five minutes? This was all on film, so perhaps my exact words here, from memory, are not verbatim.”

(Outside Magazine, April 24 2011, Greg Mortenson Speaks, by Alex Heard)

The point being that according to Greg, neither Krakauer nor 60 minutes gave him enough time to respond to the allegations presented before publishing the article and airing the TV broadcast. This is a bit of he-said-she-said, since Krakauer, for his part, did claim to be trying to reach Mortenson well before his article was published. The idea here is to try to provoke some sympathy for Greg.

But all of this is kind of irrelevant, the Jon-said-Greg-said stuff. The truth is illusive. Financial statements are a little less open to interpretation, however.

The things I found most disturbing about Krakauer’s article were that less than 50% of the money coming in to CAI was going to what I consider actual charity work, and that the primary reason for that low percentage was that CAI was footing the bill for Greg’s speaking tours and actually using charitable funds to purchase copies of “Three Cups of Tea” at retail cost.

What does Greg have to say about those allegations?

“Using charter flights, which I only started doing in 2009, allowed me to pack in many more cities. I get about 2,400 speaking requests a year. About 400 of the ones last year were offering to pay money. So I mix them. And, since January, I have totally paid for all my own travel.”

You pay all your own travel now?

“Yes, since mid-January”

(Outside Magazine, April 24 2011, Greg Mortenson Speaks, by Alex Heard)

That’s progress, at least! One problem I see is the inherent conflict of interest present between the book “Three Cups of Tea”, whose sales benefit Greg and his co-writer only, and the charity, whose donations benefit Greg also. Since the book is sort of the mouthpiece of the charity, it is difficult to separate one from the other. And while it may not be illegal, it seems odd to be spending CAI money to promote and purchase a book that is pretty much about CAI and its mission, but the proceeds of which do not come back to the charity directly. And Greg understands this now as well:

”CAI, Three Cups of Tea, and Greg Mortenson are pretty much all part of each other. As much as it would be great to separate everything, we’re all intricately woven. They said CAI needs me, and I’m really the only reason CAI can exist right now.”

(Outside Magazine, April 24 2011, Greg Mortenson Speaks, by Alex Heard)

I’m not sure if the final statement is true but having said that, really the next logical step is to either completely separate the book and the charity, or sign over the royalties to CAI. Seems like Greg is opting more for the former strategy by starting to pay for all his own travel. Hopefully this also means that CAI will no longer by purchasing books with donated money. But Greg didn’t go that far. In fact, when asked why less than 50% of CAI’s money goes to building schools, Greg offers this defense:

“much of the [money that didn’t go to building schools] was spent on CAI’s other charitable programs, which include domestic outreach and education about the need for the schools. Our education mission includes both educating young people in Pakistan and Afghanistan—especially girls—and educating the American public about how promoting education in these countries contributes to peace. CAI has been setting aside funds, now totaling over $20 million, that will be restricted to provide scholarships, teacher training, and maintain the schools and their programs for years to come.”

(Outside Magazine, April 24 2011, Greg Mortenson Speaks, by Alex Heard)

Domestic outreach and education sounds like traveling around the country and spending lots of money on copies of “Three Cups of Tea”, to me. Granted I get that charities need to spend some money on domestic outreach, or marketing, or something to bring in the donations, but it still seems like CAI is spending way too much money on these sorts of things. I think a good benchmark for administrative expenses for a charity is probably 25%, or less, depending on the type of charity. I know that CAI doesn’t see domestic outreach as an administrative expense, and I suppose that is where the divide exists. If you are willing to accept that a core part of the mission of CAI is domestic outreach and speaking engagements, then you can accept that CAI is spending donations appropriately. If you think that those activities, even though they might be worthwhile, are not the raison d'être of CAI, then you must conclude that CAI is not spending donations appropriately.

I come away from the interview thinking that Greg understands why people might be upset by the allegations, and that he is trying to address some of them and improve how CAI and Greg himself do business. Greg probably didn’t think anything he was doing was all that offensive or wrong, and I doubt he’ll change completely. It remains to be seen if 60 Minutes and Jon Krakauer have successfully prosecuted CAI and Greg Mortenson in the court of public opinion. I would say that most people I have talked to about this affair have concluded that Greg and CAI have been performing poorly and spending inappropriately. But some have defended Greg, and will continue to do so. Personally, I’ll give my money to another charity, thank you very much.

Two Cents on Three Cups of Tea

2011-04-26T22:26:00.000-07:00

I never read “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson. I know it was a very popular book for quite some time. First published in 2006, it has gone on to sell several million copies. We think. My impression of “Three Cups of Tea” was that it was a story that sort of paralleled “Seven Years in Tibet”, which is, of course, another book that I have never read. So right off the bat I have no logical reason to be writing this post. Whatever; at least I’m being honest. Unlike some people.

Now not having read either book I get the impression that the two books do have some things in common: both take place in the mountains of Central Asia, both are autobiographical and adventurous in nature, and both highlight the plight of some of the poorer and “underdeveloped” peoples on the Earth. Both books have a white protagonist living in a foreign, exotic land. Both have numbers in their titles. Prime numbers, even.

However it would appear that there is one big difference between the two books: “Seven Years in Tibet” appears to be an inspiring and thought-provoking true story, and “Three Cups of Tea” appears to be an enjoyable and inspiring work of fiction, but passed off as non-fiction in order to promote a charity whose actions don’t quite measure up to their ideals.

Once again in the interest of full disclosure I must state that I have not read “Three Cups of Tea”, and quite frankly do not know all that much about Greg Mortenson. But one thing I have read recently is a little story called “Three Cups of Deceit” by modern day adventurer/writer/muckraker Jon Krakauer, which was featured on “60 Minutes” last week and basically accuses Greg Mortenson of being a cheat and a liar. It’s been quite the news story in the past week, and I thought I’d add one post containing my two cents regarding the controversy surrounding three cups. Jon Krakauer’s article is pretty damning stuff, and I find it difficult to defend what Greg Mortenson has done, but I do retain a modicum of sympathy for the man, having been in some similar situations myself in Ghana in the Peace Corps.

Let’s start by examining what Krakauer calls Greg Mortenson’s “Creation Myth”. Apparently “Three Cups” begins with a very exciting story about how way back in 1993 (the year I went to the Peace Corps, incidentally), when Greg was 36 years old, Greg got lost in the wilds of Pakistan after an unsuccessful climbing attempt of the second tallest mountain in the world, K2. Greg wandered into a village named Korphe, where he spent an extended period of time recovering from his failed expedition. After getting to know the poor people of Korphe Greg decided that he would build a school for them to express his gratitude for their hospitality and also to properly honor his recently deceased sister Christa. Exciting stuff! And very much in the wheelhouse of classic “dark continent” adventure literature. You know, Arrogant White Man goes somewhere adventurous to prove his manhood to the world and/or make his fortune. Defeated White Man fails; gets lost, robbed, hurt, etc. Ends up in a foreign place, all alone, at the mercy of his hosts, who may be Noble, or may be Nefarious. But the hosts treat him well and nurse Defenseless White Man back to health. They’re noble, then. Grateful White Man decides to change his ways and do something to help out his Poor and Noble hosts. This, in a nutshell, is Greg’s “Creation Myth”. It’s a story that we never get sick of and with good reason; Greg’s Creation Myth combines daring-do, desperation, mystery, and redemption. And adds just a hint of good old Beatific White Man paternal colonialism.

Karkauer does go out of his way to praise Greg’s ability as a storyteller. But that’s where the problem starts. This wasn’t supposed to be a story, per se, it was supposed to be fact. Greg didn’t present this as a story, or an allegory, or a metaphor, but as real events. Now some of his Creation Myth was factual. He was in Pakistan. He did attempt to climb K2. He did, in fact, build a school in Korphe. Which, incidentally, is quite a bit more school-building than I ever did in Ghana. So hats off to Greg there. But according to Krakauer, none of the rest of the story was true. Greg didn’t get lost and separated from his climbing companions. He didn’t end up crawling into Korphe clinging to the very final twist of his mortal coil. The reality is that Greg, after coming back from K2 with his climbing companions safe and sound, decided to visit a completely different village named Khane. In reality, Greg promised the Khane villagers that he would build a school for them. He went back to the States and started raising money with which to build a school in Khane. Greg eventually received a generous donation from one wealthy benefactor, and went back to Pakistan with what I presume to be honest intent to build a school in Khane.

Now up to this point I really don’t see anything wrong, even if the story is made up. Greg has a mission to do something good. He wants to build this school, to do something meaningful for this village. If that requires him to embellish a story about getting lost and all that in order to entice people to give him money, then, well, so be it. The donors are paying for the story as much as the school. Greg may have recognized that people want to participate in an exciting story, not a boring story. So what if events didn’t transpire quite the way they were presented; the bottom line speaks for itself. A school got built. Good things were done.

But were good things done? Yes, a school got built. But according to Krakauer, the school got built in the wrong village. Greg promised to build a school in Khane, not Korphe. But at some point the site of the school got changed to Korphe. And Greg’s story got moved to Korphe as well. Why did the school site get moved? Krakauer doesn’t say. Greg doesn’t say. It could have been for a perfectly legitimate reason. Maybe Kahne was in line to get a government school built before Korphe, thus duplicating efforts. On the other hand, maybe the heads of the village in Korphe made Greg an offer he couldn’t refuse, via the carrot or maybe the stick. Maybe they promised to build Greg two more schools if Greg just built the first one in Korphe. Maybe they promised to throw Greg in jail, or worse, if Korphe didn’t get the school instead of Kahne. Maybe they convinced Greg that Khane was not worthy of a school. It was a competition for scarce resources, and Korphe won, and one has to feel that Greg got caught in the middle of something he was not prepared to handle. To me this is a very interesting missing piece. Here is the real story, the messy stuff, the grey area. Why did the school site get moved? If we learn that, maybe we learn a lot about how things get done in Pakistan. Maybe we learn a lot about Greg. Maybe we learn more about Greg and/or Pakistan than we would like to know. It is natural as readers of Greg’s story to want everything to fit neatly into a perfect package. What Greg is doing is so wonderful, building a school in Pakistan, that we want Greg to be perfectly wonderful as well. Otherwise we might be a little more hesitant to give him money. Certainly moving the site of the school without explanation puts Greg in a bad light. Even moving it with an explanation puts some measure of suspicion on his motivations and character. But if we never know, then what’s the harm, right? So Greg moves the story to Korphe and never mentions Khane again. His benefactor is none the wiser, and neither are the rest of us, until Krakauer comes along several years later. When the speeches are made and the book is written, there is no mention of Khane; just Korphe. I don’t know if Khane ever got a school. If Greg can’t move the school to Khane, he can move the story to Korphe. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain, right?

Ok, fine, whatever. Believe me; worse things have been done in the name of international development. It seems a little disingenuous, but still, good things were done I suppose. The donor gets to participate in a wonderful story, a village gets a school, Greg does something meaningful. I’d say with the exception of the children of Kahne, who have to be feeling like a homely date ditched at the dance for another, prettier girl, everyone is happy. Khane gets the next school, I promise.

Greg is likely very happy, and excited, tempered perhaps with just a touch of dark shame, buried deep deep inside. Flush with pride and courage over his accomplishment, he decides that he is going to build more schools. One thing leads to another and he forms a charitable organization called the Central Asia Institute (CAI), whose mission is to “promote and provide community-based education and literacy programs, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan”. This organization was formed back in 1996. Three Cups of Tea was not written until 2006. In the intervening 10 years Greg gets to work, traveling across Pakistan and Afghanistan, raising money back in the States, building schools, and treating the charity like his personal ATM. All good things. Wait. What was the last bit?

Apparently Greg was not keeping up with his expense reports during this time. Krakauer goes to great lengths to explain that much of the money that the Central Asia Institute was collecting was not properly being accounted for. And he details how Greg refused to submit expense reports to the charity. CAI simply had to pick up the tab. Clearly Greg was a gifted fund raiser and story teller. But again it seemed as though Greg had trouble knowing when to stop embellishing the truth to make his story more compelling. Krakauer explains in detail a trip Greg took with “Mr. Kahn” into Waziristan. In Greg’s telling, he was kidnapped, held at gun point, and nearly executed by fanatical Muslim extremists – you know, Talibans – perhaps for mucking about in their lands, trying to build secular schools to compete with their Muslim schools.

But the reality appears to be that Greg was never held captive, never threatened, never in danger. He was treated with civility by his Muslim hosts. They wanted Greg to help build schools there. But an endless procession of banquets and cups of tea doesn’t inspire donations, particularly after the Taliban-orchestrated World Trade Center attacks in 2001. It seems like Greg, consciously or otherwise, tapped into a powerful feeling among Americans after the 911-attacks. Near as I can tell, Greg’s message was this; I am trying to build secular schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. A secular education is a good alternative to a Muslim education for young boys and girls. Secularly educated children will not grow up to be Taliban terrorists. Muslim-educated children may become terrorists. Therefore, by giving money to my charity, you are helping to fight the war against terrorism without firing a shot.

You know what, that line of reasoning may be plausible. Certainly poverty plays a role in transforming Muslims into Taliban insurgents, and education is a good way to help reduce poverty. I'm not sure if I agree with the notion that a Muslim education vs. a secular education will produce a higher rate of terrorists, but the argument was palatable to many who were sickened by the 9/11 attacks, but weren’t so sure that invading Afghanistan was going to solve the problem. Giving money to the CAI was a way to feel good about helping poor Pakistanis and Afghans, but still be a patriot. I’m certain that CAI would have received some donations even if the story was told truthfully. But the story is so much more compelling and effective if it is spiced with tales of armed-captivity, near-executions, and suspicious-Taliban chiefs. Greg tells us that he is literally risking his life to get these schools built for the future of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and therefore for the future of us all. But he lied, according to Krakauer. And it worked. Americans ate it up, we started contributing a lot of money to the CAI for school-building. And really, if the story needs to be embellished in order to get more charity money, what’s the harm, right?

Two things; One, remember the personal ATM bit? Well CAI was still having a lot of trouble accounting for all the money that was coming in, and now there was a lot more money coming in. Krakauer gave $75,000 to the CAI. President Obama gave $100,000 of his Nobel Peace Prize winnings to CAI. CAI took in over 14 million dollars in 2008 and again 2009. And yes, schools got built. Good things were done. Not enough good things, though. According to Krakauer, over 50% of CAI’s budget goes towards administrative expenses. This includes Greg’s mystery expenses, travel budgets, and fund-raising costs. CAI claims to spend only 15% on administrative expenses, and 85% on building and staffing schools. The discrepancy exists because CAI doesn’t count things like book advertising and promotion as fund-raising expenses but as actual charitable work. That doesn’t hold water with me. I think most people would expect when CAI says that they are spending 85% of the money on “program expenses”, that means 85% of the money is going directly towards building and staffing schools. CAI is either really really inefficient at building schools, in which case maybe they should be doing something else, or perhaps Greg doesn't feel like he needs to play by the same rules as a legitimate charity. This misuse of charitable funds is in my opinion an inexcusable offense.

Two, how did Greg’s Pakistani companions feel about being portrayed as gun-toting Taliban extremists when in reality, at the time Greg met them, they were nothing of the sort? At worst, Greg reduces these men to an ugly stereotype simply to make the story more compelling and raise more money, and perhaps make himself look more heroic. In doing so, Greg manages to reinforce America’s worst stereotypes about the Pakistani people, and ironically, America’s worst stereotypes about ourselves. Intentionally or not, Greg plays to our fears in the same way the government plays to our fears when they tell us Americans that the only way to prevent more terrorist attacks is to start two wars and wiretap everything in sight. Two totally different approaches to combating terror, but born of similar fears. In this context contributing money to the CAI becomes another front in the war against terror. But is that the only way we can convince Americans to part with their hard-earned cash, by scaring them? I’d like to think we can be motivated by more than just base emotion. And to be fair, I’m sure the majority of people who contributed to the CAI did so because they were inspired by Greg’s story and by what he was trying to accomplish. It is sad, really, that Greg felt like he needed to make the story so perfect that he was willing to throw the very people he was trying to help under the bus to provide a compelling narrative. And look, I know that Waziristan is an insanely dangerous place to visit, particularly today. I give Greg a lot of credit for going there. I just wish he hadn't lied about the particulars of his trip, that's all. It wasn't necessary.

Speaking of that narrative, “Three Cups of Tea”, as we know this book was a huge success. So much so that Greg has more or less been on a constant book promotion tour since it came out in 2006. Which brings up another unfortunate issue. According to Krakauer, none of the royalties from “Three Cups of Tea” actually go to the CAI. All the royalties go to Greg Mortenson and his co-writer, David Oliver Relin. That’s not exactly what I expected, but ok, CAI didn’t write to book so not much you can say there. What is odd, however, is that Greg charges all book promotion travel expenses to CAI. One could argue that the book promotes the charity, and therefore the charity benefits when the book is promoted. CAI does probably get a good return on its investment. I’ll let that one slide. However Greg also gives out many thousands of copies of “Three Cups of Tea” to schools and speaking audiences. And the budget for that also comes from CAI. And Greg requires CAI to purchase these copies through retail channels, not wholesalers. This does two things that I find distasteful. One, buying the books via retail means CAI has to pay an inflated price per book. This is money that could be going to building schools in Pakistan. There is no return on investment here. The only reason to do this is to help keep the book on the best seller lists. Books bought wholesale do not count for best seller numbers. Books bought via retail channels do count. This seems in some ways even more distasteful. Greg could argue that by keeping the book at the top of the best seller lists, that it keeps the visibility of CAI higher than it otherwise would be. I don’t buy it. Sounds to me like Greg is just letting his ego run amok in this instance.

Finally, the schools. I keep coming back to “but schools were built, right?” And yes, schools were built. Not enough schools, given the amount of money pouring into CAI, and in the wrong towns sometimes, but at least something is getting done. Again, it’s more than I’ve done. But it’s also more than I’ve wasted, too. And although many schools were built (170 schools according to CAI), many of these schools are not being used. I don’t have hard numbers, but again and again Krakauer points to the fact that many of the schools CAI built currently stand completely unused and in a state of neglect. Remember my story about wanting to build a basketball court for my school, because it was what I thought my school needed? I wonder if Greg and CAI are falling into the same trap. Just because one village needs a school, and can staff it, that doesn’t mean that every village in Pakistan and Afghanistan will be able to use a school. I’m sure many villages simply do not have enough teachers, or even people who can teach. If you were to build a new school in a village that could not staff said school with teachers, then I think you can imagine what would happen to the school. It would probably eventually become a barn or a storage warehouse. Again, the problems come in twos: One, Greg didn’t listen to what each village needs. Not every village needs a school house; some need a well, or a road, or something else. CAI should either be more selective when choosing sites for schools, or allow them selves to do other things besides just build schools. Two, when building a school, CAI needs to make sure that there is a plan in place to staff the school and get students to the school. Just because a school is built doesn’t automatically mean that the school will have teachers. It doesn’t even mean that the school will have students! There aren’t enough trained teachers to go around, and the children can’t spend the time at school when they are needed in the fields, for example.

I saw this first-hand in Ghana. Heck the reason I was in Ghana in the first place was because Ghana did not have enough high school math and science teachers to fully staff their own schools. The Peace Corps served me up as a volunteer to fill one of those positions. In concept it was a noble and wholly correct thing to be doing. Also my students frequently had to leave school for extended periods of time, mostly to go home and help out at the farm during harvest. A farm kids education can be spotty and incomplete as a result. Things that we can do to help keep kids in school go a long way towards getting them a good education. Better roads, harvesting equipment, irrigation, and communication infrastructure are all things that can be built that are not specifically schools, but indirectly help to keep kids in school for longer periods of time. By limiting their field of vision to school building only, CAI dooms them selves to be only partially successful.

So what have I learned? I’m still not interested in actually reading the book, mind you, but that won't stop me from having an opinion on matters. Let’s enumerate the shortcomings of Greg Mortenson, and see what comes out the other side. Nefarious or Noble?

Lied about getting lost and staying in Kophe: Embellish a story? Heck I’d probably do that. I’m probably doing that now. Minor infraction.

Built that first school in Kophe, not Khane: Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Major infraction, but minor scope.

Shoddy expense reporting: This is a charity and the money should be treated with respect. Major infraction.

Reducing Pakistanis to gun-toting terrorists: It’s offensive to the Pakistanis and to the Americans as well. But it helped raise money. Medium infraction.

Only 50% of CAI money goes towards legitimate program expenses: Come on, only 50% of the money is actually going to Pakistan? Major infraction.

No book royalties go to CAI: It belies a lack of commitment to CAI on the part of the authors, but they did write the book so they deserve something. Minor to medium infraction.

Requiring CAI to foot the bill for book promotional activities, and requiring CAI to purchase books at retail: This is why only 50% of CAI’s money goes to Pakistan. Major infraction.

Building schools that never get staffed: Development aid is an inexact science, and lots of mistakes are made. One would hope that CAI is learning from their mistakes and getting better. Minor to medium, actually.

What dooms Greg Mortenson in my opinion is not that he made up stuff and passed it off as fact. It's not that he ended up building schools that are not staffed. Those things I can accept. What I can not accept is his careless attitude towards the finances of CAI. This is a charity and all efforts should be made to spend the money wisely. I hope they get themselves straightened out because I'm sure they are doing good things in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But they may have to do it without the services of Mr. Mortenson going forward.

And I suppose there are are couple of lessons for me as well. Make sure I investigate charities before contributing to them. Also if it seems too perfect, too good to be true, it probably is. Life is messy, people are not perfect. I'd much rather have truth than perfection.

East of Eden

2011-04-12T21:03:00.000-07:00

I wake up early, on the floor, under Dean’s dining room table. It’s hard to sleep when the heat is so intense and the sun is up at 6:00 am every day. And besides, I’ve got somewhere to go today. Dean’s house is a mess; Angela is going to be pissed. Dean, a crazy ex-marine helicopter pilot whose day job is – we think – piloting the President of Ghana, J. J. Rawlings, around the country, and whose night job is alternately entertaining and terrorizing everybody at the embassy club, is back in the States for the holidays. Angela is trying to look after his house while Dean is gone. All of us Peace Corps volunteers found out that his house was available and free, so we invaded it like so many army ants. Last night I was up late playing chess, drinking wine (where did we get wine?), and listening to Billy Bragg with Keith and Tom and Craig, and after we fell asleep we let the candles burn down until the wax melted onto the table. Yes, Angela is going to be pissed, but Dean won’t be back from The States until next week, plenty of time to clean things up.

I pack up my backpack silently, step over the still-sleeping forms of slumbering Peace Corps volunteers wrapped up cocoon-like in batik print cotton sheets in the slowly gathering light, and leave Dean’s house without waking anybody else or letting them know where I’m heading. It’s just that way around here. People come, people go, there’s no set plan, but ironically meetings and get-togethers are scheduled months in advance, because there’s really no way to RSVP or confirm reservations. And I’m heading to just such a get-together; I’m going to Tim’s site in Atiavi to meet some friends, a plan made a week ago and unconfirmed since. I hope he is there when I arrive because there’s no way to confirm, but I don’t really give that possibility a second thought.

It’s a short walk down a nice Accra neighborhood street to the main road. Dean lives just down the street from the Cuban Embassy, which is sort of cool and kind of creepy all at the same time. The Lybia, Iran and North Korea embassies are a couple of blocks away. I feel conspicuously American, and far from home. I consider that I would have an easier time getting to Havana or Tehran from Accra than from anywhere in the USA. I also consider I might have a difficult time coming back to Accra from Tehran. It’s said that the Libyans and the Russians own a lot of the nice hotels in Accra. I idly wonder if they bug the rooms in those hotels as I reach the main road and stick my right index finger out, straight up into the air at each passing taxi. Always use the right hand of course.

There’s a code to picking up the correct taxi. Finger up means “Accra” or downtown, in lorry sign-language. Technically I’m in Accra right now, but kind of on the northern outskirts. “Accra” in this case means the old center of town. Most of the main destinations have special signs, for example a clockwise motion means “Circle”, which is downtown also, but another part of downtown. And just to make things more confusing, most of the main intersections in Accra are called Circle-something, like Danquah Circle, Circle 37, etc., but there’s only one “Circle”. I wonder what the sign is for “I don’t care, just get me out of this city.” I think I’m suffering from Accra fatigue.

The reason I have to make the special sign for my desired destination is so that passing taxis know where I want to go before deciding to pull over and pick me up. And of course the reason it matters is that all regular taxis in Accra, and everywhere in Ghana, and likely everywhere in Africa for that matter, are shared taxis. So if and when a taxi does come along to pick me up it will already be over-stuffed with other Ghanaians who are already heading to the same place as I. It’s actually quite efficient. But crowded.

It doesn’t take long before impatience sets in, and the suspicion that maybe I’ll be here all day, standing in the heat without a hat, waving ever more frantically at each dilapidated lorry as it rushes on by, the stoic drivers refusing me passage. Westerners don’t always really care if they are heading in the right direction; we just like to be moving somewhere. It’s the movement itself that’s important, it makes us feel like we’re accomplishing something.

And I do move eventually, into the cramped environments of a lorry heading to “Accra”. While I head south I debate my choices: Go to “Accra” straightaway and catch a lorry to the town of Abor right now, and be assured of a seat on the daily bus, or gamble and drop early at Circle 37 (I don’t know the sign for that one!) and grab some American-style breakfast and American company at the embassy club. Aaah, it’s Africa; who’s in a hurry? I decide on breakfast, much to the delight of my stomach and the annoyance of my wallet. I don’t know where my watch is, which doesn’t bother me, or where my lucky traveling batik sheet is, which does concern me slightly more. I must have left it at Dean’s house. Never travel without a sheet. For starters, you can’t really trust bed-sheets at the crappy hotels us Peace Corps volunteers can afford to patronize. Also they have a 101 other uses, from a quick-drying towel to a handy instant sack. I get the feeling mine might be getting abused by Angela right now in her efforts to clean up Dean’s house. It’s a fair trade. Since Circle 37 is on the way to “Accra” I simply wait for an Accra-bound taxi to pick me up, and once in tell the driver to drop me at 37. Smaller fare, too.

I enjoy breakfast with CNN on the television and more Peace Corps Volunteers looking tired and unshaven. It is three days after Christmas today and pretty much all of the Peace Corps Volunteers have converged on the capital, lured by the promise of a home-stay on Christmas day with an expatriate family and a home-cooked American-style Christmas dinner, so the capital is just silly with us volunteers right now. After breakfast I head back out to the main road, poking my white finger at the sky; “Accra”!

A lorry eventually picks me up and I memorize the buildings on the way to main station: The Dutch Embassy, The West African Exams Council, The Accra Theatre, Novotel (one of the Russian ones maybe? Nope; French. Très boring). Nice places, all. Of course interspersed between them are the lottery shacks and taxi stands and street-side hawkers of plastic bags of water, semi-peeled oranges, and cheap plastic watches, all hoping to sell off their inventory. It makes for an interesting contrast between rich and poor, Western and African, as we plod ever closer to “Accra”.

Walking downtown is crowded, smelly with open sewers and strange foods, a place where you find yourself constantly checking your wallet, trying not to look like you just got to Africa. None of the streets have names, and even if they did it would be meaningless because there are no reliable maps. Everybody is selling something, with blankets spread out on the ground, offering a surreal assortment of fairly useless goods for my shopping pleasure. I bought a small mirror here once, with a wooden frame. I’d been in Ghana for four months before I bought a mirror. I learned to shave without the aid of mirror as a result. I still to this day do not shave with a mirror. When I bought the mirror I was very proud of myself for talking down the price from 1,000 cidis to 600 cidis (from one dollar to 60 cents, roughly), but later I found out that I still got ripped off. But at least I tried.

The lorry station here is enormous, with everything from small vans to gigantic inter-country travel busses. This is a major transit hub and it is crazy. The busses and lorries are organized by some sort of pattern, but nothing is marked. I have to ask around for the bus to Abor. Abor is the closest bus stop to Atiavi, but discover that the bus for Abor has already left. Great, now what? I guess I should have skipped breakfast. But I really had no idea when the daily bus was leaving because there are no time tables. The once-daily bus to Abor leaves when it becomes full. But all is not lost. I can easily catch a bus to the next large town down the road after Abor, called Aflao, and simply “drop early” at Abor. Sort of like my taxi strategy dropping early at circle 37.

So I ask around for the next bus to Aflao instead of Abor. Everybody now assumes that I’m going to Togo, Ghana’s French-speaking neighbor to the East, because Aflao is right on the border with Togo. So they try to point me in the direction of a huge travel bus that is going all the way to Lomé. I politely explain that I’m going to Atiavi instead, which makes no sense to them because there is no reason for an obruni to go to a backwater village like Atiavi. But they politely tell me that I need to catch the lorry to Abor, not Aflao, and then catch a lorry to Atiavi from there. This, of course, was my original plan. I wait with some diminishing patience while they check to find out if the Abor bus has left yet. They don’t want to hear it from me, of course, even though I just told them that the Abor bus has gone. They regret to tell me that the Abor bus has departed. Saa. I explain my idea about dropping early at Abor on the Aflao bus. The lorry park people think I’m a little nuts but they’re not idiots – they can spot an extra fare – so they agree that it is an excellent idea provided that I pay the fare all the way to Aflao. Agreed.

Thirty minutes later I’m out of the city heading East through the dry Ghanaian coastal plain towards Togo. I’m lucky – I get to sit in the front passenger seat of the bus, and I have legroom and space. I can even roll the window down, something Ghanaians usually don’t care to do. I’m probably annoying all the other passengers by rolling the window down, but I really enjoy the fresh air and the breeze. The Ghanaians and I just have different conceptions of heat and its relative comfort. 99 times out of 100 I’m the only one in the bus who is uncomfortably hot. Now for once, I am the only one who is comfortably cool. Let’s call this cross-cultural exchange. I’m sure this will be the last time they let the obruni ride up front in the passenger seat! And from the seat I have a rare uninterrupted view of the countryside as it unfolds east of Accra, east of Eden even?

But the road itself disturbs me here. All over Ghana the roads are insufferably curvaceous, following their own form of ancient logic as they do their best to dissuade you from getting from point A to point B. But not here. Driving East from Accra is like driving West out of Salt Lake City, except that instead of a big lake on your right-hand side, you look out on the equally salty but much warmer expanse of the Bight of Benin. The highway itself is straight, beautiful, new. It’s so new and straight and nice it feels like it can’t possibly be in Ghana. Who put all these straight roads here? Africa just doesn’t tolerate anything linear, even from its roads. But aside from the straight road, I find the landscape itself rather arresting. I retain an expectation that the coast of Ghana is going to be heavily forested, green and drooping, not this dry salty scrub plain. And most of the coast of West Africa is like that, thick with ancient forest. But for some reason the coast from Takoradi to Lomé is bone-dry instead. A geography teacher in Accra explained it to me once, why it was so dry here. Essentially this part of the coast is a sort of rain-shadow. Storms and rain showers track along the coast from the West but get bounced at Cape Three Points west of Takoradi and go north towards Kumasi, or south into the Atlantic.

The ground is baked into a ceramic brown, not dusty, just hard heavy dense earth. Old earth. Pre-Cambrian ground. There is vegetation, stout trees with few leaves and wide trunks, like pigmy baobab trees, with leaves like pale green leather. Many shrubs, and in the occasional depression, palm trees, cling stubbornly to their dominion. It’s quite hot, and not breezy. This is the doldrums, for real. No wind, no rain, nothing. And that damn straight road. It’s all very unsettling.

We cross the great river Volta North of Ada, and I begin to get suspicious that every town we pass will begin with the letter “A”. Must be a Ga thing. The ride is bland, ultimately, with very little to see, and eventually I pull out my book and read. I wile away the time with Steinbeck, who seems to be telling me that people are essentially good or evil. I figure it’s high time I figure out which one I am before I get to Atiavi. At least I’ll know how to act.

Once at Abor I find I’m in luck – there is a lorry at Abor waiting to fill and go to Atiavi. I instruct a small boy to save me a place and to come get me at the bar when the lorry is full. I’m drinking cokes today. The beer is usually colder but I’m not in the mood to drink beer alone in a bar today. I end up getting into a heated discussion between two local school teachers and another two border guards about the new proposed school system. Ghana has decided to move away from the colonial British O-level and A-level school system to something closer to the American system. We all agree that the old system was better, but I ruffle some feathers when I predict that the new system will take 10 years to stabilize itself. The teachers agree with me, the border guards do not. They all give me their addresses and I lie and promise that I’ll write and visit. I think I’ll be evil, Mr. Steinbeck. I finish my cola and wait for the small boy, who somehow has problems finding the only white man in town. More handshakes and empty promises all around and I am off in a taxi on the short trip to Atiavi.

Twenty minutes later and I’m on my feet again, near a bustling market, next to a dusty ill-used and circular fountain, surrounded by reed mattresses. Atiavi seems to specialize in the manufacture of these items. I around ask for the “white man teacher”. Actually I ask for the “Obruni”, but they don’t speak that language here, so I end up asking for my “white brother”. That does the trick. It’s a short walk through sandy streets to Tim’s house.

Tim, Buffy, Leslie, Chip, and Jon are all there, sitting around, happy to see me. Tonight there will be drinking and general silliness, but for now it’s just some quiet, lazy, pleasant conversation. And Jon brought his Jurassic Park soundtrack cassette tape. I’m glad I came to Atiavi. I think I’ll be good.

Kiva

2011-04-11T22:02:00.000-07:00

Kiva

Hey it’s Kiva time!

I’ve been contributing to this organization called Kiva for a couple of years now. I mentioned Kiva in passing the other week when I was talking about the Whole Planet Foundation, and micro loans, and cheese. But mostly I talked about the voices in my head, and Muhammad Yunus, and the Grameen Bank, who were the first to recognize and develop micro loans as a viable assistance strategy for development financing.

As it turns out, The Grameen Bank isn’t the only organization that is financing micro loans around the globe. They were the first, but lots of other organizations have since gotten with the program and have started offering these types of loans, all over the world. Even here in the United States, surprisingly enough.

About two years ago my friend Bill introduced me to Kiva. This organization is a sort of micro loan clearinghouse of sorts. But it is not exactly a charity, at least not to the people like me that fund it. Kiva almost functions as a micro loan “re-loaner” to smaller organizations that actually distribute the loans. So Kiva itself is a charitable organization, but people like me who give money to Kiva to finance micro loans are not actually giving our money away. Confused? I’ll use an example of a micro loan to demonstrate how it works:

Julia is a 29 year old widow with three children who lives in Kenya and owns a courier business, with one motorcycle. She wants to expand her business by purchasing another motorcycle. In order to do that she wants to take out a loan. Fair enough. She needs $850 to buy the motorcycle.

Enter The Kenya Agency for the Development of Enterprise and Technology (KADET). This organization was founded in 2000 with the express aim of providing financial services to rural Kenya. Julia applies for a loan from KADET, but KADET needs financial backing for the loan, collateral, and between Julia and KADET there really isn’t enough money and security to make this loan possible.

This is where I step in. I offer to take the risk on Julia’s behalf. Essentially I provide the capital for the loan to KADET, and assume the risk if Julia does not pay back the loan. Assuming Julia does pay back the loan, I get my money back. I’ve never met Julia, I have no idea if she will pay back the loan, so it is a bit of a leap of faith on my part.

Of course Julia doesn’t pay me back directly; she pays the money to KADET, who then pays me back. Now remember that this is a LOAN, not a gift, or a grant. That means KADET is charging Julia interest on the loan. About 27% interest in this case, actually. Remember in the other post I talked about the high interest rates on these loans, compared to what we might be used to in the States. 27% is not that bad for a micro loan, actually. So Julia takes out a short-term loan for $850, with a 14 month term in her case, and pays it back with interest to KADET.

When Julia pays KADET, KADET pays me, but KADET keeps the interest. Wait, what? Yes that is correct. I get my capital back but no interest. This is the sort of “charity” angle to this whole venture. If I made the loan directly to Julia then I suppose I could collect the interest myself. But that would be fairly inefficient to say the least. It might be fun to go to Kenya and loan random people money to purchase motorcycles, but something tells me my skills are better suited doing something else. So I let KADET do it on my behalf. My capital is helping KADET to sell more loans than they might otherwise be able to finance.

When Julia/KADET pays me back, I’m free to turn around and finance another loan, or take my money and keep it for myself. Therefore the money I’m loaning to KADET is not considered a charity deduction. It’s more like a risky zero-interest savings account or something. If I really needed the money, I could get it back eventually, assuming the Julia is able to pay it back in the first place.

But wait, I haven’t even mentioned Kiva at all in the last six paragraphs! Yes that is true. As mentioned, it is inefficient for me to track down Julia and loan her some money. It’s far more efficient if I loan some money to KADET and let them go find Julia. But KADET isn’t the only organization in the world doing this, and it’s actually rather inefficient for me to spend time tracking down organizations such as KADET. And this is where Kiva enters the picture. Kiva acts as a sort-of clearing house for many organizations such as KADET. Over 100 of these organizations, as a matter of fact.

So there are 4 entities interacting here: Julia wants the loan, and contacts KADET. KADET contacts Kiva. Kiva contacts me. I give my money to Kiva to give to KADET to give to Julia, who purchases a second motorcycle, and makes more money, and pays back the loan to KADET, who keeps the interest and sends the principal back to Kiva, who notifies me that I can re-loan the money, or take it back completely. Kiva doesn’t take any of the interest from KADET or any of my principal. Kiva is a charity so they solicit additional funds from me to help keep them operating. And that little bit of money is charity, incidentally.

It’s just that simple, ha ha. Simple, but risky. You will recall that Julia wanted $850 to buy a motorcycle. You know what, I don’t have $850 to loan to Julia, and even if I did I certainly don’t feel comfortable loaning her that much money, I don’t even know her. I’m assuming all the risk here with no monetary incentive to do so. But what if Julia was able to spread the risk to multiple people? This again is where Kiva comes in. Even if I wanted to, I am actually not allowed to fund all $850 of Julia’s loan through Kiva. I can only contribute $25 of the $850, actually. So Kiva looks to spread the risk of Julia’s loan amongst 34 backers including myself, each of us chipping in $25 for the motorcycle loan. If Julia is not able to pay back the loan, then 34 people each lose $25.

4/21/2011: I've since found out that I can contribute more than $25 to a loan request; up to $500 actually, so the above statement is not quite correct. I think I'll continue to contribute $25 per loan though, in order to spread out my risk and feel the excitement of participating in more loans.

So it all works. Julia gets her motorcycle, KADET gets their interest, Kiva gets to do this cool clearinghouse micro loan charity thing, and I get a sense of well-being and even a little whiff of power! Oh yes, this Kiva thing is a little intoxicating. When I log onto Kiva I am presented with loan applicants from all over the world. A quick glance at the web site right now displays applicants from Vietnam, Senegal, Peru, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, El Salvador, Mongolia, Kenya, Philippines, Bolivia, and on and on. I can search for loan applicants from Africa only, from women only, from the agriculture sector only, or from African women in the agricultural sector, if I want to get that specific. I can read a brief biography of the loan, what they want to do with the money. I get to play world bank! If I think the project is good, I can give them my $25. Julia from Kenya wants to by a motorcycle? Sounds good! Erick from Peru wants money to grow his metalworking business? Cool! Ikromjon from Tajikistan wants money to buy and sell antique chests? Why not? Point is, the web site plays to my considerable vanity and lust for power, and lets me think I’m the one controlling the purse-strings of development finance. It’s all great fun.

But it’s a bit of a fait accompli on the part of Kiva, you see, because in all of these cases I’m actually just back-filling a loan that has already been distributed to the applicant. That guy in Tajikistan who wants money for his antique chest business? He already got the money a couple of weeks ago. He’s not waiting for rich jackasses like me to decide if they are willing to finance his loan. Kiva has already seen to that, and now Kiva is soliciting us to back-fill the money already loaned out. So it’s a bit of a farce in that regard. The money I “give” to Julia for her motorcycle may actually technically go to the next loan. Kiva keeps up the charade of Julia “paying me back” throughout the coming year, and I suppose if Julia defaults then yes, I don’t get my money back, so I am backing Julia, but it’s not as cut and dry as Kiva would lead you to believe.

But for all of that I still like the concept. And so do a lot of other people. Kiva boasts the following statistics on their web site (as of April 11^th, 2011):

$205,320,375	Total value of all loans made through Kiva:
572,657	Number of Kiva Users who have funded a loan (i.e. me):
211	Number of countries represented by Kiva Lenders (i.e. my country):
533,973	Number of entrepreneurs that have received a loan through Kiva (i.e. Julia):
59	Number of countries Kiva Field Partners are located in:
275,207	Number of loans that have been funded through Kiva:
81.40%	Percentage of Kiva loans which have been made to women entrepreneurs:
131	Number of Kiva Field Partners (microfinance institutions Kiva partners with):
98.65%	Current repayment rate (all partners):
$381.89	Average loan size
6.75	Average number of loans per Kiva Lender:

I love statistics! I had no idea Kiva had over 500,000 lender-backers such as myself. Kiva has been around since 2005, and looks like it is growing rapidly. In the two years since I’ve joined Kiva, I proud to say that I have helped finance19 loans. 8 of the loans have been fully paid back, and 10 more are currently being repaid, and are in various states of repayment. One final loan was refunded almost as soon as it was distributed; apparently the local lending organization failed an audit by Kiva and was “fired” so to speak from Kiva for not following proper bookkeeping practices.

The bottom line is that I’ve not lost any money on this venture, and I’ve been able to help fund some cool loans, like to a woman in Bolivia who owns a furniture making business, and to a woman in Ghana (holla!) who wanted to expand her food market business. Obviously I’m partial to funding Ghanaian loans but I play the field. I’m also partial to loans to Mali and Senegal, Kenya and Tanzania, and all the African countries of course. Again, it’s my money, so I can apply my own biases when deciding where it goes.

I am trying to put enough money into my Kiva account where I can fund a loan once per month without having to contribute any additional funds. So if I make a $25 each month that means I will need to contribute about $300 of my own money into my account, assuming the loans take about one year to repay. Some loan terms are longer, and some are shorter. I'm not quite to that self-perpetuating state yet. But when I am, when this thing is self-sustaining on a month-to-month basis, then as the loan recipients pay back their loans, every month I have enough to finance another loan and from that point forward I’ll never have to contribute any more of my money (assuming the loans get paid back!)

I like that concept. It’s as if I put up some money to start, but then people like Julia in Kenya are just using it for a bit, and then passing it along to say, Ikromjon in Tajikistan. And when he’s done with it he’ll pass it along to Erick in Peru. Or Senegal. Or wherever. That same $25 I was willing to part with gets passed around all over the world and helps people over and over again. It’s so crazy it just might work.

And yes, I could just make a charitable donation to the Grameen Bank instead of bothering with all this Kiva stuff. They do pretty much the same thing. And I would get a tax break on the money as well. I'm sure they would figure out who needs micro loans and distribute accordingly on my behalf. Of course I’d never see the money again, and with Kiva there exists that possibility, but realistically I don’t plan on taking that money back. Once I see the cool stuff people are doing with my money, buying "Hot Tub Time Machine" on DVD just doesn’t seem quite as pressing of a need. Julia can use the money for a while, and then Ikromjon and Erick and so on.

And don’t discount the ego factor! I want to participate in the process. I want to have a say in where the money goes. I want to click a button on my computer and save the world. It’s all terribly vain, and a bit of a farce, really, but it is what it is. I don’t have to always do the right thing for the right reasons, do I? Can I sort of stumble into doing the right thing for totally self-indulgent and egotistical reasons? I think I prefer that sometimes. Then I can be more self-deprecating about the whole charity thing, and not be seen as such a tiresome do-gooder. That suits me more. I think I will buy that DVD. And fund Julia’s motorcycle loan. Best of both worlds.

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to loan Julia some money and head on over to Best Buy.