January 1, 2015

Dolly Sodds, WV

 

Poor Cecily and Ben had traveled from DC to snowshoe and cross country ski with us in Canaan, but the weather gods had not delivered.  There was only one other way to bring in the new year: Smoking Bench.

Well, to be specific we visited Smoking Bench II. Smoking Bench I is by the WIS hill in Cleveland Park.  Smoking Bench II is atop Cabin Mountain in the Sodds. These benches have earned the title because, well, if I ever smoked, these are the select benches from which I would exercise my habit.  I’ve never myself smoked, but I’ve always been a bit envious of smokers for the way that they have this beautiful permanent excuse to step out from a loud crowded party and sit outside alone in peace for a defined ten-minute interval.

The weather gods had at least produced a sunny, clear day up on the ridge, ideal for a trot along Martha’s trail (for some reason, despite criss-crossing the Sodds for many years, this ridge trail had not previously been part of Aaron’s repertoire).

To my great delight, Cecily and her boyfriend Ben moved to Woodley Park this summer.  The second half of 2014 has really been a social windfall, with both Cecily and Sarah W., two of my oldest friends from childhood who know my quirks inside and out, moving back to DC.  Definitely makes me less enthusiastic about leaving DC for a new job.  So here’s a brief summary of my history with Cecily:

We were in ballet class together at 5.

We were ‘Mean Mints’ together on our 4th-grade soccer team (which had mint green shirts), and later Potomac Red Devils when we went Select.

We were basketball teammates in 5th grade (we once lost a game 3-2).

We were in the Chevy Chase Elementary School chorus.

For three summers we lived a month together in a tiny cabin in northeastern Pennsylvania at Campus Netimus, braving the slimy freezing lake and the dramas of teenage girls living in too close quarters.

Later in high school, Cecily paved the way for my running career by being the top cross country runner at Richard Montgomery high school as a freshman (I had started out my freshman year at B-CC playing field hockey and basketball and switched to cross country as a sophomore to win the state championship).

Our families also went on ski trips together in high school to Colorado, where Cecily learned the particular Bob Nelson style of skiing without turning or stopping.

Cecily once again inspired me to compete in running in college, when Cecily was a freshman standout at Dartmouth and I was bumbling around Stanford not doing much of anything.  After visiting Cecily at Dartmouth freshman year I came within a whisker of transferring there to run with her on the team, but in the end transferred to Amherst, which was an even more extreme polar opposite of Stanford, with a total student population of ~1600.

I also have to give Cecily due credit for her indirect role in launching my career in science.  Cecily was living in London when I happened to visit the city for RAND work.  Naturally, I spent a couple days with Cecily after the meeting.  After a day or so wandering around London I decided to take the train to Oxford.  I was generally interested in seeing Oxford, and I was specifically interested in talking to a professor in the Zoology department named Edward Holmes.  At the time one of my main projects at RAND was to evaluate the Federal Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response Plan.  This had entailed weeks of interviews with head people at NIH, CDC, FDA, and throughout the Federal government.  I was just a lowly research assistant, but my main observation in the plan was that it was very heavy on vaccine development, but very thin on other aspects of preparedness, and had a lot of assumptions about how a pandemic virus would evolve in the first place.  As an undergraduate who had majored in biology, with a focus on evolution of disease, I had dived into the literature and come across what I thought were fascinating papers by an Oxford guy named Edward Holmes.  The uninhibited mindset of a 23 year-old is so foreign to the mindset of a 33 year-old that I really can’t explain the bizarre series of events that unfolded during the six-month interval between that fated train ride to Oxford and the beginning of a PhD with Edward Holmes, who was not actually at Oxford when I had visited because he had just moved to Penn State University a couple weeks prior to my visit but whom I had tracked down nonetheless.

Our New Years expedition continued with a journey to the source of the mighty Potomac River.

On Day 2 of our New Years celebration we opted for the calmer Spruce Island Lake loop.

~            ~               ~

So, what’s ahead for 2015?  We’ve got a lot on the first half of the calendar:

January: Peru, Colorado Ski Trip with the Schwartzbards & Andrishes, SnowShoeFest

February: Holiday Lake 50k

March: Belgium, Netherlands, Germany

April: Bull Run 50, Boston, Run for the Birds & Lobsterfest

May: Iowa

June: Laurel Highlands 70

July: MuscleMan 1/2 ironman, Escarpment

August: Luray Tri

2015 could be a Big Year.  It could be the year that Aaron has his breakthrough race that assures him he’s back to normal post-Lyme.  It could be the year that I put an end to my great cycle of injury and strengthen up.  It could be the year that my stomach settles down and I see what I can do in an ultra if I don’t vomit midway.  It could be the year that I finally sort out a position at the NIH so that I can kiss off those draining cycles of faculty interviews.  Or, short of that, 2015 could be the year that I just throw in the towel and decide to be a hippie contractor until some indefinite point when the gig is up.  Here are my predictions for 2015.

(1) I have at least one ultra where things go well and I don’t barf.  And I don’t injure.  And that’s good enough for me.

(2) I make more Sundays in the Park.  Even though they start at 8am.  Because they’re fun.  And I drag Cecily and Ben there too.

(3) I don’t see much of Sean.  Except when the stars mysteriously align and we both find ourselves independently at Snowmass on separate family ski trips, our hotels a stone’s throw away.

(4) I swallow considerably less lake during my summer triathlon.

(5) I have every intention of making it back to the Escarpment, but for the 8th year in a row am thwarted by circumstances.

(6) I kind of freak out about turning 34.  Not because 34 is a bad number.  I actually like the number 34.  Just because the numbers 35-40 are terrifying.

(7) I volunteer at the Women’s Half.  At the aid station with the tequila shots.  Because I’ll be taking those.  As I watch someone else win the race.  Hopefully someone who covers their bum.  But I’ll still cheer if they don’t.  Probably too loud because I’ve had too much tequila.  Which is anything more than half a shot.

(8) I don’t get to run the Run For It 5k in Davis.  A race I’ve desperately wanted to run ever since meeting Aaron in 2011. Last year I couldn’t run it because I was in Indonesia.  The year before was Megatransect.  Two years before we were both injured.  The calendar gods will not take pity in 2015.

(9) I travel less.  Intentionally.  I get a little more scheduled in 2015.  I use my Garmin.  And Strava.  Even though Aaron promised me the data was private and Robin still gets email notifications.  I never look at the watch.  But I accept more structure in my life.  The food routine at least is good for me, and I get my weight up into the 120s.

(10) My NIH building is repaired.  Even still I go to work with Aaron on ‘Tuesday is take your girlfriend to work’ day.  Because Aaron’s boss got a new work kitty.  And I start riding horses again at Potomac Horse Center.  I stress out a bit about how much money I’m bleeding.  Especially when I’ve taken the hippie contractor career path that could end in measly income.  I cry because spending money like that goes against all my minimalist instincts.  Whether I stick it out or not depends entirely on whether I like my instructor and my ride.  But I put down the money to give it a whirl.  Because 2014 was stressful — too many interviews, injuries, obligations.  And in 2015 I’d like to give myself a loopier rein.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MGM is my favorite VHTRC running event of the year.  This year I was extra-stoked because (a) I would finally get to sport the pair of MaxiMOOSE boxers I had found with such jubilation in a sock store in Breckenridge last May, and (b) I couldn’t wait to at long last meet Seangela!

The weather cooperated beautifully with my shorts plan, warm enough to go with shorts but not so hot that cotton boxers would be uncomfortable, and the MaxiMOOSIES were greeted with the raves they deserved.  Mr Andrish on the other hand wasn’t so cooperative.  Something about ‘work’.  There was a good bit of grumbling on my part about another major Sean Bail, but Ragan and Joey were pretty tolerant.  In fact, trotting along with Ragan and Joey made the miles tick by, and in no time I found myself doing the whole 50k.  The last time I ran over 30 miles without pain in my injuries at the end was…..was…..well not Montana…..not Highland Sky……well it must have been Bull Run!

As much as MGM is a social event for me, I didn’t mind it that I ended up running most of the section that overlaps with the Women’s Half Marathon course alone.  My heart thumps a little differently along those stretches.

 

So here’s the one story I’d like to tell from VDM.  After a very long day of snow and ice, Aaron and I were running the last half mile on the road back to the parking lot.  Others had taken the quicker way on roads, and we figured the parking lot would be mostly abandoned.  ‘No, I reconsidered, I bet Gary and Q will still be there shooting back Knob Creek.’  Sure enough, the parking lot was pretty sparse and the light was getting dim, but much to my delight there were Gary and Q, right on call.

 

 

 

 

Philadelphia Marathon

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Aaron ran his first sub-2:50 marathon since getting Lyme three and a half years ago.  Tom ushered in his new decade in style by winning the 60-64 age group.  I was still walking.  It was victory all around in Philly.

I’ve skipped the past couple Boston Marathons, so it was great to go and reunite with the big ole Nittany Valley Running Club ‘blue and white train’ in Philly, including the pre-race dinner at Tre Scalini and a gorgeous day of racing on Sunday.  (Not that I hadn’t just seen many of them a month ago at MountainBack, but there’s something different about a road trip.)  Between my  lurking injuries and having just returned from a couple weeks in Australia, I wasn’t in racing mode and I wasn’t confident my IT band would survive 26 miles of pavement.  But fortunately I had a larger purpose: Tom turned 60 in October, and after blasting through a 2:56 marathon in Portland, he made it a mission to celebrate his new decade with an age-group victory at Philly.  ‘Pacing’ is kind of a misnomer, as Tom is going to run whatever damn pace he feels like, especially if there’s a cute girl in tiny shorts up ahead, but I could trot along and chat and make the miles tick by, at least until the halfway point where marathoners head up river and half marathoners (and injured folks ducking out of the marathon like me) can veer towards the finish line.

The Philadelphia Marathon has metastasized since I last ran it in 2005, when it was just a low-key marathon of a couple thousand people.  Reflecting the last decade’s crazy running boom, now it’s grown to a three-day running festival of 30,000 people, including a 8k race, half marathon, and marathon.  We all grumbled about how the race time had been moved earlier to 7am start to accommodate the troves of 7-hour marathoners.  Yeah I know, we’re elitist snobs.  But only when it makes us set our alarms for 4:30am.  Despite a large group of us managing to successfully convene at the Whole Foods at 6:30am, we all immediately lost each other in the thick crowds by the drop bag area.  It was only by sheer miracle (and Tom’s helpfully recognizable stature) that moments before the race I found Tom in the maroon corral.

But Philly has its perks.  It’s a really nice course, starting and ending at the arts museum, winding around the city and parks and along the river.  It’s fast course and perfect for a PR.  One upshot of the massive increase in the number of racers was the concomitant uptick in the number of spectators, and the crowds were much rowdier than they were a decade ago.

The other upshot of having all the marathoners and half marathoners running together is that it was so easy for me to run 13 miles with Tom and then split off and finish with the half marathoners, pick up my drop bag, warm up with a tea at the nearby Whole Foods, and then march down to a nice spectating spot around mile 25 to see Aaron come up the hill, followed 12 minutes later by Tom.  A part of me was kind of moody not to be out there running with them, but a part of me was also proud that I had been able to not be total idiot and keep the big picture in mind.  I’ve been struggling all fall to whisper down the inflammation in my IT band and my foot fibroma.  I’ve been going to acupuncture, massage, ART, chiro, the works.  There’s been possibly moderate improvement, but nothing to write home about.  I like Larry the acupuncturist that Kirstin, Katie, Sarah, and other wussies see, and maybe my injuries would have gotten worse if I hadn’t visited him so many times this fall.  But I was hoping he’d be able to eliminate at least one of my three problems (foot, IT, and hamstring).  I’m still in search of someone who has real insight into the source of my injuries.

As I found out, the best way to swallow the bit of mopiness that comes with being an injured runner who just watched all her friends finish the marathon she was supposed to run is to head directly to the pub.  I ordered Yard’s Philadelphia Pale Ale (when in Philly….), but they didn’t have it and somehow I ended up with a 9% IPA.  Soon all my memories of racing and non-racing were erased, and I was able to focus on the joy of trying to have a conversation with a group of people in an extremely load room where no matter where you stand you are always in the way of an increasingly irritated waitress.  I finally found my happy spot when I cozied onto a bar stool in the corner and had myself a burger.  Just because I had run the fewest miles didn’t mean I wasn’t the hungriest.

There was a bit of drama when we looked up the results on our phones and it seemed that Tom had only placed 2nd in his age group.  But we quickly determined that the other 60+ year old had not in fact run a 2:34 marathon, especially after going through the half in over 2 hours, and Tom was soon positioned in his rightful place at the top of the order.

Overall, the Philadelphia experience was a successful proof of concept for Boston.  Even though I didn’t end up signing up for the Boston Marathon, Philly showed that I am capable of just going socially, supporting Aaron, seeing my NVRC peeps, maybe popping in and run with Tom for a couple miles.  And when I start to get that little pang about not getting to have that crazy finish down Boylston, just hand me another one of those 9% IPAs.

 

 

I lay in bed with my eyes closed, listening for indications that Finn was up and mobilizing. Last night I had questioned the necessity of the early rise – it was Saturday after all – but Finn insisted that early morning was the best time to run. Finn had a 5 kilometer loop that he professed to be the most beautiful in Sydney.

We were laced up by 8, but the Australian sun was already strong, and Finn insisted I carry a water bottle. I assured him that I could trot 5k without water. But the loop had steep rocky ascents, and apparently Finn’s cousin had succumbed to heat exhaustion once before. On good days, Finn said he could do the loop in around 42 minutes, but he hadn’t been running much and he expected to be closer to 44 today. I promised him I wasn’t wearing a watch.

I slathered on sunblock, and we trotted off through the seminary woods. Noisy rainbow lorikeets shot between gum trees, and enormous sulfur-crested cockatoos bobbed their heads in the branches above. Water dragons sunned themselves on the rocks.

Giant rabbits – the bane of the Australian ecosystem – bounded through the fields. I told Finn how Eddie, my former PhD advisor whom I had been visiting the prior week at the University of Sydney, has been doing some ‘bunny experiments’ to study the host-pathogen dynamics of the myxoma virus that the Australians had introduced several times to try to control the exponential growth of the non-native rabbit population that was destroying Australia’s ecosystem. Although the virus initially caused severe hemorrhagic disease in the rabbits, the rabbits quickly evolved resistance and populations resurged. It’s a rare example of biocontrol, and a beautiful system for studying the host-pathogen arms race. The intentional introduction of multiple non-native species from Europe and Asia has wrecked havoc on Australia’s unique ecology. Rabbits, foxes, and boars were introduced for game; camels were introduced to build the railroads (horses did not fare well in Australia’s scorching deserts).

The ecological history of Australia is a string of human follies, the most infamous example of which is the introduction of the Cane toad. The Cane toad was introduced from South America as a predator of the Cane beetle that was decimating Australia’s sugarcane production. Instead, the Cane toad ate everything but the Cane beetle. Furthermore, the Cane toad is highly toxic, and kills any carnivore that consumes it. The Cane toad presents the greatest threat to Australia’s wondrously unique marsupial population, and Aussies are encouraged to kill any Cane toad they come across by whatever means possible – smashing it with a bat, driving over it with a car – but the Cane toad continues to grow in size and spread in range.

I had visited the Pursells in Manly previously, and the trails were all vaguely familiar. It was a marvelous little loop, climbing up a natural rock staircase cutting through the thick brush. We took a break at the top to enjoy the expansive view over Sydney harbor. Finn pointed out ‘spider alley’ where the trail becomes thick with cobwebs hosting giant spiders in the evenings. Finn had admitted to coming across a giant huntsman spider in the house the previous day that had kept Sarah and me on high arachnid alert all night.

 

Australia is notorious for its oceanic hazards: great-white sharks have been observed right in Sydney harbor, riptides are a major cause of death, and stinging jellyfish require beach-goers to wear protective suits that look like giant condoms during jellyfish season. But no trip to Manly would be complete without some ocean adventure, and Sarah joined us for post-run snorkeling. I’m not sure I’ve ever swum in such cold water. But Finn has infectious enthusiasm, and in no short time I was too distracted by the schools of fish and soccer ball-sized purple sea urchins. We swam point-to-point to Manly beach, one of Sydney’s most popular beaches, which was teeming with weekend visitors.

After some recovery hot showers and snacks, Sarah, Finn, and I hit the road for the Blue Mountains, where Finn lives and teaches piano at a local conservatory. Finn was already pretty tuckered by the morning activities of running and swimming, and was inclined to do a short hike in his neighborhood that afternoon. But Sarah and I had limited time to enjoy the Blue Mountains, and pleaded with him to take us on the more vigorous excursion option that was a bit farther afield.

When someone tells you to wear long pants in Australia, you should probably find yourself some body armor. Australia has the most poisonous snakes in the world. Finn also told us that it was currently peak snake season in the Blue Mountains, and the likelihood of seeing a snake was quite high.  He regaled us with stories of venomous snakes in his backyard, venomous snakes that he had almost stepped on. ‘Just be careful where you put your hands and your feet,’ Finn suggested. Right.

‘So this part is a bit tricky,’ Finn warned. We had deviated from the main path and had walked to the edge of a tall cliff. We couldn’t see the bottom.

Before Sarah or I had a chance to ask whether this was actually a good idea, Finn was already shimmying down. ‘It’s just like non-technical rock climbing,’ he assured us.

Getting down those rocks required ample use of the butt-slide and coordinated hand-offs of our walking sticks so we could use both hands. Finn assured us that climbing back up would be easier than getting down.

Once we got the hang of it, it was actually a great thrill to navigate our way deep into the gully. Sarah and I kept marveling, ‘There’s really no basis for it, but Finn seems to have a lot of confidence in us.’ Finn had been my neighbor growing up, but I hadn’t seen him in over a decade. And this was his first time meeting Sarah. We could think of a lot of our friends – men and women alike – who would not have been game at all for this harrowing descent. We wondered if Finn did this with all his visitors, a right of passage kind of thing. Or maybe he didn’t get many visitors.

‘This was NOT in the brochure!’ Sarah and I kept joking, in homage to Kurt, a California dude from years ago who had showed up to the Mount Kilimanjaro climb decked out head-to-toe in every piece of gear in the REI catalogue and who had shouted that very quote in objection to a brief rock scramble that apparently had not been sufficiently described in the tour’s info materials.

But the challenge was worth it: at the base of the descent was the most tranquil setting of interconnected freshwater pools and waterfalls. Looking up at the wall of mountains surrounding us, there wasn’t another soul in sight.

We stripped down to our bathing suits. ‘So, Finn, are there snakes in the water?’

‘No, the snakes won’t be in the water if we’re in. They don’t like people.’

I furrowed my brow. But the water was so fresh and inviting, we plunged in anyway. You could scramble across the rocks between pools and we traveled through the network of pools for about a kilometer. A wedge-tailed eagle darted overhead. Wood ducks foraged with their bills. We sat under the waterfall and let the cool torrents pour over our head and face.

Just as we were deciding whether to continue on through another pool, all three of us saw a dark creature moving along the surface of the water. I had snakes imprinted in my mind and first thought it was a water snake. Sarah saw its little eyes peering over the water and thought it was an alligator. But when it dove under we saw its furry little sausage body.

‘A platypus!’ Finn exclaimed. We waited silently for another ten minutes to see if it would resurface. But platypuses are one of the most secretive mammals on the planet, and that one little glimpse was all we got.

In all of Finn’s years of hiking and camping in the Blue Mountains, he had never before seen the elusive platypus. In fact, they are so rare that the websites don’t even mention that they live in the Blue Mountains (although their range stretches all along Australia’s east coast). The platypus is such a bizarre little critter, with its duck-like bill and webbed feet and little venomous spurs (I swear everything in Australia is venomous). The platypus is an ancient relic, a mammalian monotreme that lays eggs.

When I had studied abroad at the University of Melbourne during my junior year of college, I had desperately, of all the animals, wanted to see a platypus. I had scoured Tasmania and Queensland, areas where the animal is more abundant, with the hope of a sighting, but to no avail.  And there, in the Blue Mountains, in the least likely of places, I fished my wish. We climbed back up the cliffs, bubbling with excitement, and feeling that we had come across a magical place. It was as if Sarah and I had followed Finn down a rabbit hole into a strange kingdom where mammals have bills and lay eggs.

I started concocting stratagems to get Aaron to come out here, to experience this magical little place. Finn hit the nail on the head: apparently there is a famous 100km race in the Blue Mountains that is held every May (late fall Down Under).

Living out in the Blue Mountains is isolating. Finn’s main human contact seems to be with a neighbor whom Finn believes has been sabotaging and poisoning his trees and garden (at the time of our visit Finn had just acquired some surveillance cameras and had set up trip wires around the sides of his house). Given Finn’s fondness for the outdoors and for running, I tried to convince him to join the local trail running group. Despite many lines of argument I could not overcome Finn’s conviction that 50km was an absolutely absurd distance. Just as I had finally given up and started walking into another room I turned my chin over my shoulder: ‘You know, Finn, there could be cute trail runners.’

His eyes widened and he scratched his chin. ‘Hmm, you have a good point there.’