First Place, Male: T-Puff, with a new PR and CR of 8:10
Prize: A bottle of the Marmot’s favorite beer. Well, actually, it’s a slightly inferior cousin of the Marmot’s favorite beer, which is displayed below and is bloody hard to find even in Belgium.
Best. Beer. Ever.
First Place, Female:Â Marmot. Only because she actually did the whole thing.
Lil Boo disapproves mightily of The One Who Feeds Me drinking 4 beers in a span of 12 minutes.Prize to whomever comes up with the best thought bubble for this post-race photo
Second Place, Male: JJ
Julian understood he would have gotten this prize even had he won
Overall Champion, Pinot Grigio Division:Â Brienne
Brienne’s classy twist on the beer mile earned her an $80 pair of pants. Score one for the vino!
Overall Champion, Beer Relay Division: Ashlinn and Lexy
There aren’t many rules at the Beer Mile, but I think team Fogarty managed to violate all of them.
Third Place, Male:Â Doug
Best immediate thievery of spouse’s prize: Kerry
Overall Champion, Dry Mile: Bernard
Best maintenance of a baseline standard: RD, for not giving a prize for a Dry Mile, even though Bernard’s French & cute.
Best DFL: Sean
Worst attempt to order Thai food: Sean and LeahBest ability to upstage everyone and capture the awesomest beer prize without drinking a sip: AarBear
When will the Beer Mile occur?  7pm on Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Where will the Beer Mile occur? Â Soapstone Valley trail
How you walk from Van Ness metro stn to the Soapstone Valley trail
3.  Is there parking? We encourage taking the metro to binge drinking events.  But if you opt to drive, there is not parking at the trail head.  The best option is to convene at Julian’s house, approx. 0.6 miles away, and walk or trot over.  To facilitate the carriage of the beer, a single vehicle will transport everyone’s beer (metro-goers can carry their beer discretely in backpacks).
Julian’s house, and how to get to the Soapstone Valley trailhead
4.  So, this Beer Mile doesn’t go around a track?  Wussies have gotten away with a lot over the years, but needn’t press their luck.  The top portion of the Soapstone is a wide, relatively flat and groomed double-track, easily accessible from the metro, and a sensible choice for this year’s BM.  The course will be 4 consecutive one-quarter mile out-and-backs preceded by a beer drunken within a single Drinking Station.
5.  What are the rules?  For those of you who did the Donut Run, you may recall that the RD allowed for competitors to take some liberties with the classic structure of the event, although these liberties were taken into account during the awarding of prizes.  The Real Prize goes to male and female competitors who drink a beer while confined to the Drinking Station and run the quarter mile (repeat 4 times), with no puking.  Puking requires a penalty lap, no exceptions.  This is approximately the 17th Beer Mile I have organized, and I’ll admit that there has always been a ‘Cali Clause’ that permits females and males no taller than 5’6 to drink 2 pinot grigios while completing the full mile (drinking not confined to Drinking Stations).  There has also been a ‘Momma Jill clause’ for seniors aged 65+ to drink 2 beers and complete 1 mile (drinking also not confined to Drinking Stations).  Jared will be scouting for rules violations.
6. Â Prizes? Yes.
7. Â What does a hoard of drunken BMers do after the event? Â Cleveland Park Bar & Grill is a short trot/longish walk away.
8. Registration?  Please email Martha at marmot4281@gmail.com.  Please let her know whether you plan to be a ‘real’ Beer Mile or will be doing a version of your own creation.  Do to the nature of the course, the number of runners may have to be capped to avoid a stampede.
9. Â What do I need to bring? Â A light!!!! Â Very important. Â BYOB. Â If you’re Joe Clapper, someone to count your laps for you.
10. Â Any other tips? Â We learned from Robin not to eat apples beforehand.
Sean, Miles, and Daniel designed a killer five-day adventure itinerary for me and Aaron in Frisco, Colorado. For anyone headed yonder, here are some tips to maximize your summer adventure within the constraints of altitude.
Introduction
Miles takes the label Man’s Best Friend seriously
In the fall of 2016, Sean stunned the VHTRC by deciding suddenly to sell his home in Leesburg and move permanently to Frisco, CO. The move drove a dramatic improvement in the quality of life of Mr Andrish, including the arrival of his service dog Miles, a yellow lab who is the first known creature to rival Sean in pure love of mountains and trails. Sean’s airy condo has views of mountains on all sides, and a paradise of trails for running, skiing, and snowshoeing. World class downhill skiing is just a free shuttle ride away at Copper Mountain. Mountain air has also been good for healing Sean’s post-surgery knee, which has been letting him trail race again.
Sean takes the fourth group of the summer around Kite Lake Trail [top of Mt Bross, 14,172 ft]Frisco’s gems have been known to the VHTRC for many years, owing to the real estate prowess of Kerry, who was the first to buy property here. Sean’s translocation has made it even easier for Virginians to get a taste of the Rockies, and Sean spent much of his summer hosting visitors: Keith and Tracy en route to Hardrock, the Schmidt family, Tom S., Steve and Heather, and even the peripatetic Britt Z. Aaron and I were slotted in for Labor Day weekend, the finale to Sean’s long summer of hosting.
Frenemies Buster and Lilia
Aaron and I also made last-ditch efforts to link up with other recent Colorado transplants, Daniel and Phil. Daniel and his wife Jenny recently introduced baby Lilia to the world, who we’ve only gotten to know via Facebook to date. I was particularly concerned that their wonderful cat Buster might need extra attention. But I’m afraid I don’t have the Wechsler gene for planning, and we only managed to link up briefly with Daniel, and will have to plan better next time (including getting a rental car) if we want to make it to Golden.
Results
Earlier in the run we thought my high-altitude nose bleed would definitely be the day’s best blood
Tip #1: There will be blood. You can’t control everything in a good adventure. You can try to do everything right: slather sunblock head to toe, bring enough water, stash extra clothes in case the weather changes suddenly, which it is bound to do in the West. But there will be blood. In my case, the gore looked more gruesome than it really was: just a gusher of a nose bleed.
But Sean one-upped me with an epic fall on a flat, easy trail
I just stuffed my right nostril with tissues and moseyed along. Sean, on the other hand, got a real doozie of a hand gash after taking a wicked fall that slammed his shoulder into a tree. Sean is accustomed to taking a slide, but this one was so painful he went into a kind of shock and had to sit down for a while. The Andrish Family Way is to stick some leaves in there and move on. But Sean accepted my demand that we take him to the hospital and get him stitched up. Sean’s ER doc told him he could still run, but I doubt he’d guess we’d do another epic run the next day, shuttling to Copper so we could make our way back to Frisco via Uneva Pass. Since when did a little blood keep an Andrish down?
A little hospitalization can’t keep us from heading back out to the Lost Lakes between Frisco and Copper.Day 1 Adventure: Kite Lake trail loop
Tip #2: the Kite Lake Trail is an efficient way to bag 14ers. The plan for our five days in Frisco could be summed up as: bring running clothes, show up. So when Daniel announced that he could arrive at 7am on Friday and drive us to the Kite Lake Loop for our first big adventure, we were totally game. The Kite Lake trail takes you over four mountains over 14,000 feet (Mt. Democrat, Mt. Cameron, Mt. Lincoln, and Mt. Bross) over a mere eight miles. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more efficient way to bag a handful of 14ers.
Daniel, Our Fearless Leader BearThe fun bit of doing 14ers is getting to hike through the moonscapes.Earthlings spar over leadershipFolks coming from sea level struggled on the climbs.But it was worth it at the top!DROC: the Ducky Race of Champions
Tip #3: Take an Easy Day. On your first adventure, you’re going to have an altitude-be-damned attitude and push through the dizziness and fatigue because you’re just so stoked to be out there. Your lungs will burn, your head will spin, but you’ll soldier on. But take a tip from the ole marmot and back off the next day. Summit County’s event calendar is chock full o’ fun stuff all all summer, and a quick glance at a local newspaper will yield a host of activities that won’t burn your lungs.
Even Sean can’t turn down a free ride to the top
Since the Kite Lake trail had knocked the snot out of the two sea level-dwellers, we took the free shuttle to Breckenridge and began Day 2’s adventure with the Summit Foundation’s Great Rubber Duck Race. Over 10,000 rubber duckies were released into the river, and the winner got $3,000. Someone finally came up with a better way to raffle. We topped off the festivities with awesome Higgles ice cream, and a free gondola ride up Peak 7 [Tip #4: Free gondola rides are offered at Breckenridge all summer long.] so we could so we could cruise eight miles downhill on the beautiful Peaks trail all the way to Frisco [Tip #5: Point-to-point adventures are made dead easy by the Summit Stage, which runs a free shuttle every half hour between points of interest, including Frisco, Copper, Breckenridge, and Keystone].
The Peaks trail connects Breckenridge and FriscoRainbow Lake is a mandatory rest stopWelcome to Sean’s backyard
Tip #6: Skip the race. Our visit coincided with the Breckenridge Crest Mountain Marathon, Half Marathon & 10k, a temptation most VHTRCers wouldn’t have been able to resist. I get it: races are a good excuse to travel and see beautiful parts of the world. But why exactly do you need an excuse? Can’t you just go out to visit Sean and Miles and run in the mountains? We covered some of the same trails as the marathon course, but we got to all run together, giggling and farting, and stopping for all the views and all the critters. And there were a lot of critters.
Friendly hummingbird in Frisco, CO
Critter highlights: Mamma moose with calf, yellow-bellied marmot, pika, steller’s jay, hummingbird (females are tough to ID but possibly black-chinned), hummingbird clearwinged moth (that was originally mistaken for a hummingbird), clark’s nutcracker, snake (unidentified), sharp-shinned hawk, red-tailed hawk, black-billed magpie
Guest appearance from Frannie for the first 5 miles
Tip #7: Wait a couple days for your big adventure. We arrived in Colorado on a Wednesday evening, and it wasn’t until Sunday that we felt like we’d adjusted to the altitude enough to have the big adventure of the trip. The run around Buffalo Mountain was the highlight for me. Not as otherworldly as Kite Lake, but just pure pleasure. Waterfalls, sweeping vistas, and, maybe most critically, peaks where you weren’t freezing your ass off and could just bask in the sun for a while and watch the marmots scurry through the rocks. Where Miles had plenty of water to frolic in, and where the scenery was always changing, from pine-floored forests to meadows peppered with wildflowers. It reminded me in many places of Fat Dog. Sure, Sean and I ended up covered in blood (see Tip #1). But this is the day I’ll recall when I need to go to my ‘happy place’.
Day 3 Adventure: Run Around Buffalo Mountain: Ten-mile trail to Gore Range trail [notice that the run ends at the shuttle to the hospital]
Tip #8: Encore. Always encore. We might have reeled it in after our the Buffalo Mountain bloodbath. The irony of Sean’s fall is that it was actually in one of the least technical stretches, as we reached the popular, groomed Lily Pad Lake trails down at the bottom of the mountain. Sean had no trouble with the boulder fields, but meandering tourists are a whole ‘nother thing.
Taking the Gore Trail in the other direction from Copper back to Frisco
But I’m so glad we rallied for a final point-to-point adventure, taking the Summit Stage out in the other direction to Copper Mountain so we could run back to Frisco on yet another route. We went slooow, demonstrating to Sean just how long a human could spend watching marmots. But we managed not to incur any more blood, and found some unexpectedly beautiful country on some less-traveled trails.
Tip #9: Everything is more fun with dogs. Creatures tend to fall into one of two categories: spirited or obedient. Miles is rare for being both. One moment he’s thrashing in a lake like a puppy, then crashing through the forest understory chasing imaginary prey. Miles is a force of nature, a true athlete, and at the young age of two we’re only beginning to see how far he can go in the mountains (I suspect very far). But Miles also takes his service responsibilities seriously, obeying Sean’s commands like they’re gospel. One thing Miles is not is a guard dog. When another dog snarled and snapped at Miles while we were in line at the coffee shop, the poor sweet thing bounded into my lap for protection.
Miles makes every adventure betterWe tried really hard to see if we could wear Miles out. But I promise you if he saw a marmot right now he’d Usain Bolt it across the living room.
Discussion
Mission: Frisco was another glowing example of the success of the concept of Noncation. With the three-day weekend and the relatively short stay, there wasn’t quite as much work accomplished as when we do longer 10-day trips. But there is something wonderful about just crashing at a friend’s and not having any of the standard stresses of vacation: (a) the sinking feeling that you’re going to have hundreds of emails when you get home; and (b) the pressure that you need to do everything, because this is your one chance. We covered a lot of territory, but we left a long list of things we didn’t get to do in Frisco. We never climbed Mt Royal. We didn’t make it to Golden to see Jenny, Lilia, and Buster. We didn’t join Phil and Kim in Leadville. We didn’t make it out to Aaron’s childhood neighbor’s ranch in Eagle (ponies!). But, we can leave with the comfortable knowledge that we’ll be back. Sure, there’s a place for real vacation, and I’d like to go somewhere exotic like Brazil or Kyrgystan (someone is still owned a honeymoon….). But in the mean time there’s something absolutely wonderful about vacations that involve zero planning.
The trip was also a proof-of-concept that Martha and Sean can spend five whole days together and not want to rip each other’s face off. Back in the day in Woodley Park, there were loads of good times, but there were also times when Sean’s stubbornness brought me to my knees. I guess Sean left all the old ticks in Virginia, because in five days in Frisco I couldn’t even manage an eye roll.
Materials and Methods
Running gear. You know I’m not a big gear person, but I have to give a shout-out to my new Ultimate Direction Groove Stereo waist belt. I noticed it on Adam W. when he did Highland Sky back in June and hit him up for the details. It impresses me in terms of comfort, including not making me as hot as a vest, and storage, including a nice front pack.  I’ll add that Sean and I are also big fans of the Saucony Peregrine trail shoes.
Aaron’s view from Rocky Mountain Roasters
Food and beverage. I would also add that if you’re heading to Frisco, there is great food to be found at Tavern West (a bit more upscale) and a new Mexican place near the Whole Foods called Rio Grande (casual). Great ice cream can be found at Breckenridge’s Higgles. For coffee, head to Rocky Mountain Coffee Roasters on Main Street. And your best local dive bar is definitely Moose Jaw, where we dragged Sean to play billiards even with his hand freshly stitched. Why most women can’t properly wield a pool cue remained an unresolved question, even with hours on the trails to come up with plausible hypotheses. Sean provided a useful insight that he learned to shoot pool in the basement of his college fraternity, while his sister’s sorority had no table. But this just seems to beg the question of why women don’t take up such an elegant sport that doesn’t require any male muscle strength. The marmot would like to know!
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Sean Andrish, for so kindly sharing his space with a bear and a marmot who is not always so tidy. A big thanks also to Miles, who was like the rainbow jimmies on an ice cream scoop and just made every grand adventure sparkle that much brighter. A thanks also goes out to the cute PA at Summit County Hospital who made Sean’s visit to get stitches a lot more pleasant. Daniel deserves a big shout-out for enabling our adventure to Kite Lake. We can get around pretty far in the Summit Stage (which also deserve a big acknowledgment here for shuttling our asses around for free between restaurants, trail heads, and medical centers all week), but we wouldn’t have been able to do that awesome hike without Daniel’s truck. We also appreciated Daniel’s colorful commentary, which could be considered a different flavor of jimmies. Finally, we’d like to acknowledge a nameless group of hikers who very kindly gave us an entire bottle of water when Sean was sitting on a rock in a state of post-trauma shock after splitting open his hand.
This summer marked the 10th anniversary of the Sarah-Martha-Sarah Girls Weekend, which kicked off in 2007 in State College. A lot has gone down in the last decade, including three marriages, two babies, two degrees, and at least four moves across the country. Not that any of it ever got in the way of three girls getting together once a year to do exciting things together like walk to the drug store.
But it’s been a memorable run, and looking back at the ten years, we’d like to thank some of the folks who helped make it fun along the way:
Miruna, my plant biologist roommate, who let us pilfer all the blueberries from some Penn State plant experiment, until we all pooped blueThe Nittany Valley Running Club: the Sarahs didn’t know what a big deal they were until they were escorted in Cali’s Porsche convertible to a Beer Mile held in their honor.The little brown bat that died of natural causes in the waste bin in my parents’ house in Shepherdstown, the most memorable bit of Girls Weekend #2.Except maybe for Nutters (Sharpsburg, MD)Edward Sharpe, who provided this iconic picture for Girls Weekend #3 at Milwaukee SummerFest 2011, even though he was so sweaty post-concert I demurred on the hug.Lil Brady, 1 month away from his grand entrance, for gamely putting up with Girls Weekend #4.
The ducks at the Peabody Hotel, who were the grand stars of Girls Weekend Memphis (along with the ribs)
Goats. Goats on boxes. Diving Goats. Marauding Goats. It’s not a real Girls Weekend until we find the goats…Okay, okay, move over goats and ducks. Rosie is always the star of Girls Weekend.
