of bones and blood and nerves and dirt: Getting there, less than one week from Zane Grey

I'm up on the Mogollon Rim, enjoying the quiet and gearing up for my first chance to run the Zane Grey 50mile trail race this Saturday. However, getting here was a bit more of an adventure than I had planned, but such is life. Here's my attempt to fill in the gaps.

Last I wrote I was still in Vermont, training was going well, and I was gearing up to leave Burlington for the majority of the summer. I was also waiting to get my MRI results back to see if there were any answers to the weirdness I'd started to experience in November. The results came in and the initial e-mail I got back from my doc was "Your MRI is essentially normal, we'll talk about it on Friday." At this, I had to laugh. 'Normal' was the worst possible word that could be used to describe me in my not-so-humble teenage years. I made my own t-shirts, including one that said 'Why be Normal?' on it. Yeah, I was that kid. Needless to say, I found it pretty hilarious that my MRI was being described as 'essentially normal,' like, normal with an asterisk. What did that mean? I told myself that I didn't need to worry about it, because if it were something alarming, they'd have had me come in earlier. Turns out that essentially normal for my brain translates to there being some increased flair signals within my corpus callosum. Other bonuses, they found some arthritis in my cervical spine, but nothing to worry about. Being a geek, which I am, I of course had to look up all the random things connected to weirdness with ones corpus callosum...the one most spectacular thing I found was alien hand syndrome. Yeah. I don't have it, nor do I expect to develop it, but folks with severe irregularities within their corpus callosum can develop it, and I think it is fascinating. Take home for me though, I'm good to go, I'm essentially normal, and I don't have to think about any of this stuff for another 4 or so months when I get to have another 3 hour MRI! I am stoked, to say the least.

Training continued to move along pretty well. The weather occasionally cooperated, but there were lots of very cold and semi-wet days, which was starting to bum me out. Fortunately, just as the sap was starting to flow and sugaring season was upon us, we had one glorious weekend of sunny, warmish weather and I managed to combine a long-run with my first sugar-on-snow experience. I had no idea what sugar on snow was, much to the chagrin of my pal Jacsen. He insisted I must come to know this Vermont tradition first hand. I was more than happy to make the journey to an old sugar shack, essentially using it as an aid station halfway through a 22mile out and back run. This, my friends, is sugar on snow:

A view from the run to Palmer's

Est. 1867!!

This is the sap being boiled inside the sugar shack

Sugar on snow= shaved ice, with hot,
dark grade D maple poured over it,
served with a pickle and a donut. In order
to be able to have the full experience,
I ran with my own donut that I could eat.

A very satisfied sugar on snow customer. Also, wearing
a tank top and sleeves at 50degrees, does this
mean I'm becoming a Vermonter?

Fueled by sugar on snow, I made my way out of Vermont. I packed up my things, loaded up my truck, and started to head West. My first stop was in Morrisville, NY, where I taught a workskills session for the SCA Excelsior Corps program. I led the timber station again, and while I love working with rough timber and showing all the things that can be done with it, the projects are often quite large, where there is no chance that they'll be completed in a week of me teaching people for the first time how to work with these materials. Knowing that I have my own expectations, and can be satisfied with the knowledge relayed. Whether or not the participants enjoy it so much, hard to say. Regardless, here are a few pics from the start of a large Adirondack Lean-to shelter, built with locally harvested Hemlock.

headed back from the worksite

some tools of the trade

Starting to peel the Hemlock

The beauty of a draw knife

Peeling it just like a banana.

Getting the foundation started.

The week of Workskills came to an end and I began the big drive across the country to Arizona. I had figured I'd get it done in 3 or 4 days, with a couple visits with friends along the way. I had dropped some money into my little 1981 VW Caddy truck in order to prepare Chuck (my truck) for the journey. Sadly, Chuck did not get the memo that he had just been spoiled, and decided to freak out with some serious front end/suspension issues smack dab in the middle of the drive, around the Indiana/Illinois border. The whole ordeal was a but Buster Keaton-esque. While driving through some construction outside of Indianapolis, something felt weird and I was worried that I'd gotten a flat or something. Pulled off the interstate, checked it out, everything seemed fine, got back on the interstate. Once I got up past 45 or so mph, Chuck got mad. Not wanting to make a bad situation worse, I got off the interstate, found a tire shop, and had them rebalance the wheels, check things out. After this was done, all seemed well, but I had lost too much daylight, so I chose to call it a day and stayed the night in Plainfield, Indiana. I woke up wicked early, as usual, and hit the road around 6:30am. Plainefield, Indiana is 64.3 miles, via I-70, from Terre Haute, Indiana. Here comes Buster Keaton. First 10 minutes of the drive, nothing to write home about, all seemed fine. Then, Chuck doth protest. The shaking started again and I had to slow it down and ride on the shoulder of the Interstate, rolling along at about 35mph, grateful that it was a Sunday, but annoyed that it was about 6 miles to the next exit. Eventually I made it off the Interstate, checked my road atlas, and created a plan for how to (slowly) get to Terre Haute, which seemed like the next largest town, where I'd be most likely to find some help. I was making progress, about 35mph at a time, and was feeling slightly less stressed about the situation, because I was pretty sure I could make it to my new destination, albeit slowly. I couldn't figure anything out until I got there, so I just focused on the task at hand. Then came the sheriff road block in the middle of my path. Why the road was blocked, I do not know, but this road block sent me off on another detour, that would have me winding through county roads, passing through some really beautiful scenery, which I tried very hard to appreciate. I finally made it to Terre Haute, and inquired at the U-Haul there about renting a small truck which I could attach an auto-hauler to, to get Chuck to Arizona with me. The smallest truck he had was a 20' box truck, and he didn't have any auto haulers...so he called a guy in Brazil. (Brazil, Indiana) I was told that the guy in Brazil could help me out, so I slowly drove the 15 miles East to Brazil. Short version, the guy in Brazil also didn't have any trucks smaller than a 20' available that day, plus he crunched the numbers and the whole deal, even with a smaller truck, would cost upwards of $1700. What? Nope. Nope. Not an option. Okay, it's Sunday. Many places are closed. How am I going to problem solve this? I get back in the truck, drive back to Terre Haute, and wait for Enterprise rental car to open. They open at noon, all of this has happened before 11:00 a.m. I make arrangements with Todd, the stellar dude at the U-Haul, to leave my truck in his lot and either sell it or remove it from there within the month. Once Enterprise opened I rented a little car, shoved all my stuff in it, and drove to Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was an insane day. On a mission to get the rental car returned as quickly as possible, I drove from Tulsa to Flagstaff on Monday, and returned the car to the Enterprise in Goodyear, AZ when they opened at 9am on Tuesday. All I can say is, ultrarunning has helped me manage this sort of insane cross country driving, thinking under stressful situations, and keeping a positive attitude. I am very glad for that, and extremely grateful that no-one was hurt in the process.

RIP Chuck, the Caddy Truck.

Once back to my desert roots, I quickly hit the trails. I had a couple nice days out in the Estrella Mountains while I was down in the Valley, and the rest of my runs have been up here in the pines and aspen of the Mogollon. (For those of you who don't know, it's pronounce Muggy-own) Running gave me time to think, to strategize, and to figure out how exactly I was going to deal with the truck debacle. I posted it up for sale on a few VW forums, and managed to find a buyer. To say I took a loss on it would be the understatement of the month, but I didn't have to travel back there to retrieve it or deal with, so all said and done, I was sad to see Chuck go, but happy to wash my hands of it all. The bigger bummer was that I had been hoping to eventually sell Chuck in order to have money to put down on a Sprinter or Transit that I could convert into a vehicle I could live out of, but those dreams will just have to wait for a later date. So it goes, now I'm just trying to find something I can afford and can partially live out of for the summer. Someday, my vagabond dream of travelling the country to different job contracts and trail races and adventures will be a reality! I know it will!

Enjoyng the Estrella's

Spotted some Saguaro blossoms

Loving the pines above the Mogollon

Perfect place to end a run, at Willow Springs Lake

While in the Valley, I managed to have two nights of really spectacular music. The first show was my friend's new project, called CORANO. The music was solid, definitely could hear the remnants of their old project, but it wasn't so full of reminiscing that you missed the new components. I'll have to admit though, I think that one of the best parts of the show was the fact that it was at a venue that has a new name and a new owner, but was where we all went in high school to see shows. Now it's called the Rebel. Back in the day it was called the Mason Jar. In the Mason Jar days, they would have shows from 5:30-7:30 or 8 for the high school bands, and then they'd kick us out and the big kid shows would start around 8:30. So here we were, in a new-old space. Now the stage is on the South end of the building, when we were kids it was on the North end. In high school I had constantly had my slr camera around my neck, taking photo after photo of my friends and their bands. Now I found myself snapping subpar photos with my phone, but still happy to document. Oh, how far we've come.

Old friends, new music.

CORANO

The second show I went to was the Savages. Wow. I don't even know what to say. I was about 2 and a half people away from the stage for the whole show. Their energy was out of this world, they rocked hard, and I danced the whole time. It was incredible. I held Jehnny Beth up with many others as she crowd surfed above us. I had a stupid grin on my face pretty much the whole show because it was just that good. Knowing that I would be up North at the rim during Record Store day, I preemptively participated by purchasing their latest LP Adore Life, to add to my Savages record collection. I hoped that going to this show would help to get many of their songs and much of their raw energy infused into my body, brain and soul so that I might call upon it this weekend in the challenging parts of my race. Thanks Savages, for an extraordinary night!!

Calm before the storm

Everyone a silhouette

Jehnny Beth crowdsurfing

The curtain call, all four take a bow.

Getting ready for the race, this week, mostly translates to making sure I stay well hydrated, making the right food choices, getting my drop bags organized, a few short little shake out runs, enjoying the quiet of the woods, and watching lots of NHL playoff hockey. Getting the race ready for myself and others included marking the last leg of the course this past weekend with my Dad. Our morning began with an inch of snow on the ground at our place, but we knew once the sun came out it would quickly burn off. The elevation difference between our spot and the highest point of the race is about 1200 feet, and we figured there would pry not be any snow on the course. We had a really nice time hiking our way up the rim from See Canyon to the 260 trailhead. The creek crossing at the See Canyon trailhead was flowing, but we found an easy point to cross. It stayed cold throughout the day, it even snowed on us a little bit, though nothing stuck. I hadn't been on that section of the trail since the last time I had swept the course back in 2012(?, i think) it's since had a re-route, and what I had remembered to be a long 6 miles was actually a long 7 miles. I'm very glad to know that now, so that it won't psyche me out at the end of my race this weekend. Ultimately, I'm feeling ready for the Zane Grey, I'm looking forward to running through familiar territory, on some trail sections I worked on years ago, and amongst some familiar faces, particularly old friends from the TTR group. Thanks as always for reading, look for a Zane Grey race report sometime after next weekend. And then my focus will shift on more miles and long runs gearing up for the Vermont100 in July!! (For which I am still raising money, please share this link with ANYONE, and no donation is too small, every $1 counts, big time.)