Over The Top

Mazda pimped out with yaks

Bear with me. There's a story here, but first I need to get something off my chest.

Connecticut might be about the 50th most hard-core state. The "land of steady habits" is not usually the first place that comes to mind for seekers of X-TREME outdoor activities. There are no mountains over 3,000 feet, no big ski areas, no forest fires, earthquakes or other entertaining forms of devastation. Do you like surfing? Fuhgeddabout it! Way back when, some asshole  invented Long Island, thereby screwing Connecticut out of its oceanfront. 

Other places have dangerous animals—grizzly bears in the Northwest, alligators in florida cougars (both kinds) out in California. Over here, we have fisher-cats, three-foot animals that look like lemurs. Now that these interesting animals have started to return to the region, people go on lockdown every time they hear about them in their neighborhoods. There are yet to be confirmed reports of a fisher eating someone's face off, but when there's nothing to worry about, people will worry.

Most of the rivers here are also a yawn. The silty meandering bodies of water are fine if you want to put in some miles in your kayak, but whitewater is tough to find and often seasonal.

 A couple of weeks ago my friend Andrew and I decided to try out a Roaring Brook in Canterbury, which is supposed to be a fast  moving, badass class four. If we'd read the water gauges properly, we would have known that we were in for a slow moving, lameass trickle.

Our hope that this would turn into a killer torrent downstream turned out to be wishful thinking

After 20 minutes negotiating shallow river, we heard the thunder of falling water up ahead. At the other end of a millpond was a large, concrete dam. The water ran over the lip and  fell for an unknown distance down the other side. Andrew and I paddled up to the edge and got out of our boats.


I looked over the other side, where the water dropped about 15 feet into dark pool below. 


How deep?  I wondered, trying to envision what would happen when I paddled over. 


So far, the kayak trip had been a mixture of boredom and frustration. What was supposed to be a badass Class 4 river had turned out to be a feeble trickle between rocks and branches. We'd already had to get out of the boats a couple of times because we were scraping bottom. Turns out that we had misread the info online about the river height, and it was barely a tenth of what it was supposed to be in order to ensure a good ride.


With disappointment behind us and lameness in front of us, the dam was really the only opportunity for excitement on the trip. Of course, it would hardly be worth the extra excitement if I hit rock and broke my ankles or flipped and hit my head. I tried to think of a conclusive method that would allow me to weigh potential risks, versus feeling like I chickened out.


A couple things gave me confidence though. One was that I had dropped from that height out of a kayak once before. While I was with the Kayak Club at NUI Galway in Ireland, they had loaded each of us into kayaks, put our spray skirts on and thrown us over a bridge. I was the first to go, and had some nerves about what would happen to me. .


"You guys do know what you're doing right?"
"Just paddle hard when you hit the water, you'll be fine."


With that, they slid my boat off the railing and I dropped into the canal below. The kayak sank so that my head was submerged and water went up my nose. Also, the spray skirt broke, and the kayak got filled halfway to the brim. But I had lived, and it was awesome. 


I think about those crazy bastards sometimes. To say they were skilled would be an understatements. These guys could do a roll in whitewater. They could do pushups with their kayaks in the water. Also they had a reputation as the drunkest club on campus, which was saying something at a university in Ireland. I once had to miss one of their trips out on a river up in Donegal and the next day I heard that someone had chipped a tooth, someone else had a broken collarbone. Shit, that must have been some dangerous paddling. I thought. 


Actually, the tooth was the result of dancing on, and falling off a table in the course of heavy drinking. The collarbone belonged to a guy who had decided to get in the water seriously hungover. Surprisingly, this decision had led to poor results.


People who display the best decision-making generally consult the internet. There's a picture of a guy going over the dam and he had lived to write the post. Thus, it was only logical to conclude that the dam was a safe bet--in any boat and in any conditions. 


I had noticed that there had been about three feet of  water going over the edge in the photo, instead of three inches, which was what I saw in front of me. Immaterial.


I got back in my boat and paddled away from the dam so that I'd have some speed

I couldn't be as cool as this guy. There was only a narrow trickle in the middle when I went over.

I got my boat up to top speed, aiming for the narrow spillway. Over the top I went and the nose pointed strait down. Before I'd had time to appreciate being airborne, the front of the yak crashed into the rocks, probably about three feet below the surface. I lurched forward out of my seat, and broke my left foot peddle. 


The kayak was afloat. I was totally uninjured. It was also nowhere near as cool as the picture I'd see, or getting pushed off a bridge for that matter.


I had Andrew ready with my cellphone camera, but honestly haven't figured out how to get the photo onto my computer. The pic proves about as much as the latest Lochness shot, so I'll just let it go. You'll just have to take my word that, yes, I did actually paddle over a drop and hit a bunch of rocks.


Afterwards, we realized that there were several ways we could have tested the water depth other than with the nose of my kayak. One way would be using the rope we had, using a rock for a weight. Also, we could have taken a kayak down there and probed around with a paddle. 


Then again, the two of us have made some less than brilliant decisions before, such as almost getting killed trying to scuba dive with a backpack full of rocks and a bucket overhead.


The cool thing was that though my judgement was incredibly poor, it also yielded almost no consequences. Even the peddle that broke off reattached easily. Maybe next time I'll do it hung over.

A Vermont Marathon

The 40th anniversary Green Mountain Marathon was my first foray into the marathon world. With a third place finish out of 412 finishers and a time of 2:46:04, I'll admit that I am pretty pleased with the results.

As my earlier post may have indicated, I had a lot of things that were worrying me at the start of the race. My first concern was going to be that I would make some kind of mistake in pacing and crash. In the end, I came close to dying utterly, but managed to keep my balance on that knife edge between foolishness and compromise.

The last week leading up to the marathon, I backed off the mileage big time. My last long run was a 13 miler with Max along the Mohawk in Amsterdam, New York. After that, I did a seven, a six and two five mile runs as well as a three miler on Friday, trying to hover around 7:30 pace. This was supposed to be the easy part, but mind games made it harder. Jeez, I think I feel a tweak in my back. My left ass muscle feels weird. Hey, I wonder if that will turn into a debilitating tear at mile 12. I wonder what it feels like to drop out of a marathon.

Plus, I began to feel that despite the dramatically decreased mileage and pacing that the runs were still taking energy out of me. I was still sweating, still breathing hard. The fact that running didn't feel effortless and free made me worried.

I got some peace of mind from talking race strategy with my dad, a veteran Marathoner with nine Bostons to his name. I had structured much of my training, especially the last two weeks of taper according to his marathon regimen.

In order to remember what fast felt like, I made sure to do a few pick ups during the runs and sped up to a 6:20 pace for a mile on Thursday. I was still far from easy in my mind.

For Friday and Saturday, I hydrated mercilessly, downing a glass of water every time I walked by the kitchen sink. While you were pounding keystones Friday night, I was knocking back pints of gatorade. I boosted my carbohydrate intake with white bread, oatmeal and whatever other grains that I could get my hands on. I wasn't being very scientific about the process, but what I lacked in method I made up for enthusiasm.

Naturally, my high liquid intake corresponded with an impressive urine output. During the ride up to Vermont, I stopped twice in Connecticut, once in Massachusetts and twice again in Vermont, usually just pulling off the interstate and sprinting for the nearest patch of trees. If humans marked their territory the way dogs do, I could have laid a convincing claim to half of New England.

I had a place to stay in Burlington thanks to my buddy Dave who has taken second place in the Vermont City Marathon twice and is a general, all-purpose badass. The last time I was in Vermont, it was to watch him (and his sister!) compete in the Death Race, a multi-day, batshit-insane challenge that includes crawling under barbed wire, splitting wood, running up mountains, more barbed wire, jumping in a pond and eating raw onions. I wish I'd written down what I'd seen while my memories were fresh, but of course it would be nothing to the actual experience of a competitor.

I'd met Dave's parents at the Death Race. They were gracious enough to open their doors to me and also give me an excellent pre-race meal of tortellini, italian bread and fresh salad. Dave's sister, who lives in the area, dropped by and after our meal, we all went down to the basement for a game of bumper pool.

Dave's dad was obviously an old pro, and placed his shots with deadly accuracy. I could almost see the telemetry working in his brain as he squatted in front of the table and took it all in through his shark's eye. About halfway into the game, he let us in on a secret; there were tiny lines underneath the bumpers that he used to figure out the angles.

Race time was at 8:30 the next day, and registration started at 7:00. I planned on sleeping soon and getting to the race early. Since Dave had fled the nest, I got to sleep in his room. Remarkably enough, I slept pretty well and felt eagerness rather than dread, when the first of the many alarms that I set went off at 5:20 in the morning.

Downstairs, I constructed my Master Plan Breakfast of tea, oatmeal and honey. Dave's mom was up and offered up some craisans, which I threw into the mix. The breakfast gave me energy and the desired bowel movement: a sure recipe for race-day success. I would have read the morning paper, but the clock was ticking in the back of my head so I said goodbye and headed out.

Screw wheaties!

When I stepped into the morning darkness it was cold but not freezing, which I took to be an encouraging sign. It was about a thirty minute drive to the course, which is in South Hero to the north. The course is on an island in Lake Champlain, connected by a highway that runs between Vermont and New York. Along the way, I passed through tracts of farmland, ghostlike in the gray half-light of dawn. Mists hovered about the lake edge and drifted past yellow stands of maples. I drove to the start line where a volunteer pointed me back to a lot I had gone past. The sun came up soon after I stepped out of my car.

Another volunteer was shuttling runners in a van so that they wouldn't have to walk the half mile to the start. I waited around for a bit, but when the van ended up taking too long, another guy offfered to shuttle some runners over in his Prius. I took shotgun and saved my legs the extra effort.

The start was right outside of Folsom Elementary School where they had tables handing out race packets, tee shirts and pins. I took my number and attached it with pride to my purple North American Distance Squad uniform top.

Having already diverted to talk about the Death Race, it now only seems fair to mention this earlier enterprise. As a member of the NADS, I raced with 12 of my other friends including Dave; as well as Max and Ben, whom you may recall from my Peru entries, in the New York Ragnar Relay, a 185-mile non-stop competition from Woodstock to the Tappan Zee Bridge just above Manhattan. After an afternoon, night, and morning of nonstop racing and shuttling, the NADS came in first with a time of 19:25, putting Team Google in its place with a good hour gap between us. I should be careful about smack talk though since Google owns this blog and have probably invented ways to kill people through the internet.

Myself  in NADS uniform

For a closer look at the jersey front--also my hairy pits

My final preparations for the race included two more piss stops outside and one more in some hedges as I walked to the starting line.

The start of the race was alongside an apple orchard. I huddled in with some of the other runners, shivering in the cold wind coming off the lake. While I was just wearing my uniform singlet and a pair of shorts, other runners were in fleece tops, jackets and wool hats. Some also had sophisticated bandoliers of liquids and gels to ensure ultimate hydration during the race. Based on the amount, I'd been peeing, I think I take my liquid intake pretty seriously, but that was much further than anyone needs to go. My plan was to start hitting the gatorade stops around Mile Ten.

Fortunately, I was able to squeeze in pretty close to the start line and there was probably less than a three second delay between the time the gun went off and when I crossed it. It wasn't a chip course so runners looking for hyper-accurate course readings would have to get them from their own watches.

I screwed  up my watch at the beginning though when I hit the wrong button in my excitement. I had to wait until the two mile mark to get it set again and be able to have some sense as to what pace I was running.

Deprived of the rigidity of the stopwatch and pumping with adrenalin at the start of the race, I found it hard to guess what pace I might have been running in. Still, my suspicion was that I was going faster than I had planned for. I could see five people in front of me and it was hard to ignore the urge to keep with them. Sure enough when I got to mile four, I calculated that I was running sub 6:30 pace. I felt great, but I was worried because I was supposed to feel great for many more miles. I didn't want to start suffering until at least mile 18. For the present, there would be no drama in the race, no one was huffing and puffing and I felt free to smile and wave right back to all the cheering bystanders.

The pace bike was still in sight by mile six, but I was sure that it was well out of range. More immediately, I had an older guy, Rick was his name, running in right in front of me. I still wasn't sure if I wasn't going out way too fast, but I reasoned that it was in my interest to keep up because I could draft behind him during the windy sections. We traded places a few times. He would begin building a lead on me which he would lose as soon as we passed an aid station and he downed a cup of gatorade.

"Hitting those water stations pretty hard," I told him when he went by again.
"Hydrate early, hydrate often" he told me, and then got back in front.
We had struck up a quick conversation earlier, when I had asked him what time he had on his watch. It turns out he had screwed up at the start too, but was unfazed by this.
"Sometimes it's better just to throw the watch away" he said.

Right after the halfway mark

Rick and I get some gatorade

I stopped briefly about five miles in to relieve myself in some trees. I probably lost about ten seconds, but gained considerable peace of mind for the rest of the race.

At around Mile Eight, I knew I was going out harder than I planned, but decided that I wasn't willing to throw on the brakes. Why not just go based on feel--I mean other than the fact that I was probably delusional and would pay dearly for my foolishness later?

Dirt road gave way to pavement and then back to dirt and pavement once again. Lake Champlain was in view for a few places, allowing me to see the waves, angry whitecaps whipped up by the wind. For the most part, the wind was behind us on the way out, which foreshadowed struggle on the return.

At 11 miles, I came to my first aid station, grabbed a gatorade cup and slowed to a jog in order to chug the contents. Just past Mile 12, I saw the leaders go by me from the other direction. They were two steely haired speed demons, wearing the same green uniform tops, something that usually means trouble. The other two guys were about a minute behind, with perhaps a 100 meter gap between them.

I turned around soon after and crossed the half marathon mark (where they had an official clock) in 1:24. Shit! I'm on pace for a 2:48 marathon! My legs undoubtably felt more tired then they had been 13 miles ago; I knew that pain was on the horizon, but I still felt cocky and felt myself picking up the pace slightly. I hit the mile 14 aid station with a lead on Rick and chugged another gatorade.

"Hey, seeya later!" I heard him shout. That meant that I was alone again with no one to draft off of.

Crowd support got a big boost over the next four miles as I went by the runners that were still going out. "Way to go, you're in fourth!" "You're in fifth!"

Around Mile 16, I heard "Go Tom! Go NADS!" and saw Dave's folks driving by in their Subaru. I was right at the special boundary between where discomfort transitioned into pain. The tweaks I'd felt earlier in my back and in the left side of my ass had indeed begun to hurt, much as I had feared.

Still, I had fresh encouragement, in that one of the guys in front of me had slowed and now was in my sites. After an aid station I nestled in behind him and let him block the wind for me. He knew I was there and veered over to the middle of the road so that I would lose the advantage of the draft. Since he wasn't going to let me benefit, there was no reason to stay there, so I went past him.

I got my last hit of gatorade at Mile 20, slowing down slightly to tip the cup. I still ended up spilling half of it on my uniform, but that was okay.

They say that when you hit Mile 20, you're halfway there. After Sunday, I'm inclined to agree. Unlike most races I've run, this pain had nothing to do with breathing hard and everything to do with soreness. Legs, ass and feet were complaining bitterly about my lack of regard for their well-being. I didn't let myself slow though; once you do that, it's easy to lose spirit, and things can go south very quickly. Instead I picked up the pace. God, this thing better be over soon, I thought.

Meanwhile, I saw third place about 100 meters in front of me. He's probably out of range. But I was closing in on him. With four miles to go, I put myself in drafting position. At this point, the wind was blowing hard off the lake, which was churning with dark waves. A cold drizzle from the clouds spritzed us as we went. By staying behind him, I could save myself from some of this abuse.

 He was slowing down. I slowed with him, saving my energy for when I'd make my move. Finally, we were going up a hill and much too slow. I made my move. As soon as I stepped out of the draft zone, the wind slapped me over the face and chest. I heard his footsteps pick up the pace behind me and understood that this was his plan; he had wanted me to pass me so that he could use the draft and reclaim the lead after I'd tired myself out. I considered slowing down again, but decided to make the most of the situation.

When the wind came up again, I put my head down. My legs felt pounded and distorted, my feet felt like raw hamburger inside their shoes. I was very glad I had decided not to have worn flats because at this point, my knees and everything else surely would have been shot. This really sucks. I thought. But I was excited too. If I could hold this pace, I would finish with a much faster time than I had dared to hope.

200 meters after I made my move, I heard the footsteps fade away. I was alone in front and behind. Third place--if I held. I like to think that with two miles to go, I had dipped below six minute pace. There was one last hill on the dirt road until Mile 25. Everything hurt, and I knew it would continue to hurt after the finish line. But the pain was good in the sense that I would not second guess myself after I crossed the line. If I felt great at the end of the race, I would have to doubt whether I had put the right effort in. In this way, pain built peace of mind.

Right before the hill, I went by Dave's parents again, cheering me on from the side of the road. It was without question, a huge boost, one that helped me tackle that last obstacle before the end.

The last mile was pain. My feet, barely felt like part of my body; they just told me that they hurt. But there was no second-guessing any more and the anticipation of the finish line rose to conquer all the bodily pain. It was also a flat finish on pavement with the wind behind me again. With nothing left to lose, I was free to concentrate on keeping my head pointed forward, turning my legs over and watching the glimmering digital display at the finish line coming closer.

I "sprinted"the last 100 meters, and crossed the line into the finish chute where they took the racing tag away from me and put a finisher's medal over my head. Done. And not just under three hours, which had been my stated goal, not 2:53, which had been my secret goal that I kept to myself, but 2:46:05. I was well within the Boston qualifying zone. Come April, I plan to test myself again. In some ways, I wish I'd done this marathon slower, because it's going to be a bastard of a time for me to try and P.R. again.

I sagged to the sidewalk in front of the elementary school, right next to runners one and two. They had finished in 2:42:44 and 2:44:37 respectively. I had closed on them in the second half, but there was no way I could have caught them, even if I'd done a perfect race.

Dave's folks came over to congratulate me and gave me some swedish fish to keep my blood sugar going. After they made sure I was not going to die, they took off, leaving me with an offer to drop back at their place if I needed some more rest.

After a while, I hauled my poor, suffering bones back into the school gym and feasted on bagel slices, vegetarian chili and cider. I talked with a few marathoning vets about their racing experiences. I took away that Boston was a great race, New York is a great race to get jostled by unruly crowds and have assholes splatter you with the urine they've been saving in gatorade bottles.

I stuck around for a couple hours until the awards ceremony, which bestowed a golden apple upon me and a year's subscription to New England Runner. Sweet.

Of course, now that I've taken third place, I intend to make a few lifestyle changes to reflect this reality. For one, this douchy picture I had taken of myself will now be the way I represent myself to the world on Facebook.

Yo, sorry for partying!

I'm not going to go overboard here. I'm not actually going to wear my third place trophy around my neck, which would be going excessive. Instead, I'll be humble and wear my finishing medal, and only explain my incredible marathon to people if they ask me about why I'm wearing a medal around everywhere. Meanwhile, I'll have the golden apple attached to the front of the Mazda as a hood ornament--keeping things low-key. I may also have to start dressing differently. The tee-shirt is never coming off obviously, but I will probably wear an expensive fur coat over it. This is not meant to flatter my own vanity, but only to give the marathon the respect that it deserves. I would appreciate everyone's support as I make these changes.

Finishing medal

Third is the one with the golden apple.

One more word to fellow members of the North American Distance squad. I feel pretty good about my marathon, but I also feel something else: a target on my back. You guys are all in awesome shape (which is why we're going to kick Google's ass again this year.) With XC training and all the other running under your belts, you could also lay out some serious hurt in a marathon. I think we should all follow Dave after Ragnar and do the Vermont City Marathon in May. It'll be fun to put a lot of people behind the purple and make them read our battle howl as we go past:

What Could Go Wrong

I'm running the Green Mountain Marathon in South Hero Vermont this Sunday, October 17th.

Well I've gotta get my beauty sleep, so I don't imagine that I will put too much thought or effort into the post. But don't let my haphazard approach turn you away. I have some fun, easily digestible bullet points, ready made for your consumption. The topic at hand is the entertaining subject of imagining all of the terrible things that could happen to me as I try my first marathon. Really, there are so many things that could explode on me. I don't usually think about them, which is probably a good thing, except when you consider that overconfidence can be a killer.

 I can't tell you how many races I've started out with well thought out plans to conserve energy and save it for a strong finish. And then the gun goes off, and I feel great. Suddenly, I no longer understand why I was planning on starting slow, really it makes more sense to give it all I have early on so I can get the best time. Some miles later, I'm exhausted, reeling drunkenly over the course, feeling as though all life and motivation has been beaten out of me. How could I have been so stupid?

So I have written down the splits that I need. I've planned out how I'll eat and hydrate before the race. I've visualized the exact pace that I want and have hit it consistently on runs. This planning gives me confidence, but nothing even close to certainty. I'm still looking forward to Sunday, but I'm looking forward to feeling strong and setting a great time. Would I be so eager, if I knew that I was destined to get a mother of a sidestitch at mile 12, that my feet were going to blister and I would slow down to a ten minute pace and drop out at mile 18?

Here are some potential hazards:

Overconfidence: (I told you that)


Undertraining: Truth be told, I entered this marathon as something of a whim. I made the decision to run out of a kind of bored frustration during a ten miler about a month ago. I was feeling fast and cocky, and needed to do something. Since then I have done three long runs: a 15, an 18 and a 22.5 The cool thing was that I did the last two runs at 6:33 pace and I felt better each time around. Still, the other serious runners will have put about three months of training in instead of one, and will be better adapted to that kind of running. I can't count on any kind of consistency from my body.


First Marathon: Plenty of competitors will know what to expect because they will have other marathon's under their belts. I have a lot to learn about what happens in those last 6 miles (the second half of the marathon.) Also, because I've decided that I'm not going to drive the course ahead of time I only have a fuzzy conception of what it will be like. I've pored over the map on Google Earth, I'll be deprived of the running shoes on the ground perspective. I'll have to experience it when I run it.

Chaffing: Only runners know the kind of mortal agony that a thin strip of cloth can inflict upon soft flesh. Blood and horrors beyond imagination. Hopefully band aids and vaseline should keep things in check.

Wearing Flats: I still don't know whether I'm going to wear my training shoes or my racing flats. If I wear the flats, I could be slightly faster because they are light shoes. The danger lies in the fact that they are going to give me a lot less support. Thus extra pounding about the knees and on the whole body frame. I also worry that they could give me blisters. I tried them out on an easy six-miler a week ago and felt the backs of them rubbing on my heels. Just like my attitude regarding chaffing, preventative band aids may be in effect in order to prevent disaster.

Wind: It's supposed to be blowing 10 mph off of Lake Champlain Sunday morning, and then pick up to 18. Wind can be a real bastard to run in, especially when you're tired already. In addition to adding resistance, it can really mess up your form. There is good news though: this is an out and back course, and with the wind coming out of the north-northwest that should mean I'll finish with a tail wind.

Cold: It's supposed to be 43 degrees when the race starts. I don't think this will cause a bad time, but it might make the suffering go up. Of course, suffering can be demoralizing, so it may in fact end up costing me if I'm not wearing the right clothes.

Miscellaneous Fuckups: I still remember the Boilermaker that I ran without my bib because I lost it the night before. Also, I will probably be getting up around five-thirty in the morning on Sunday, unless my alarm doesn't go off. It's happened before, and it could be trouble. I just spent about an hour memorizing the directions to Burlington and the race course in South Hero, so I'm about 90% sure that I won't get lost. What I'm worried about more is that my 1993 Mazda Protogé, which I've really meant to take in to the shop over the last couple of weeks, will decide that it's tired of the abuse, and get back at me by dropping its muffler somewhere along the interstate. 

Staying up too late writing a goddammed blog and being too tired to race.

Now I think you get an idea of what I'm up against.

Here's what I think could go right:

I'm listening to Jimi Hendrix during the drive up.
I pass a lot of people and take pleasure in the suffering of the other runners.
I'm not overconfident, I'm inspired to race to the fullest.
I go out and kick some ass because I can and I want to.

Let's talk about something else

So I'm back from Peru, ready to begin my productive, fruitful existence in my Connecticut hometown. To celebrate my return to the land of milk and honey, I made myself a big-ass sandwich and poured a cold American beer to keep it company. I shaved my wild man beard, got back on Facebook and of course Blogger, to begin the important business of bragging about everything I've done.

I now have a writing job and a salary. I'm not complaining, though it would seem wise not to mingle my professional work with some of the foul-mouthed diatribes that I launch here. Also, I have been running like a mother and have a my first marathon this weekend. Go ahead and skip the next six paragraphs if you're not in the mood for a heavy dose of meta-commentary.

Finishing up writing everything that happened over the course of my travels has been satisfying. The other day, when I should have been making money, I scrolled through all my posts, like some loser jock reliving his glory days through the high school yearbook. As I went, I cut and pasted all the words into a master document. The end product was 93 single spaced pages (allowing for a liberal use of margins) and a grand total of 34,844 words. That's a lot of diarrhea and bitching. The sum total actually beats out my thesis, which weighs in at 29,757.

The real foil for my vanity however is the Orwellian "stats" tab that Blogger puts up on the screen every time I go to write a post. That's right, I may not know who everyone is, but I know how many times you've visited and what countries you were in when you were reading this. Why do I feel a stab of pride knowing that someone was reading this in Singapore or Denmark? Just a few precious more page views and I'll be over the 1000 mark!

I don't pretend that the obsessive attention that I've squandered on monitoring the site's popularity isn't pathetic at best. Now that I'm home and in many ways alone, I find the little line graph monitoring the readership of Tom's On The Move to be a form of affirmation. Imagine if I'd monetized this sucker! I might have bought myself a beer with the profits. But it's the fact that this site garners any kind of attention, which really gets me off. After all these years of trying to be an individual, I've sunk to the worst kind of whoring, worthy of any Facebook diva. And I'm not going to stop.

Here's the problem. Now that I'm not in Peru, doing cool shit like climbing up mountains and losing control of my bowels, do I have anything else to say? After my last Peru entry, I flitted back to the precious stats page and made a terrifying discovery. The trickle of visitors to this site had slowed to a scant dribble. I tried to resign myself to the fact that my site, which had lived a brief life, had now expired. But in that moment, I realized I could not accept it. I couldn't let go of the small buzz that the stats bar affords me.

All well and good--but what's there to write about these days? I have ideas--ideas that may lack the grand narrative arc of my Peru saga but may be enough to keep the reading public coming back just like how bored people read blogs in order to procrastinate other stuff.

I am looking forward to shedding my enlightened perspective upon all matters outdoors and fitness related and explicating upon whatever future adventures I might embark upon. Hell, maybe I'll even throw in some pop-culture related commentary if you tell me that you like reading my stuff. As someone who reads books, listens to music and hates many things ( unlike you illiterate, tone deaf, happy fools), I'll be happy to throw my two-cents worth at you.

Good thing you skipped those paragraphs. Anyway, I'm running the Green Mountain Marathon in South Hero Vermont on October 17th. You wanna hear about it? Come back to TOTM some time in the next couple days. I want to keep doing stuff. Don't let me get lazy.




Sorry for abbreviating my site name back there. I mean just who the fuck do I think I am, RHCP, DMB?

Of Lima, Cajóns and Peruvian Mandolins

After climbing and descending Yanapaccha, I treated myself to two days of doing nothing in Huarez. Basically I was killing time before my flight, and spending it in a place that wasn't Lima. Fortunately there were some cool people to hang out with at the hostel, including an Aussie couple and a French dude.

Amongst some of the exciting adventure we shared: a trip to the market downtown to buy pirated DVD's. Most of these sold for the equivalent of thirty cents. The titles were in Spanish, but for American films, English was still the default language. They had a bunch of the latest films on disk, including Inception, but the Aussie guy told me that he had bought it and the quality was awful. He said that the older films were a safer bet because the guys doing the pirating usually just burned them off of an original disc, rather than setting a camera up in the theater.

Empowered by this knowledge, I purchased Casino Royale and Inglorious Basterds. We had ourselves a movie night at the hostel over some pisco. I found that pineapple juice makes a pretty good mixer. For about thirty seconds, Casino Royal went into German for some reason, but otherwise the quality was excellent.

I didn't actually plan to do nothing during the rest of my time in Huarez. I thought I'd do an easy hike out to Laguna Chirrup, a pond that was nearby. However, when I woke up too late on the second day to get transport, I resigned myself to indolence.

I booked my 15 sole ticket back to Lima with the Cial bus company. That night, A big group of us hostel foreigners decided to get dinner at El Horno, a pizzeria owned by a French guy. For the king's ransom of 18 soles, I indulged in a delicious wood-fired pizza. The owner came up to our table and struck up a conversation with his countrymen. Looking around the restaurant, it was probably safe to assume that there was nobody there who was actually born in Peru.

I don't think this is cute, but you might.

I had to put my cash down early and leave or else I would miss the bus. I had some regret that I hadn't done more in Huarez but I was looking forward to home--real home, back in Connecticut, which was only three days away. Boredom and a warm shower.

As the bus started rolling, I fell asleep. This was good because I could be rested up when we hit Lima and not have to use a hostel.

At five in the morning I woke up. The bus had rolled off to the side of the highway. An attendant explained that our ride had broken down. We would have to wait for other Cial busses to come and pick us up when they had empty seats. The wait meant nothing to me, in fact I embraced it because it meant that I had more time to sleep. Outside, I could see the hateful gray coastal fog hanging over colorless desert and knew we couldn't be too far from the city.

It's that goddamn fog again!

Over the next few hours, the bus emptied out as passengers got on board other busses. I was going to be last because my backpack was buried underneath everyone else's luggage. I didn't let it bother me and went to sleep instead. Finally, myself and five Israeli tourists left and got onboard a comfortable semi-cama with reclining seats. It was about another hour into Lima and then an hour going through Lima. Fortunately, I slept for most of the experience.

I got a cab from the bus station back to Plaza San Martin, back to where the whole crazy trip had started. There was an expensive hostel nearby, so I walked in and asked if they could check my bag. Walking around the city fully loaded with that bastard on my back was going to kill me. I opted for the light napsack, and set about my last Peruvian adventure.

A protest in Plaza San Martin

I had plane tickets home already, but hadn't thought about getting from Newark Airport to dear old Ledyard. I popped into an internet cafe to see if they had any Fung Wa Busses from Chinatown to Foxwoods, finally broke down and bought an Amtrack ticket to Mystic. Planning my journey across Connecticut while I was still on the other side of the equator did feel a bit surreal.

With that taken care of, I had one last goal for Peru, which was to buy a cajón. These nifty instruments are basically big wooden boxes with a sound hole in the back. In order to play, you sit down on top of it and hit the front panel. The cool thing about them is how their sound changes depending on where you hit them. In the middle, they make a dull boom but the top edge makes a sharp, ratatata snare sound. The cajóns with tightened cords inside do this much better than the ones that don't.

I had seen cajóns in every music store in all the major cities I'd been to and thought it would be cool to bring one home. I just learned from Wikipedia that the cajón is considered to have its origins from African slaves living in Peru. Consequently, I feel reassured that my purchase has even more meaning than I thought before.

I got lunch at a Chifa and then headed over to Plaza de Mayo. This place definitely comes recommended for all you travelers who think you might have a crack at Lima. A ring of dark blue buildings goes around a traffic circle and almost entirely consist of music shops. I went inside them all, ogling the amazing selection and occasionally fooled around with the instruments.

Along with cajóns, the most popular instruments were nylon string guitars and charangoes. The later is difficult to describe and difficult to play. It has ten strings grouped into pairs, and the set in the middle are one octave apart from each other. It resembles a ukulele somewhat. Also, you've probably heard it if you've ever listened to Simon and Garfunkle's rendition of the Peruvian El Condor Pasa. (Max, Ben and I have heard various renditions of this song almost as much we heard the reggaeton everywhere.)

Nearer to my area of specialty, many shops also kept mandolins, though I wouldn't have recognized them  because they looked exactly like the charangoes. The mandolins in Peru come with ten strings instead of the eight that I'm used to. Instead of grouping these strings into four pairs, the bottom two sets of strings are triplets. I don't really know why, but they are. Also, the instrument itself is much larger and has a bigger fretboard. Apparently most Peruvian mandolins use different tuning, but the one I took off the wall had its strings arranged in the same way that my mandolin at home does, EADG.

I began playing a couple chords and then tried out a couple of Irish reels.  Soon enough, the people in the shop started clapping their hands, dancing and spinning around with enthusiasm.

Nah, just lying there. I didn't actually sound that good, partly because I wasn't used to the oversized frets and also because I'm not that good. I declined the shopkeeper's offer that I buy it, but it had been a fun time anyway.

Plaza de Mayo

Instead I bought one of the smaller cajóns with cords. I had been planning on spending at least a hundred soles, but this one cost twenty. Call me a cheap bastard if you will, but I wouldn't have bought it if I hadn't thought it sounded great. Also, I was afraid that if I tried to bring something too big as carry-on that airport security would confiscate it. As it happened, when I brought it through the checkpoint at George Bush International Airport in Houston, the guy by the X-ray machine was sure that he was looking at a birdhouse full of weed.

Climbing Yanapaccha

Me at the summit

We got into our sleeping bags around seven at night with my cellphone alarm set for one o'clock the following morning. What sleep I had was fitful. My heart pounded away and the headache from the night before made a comeback, though it was a bit less severe than it had been the last time. Maybe the extra day had been for the better because it had allowed me some more time to acclimatize.

As it happened, the alarm failed to go off. Fortunately I randomly woke up about a half hour later and then got Honza into action. The delay was not a really big deal, but it did mean we had to hurry a bit with breakfast. I spilled some oatmeal down my throat and sloshed back a cup of tea.

After the meal, we gathered up our crampons, axes, ropes and harnesses, put on small daypacks with warm jackets and water and began our walk to the glacier. The blue beams of our headlamps danced over the rocks as we wound through the moraine.

We stopped at the glacier's edge so that we could put our crampons on and rope ourselves together. All of preparation took time, and I felt my hands getting cold as I fidgeted with the rope and harness. I was glad when we started moving again.

We were would not be going up alone today. There were two other climbers going up the mountain, a Spanish guy and his Peruvian guide whose headlamps came up behind us as we began our ascent. They were setting up right near where I had stepped in the water, so Honza warned them not to repeat my mistake.

It was weird and unnerving to walk on the glacier in the dark. I was in an unfamiliar environment, knowable only by what I could see by the moonlight and my headlamp beam. The ground itself, one of the few things that we can usually rely on in life, had become an uncertainty. The crampons made stepping feel unnatural. They weighted my feet and required a funky stride to make the spikes would land properly. Being roped to Honza created an additional awkwardness as I had to match his pace exactly, no faster or slower. If I fell behind, I would be yanked, which threw me off balance, if I started to climb faster, there would be more slack between us, which would mean more danger if I ended up falling. Another frustration, was that I had to try not to step on the rope. When I did, it would get caught in my crampon spikes and throw me off balance.

By necessity, our path up the glacier took an erratic and unpredictable route as we swung around the huge crevasses in the ice. There were also smaller cracks that were about a three feet foot or less in width. These we would jump, counting on our spikes to hold the ice on the other side. I let my headlamp shine down into some of these cracks, but it didn't have the power to illuminate to the bottom--not even close.

I imagined what it would have been like if I had gone up unguided and unroped, without being aware of the subtle path I needed to take around the mountain's dangers. It would not necessarily have been suicide, but it wouldn't have been far off.

The ascent by headlamp

The slope became a steady uphill pitch. I didn't need my ice ax yet, but I had to lean forward and kick the tow spikes of the crampons into the ice. We walked a zigzag traverse in order to cut down on some of the steepness. All this time, I kept my head looking down, watching for bumps and cracks. The surface was uneven, broken into ridges. Lifting the awkward spaceman boots was hard work and got my heart and lungs working fast. Soon, I was very warm, and had to unzip my jacket before I got soaked with sweat.

About forty five minutes into our hike, we came to a much steeper section, that required me to use my ice-axes to keep going up. I could see the ice-plain in the moonlight, stretching out far below. It was not a good place to fall.

Honza put an ice screw in as an added security measure. As I went by, I had to unclip it from the rope and put it on my caribener, cold work that required removing my mittens.

Another section required two screws, which we would leave so that we could use them on the descent. This part wound through the bottom of a shallow crevasse and then ascended up the other side.

The ice here was far less sturdy than what we had dealt with before. I swung my axes wildly, to find any kind of solid surface. There was a second, massive crack that started over my head, with large hanging icicles. I whacked a few with my axe and listened as they fell, crashing and tinkling into the dark space below.

During the midst of the ascent, I realized that I had screwed something up with my crampon because it had come loose. Fortunately, I noticed the problem before it slid off my boot, otherwise it would have gone skidding down the glacier and been lost forever in some crevasse. Then I would have been really screwed.

I stopped the climb and did what I could to get it back in the proper alignment. I had to take my mittens off to fool with the scraps, felt myself getting chilled now that I wasn't moving. The fear of the cold meant that I rushed through it, and after another couple of minutes of ascent, it came loose again. I knew what I had done wrong, but Honza wasn't going to give me the chance to screw it up again and fixed it himself. To him of course, this was unforgivable incompetence.

I was relieved when we got through the most technical part of the climb, which gave way to a steep ascent up a dome of ridged and spiky ice. The ridges were about six inches tall, which made stepping in the crampons even more awkward. There were a proliferation of cracks as well, requiring me to break stride several times and take the leap of faith. For this part of the climb, I used my ice axes as short walking sticks, leaning over them in gimpy faction so I could use the points on their bottoms to get more traction. We kept the pace hard and steady all this time, keeping me breathing hard, fighting the fatigue building in my muscles.

At last, I began to see the dim light of morning begin to define the surrounding peaks, gray at first and then a burning orange as the rays of tropical sunlight hit their snows. After hours of looking at the ice in front of me, it gave me a boost to have something to see and appreciate. The extraordinary majesty I was witnessing, made some of the stress of the last couple of days subside.

We came to the top of a sharp, white ridge where we went out of the shelter of the mountain, and into a cold wind. The top stood in front of us, perhaps another half a mile distant and five-hundred feet up. The ridge followed a graceful s-curve and then hit the final pitch to the summit.

I endured another twenty minutes of low-oxygen cardio up the crenulated ice-surface and then we were at the summit. The sun, which had already painted the higher peaks, hit the top of Yanapaccha at the exact moment that we arrived.

Myself and Honza at the Summit

Morning light on the mountain peaks

Why I didn't want to stand on the edge

Huascaran, as seen from Yanapaccha

Yanapaccha's summit stands at 17,910 feet above sea-level. I'd really prefer to round that figure up to 18,000, but what can you do? Should've climbed Pisco. It was a bit vain to bitch about such things at that moment. After the exertions of the last six hours, this mountain felt worthy of being the highest that I'd ever climbed.

The Spanish and Peruvian guy had passed us earlier, but ended up just beating us to the summit. We exchanged pictures, and sat on the lip of snow for a while. Being a steep, crumbly ridge with a massive cliff on the other side, this was not very healthy place to stand, certainly not on a windy day. It was far safer to sit, even if the ice underneath our butts was actually dangling over a great abyss.

We didn't spend more than ten minutes at the top for fear of getting chilled. Other than the view and the sense of accomplishment, summit highlights included sinking my molars into a frozen power bar, which gave me some nourishment for the descent.

Descending from the summit

Ridge near the top. The actual summit is further back.

Negotiating some crevasses

I had worried earlier that the way down would be much harder than the way up during technical sections. In fact, having the illumination of the sun and not having to bust a gut working my way up made things a lot easier. I still had a few hairy moments, including when I failed to put my crampons down properly, fell and slid along the ice. Luckily, I caught myself with the axes before I went very far down the slope.

When we got back to the section where we had left two ice-screws, Honza flipped out because I ended up taking a different route from his on the descent. I had watched him descend, but lost track of his his footsteps when I was actually looking at the ice in front of me. I had wanted to get the descent right, so I asked him which way I should go.

"Down! Down! Down!"

Sounds obvious right? Not while I was hanging onto a crumbly ice wall with axes and crampons. I didn't want to fuck up here, I wanted specifics.

"Yeah, which way am I supposed to fucking go down?"

Fine, don't answer. Down, it's fucking down. I guess it didn't really matter which way, there was no preferred way to go down here except as it pertained to the force of gravity.

"You're not respecting me" he told me afterwards. "I don't like it." When I tried to explain the difference between not understanding and not respecting, he only got more pissed. Now, I just shrugged my shoulders, because I didn't really give a fuck what he thought of me. I had tried to watch, I tried to learn, but apparently my difficulties were the result of willful ignorance. And now I was ready to get off the damn mountain and be through with this shit.

After some more down-climbing with the ice axes, we reached the flatter section of the glacial field and had to negotiate our way back through the treacherous crevasses. Because the daylight made them visible, these chasms no longer held the terror of the unknown, but the known was still pretty damn scary. From, cracks the size of credit cards to fifteen foot wide canyons, most of the drops seemed to go down about fifty feet. I snapped a few photos so that everyone could be duly impressed. At one point we ended up walking on a narrow ice ridge between two of these gulfs and ended with having to heave myself over an ice ledge.

At last we got back to the rocks. Honza shook my hand and congratulated me for the climb. I thanked him and we shared a couple platitudes about how difficult the climb had been. We were probably both kind of pissed at each other, but now that we were off the ice some of the tension had eased between us. No one was going cuss the other one out, partly because we had many hours of travel ahead of us. Maybe when we got to the hostel--but I would probably be out of energy by then. It was nine in the morning; even with the late start, we had made it down three hours ahead of what Honza had predicted for us earlier.

A rather large hole in the glacier. I added my ice axe to lend a sense of depth

Honza by a crevasse

One last crevasse to cross. Note that in the background, there

is a hugeass boulder, sitting on top of a slab of ice.

We had some sandwiches at camp and then packed up our gear. It was a huge relief to take off the clunky plastic boots, which made my leather ones felt as light as slippers by comparison. Then I put on the full pack, and it was back to clomping. The trail back to the road was tricky going because of the loose sand and slippery grass beneath, so there were still plenty of chances to take a nice fall. As it happened, at different points along the hike, we both did. By noontime, we were had reached the road. The hiking had ended, but the day's adventures were far from over.

When you hike in New England, getting to the road means you are free to turn up the AC, crank out the tunes and drive home in relaxation along the comfort of the American interstate system. Here however, reaching the road meant hours in a bumpy collectivo ride down the mountains on terrible roads . The van had no seatbelts and came with a worse suspension than your osteoarthritic grandmother. The driver hit a few bumps so hard that I smacked my head against the ceiling.

After we had left the park, the main road was blocked, compelling the driver to take us on an even-worse detour that was practically a dirt track. Whenever another vehicle appeared from the other direction, there was a game of chicken to decide who would like to back up several hundred feet to a wide enough place for the vehicles to pass.

At Yungay, Honza and I ate a dingy place where we got some cheap eats. We had about another hour of riding to get back into Huarez, packed together with locals inside another collectivo.

I dropped my gear at the hostel and went my separate way to get a pizza dinner at a Chifa. Go figure. The food was pretty good though, and I felt like my ten soles were well spent.

My reflections on the evening were that I had gotten what I had wanted and it was over. Time to go home.

15,000' Frustration

After I put my foot through the ice and we had to delay our climb, it was time to sit back and enjoy a day of tension.

The night before, I finally felt some effects of the 15,000 foot altitude. For one thing, I had a dull headache that would not let me sleep. I could also hear my breathing, which was far heavier than ordinary. I felt my heartbeat in my ears as it raced along at well over 100 beats per minute. On top of this, the fact that I was still pissed off at myself for my mistake and obsessing over whether the boots could be dry enough did little to promote a restful feeling. When I finally did nod off, it was brief and fitful. Overall, I probably got fewer than four hours of sleep.

The next morning, I set the boots and the liners out in the sunlight so that they could dry. After Honza and I ate breakfast, we walked up one of the rocky ledges near the pond (in leather hiking boots.) At least I felt better than the night before and had plenty of energy for rock-scrambling. That energy could have pushed me to the top of Yanapaccha, but 'nuff said.

When we had climbed a couple hundred feet up the rocks, we had an excellent view of the glacier's snowy flanks, directly across from us. Honza tried to show me the route that we would walk, but my eyes weren't sharp enough to see the footsteps, and any other points of reference were meaningless. As a hawk flew by, I looked away and tried to snap a picture, something that pissed him off.

Later, we went back down to camp so I could practice some more climbing technique. I learned a few things that ten-year olds at climbing gyms might already be familiar with, e.g., the figure eight knot, using a belay device. We practiced by looping the rope around a boulder and belaying up and down a small ledge.

I have to admit, I was a bit of a slow learner. Handling mechanical things has never been a strong suit of mine—also the learning curve might have been depressed somewhat at the higher altitude. Honza's frustrations were pretty much transparent. "This is basic stuff," he would say after I screwed up something that was pretty basic. He also cut me off many of my questions (which were many), got exasperated when I tried to figure things out for myself and screwed up.

At this point, I was getting a little sick of playing the role of good-natured dolt and staring to get pissed at Honza. He was full of helpful comments like "you're going to die on this mountain." He showed me another knot used to secure ropes to caribiners. "Maybe you can go home and use it to hang yourself." Hilarious.

The one thing that he said, more than once, which got me pissed was "You aren't born for it." Really? Fuck you, you smug fucking asshole. I've been climbing mountains my whole damn life. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was inept, that this was not the place for me--so it really did bother me.

The fact that I didn't have the means to prove him wrong right then, only made me more frustrated. I had an irrational urge to put my boots on right then, clomp up the mountain and flip him the bird from the top of the peak. It always sucks when idealism has to play second-fiddle to realism.

It's also good to keep in mind that pride goeth before the fall into the big fucking crevasse. The mountain and adventure literature I had read, such as Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air have reinforced into the point that arrogant souls are invariably the ones that draw themselves and others into dangerous situations. The 1993 disaster on Mount Everest for instance, was created in large part by the overconfidence of guides, who let their egos cloud their judgement and underestimated how dangerous the mountain was. I hated the idea that I was an inept climber, hated that I'd been dumb enough to step into an ice-puddle, but I hated most of all to think think that I was capable of deluding myself and that I couldn't trust my judgement.

The idea of fucking up badly on the mountain, getting injured or worse was more frightening than just the consequences themselves. To do so would be to have proven that I had learned nothing, to add my name to the roster of ignorant and deluded souls that have fucked up before. I won't be the first to make this point, but taking an unnecessary risk on a mountain and walking away unscathed is no victory. Cheating fate is still a form of cheating, demonstrating a failure to plan properly and a careless disregard for the conventions of safety that others have honored.

Even our humble New England states have more than a few stories of pride and death in the mountains. Check out Not Without Peril for some great stories about the hundreds who have died hiking in the Presidential Range in New Hampshire. I've always felt some disdain for these less-experienced hikers that kept going through bad weather or fatigue when it was obviously time to turn back. Now that I was stepping up to a new level of difficulty, I didn't want to refuse to acknowledge when I go in over my head, compound ineptitude with willful ignorance.

Fine. I'd have to let Honza handle finding routes, clipping me into belays. My guide deserves the credit for this stuff, and its stuff that, I must reluctantly concede, is still over my head. Someday I would like to be able to bring more to the table and feel that I have claimed a bigger piece of the victory when I come off a mountain. In the meantime, it would still be my lungs and muscles bringing me up the mountain. I wasn't going to be pulled.