What's It Like to Live in Paradise?

Chasing a dream…finding that perfect locale that you can call “paradise.”  A deserted island, a mountain top, miles of untouched sandy beaches, a rooftop oasis in the middle of the city – it all counts as “paradise.”   We think about retiring someday in paradise.  Costa Rica?  The Mediterranean?  Maybe Bali is your paradise dreams come true?  Travel destinations near the equator are touted as “paradise” and most folks are quick to agree.   Maui comes to mind as a prime paradise destination with warm sands, warm nights, and warm water – all the time.  But reality is paradise is a figment of our imagination and if you know you – I mean really know you -- paradise can be anywhere, anything, any situation.   Being content, happy, and satisfied is part of paradise.  You can be in paradise sitting in your bubba chair with the remote in your hand.  A drug addict is in paradise on the high of his life.   A chef creates his paradise in his kitchen.   Touring your favorite micro-brewery and sampling the sweetness at the end is bound to bring on paradisiac thoughts.  Some believe just having a place on earth – any place on earth - is paradise.    The truth is paradise is any place or state of extreme happiness.  Are you happy?  Welcome to paradise.

Old Bones and Distance Running

"Listen to your body."  These are words that roll off the tongue of many coaches, doctors, co-workers and friends when an ailment arises and one starts to complain.  Heck, sometimes we might even listen to our own gut feelings and actually do something about it.  I've been registered to do some distance hike/runs this year and after the first one - the 16.3 mile Hyner Challenge -  something wasn't feeling too good in the old body.  I pondered the thought, "maybe I'm not cut out for ump-teen miles at a time" even though the other determined half of me said, "ferget about it... just hike through the pain."  Well, I chose the worried half and quit hiking/running anything longer than 5ish miles.  A month later, I feel better than ever.  My feet no longer hurt, my toes aren't tender anymore, the bones on the top of my feet aren't aching, my ass cheek isn't hurting all the time, and the rest of my achy, tired-feeling body returned to its energetic, can't-stop self again.  There's some truth to listening to your body.  I found a good article in the NY times on running distance, and in there was this comment:  Exercise early in life can affect the development of tendons and muscles, but many people don’t start running until adulthood, so their bodies may not be as well developed for distance.    Yup, that's me -- I didn't start exercise until early forties and then it was biking.  The running didn't start until mid-forties and that really wasn't anything longer than about 8ish miles.  I did a half-marathon two years ago, but haven't really done anything longer.  So this year's mega-distance tryouts obviously answered the question of Can I Do It?  Nope girly, you can't.  Your old bones aren't seasoned enough for distance hiking/running.  But it's a blessing in disguise because my bikes were starting to feel very dirty with all the dust they've been accumulating.  I'm back in the saddle again.  Maybe not as much as years past, but biking nonetheless. And the best part?  It doesn't hurt anywhere.   Listen to your body!

A 16.3 Mile Jaunt in the Woods

The 6th Annual Hyner View Challenge is in the books. This "Challenge" is a 16.35 mile trail run with 4,226 feet of climbing that a thousand or so folks muster up mental and physical strength to complete.  And if the 25K isn't enough, there was a 50K option this year and yes, 98 runners finished it. The weather was perfect at 50ish calm degrees and a slight sprinkle cooled us off after a climb.  To call this thing a "challenge" is an understatement.  Hyner View is in Clinton County and it sits atop a tall mountain and offers the spectators a breathtaking sight to see.  Today, the runners started at Pine Creek level and climbed the side of the mountain to that view and then went on to climb two more mountains equally epic.  The climbs were steep, rocky, and long.  The runs back down those mountains were not as steep, but rocky and long just the same.  90% of the Hyner Challenge running was on trail - beautiful, well-maintained trail. Someone put a lot of TLC in maintaining the trails. They were pristine.   The race itself was very well organized -- they had to be -- there was over a thousand folks registered.  As the 25K folks lined up to start, you could see the 50K folks in the distance approaching the summit of Hyner.  It was pretty cool to see that.  The 50K folks started at 8:00 am and the 25K started at 9:00.  Both were mass starts.  This caused a slow-down when everyone funneled into a single line on the singletrack.  Obviously, those out front didn't experience this wait.  The first climb spaced people out, but there was always someone within sight both in front and behind during the whole race.  By the 2nd mountain climb, many were walking, even on the flat sections.  By the final mountain climb, folks were cramping up.   And after that last climb, there was 4 more miles to go.  The final 2.5 miles was mostly downhill on singletrack (some rocks) and some road and after 14ish miles, running downhill and pushing to the finish was not an easy thing to do.  The highlight of my run was seeing these absolutely beautiful wildflowers on a couple of the switchbacks.  Purple triliums are magnificent in their natural setting and caught my eye in the midst of a rocky climb.  They certainly took my mind off the task at hand for a couple minutes.   I was impressed by the folks that came out to run/hike this thing.  Young and old, male and female, fast and slow.  I commented to a "local" on one of the trails that its nice to see folks walking. I loved his comment, "This is a competition against yourself."  So true. 

Humdinger Results

Humdinger 2012 results:

FEMALE AGE GROUP:  51 - 55
    1   123 Susan Hamilton       56:23.0
    2   289 Phyllis Sieber          1:15:53.5
    3   273 Andrea Sapiente      1:23:29.8
    4   342 Jill Wiest                 1:26:53.4
    5   320 Donna Thompson    1:32:36.2
    6   282 Erica Shames            1:44:19.6
    7   246 Valerie Pratt              1:46:30.8
    8   286 Nancy Shrom            2:02:03.9
Full results here.

The Clown and the Amish in the Humdinger Trail Run

There’s nothing like a day of laughter, exercise, beer-drinking (you got beads if you drank a glass at the water stops), and all-around good times. Today was one of those days and Sheena and I had a blast running in our get-ups. She was a perfect mismatched clown and I was, well, let the pictures speak for themselves. The stares were in full force ‘cause folks just weren’t quite sure if it was real or not. One gal said to me at the start (as I was mouthing to the race director that we couldn’t hear him): “oh, I get it – it’s a costume. Some people were saying there’s an Amish guy running the race.” Oh what fun.

"Oh, I get it.... it's a costume.   People were saying there was an Amish running the race."

An Amish in the group!

Sheena heading toward the finish.

The winner of the best dressed was a young man dressed in a dress with full makeup.  He looked beautiful.  Greg and Rick heard him talk at one point and thought for a second it was a girl.   Sheena was faster than me and unsure of her time; but I finished in about 1:28.  We won’t know where we placed amongst our age groups for a couple of days.  They just put our names on a big board and you have to stand and take the time to read each one to see where you finished in your age group and I didn’t feel  taking the time.  Great day, great weather, great fun. Thanks Sheena and River Town Race Series.  Full set of pictures courtesy Ricky Brown here.

Happy runners eating soup, Courtesy Rivers Town Race Series.  Yum!  Thanks guys.

Run, Run, Run... or, Hike, Hike, Hike

The Humdinger 7.1 Trail run is coming up in less than two weeks (March 3) and the Hyner Challenge 16.4 Trail run is April 21.  Folks on the Hyner Ultra Hike Facebook group are asking tons of questions that are answering bunches of thoughts I too had.  The biggest... do I have to run this whole thing and feel like I have to "compete."  I'm thrilled to find out, NO.  If I wanna walk the whole thing, I can.  If I wanna run some, walk some, I can do that too.  The last person to finish last year took 10:04 and the last gal in my age group was just under 9 hours.  The fastest gal in my age group was around 4 hours.  That's quite a spread and I'll fit snugly in between the two.  Ricky and I hiked 8.5 miles yesterday (all walking) on some steep, rocky terrain along with smooth trail and it took us 3 1/2 hours.  Rick quit at the 6 mile marker and I pushed on to get some more mileage.  Judged on that time, if I decide to hike the entire Hyner Challenge (unlikely), it should take me about 7 hours to finish.  Realistically, I'm guessing I'll be done in 5ish hours with a combo of slow run/fast hike.  But the nice thing is doesn't matter -- when I finish, I finish.  I really like that.

Winning At Losing

The Chubublicans did it - we won! Week 6 results of the 6-week DCED Biggest Loser competition were kept hush-hush until today at the finale - a pizza party!  And the winner is.... the Chubublicans with a total weight loss of 89.4 pounds and 7.14%.  I'd say that's a success.  Congrats girls!