#18 Sports, Beer, and Junk

Sunday 3/30

Raccoon Creek Park, PA
18.75 mi 5,000 ft elevation gain

Our run in a picture.

This was easily the muddiest run that I have ever agreed to do. It was one for the books though! Being two days before April, I was unable to appreciate the beauty of seeing all of Morgantown's trees and roads covered in snow. Instead, it just aggravated the hell out of me. I would have been quite content sleeping in bed all day. Eventually we, me and Josh, made our way to Sheetz for coffee and goodies. Then headed north to get out of the snow and into the mud. We met up with the 3rd triumvir of the triumvirate. I don't know of any other places that I have been to where we can run 19 miles without double backing on the same trail. One big loop. One big adventure. The legs felt fine through they spent a lot of time slipping and sliding through the mud. Somehow I didn't fall on the a run; a true miracle. None of us did. Around 80 minutes in we hit a snag on the course. A bridge leading us across the creek was gone. We crossed several small creeks through the loop (7 or 8), but this one was way too deep to cross. Plus I can't swim and the water was definitely moving fast enough to sweep the leg. No more Digem. We turned around and shortly noticed that we had passed a sign that told us there was a trail detour for the absence of the bridge. The detour took us around the lake and provided what I initially thought was a mirage; a portapotty. Withing minutes of getting the urge to go to the bathroom; poof. My fairy godparents dropped a potty off for me.
My odd parents, fairly odd parents. Wands and wings, floaty crowny things. Fairly odd parents. Really mod, pea pod, buff bod, hod rod! Obtuse, rubber goose, green moose, guava juice,
Giant snake, birthday cake, large fries, chocolate shake.

Morgantown being stupid Sunday

Haven't seen that show in years. I anticipate knowing the theme song when I am old and grey though. Around two hours my knee started getting tight which I suppose is bound to happen eventually. My großen Brüder felt better than me and put a good gap on me for a few miles. I did reattach to them prior to the last three big climbs. Knowing the finish line was directly in front of me and only 2ish miles away, I had no problem shutting down and falling behind. I enjoyed every second of that run, but at that point I was just ready for it to be over. I believe Raccoon Creek will be the host of most of our long runs because it has been the first place that has provided a decent amount of climbing. Around here people pronounce creek like crick. Which is hilarious. The absolute worst is Hurricane,  WV. Everyone pronounces it like Hurriken. It's disgusting. Goin go down to the crick in Hurriken. I much prefer the Minnesota draw. Which leads me to the next fun part of my week.

Monday I drug my legs out and ran six miles on the rail trail so it was basically not even a run. Tuesday was a personal day. Personally, my achilles was jacked and I just wasn't feeling it. It's funny how after you beat your legs to hell it can take two days for the pain to climax. There has been several occasions where I will race super hard, feel fine the next day. Then the following day feel like a truck ran me over in my sleep. Sleep can be weird too. I hate it when I feel 100% and ready to roll, take a nap, then feel like Droopy. Someone suggested that I watch a movie called Somewhere in Time which I have heard of and recall almost watching previously. I watched it and here is my review. After the review is my road trip! So grab a cup of coffee, or tea if if coffee isn't your cup of tea: it's going to be a long ride.

Wednesday 4/2

I pulled out of Fairmont a little before 9am to fill Tank up. Once I hit the interstate for north I remembered that I forgot my Minnesota Wild sweater that I planned on wearing in the United Center in Chicago. I returned for it... The previous day I had joked with pops that my Mikael Granlund sweater would come right after I left. I ordered a Wild road sweater so that I would be in uniform with the team rather than sporting the home colors, but that never came. Around 1pm he texted me and let me know that the road sweater came. Cool. By then I was west of Columbus and coming up on the Dayton. Signs like the one on the right make me laugh to myself because it has my name on it as well as the direction that I need to travel. It rained most of the way through Ohio, standard. Initially it was frustrating although certainly expected, but I jammed out through the entire state. Upon request I will put up one of my jam sessions. It's almost certainly hilarious at my expense.

throwback Camp of Champs '09 pink me by my pretend wife.

When I got into Indiana the rain temporarily stopped. That made me switch back to the idea of running at Turkey Run state park, but right around the time I decided to go there I was hit by a thunderstorm. I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but everything turned full circle on me and I suddenly felt like it was 2009 again. This is relevant to the trip because I am attending these Chicago events with my friend Kevin. I met Kevin way back in 2008 and 2009 at Wisconsin's Camp of Champions. 2009 was the first time that I drove myself to wisco and befriended several people that would remain friends for a few years, two that are still pretty good friends of mine. One being Kevin and the other being miss Gray. Two years ago Patrick and I stayed with her in Minnesota and she showed me her Minnesotan hospitality by drinking me under the table and carrying me upstairs. She also sits beside me at Minnesota Wild home games. The reason I have all of these memories in my head during Indiana was a combination of the thunderstorm and the music I was listening to. I just happened to rotate in Death Cab's Narrow Stairs which I originally purchased for that trip 5 years ago and I will never forget the thunderstorm I drove through in Indiana returning from that camp. Completely dark out and every twenty or so seconds the entire sky would light up with the lightning followed by rumbling that would last until the next flash. Driving six-eight hours from my home through that storm was awesome as a 16/17 year old. I remember then etching out all of my academic, athletic, and social plans for the future in Madison. But plans change.

Since it was storming I decided to turn north on 65 and just go to Lafayette, where I would be staying for the next two nights. My run for the day was eight miles on a treadmill because that was that was the only place that I could climb. I made it a workout because I can't run normal on a treadmill. That'd be like gripping the back of my head and smashing my face into a wall repeatedly for an hour, or until I died. Then I ventured down downtown Lafayette and West Lafayette to see what it was that the local Purdue kids do. I made my way to Lafayette Brewing Company to catch the Twins/Sox finish which was comical. Twins blowing a two run lead in the ninth inning due to two errors. When the third baseman went to throw it to the catcher to end the game, but missed the catcher by an Indiana mile, I realized that it must be the beginning of august in Williamsport because I was watching little league baseball. I had a Tippecanoe Common Ale and a damn good cheese steak in between the Sox and Cubs game. Then I left. I had previously researched a spot right on campus that I had to try. By on campus I mean Purdue University.

Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream

I can't stand it when places claim they have the best ice cream. You know who has the best ice cream? Babcock Dairy on State street. Madison, WI. That claim is no longer bias either because I could give two shits about UW anymore. But it's fact. Madison is home to Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream, the bee's knees, legs, and his arms. Hands down the best ice cream. Only in Madison, I thought. I walk into the Silver Dipper here on Purdue's campus and the first thing I see is the Chocolate Shoppe sign. My knees almost buckled. I walked closer to confirm that the picture of the sexy cow eating ice cream was the same sign that I thought it was. I proceeded to eat five scoops of various flavored ice cream. My god, was it great. I semi believe in reincarnation, I definitely think it sounds more fun than sitting in the clouds. I hope to come back in another life as Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream. Then once I am eaten, continuously return to life in the form of that ice cream. I returned to my hotel room and honestly planned on going outside and reading in my car because another thunderstorm had started up. Much more enjoyable in a car. But my ice cream baby was taking a bath in my beer and those ingredients made the perfect storm that knocked me out from before 9pm til 6am. I do not know what happened in my sleep, but forty percent of my pillows were on the ground and I had turned 180 from where I initially fell to sleep.

Most likely my biggest enemy in the world.

The rain had stopped by 6am. I assumed it moved up north to the White Sox field. At this point I had zero expectations of seeing a baseball game in seven hours. Chicago had to be getting slammed by the thunderstorms. I think there was like an 80% chance of rain. I decided to get breakfast and wait around for an hour or so, that's when the majority of this entry to this point was typed up. I then cracked open a new book that I look forward to reading. 11/22/63 by Stevie King. It's north of 700 pages so gimme a good minute on finishing it. Then I will review it. As I went up 65 toward Chicago I was slammed by a flash flood. Very rarely do I stop driving for weather, but I sat that storm out at a rest stop, only 75 miles from Chicago. While stopped at this rest stop another tank pulled up right beside me. Repping the wrong gang colors. I considered having a Tank fight, but thought better of it. At this point I knew that I wouldn't see the baseball game. When I hopped back onto the highway I spent 10 or so miles jockeying with three big 18 wheelers. Water spitting everywhere and I was trapped for what seemed like a lifetime. Sure enough, when I made it to the skyway leading into Chicago the rain had settled. Oh, I forgot to mention my wrong turn.

Considered getting a trim here.

I didn't use any navigation until I branched off of 65 by mistake and found myself driving through Gary, IN. I knew that Gary had a pretty bad rap, but I've driven through the bronx, harlem, detroit, huntington, etc so I knew it couldn't be that bad. It was worse than all of those places combined. I have never feared for someone's life more than that 4 mile stretch. I assumed that I would be fine, but I mean every door and window was barred up. Cars parked with slashed tires, missing windows. Shit was crazy. That's why I feel like this country is really 80 different countries. I talked to a young woman at the front desk in Lafayette who had lived in Gary for a year for school. She moved there from the country and said that in that first year she had four slashed tires and heard gunshots on her street almost weekly. She said that she lived in the nice part of town because on her door was equipped with metal bars. Her windows were bar free. I just assume people in Gary try to get out of the ghetto by moving 10 miles into Chicago's slums. Naturally the only wrong turn I make leads me through this place. I'm glad though; I like seeing knew places. Oh I should have added Florida to that least of sketch places I have been to. I forget where in Florida, but probably the sketchiest stretch of rail trail in the country runs through some town in Florida.

Foul ball That I (Kevin) caught

When I arrived in the windy city it was holding on to its stereotype. Very windy, misty, and 35 degrees. The wind made it feel closer to 20 degrees. I met Kevin in the bar attached to the Sox's stadium. I love being in part of the world where summer shandy is on draft. Evidently I packed for the beach when I left and I struggled to stay warm throughout the game. And I was wearing everything that I packed aside from my hockey sweater. One cool note- I am pretty sure that Kevin and I were apart of the White Sox's worst attendance ever. They said online that 11k attended but that HAD to be ticket sales. There were not more than 2,000 poor cold bastards in that stadium. In the 4th inning one of the Sox it a frozen rope directly back toward us and it hit a step and popped straight up in the air. It fell right in Kevin's hands. Easiest foul catch ever! It was awesome. Perfect conversation starter for the two Minnesotan ladies beside us. Two innings later, a steady mist started up and we moved from behind the plate and under a ceiling to keep dry. Everyone seemed to move except the Twins fans. I am pretty sure that my cover was blown. Though I sported Twins gear, I couldn't stand the cold like those who traveled south for the game. The Twins won 10-9. With two down in the last inning the Sox had a guy on third and I was praying that they would either get out like the did or hit a homer. I'd rather the Twins lose on that day than stay in the bitter cold for another inning.

Now, for what I came to Chicago for! I must give Kevin a huge shoutout for giving me one of his friend's season tickets. And shoutout to that friend for giving Kevin those tickets for the Wild game. United Center was an amazing atmosphere! The fans were intense and into their Hawks and being in the building that hoisted Michael Jordan's banners is pretty damn neat. Not to mention all of the Blackhawk's Cup banners. Shortly after Minnesota jumped up to a one goal lead in the first, Kevin and I made the scoreboard with the picture on the right. There is nothing I enjoy more than watching Minnesota Wild play hockey. They didn't have Granlund or Nino, but everyone played a pretty solid game. The final result was a 2-3 loss in a shootout after Crawford stoned all three MN shooters. But in April every point is massive and Minnesota jumped one step closer to securing the first wild card spot. Saturday's 4-0 whoopin on the Pens helped even more. The Wild have the toughest final ten game schedule which I believe will make them very playoff ready. Who knows, maybe we can steal a series later this month. Also, Josh Harding skated with the team and may return for the playoffs! I did a story on him in an earlier entry. He's my favorite goalie ever.

After the hockey game it took me 30 minutes to find the garage that I parked in. This is a common thing when I am in a different city and alone. Along my venture three local midnight tokers offered me a bite of there sandwich. My response shall remain disclosed. Eventually I found my tank and returned to Lafayette for the night. By the time I made it there my bladder was past full and I was very sweepy. I hopped out of the car, peed and crashed. The following morning I realized that I locked my keys in my car... So that happened to start my drive back east. I watched a guy pop my door open even though he just looked like he was taking my cars blood pressure. Leaving Lafayette for Chicago I drove through a flash flood and leaving Laf for WV I drove through severe wind advisory. Midwestern severe wind advisories means pretty strong wind. If you played football, imagine the drill where you try to secure the ball while you run through a line of teams that are trying to knock the ball out with blocking pads. And doing that for a few hundred miles. I stopped in Wheeling to run with Patrick. Patrick is my friend. That concluded my travels. For the day.

Someone suggested that I watch the movie Somewhere In Time on netflix in the comment section of the last blog. Since there was only one suggestion I decided to watch and review EVERY suggestion! The movie was extremely good and I think it is weird when someone says 'I think you'll like it' and I do. If you have never seen the film, it is a hybrid between a gushy romance and a time traveling movie. Superman plays the main character. Quick summary- in the opening scene an elderly lady hands this Chicago playwright an old pocket watch and says "Please come back to me." Not going to lie, that was pretty creepy. That playwright ended up spending time at a hotel where he discovered the most beautiful actress from the early 1900s. He did further research and discovered that she was the old lady that handed him the pocket watch. He then realized through guest registration archives that he was in that very hotel 68 years prior along with the actress. He goes to the past, then stuff happens. It's good enough to where I don't feel like giving away any spoilers. There were a ton of themes throughout the movie that I really enjoyed and related to. One big part of the movie was the actresses adviser who thought that Richard (main character) was there to only destroy his golden actress. He made it very clear that he would keep them separated to ensure that he could ride her coattails to the top. Funny how common of a thing that is. But Richard was persistent, far more than I would have been, and continued to pursue who he had traveled 68 years to be with. It helped that Elise tried to make it easy for Richard. My favorite character was Arthur. He was a really old worker at the hotel in 1979 and told Richard of how he had been in the hotel for 70 years. Arthur also thought that he recognized Richard when he first saw him. Back in 1912 Richard did meet little Arthur who was causing mayhem for his father who worked behind the front desk. I'd like to give a full summary of the movie, but it is good enough to where I will just say go watch it. I fully believe in time travel and I don't mind saying that because nearly everyone believes in something that has no proof of existence. I think that I will time travel one day; I just need to find out how to do so. I really like to think that I have been to the past before; that would rule. I think everyone should believe in cooler things if they are going to believe in anything. I do often attempt to get hypnotized and allow lucid dreaming to occur on an almost nightly basis. I think I could write a book on the lucid dreams that I have written down. One day perhaps. I like the ending of the movie a lot. Realistic endings are the best endings. Movies/books with happily ever endings turn me off because that will almost never be the case.

Freezing my ass off.

To end the week I ventured up to Pittsburgh to watch the Pirates play the St. Louis Cardinals with pops. On the way up we jammed to Elton John like the bosses that we are. He drove until we were almost in Washington, Pa then I took over the shift to drive into the city. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and drink at 7th street grille. Then we headed for PNC Park. It is much more beautiful than US Cellular in Chicago. Out of the 4 ballparks that I have been to, Chicago and New York Yankees are tied for last and Pittsburgh and Minneapolis are tied for first. The game was just as freezing as the Chicago one minus the precipitation. Sadly, the Pirates beat the Cardinals the previous night by ten runs. Naturally, they only had one run in store for us Saturday. 6-1 was the final score, but I enjoyed the game. For the first three innings I was pissed because I had to sit beside an annoying parent failing to take care of an annoying child. Luckily junior baby son of a bitch got cold and they left real early. We did have an excellent view of the game; I love sitting on the outfield fence. Center field was my position when I played and remains my favorite position in the game. So I enjoyed the point of view. After the game I was extremely impressed with the firework show. Probably the greatest show that I have ever seen. Needless to say, I am going to the next fireworks night at PNC.

Top 4 ballparks ranked by view from home plate:

4- New York Yankees (1 game last year)

3- Chicago White Sox (1 game this week)

  

2- Target Field (2 games last year)

1- PNC Park (3 games, last 2 years)

My favorite hockey arenas that I have watched Minnesota Wild play in are as follows:
1- Minnesota
2- Chicago
3- Columbus
4- Pittsburgh
5- Nashville

I am tired. I am excited to not travel for only 5 days before driving to Pilot Mountain, NC to run in my 2nd trail marathon in ever. What is your favorite sport memory? Best venue that you have been to? I want to hear about them all, especially places that I haven't been to. Give me new destinations. Also, I am out of netflix things to watch. Still open to suggestions.

One Love!

#17 Least Eventful Week Ever

I have been wanting to blog all week, but I had a surprising problem. Believe it or not, interesting things do not happen to me that often. This morning I woke up and saw snow covering the road and still coming down. Here is a list of things I hate more than Morgantown weather:    .

C borrowing my electric blanket

My knee is completely fine so I anticipate crankin up a bit before my marathon (4/12) I promise for a fun filled week this upcoming week. Here is this upcoming week's highlights:

Chicago Thursday to watch Minnesota Twins v. Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Wild v. Chicago Blackhawks. That's about it, but you'll ride along with me to Chicago. I'll make it neat.

Here is a short summary of my week in the woods.
Sunday Cooper's Rock
90 minutes 1,105 ft gained

This run was previously blogged along with my review of the trail 25k, but I start my weeks on Sunday so I am including it with this blog. Cooper's has the worst footing/most technical that I am willing to run often. With Pilot Mountain just around the corner I feel that I could benefit from climbing and junk.


Monday
60 minutes 927 ft gained

Baker's Ridge

Had company on this run from Mr. Hunter. We took to Bakers Ridge for the first time of the year. The trails there are much more neater than Cooper's, but there are far few miles to run there. Nonetheless, I love those trails. After the run I drove up to Shop N Save, the dirtiest grocery store you go to and where you may shop, but won't save a dime. I picked up supplies for smoothies and had the funniest run in with an older cashier woman. "Juice and fruit, the keys to staying an attractive young man" she said. I just laughed and told her to have a nice day. I was so close to being like- Lady, I eat taco bell and pizza 6-7 days a week. My diet is nothing short of delicious. She had such a misconception of my diet.

Tuesday Cooper's Rock
90 min 1,312 ft gained

Back at Cooper's, climbed for seemingly the entire run. After today I concluded that there is no way that I can properly train for a 50k in Montana while I am living around here. I also think that I have passed my threshold of steps that I want to take at Cooper's. The trails are beautiful there if you are not looking at the ground. It's like someone dumped as many inconvenient rocks that they could find on the trail just to annoy me. I don't understand why whoever works in parks like this can't just clear the trails up some; I know they go on the trails. If a tree falls across one of the trails, it will get cleaned up. Why can't that person also clean up all of the rocks? I think it will be awhile until you see Cooper's Rock in my log. Are current relationship is It's Complicated.


Then I got tired of climbing through the woods. Wednesday I ran 12 miles with Josh on the rail trail,
in a pair of SKORAs. They are like nothing I have ever worn before, but I dig em. I couldn't be less picky with shoes and I'll wear damn near any shoe that is handed to me. I found out very early on that getting attached to a shoe is stupid because no matter how awesome the shoe is, it's like span is short. So I just wear whatever. There's a chance that in the future I dip back into the skora for a lengthy blog; I'll keep you posted. 

Thursday I didn't run and I think I fell into an anger coma due to how poorly Minnesota Wild has been playing. Very few things make me more upset than bad hockey on their part. I hate being a spectator. The most nervous I get is watching a game or watching a friend race. I'd much rather be the one competing so I have some control over the outcome. I don't think I ever get nervous when I am the one competing, but as a spectator I am chewing on my nails.

Friday & Saturday I returned to the Ridge to climb 2,000 ft over the two runs. Saturday was more eventful. I decided that I would torch the downhills since I normally try my best to go as slow as possible downhill. I think part of it had to do with fatigue. It seems to take more energy to carefully weave down a hill as opposed to just opening up. So I flew down every single hill for the hour run. I crawled up the hills, blowing by a handful of bikers. I always have the same thought when I see bikers on the trails when I am running- crazy ass people. I am too shakey on a bike to want to ride down the rail trail; bike through the rocky trails? No thanks. On my way back to my place I noticed two cars pulled off to the side of the road with flat tires. So I thought that I could share my favorite flat tire story. If you live in this shithole(WV) then you have a flat tire story because this state is full of obese child sized potholes.

The first flat tire that I ever changed was less than a year ago and couldn't have been worse timing. It was a sunday evening and I had just finished working at some expo for the last 3 days. I was working solo for the most part in a booth of cutco. The expo was fine; I enjoyed it. When I was packing up to leave I went to shove the table cloth in my bag and forgot that I had just put all of my equipment in that bag prior. Don't worry- my equipment was just the world's finest cutlery. Sharp knives, no biggie. I cut my right middle finger knuckle so deep that initially it looked like a little water fountain. I could tell that it hurt because it instantly swelled up and my hand was shaking pretty bad. But I don't think that I felt the pain because I was so upset with the situation. The old lady beside me was just pissing me off telling me to go get it stitched up. I had an alternative. I took a paper towel, wrapped it around that middle finger and taped it to my index finger. I just worked way too long and had to drive from Pittsburgh to Morgantown. I wasn't going to the hospital. I don't have photos from this cut anymore because I left my phone in a cab on new year's eve in Pittsburgh, but I have a scar from the cut. I was driving back home when my car started to pull to the right. Everyone knows what that means. I pulled off the next exit and parked by a gas station, under some light. From there I pulled out my spare tire and started to jack up my car. Oh, also it was 26 degrees out and I was in a t-shirt. I had a jacket on, but it was brand new and I planned to keep it clean. The last thing I needed to do with an open wound was change a damn tire. There was way too much blood on the ground for just a finger cut. 30 or so minutes later I was back on the road cursing like a sailor. It took me forever- but that is my motto when selling myself to mates. I can do any work around the house, but it's going to take me way longer than the average person and probably won't be done properly.

As for the rest of my week, I have been working on other ventures and watching two shows on netflix. Sons of Anarchy and Lie To Me. Sons is pretty good, but my favorite part so far is when I watched the entire first season before I noticed what everyone probably noticed way sooner. Opie made a certain face and I paused and said- Woah, that is Gary Bertier from Remember the Titans! All grown up with a beard. I am sure that I will enjoy the rest of the show until he dies (spoiler). I also enjoy the fact that Jax, the main character, is a Brit who is just faking his accent the entire show. Stuff like that makes me like shows. Lie to me I've been watching on and off for awhile. It's nothing that I would recommend necessarily, but I will keep watching it. I also rarely make recommendations. Always excepting them though, so if you have any netflix suggestions, please leave them below. A few shows that I don't care to see because I've already watched the shit out of them are HIMYM, Heroes, Dexter, Haven, Once, and Dinosaurs.

One other short note: I won a t-shirt signed by the entire Reckless Tortuga cast, if you haven't seen anything from their Youtube channel check it out! My favorite series that they do is called Online Gamer. The plot is a guy living life as though he were on his headset playing Call of Duty. I have continuously played too much Call of Duty since 2007 and absolutely love this channel. I will give you a taste. If you have never played cod or you have no sense of humor, you won't enjoy the video. Couldn't be further from my concerns though. This is the beginning of the greatest web series.

Also, if you think Remember the Titans isn't the greatest football movie of all time you can leave a comment explaining why another movie is better, but you'll be wrong. I have had damn near every scene of that movie memorized since I can remember. It makes me tear up when Julius and Gary are talking. Baby Hayden Panettiere is in it and Ryan Gosling and Denzel Washington! It's a true story. These, these are facts. Yost's speech to his defense to this day may be one of the most motivating scenes ever. Watch this and try not to get amped. I suppose out of context it is far less motivating, but still.

Next Blog: Digem Bueller's Day Off, also filmed in Chicago. April 4th, mark your calendar if you are one of those people who are organized. Also, I would like to apologize to Dayton Flyers basketball team. I forgot to tune in and well...the magic ended. Give me a good show to watch on netflix!

One Love

#16 Haulin' In The Holler 25k

Sunday March 23rd
Week 5/16 for Mohican 100 Miler

9 miles through Cooper's Rock trails. This week I am planning on sticking to the trails all week and see how many true trail miles I can log as well as how much climbing I can get in. Then next week I will get more mileage and hopefully go into Pilot Mountain marathon on April 12th with a head of steam.

Last week was an absolute bust. I hardly ran at all and just tried to regain mobility in my knee. As of this second, it feels good enough to make this week a good week of running. One of my few runs just happened to be a race. Once again ruining my preparation for a race, I traveled down under to Eleanor, West Virgina with Travis and Josh to see what this trail race was all about.

Haulin' In The Holler 25k Trail Race Review

http://www.haulinintheholler.com/index.htm
 

I am going to try something different/cool and get multiple reviews all in one blog. But you know the old saying, ladies first. So I shall give my review first. As cool as our Sleep Inn suite was, I was devastated when we drove up before six am and saw tents were out in the field. I have every intention of running this race next year and camping out the night before. I am still kind of bummed that we didn't camp out this year. Going into this race I hadn't been running much at all that week. Tuesday I completed half of a mile before my knee was too unwilling to bend that I just couldn't continue. Thursday I struggled through five miles on the rail trail. One thing that no one can take from me in this race- I had the most KT tape on my leg and I was the first 25k runner to make it to the finish line.

My favorite part about trail races is all of the cool people that you come across. I met Dave from Akron and chatted with him while the Simpsons warmed up. I would have warmed up, but with inflammation I figured best case scenario I hobble across the finish line. Saving myself... Dave kind of inspired me because I was feeling awful about not running at all prior to the race. I mean, two weeks ago and I would have been ready to snap some necks down there. Two weeks from now I would too hopefully. Dave was running the 50k, but he hadn't run more than 10 miles at once in 2014. Respect! I couldn't imagine running thrice as long as I had in a long time. He also told me that he and his wife are shopping for names and that he really liked my name and very well may use it. I need to follow up on this and see if a new Dayton enters the world. If so, I had someone named after me; Presidential status. I also ran the first two miles back from the leaders with on of the coolest older guys that I've never met. He introduced himself and I have already forgotten his name; I am terrible with names and remember about 50% of them. Thus, I remembered Dave and not his. He is a track coach at Winfield High School which is the closest high school, to my knowledge, to the fairgrounds that we were climbing through. He reminisced about the slightly older days for a bit and just talked running for awhile. I chatted him up after the race as well. He ran 25k, took a bird's bath, and then headed out to a track meet for the day. The last thing I would have wanted to do was go sit at a track meet all day. Track meets are the worst! Unless you have Pokemon on hand, I don't know how anyone survives them. I'm assuming his day was much longer than mine. Winfield definitely has a new fan though. Now when I talk about not like the south, I will have an * by that to exclude Winfield. Charleston is still in the running with Bismarck, ND for the worst state capitol in the country. Seriously, Charleston and Huntington are like Siamese turds. I should probably review the race now.

Knees post tumbling. PINK SKULL ROCKTAPE

Could not have asked for a better day to run. Clouds made it to where it was never bright out and it was one of the warmest days of the year so far. I thought it'd be months until I could run in a singlet the was this global warming defying winter has continued to bend me over.  The first mile was on gravel road and I had that lovely feeling in my legs that let me know that I have never run a step in my life before. Anyone who has taken a few days consecutive off of running can understand the feeling. It took two miles for my legs to get under me and then I left my Winfield friend and started off toward the five guys ahead of my on the now single track trail. In the next two miles I already scooted by 5th place and was surprised that my knee pain was minimal. I'd say that I was just barely in eyesight of the man I passed when the extremely technical course tripped me up for the first time. This course probably wasn't 'extremely technical' but I fell twice so I am claiming that it was. I slid through a mud patch on my knees and smacked my chest off of the dirty. Naturally I popped up and bolted off significantly faster than I was previously going. Next in line was my buddy Andrew Rhodes. Then The Guy in Blue followed by Josh and Travis whom I was not reeling in that day. This course had monstrous switchbacks and you could often see up or down the hillside and see how far back you were from those ahead of you. I made it through the first aid station at five miles and couldn't believe that I was feeling 100%. No doubt that I was going to get third. 10 miles would be plenty of time for my pace to override those ahead of my. I'm going to guess that I made it to 6.5-7 miles. I didn't wear a watch because I thought it'd be challenging to finish on my knee and didn't want to know both how slow I was going and how much I had left. I go to this fork in the trail, orange flags (What we were supposed to follow) on my right and my left. Yellow tape (What kept us from going the wrong way) lying in the middle of the trail because the wind had blown it from its original position. I knew there was only 1 correct turn, and leave it to me to take the wrong turn. Turns out there was Orange tape leading to the right and Pink flags to the left. I followed the pink flags and honestly thought that it was the orange markers. Then shortly after that decision I found myself back on the actual course. I was really moving at this point because I couldn't see Rhodes ahead of me anymore. In my head at that time I was thinking 'Damn, he's blowing my doors off.' I continued to pick it up and approached a hairpin right turn. In full stride I clipped my left foot and discovered my honest reaction to falling. It's always hard to tell how you will react falling alone; I have never tumbled so hard by myself. I yelled 'Whoaaa' as I tossed myself head over heels and did three graceful barrel rolls down the hillside. I may have taken my spill in the best part of the course when it comes to falling. The entire race was dodging rocks and roots and I did my three rolls through nothing but soft dirt and leaves. Had that been rocks, my review may be very different. I popped back up a second time and quickly realized that Rhodes wasn't ahead of me anymore; no one was. I was crossing my fingers that I only cut some of the course off and would see Josh coming up behind me. If that were the case, I would do the gentleman thing and wait for the top 4 to put a similar gap on my and the take off. No one ever caught me. I popped out of the woods while the 5k runners were finishing and looked over to a couple guys and asked them how long it had been since the 25k started. I was certain that I wasn't out two hours. 80 minutes. New course record! I sat around and waited for the Einsteins who didn't royally screw up to finish. Josh, Travis, Rhodes. Northern sweep. Now Rhodes came in right behind this guy in black who was nowhere near the top 5 half way through, but made up more than a mile to get third....I have a good guess as to which course he ran. He looked like someone who would take over two hours to run the course I ran in 80 minutes. That turned out to be the theme though, getting lost. See, the course was beautifully marked, but up top the wind had blown off some of the markers. There were not volunteers where there should have been, and there were pink flags marking new trails being constructed. When you are in the woods racing, it is very easy to transition from following orange to pink.

All of that aside, it was an awesome race, killer trails, and an awesome race director. I felt bad that most of the comments he heard were about getting lost up top because 90% of the race was perfect and the other 10% is sort of like, what are ya going to do? I am very happy that we made the trip and can't wait to go next year! I need to befriend someone with a tent before returning next year because I am definitely going to camp out. Josh crushed the 2:04 course record by 13 minutes and he ended up running over 16 miles. Had he not tact on extra, he would have been sub 1:50 on the hard course. Travis came in right under 2 hours, also over 16 miles. If you don't know the mile to kilometer conversion, 16 miles is a good chunk over 25k. Then the mystical guy in blue came through the finish line and we all congratulated him, but he didn't stop. Once he banked right and set off for a 2nd loop we all collectively thought 'holy shit he's running 50k.' The results haven't been posted yet so I do not know how his second loop went, but Christ the guy was right on or around the old 25k record and had to do it all again? Blew my mind. I plan on running the 50k next year there. Rhodes like I mentioned earlier came in 4th behind GUY who snagged his 3rd place and dipped out of there. That was pretty lame because there were a host of people that he was behind, but who cares. Rhodes should care I suppose. I still chalk his run up as a 3rd place finish. And I chalk my day at the Haulin' In The Holler as an 80 minute training run.

Let's take some calls from other competitors and their reviews.
Caller number one, you're on the air. What's your name?
Travis Simpson, 2nd place finisher (breaking old course record)
And what do you have to say about the race?

Here's my tale of 2014's running of Haulin' in the Holler 25k+ trail race. I'm going to make this fairly short and painless since I'm tired and I don't want Dayton hounding me for my recap. The plan was for our rag tag bunch of northern West Virginians to storm the south and sweep the top 4 places with me and Josh aiming for the course record. Weather and trails couldn't have been better in my opinion. Race set off at 7:30am right as the sun was coming up and Josh and I took to the lead in the first mile on the road. Josh quickly started getting away from me once in the woods but luckily due to the courses MANY switchbacks we were able to keep tabs on each other and others in the field throughout the race. Despite going off course once and Josh slowing me down and eventually tripping me I felt very good throughout and spent most of my time in second place where I would eventually finish. Josh ended up winning even though Dayton beat us all back and we both finished under the old course record. Dayton had a misadventure so he screwed up our plan to sweep the top spots but it's hard to stay mad at Dig'em. All in all we left Eleanor happy and looking forward to take on future challenges in trail running. Hopefully next time Dayton won't cheat.

Doesn't matter how you get to the pot of gold, as long as you beat the leprechaun. Is my response to that. 

Caller number two, you're on the air. What's your name? 
Megan Truelove, 1st Overall Lady (2:18, 7 minute course record)
 And what do you have to say about the race?

 
I had been looking forward to running Haulin’ in the Holler since my first adventure in trail racing at the Frozen Sasquatch in January, where the trails were covered in snow and the temperatures were much different from this weekend. So naturally my first obstacle came before the gun even went off, with what am I supposed to wear?! Arriving at the race at 7:00 it was warm but chilly at the same time. I changed from short sleeve to long sleeve to short sleeve before feeling confident in my decision that I was going to be comfortable during the majority of the race with the t-shirt. 

At 7:30 everyone gathered at the starting line and off we went. About a mile in I became friends with two pretty experienced 50k runners, who if I saw now I would not be able to recognize, because with the single track taking over at the point I began running with them the only thing I saw was their backs. I loved the course. At times all the switchbacks did seem a bit much, but I never had a problem with getting lost, like a lot of people seemed to have. (I credit the ultra guys for leading me in the right direction because with all the switchbacks I would eventually gain sight of them again, even once we had been separated.)
I thought this race was a lot of fun! The course kept me on my toes with the majority of it being single track and a little more technical than I had expected. The trail racing atmosphere is the best, and this one seemed pretty up to par with attracting some of the coolest people around to the trails in Eleanor, WV. So, nice job to the race director and the boy scout troop for working the aid stations.

Awesome review by the local studette! Time for one more review. Saving the slowest for last.

Caller number three, who you be?
Josh Simpson, First Overall finisher(1:51 new course record, by 11 minutes.)
 What do you have to say about the race?

The Year was 2014 (Year of the Sandshrew). I had just turned 30 going on 12...Cadence and me had just made a commitment to live with a Digem for a 3rd year. I will say that was more of my decision, Cadence rather despises Dayton, another story. We’d been through a lot, it was time to shake the rattle, but what to do? We’d been around the country running races....road....xc....track...What was missing?? Where was this new fire going to come from?
    The year was 2013 (Year of the Jigglypuff). Dayton had decided to change his running path. He was tired of being awesome, being fast. He wanted to run slow and be recognized for a commitment to laziness. So he decided on one course of action....Trail racing. It was a realm where the drunk and homeless come to compete. Perfect for Dayton, I mean...he’s not homeless but the smell of the less fortunate lingers. Anyway...after Dayton presented to me this new course of action I went into my layer of hate-itude and thought on this turn of events. After only a few itchy minutes I decided he was trying to get away from my stern grasp. He wanted to be #1...I couldn’t have this. I was to enter the world of trail running!!!! I would not let him have his fun...his joy. I would bring unrelentless competition into a world of lawless jogging...
    March 22 2014....It was 520am...noone cares wv. Joker 1 (Travis) and Joker 2 (Digem) were already up, checking current tweets from semi-famous people only 14 yr old girls care about. Not a normal race morning for me but after 5 more minutes of giggling I was up. We left our tent and headed to Eleanor Wv, it was time to race Haulin in the Holler...A confused kid, war general, and fat bloke would enter the fair grounds of Putnam Park and line up against some of the “beardiest” men and women I have ever lined up against. Not to be outdone one of our northern comrades would win the “beardiest” award..Andrew Rhodes..A man’s man, grizzly bear hunter, and oldest known master of cane widdling. 7:30am *Boom* Race Start! I quickly hear what I assume is common for trail runners unaccustomed to actual running...”Hey! This is a 25k not 5k” to me and The War General. 6:10ish opening mile...hardly quick, mildly sexy, it would continue. Game plan... Run smooth together. I have a suspicion Travis knows me better and knows when I came up with this gameplan I was full of shit. I was. Mile 2 ...6:45, I was clear..I cheered on my older brother as he battled 2 others as only a younger brother knows how, by leaving him by himself, to fend for his honor. Mile 5.5..switchback upon switchback...I look down and see Travis, a clear 2 (perfect), I see Rhodes, a clear 3 (excellent), I hear....a Digem?? “Hey Josh”, I look down and see him..majestic as a unicorn with a leprechaun on its back climbing a rainbow. Things were going well. Mile 8..Disaster. I broke my foot. Running down a steep quad trail I planted wrong in a mud puddle and popped something in the top of my right foot. I tried to continue,but couldn’t. My mind was a blur of “I can’t believe this” to “what can I kill?” My handheld bottle! Spiked! So my walk started....1 min...2 min....3 min...I hear my brother, “Are you ok?” “What’s wrong?”... I reply, “ My foot is broke”. I have solace that a Simpson will win but it needed to be me. In my head it is always me...So I start hobbling, grunting, screaming! I catch up to my brother. He turns and looks slightly surprised to see me gimping up behind him. I tell him my foot doesn’t seem to be to bad while dorsi flexed and I would try to work it out...I go ahead. Shortly after going back into the lead Travis face plants...I stop and ask if he’s ok. He is not amused. My older brother has two theories that I will not confirm or deny, 1 ) I walked 3-4 min to take a break and be a dick..play decoy and still win, arrogant. 2) I then proceeded to trip him in mockery...this was my game..humiliation. Regardless of what you believe happened one thing is true, my sister in law is the devil. :) Mile 15.5 (25k)...still no finish line in sight. This is confusing, did I take a wrong turn like so many other runners that day? No, we ran a 16 miler, ugh...Finish result? New course record for me and my older brother. After all the B.S. you just skimmed through I will be frank for 15 secs. This was some of the most fun I have ever had in my running life. It was so much more laid back then most of the races I attend and I couldn’t have been happier traversing Putnam County Park with my older brother and Pet Digem... (even though he cheated and made it through the 16 mile race in 80 minutes) anyway, Thank so much to the race director for putting on a good show and having a great course for everyone to enjoy. Also, congrats to Megan Truelove for breaking the women’s course record and being so cool..and having literally the best, greatest, most amazing voice the earth has ever had the pleasure of listening to....seriously. You rock. Till next time Freaks and Geeks!  FIN-land

 If the photos that were taken ever surface, I will upload them in a blog down the road. So keep on reading, commenting, and running.

One Love! 

#15 How To Break a Femur

Salutations.
Yesterday kicked off week 4/16 for Mohican 100 miler

PA Gamelands
18k 100 minutes

Time traveling gear.

The plan was to run 30k, but my knee that was bothering me is still aching pretty bad. It feels slightly better when I run than when I am stiff legging it around. As I laid in bed yesterday evening, unable to bend my left leg, I booked my room for the 25k this weekend. That way I am sure to go to the necessary measures to heal my leg up enough to survive 15.5 miles of trail racing Saturday. Key word- racing. My plan! - Day off today, because we got snow again last night, ain't no body got time for that; or bronchitis. Then I will just stick to flat roads/ rail trails all week. I don't want to see a trail until Saturday because I know that race is going to muff up my knee even more. And I am fine with that. Spirits are still high, 3 months away from the MO100. While lying in bed and trying to bend my leg, it brought back a certain memory. Of another time in my life when I had trouble bending my other like. Also, someone requested this story on the last blog. What can I say, I am a man of the people.. Throw back on those fake 3-D glasses, we are heading back to 2008 to show you how one breaks a femur. Actually, there will be a prologue in 2004ish because I think the first damage was done then.

2004ish- Mary Lou Retton Park

Baseball was probably my second favorite sport growing up; behind basketball. There was one game out of the hundreds that I played from 6-15 yrs old that stands out quite vividly. It was the only game where I did not finish, first DNF of my life. I remember already being intimidated by the opposing pitcher's speed and he had already rung me up once that day; not much of an accomplishment. I stood in the box and he freaking whipped a pitch right at me. I attempted to jump and kick my legs out over the plate to avoid the pitch, but only succeeded with one leg. The ball traveled right behind my left leg and pounded my right leg right above my knee cap. Down goes Frazier. And now he's rolling around. And crying. And crying more. This is getting embarrassing. I remember the feeling of not being able to walk for the first time. I tried to stand up and just couldn't put any pressure on my right leg. I eventually hobbled to the dugout and sat rest of that game out. I couldn't walk normal for close to a week and had the gnarliest bruise that I've ever seen above my knee. That was probably when I stopped aspiring to play baseball for the rest of my life. Though I did continue to struggle through another 4-6 years.

Summer of 2008

This summer would be the first summer where I actually ran regularly with Patrick and Dave. After getting beat by a lot of people during freshman cross country and track, I had motivation to get better. It's extremely common to see a high school runner have a huge jump from mediocrity to less mediocre. My jump came the summer of 2008. I was running every single day and seeing very quick progress. I just attended my first running camp, Camp of Champions in Madison Wisconsin. I got to talk to Chris Solinsky, Evan Jager, Simon Bairu, and thee Jerry Schumacher. Allow me to translate that into mainstream sports talk. I got to talk to Michael Jordan, Barry Sanders, Derek Jeter and thee Coach K. That camp started an obsession with UW that I didn't kick for three years. That summer was probably the summer that I spent the least amount of time indoors. If I wasn't running I was playing ultimate frisbee. I played that shit every day and for hours. There were different groups that I would play with; occasionally everyone would be free and we would play 100 yd games of 12 on 12. Those were awesome. The obsession with ultimate, some might say, led to my biggest athletic setback. 

8/8/08

I never followed the Olympics too closely, but then again I was only 12 for the '04 Olympics and had other shit going on like Roller Coaster Tycoon and trying to catch Pokemon. I chose to watch damn near every event that took place in the Beijing Olympics. Granted, I didn't have too much going on. I remember my dad driving me to cross country practice as the opening ceremonies kicked off. In August Fairmont Senior used to have 'hell month' where we'd have a daily second practice every evening that was optional, but saw the majority attend. Back then we wanted to get better and ran twice a day and played frisbee every evening as a team. On this night for some reason none of the guys brought their frisbee. We were just going to run and go home. The girls team had a couple frisbees though and they wanted to play a game. At that time I would never turn down a game of frisbee. I probably enjoyed that more than running. I want to say hindsight 20/20 I should have just run, but if I could do it all over, I'd make the same mistake.

Very early on in the game, like first five minutes, Chris (my coach) grabbed the frisbee and I shot off for the endzone. Very routine play. He made the long pass and I made the catch multiple times a game. The teams were co-ed. My older sister came out for the cross country team that year. Being on the same team we thought would be fun; it was. Meaghen is a few inches taller than me and that had a lot to do with the outcome of this game. Once Chris threw the pass I opened up into full stride after it; as did Meaghen on defense. While at top end speed, my right leg was firmly planted in the turf. It's funny...this story is actually getting hard for me to type; hands are shaking. Meaghen charged on and we would have had a knee on knee collision if we were the same height. Her knee smashed into my planted leg and sent me head over heels. I honestly can't explain the feeling. All I know is that I tried to hop up as quick as I could. That's what everyone does when they get knocked down. I hopped on my left leg, but couldn't move my right leg. Not like- my leg is asleep and I can't move it. I literally had no way of moving my leg. I laid back down and quickly tried to bend it. Then I looked at it and my knee cap was not where it usually was. It now rested against my calf. That's enough to make a kid lose his shit, and that I did. Gripping the turf, pulling the turf out, and screaming every curse word I knew and more was all that I could do. I remember looking around into the eyes of everyone else that was playing. I could confirm that it was bad from the looks they projected. Tears just rolling, anger everywhere. I also remember wishing that Patrick didn't have work that night. He wasn't at practice and I wished that he was there to keep me calm. Chris sprinted over to my side and ended up scooping me up and taking me 90+ yards back to my dad's truck so we could go to Weenie Hut General. I couldn't stop vibrating. My entire body was shaking so viciously. I thought I was going to black out when Chris was running with me. Every step he took my leg just kept bouncing up and down and I couldn't do anything, it was like a ragdoll.

We get to Fairmont General. I am still talking like a sailor. This was the first time that I hated the world. I remember being bitter and probably sounding more like Nancy Kerrigan than I am proud of. After sitting around in that stupid place for forty five minutes I got news that I was being transferred to a real hospital in Morgantown because Fairmont General only handles nosebleeds. At that time I must have transitioned into another stage of dying. Because all I could do was apologize to the pair of teammates that was there and Chris. Up to that point I thought that I just had a dislocated knee. When I was told that I also snapped my femur in half...That's the death penalty to a runner. I felt so guilty for ruining my team's season. We had a real good shot at the podium as a team that year; granted it was a very weak year for AAA teams. Nonetheless, I couldn't have felt worse. Physically, mentally, emotionally. The only good that came and to this day I can't remember if it was in Fairmont General, the ambulance ride to Ruby Hospital in Morgantown or once we got in to Ruby. I remember some guy told me to count backwards from 10 as he injected me with something. Even in the worst pain of my life, I could still muster up enough energy to be an asshole. I said- I hate when I see this on television. Go ahead, give it to me. No way I fall to sleep before counting back from 10. It's ten seconds. 10. 9. 8... I woke up sixteen hours later.

Company for the majority of my stay at Ruby.

The handful of nurses that dealt with me for my stay at Ruby deserve a raise. I am not sure if I have ever been a bigger prick in my life. Whenever my friends weren't in my room as was quite salty. But I do/did have some excellent friends. The final blow was when my surgeon told me that I shouldn't expect to ever run as fast as I did before the break. First thought was- Damn, I have never even run fast before. Never going to be fast. Then my second thought that lingered around too long: game over, I quit. I fully accepted my fate and end to a running career that never began. Honestly, I went into the darkest place that I have ever been to; or it was my first time in the room. That's probably more accurate. The worst part was that I gave up, but that's it. I didn't talk about it. It happened, it was supposed to, drop it. But my sister took it soo much harder than I did. She felt so terrible about it that I actually felt bad that I was making her feel bad about breaking my femur...Weird. Looking at these pictures makes me wish that I could grow hair again. But that's a different story completely.

I did go to a dark place, but it could have been so much darker. I had so much support from everyone. People sent me delicious food, reached out to me, gave me cards. I only wish that I was grateful at the time. I was still bitter enough to not care that people were being so good to me. Like I said, I was a prick. I also has the closest thing to a motive to be a prick though. Two people that I wouldn't have made it through without are Chris and my best/female friend at the time. There were dozens that contributed to my mental and emotional recovery, but these two for some reason hit me the deepest. I had been best friends with this girl for a few years, sweetest girl in the world. I made some mistakes and didn't care. We weren't on great terms when I broke my leg, but man... Almost daily she would visit after soccer practice, bake me goodies, and come over and make sure that I was doing alright. We would play games that she didn't want to play and watch movies and just chat. There is no way I could repay or thank her enough for being there for one of the hardest times in my life. I tried my best to thank her by continuing to be a prick... I have no regrets in my life, but if I did one of them wouldn't certainly be down that alley. She'll always have a spot as the coolest chick ever. And I will leave it at that.

Few months after broken leg.

Chris wasn't around almost everyday. He was there daily. There wasn't one day that I was in that cast (2 months) that Chris didn't not visit me on. Right out of the hospital I was handed fifty Oxycontins. I took one, it knocked me out for six hours. I woke up and took another. That was the first couple of days of therapy. Then Chris made sure to always keep me company. He offered to take me to every morning and evening practice, I didn't want to go to either. So in between practices he would come to my house and play Madden with me. We logged several seasons that month. That gave me something to look forward to everyday and something to keep me away from my Oxys. Eventually I did accept the invite to a practice and slowly weaved myself back into the team. But Chris continued to come by and play video games. At that point (September) he was just coming because we had gotten too into our Madden dynasties; I didn't need help staying awake anymore. And if I never broken my leg, he never would have come up to game and all the hours we logged of NHL 09/10/11 never would have happened. Nor would we have picked up the hobby of disc golf. So that is one of many good things to come out of breaking my femur. So if you think you have had a good school coach before, think if he would go out of his way daily to make sure that you are alright for a month. There is a reason Fairmont Senior used to be killers in running. Couldn't of had a strong family vibe on the team then.

Year later, back to being killers.

That cross country season I learned that I was truly in love with the sport of running. When you can't move your leg for two months and have to watch your friends run daily; you either get bored or really anxious. I got very anxious. I had a new level of passion for running and spent the season with Chris as the assistant coach. I got to see the other side of the sport. I got to help make workouts and see the team through the eyes of a coach. I really enjoyed that side of it. I would get more nervous watching my team run than I would when I would toe the line myself. Because at that point I made the decision that if I ever get the opportunity to race again that I would be hard to break. I figured that I will never feel as much pain as I already had felt with my injury so it'd be hard for competitors to hurt me. And I think that over the next few years that I proved to be a tough opponent for most of the kids that I raced. No one had more fire burning, that's for sure. I still haven't decided if that worked in my favor all of the time. I think the biggest thing I learned about high school running is how easily people broke in races. How soft everyone is. But at the end of the race- everyone has that last gear to sprint in significantly faster than they were traveling. I kept that in my mind and promised myself that I wouldn't have any gears left when I finished. Leave nothing out there. And I would recommend to any high school runner, especially a struggling runner, to go to meets and just watch races. It will help if you want it to. I picked up an attitude during my therapy that I never really dropped in high school. It was an acquired taste.

One of the first to greet me after winning state.

Speaking of therapy, I feel like I can not leave that out of the story. Derek at Fairmont's Country Roads Physical Therapy is the man! I can remember getting my cast sawed off and being naive, I went to hop off of the table and was crushed when my leg couldn't bend still. Also, I was curious as to why my surgeon took the time to shave my leg for the screws to go in my leg but left my leg all bloody. I had raunchy ass blood stains all up my leg. And I initially woke up naked and confused, but we have allllll been there. Back to therapy. I like to think that I was one of the hardest patients that Derek has ever had to deal with. Everything hurt. I hated having to hold someone's hand and basically learn how to walk all over again. I didn't have too much pride, it just really annoyed me. I had vivid memories of walking just fine. The pain eventually felt good. I spent three straight days just murdering the stationary bike. Then I thought- this is stupid. And Derek had to stand over my shoulder or I wouldn't do it. He would yell at me whenever he would go help someone else and turn around to see me texting instead of biking. ' I don't want to get good at riding bikes, I hate bikes' I remember telling him. The most pain I felt in therapy is when he would strap ankle weights to my ankle and make me extend my leg over the table. There was two options- the ankle weights force my leg to bend which it wasn't planning on doing, or I use my non-existent leg muscles to hold it up strong. And when Derek would stretch my leg I would almost cry every single day. Granted, bending my leg at first would consist of about four inches of movement. It was pretty stiff for a few weeks. I remember that I HATED doing any balancing drills. Shit, I don't have the best balance now. When I was crippled I could fall over by the wind blowing. There was this one drill where I would balance on my new leg and toss a medicine ball against a trampoline that was angled to sent it back to my chest. I was so pissed to be doing it again that I threw it like a basketball to a teammate that won't stop crying for the ball, and that s.o.b came flying back. Hit me in the chest and I landed flat on my back. Talk about getting what you deserve. That is hilarious to me now, and even made me laugh then. The end of every session was the best. I had 4 patches of electric stimulation hooked up to my quad that would basically force my muscles to flex since I couldn't do that on my own. He would come and hook me up to the machine and leave me there for twenty minutes. Once he left I would sit up and crank that machine to its highest level and just watch my leg spas out. I felt like Drago with all of the sticky things on me. Except he was a monster running up a mountain treadmill and I was trying to bend my leg.

My cast, 2nd evolution.

Derek's peak anger with me came once I had full mobility in my leg. I walked the two miles from school to therapy without crutches and I thought he was going to kill me. I can only think of two funny stories about my crutches. The first time I tried to go down stairs I realized that I had no idea how to do it. I put the crutches two steps below me, you know... to skip steps and get to the bottom faster, and there was no quicker way to the bottom. I picked my legs up and swung down to the crutches and shot way passed them, I skipped a handful of stairs and crashed at the bottom. Luckily my broken leg broke my fall, that cast was rock hard. The other story is in worse taste, but just as funny. I used to drag my right leg everywhere! Hotels, restaurants, meets, everywhere. I would basically sag my entire right side of my body down and drag it around. I remember exiting Olive Garden like that and two hostesses giggled and I snapped around and yelled at them. They apologized. Then the joke ended when I saw some older man struggling as much as I was pretending to. Up until that point, and the few times that I did it after that instance was still hilarious. I went on to never break that femur again so far. I do not have any intentions of doing it again. My most recent tattoo has a dagger going right across my femur where it broke. Didn't plan that to happen, but it's a neat fun fact.

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Today everyone is all dressed up in Green for Josh's birthday! I can honestly say that he is my favorite human roommate.

Happy Birthday Mane!

#14 Follow Me Down Memory Lane

First off, let me explain why it has been half of a week since you have heard from me. Evidently running forty miles in a day can potential trash your legs more than I expected. The last 6 miles were all on ice and I think I tweeked my knee. Since it is March there is no need for me to go into superhero mode, so I called off the dogs for this week. I think it is HILARIOUS that through three days this week I had 76 miles and I will end this week with a whopping 84 miles. Full recovery mode these last few days. My favorite days of the week are Sunday because I go to much nicer trails and run them harder than normal and have more company than my normal days. I packed it in as an attempt to salvage my Sunday run and I also threw down 40$ to go break the course record at some southern WV trail 25k. Southern West Virginia is much like this part of West Virginia except much slower at every aspect of life. But don't tell them that. Actually, if you're ever in southern WV offend them. They are my favorite nest of beings to stir the pot with, they will give you great reactions; quite entertaining. Also entertaining is Pokemon Red on Gameboy color. I ran across that game Wednesday and said blog? No, I'ma replay my childhood.

Bromance time

Want to hear about the big 8 miles I ran between Wednesday and Saturday? It took place Thursday in the polished turd town of Fairmont. I started my run at pops' house and took a familiar course. The same course that I ran with Patrick for 150+ consecutive at one time; and hundreds of more times. I went through quite a few memories on that run and decided to give you the play by play of my memories on that run. Put on your fake 3-D goggles, here we go. Oh and if you don't care for bromances, press previous page now.

Casual Friday 2007

Mile 0- My house. Before Patrick moved across town, all of our runs began here. Patrick probably deserves a lot of credit for anything I've done in the running world. There were dozens of mornings before I was in love with the sport where we would wake me up to run. His old house was a short walk up the street so he would run down, come into my room, and wake me up to run. My favorite memory is having a friend over to play Call of Duty 4 like bosses (two tvs, two xboxes) all night and quitting as the sun rose. I put my shoes on and slid on my running shorts before crawling into bed. After a brief nap, Patrick was in my room and was surprised when I rolled out of bed already fully dressed for the run. After laughing at the sight of my friend out on the sofa and the collection of energy drinks, pizza, snacks, etc scattered across my floor, we left.

Us with Dave(guy who used to exist)

Mile .25- At the end of my street we would run through/behind our school: Fairmont Senior High School. Living a quarter mile from my high school, I had a very difficult time making it to class. My final transcript claimed that I missed 140 days of school, 115 in my junior & senior year. My excuse was/is that 7:30am- 2pm is the ideal time to sleep. So I often did. I would often sit on my porch, watch in hand, and time my walks to class off of the ringing of the bells. I would also walk home from school whenever I got annoyed. See, I'm a much happier person recently because I avoid all of the people that I don't want to be around. I only need/want to see a handful of people; ever. Then, I was semi-forced to be surrounded by idiots for a large part of the day and they would frown at me leaving when I pleased. I frowned right back. My favorite absence came during one of my last two winters. I walked down my steps, already ten minutes late, and slipped on a patch of ice and fell on my side. I quickly popped up and dusted myself off, pulled a u-turn, and returned to bed. School wasn't worth falling twice for. Anyways, we would run by that place.

'08 Track. Slow n Dumb

Mile 1- The first mile clicked off right before we would jump over the barrier and on to the 3rd street bridge. It's a neat bridge because it is like a 90 degree turn; I feel like most bridges are just straight and boring. Looking over into the shit colored river, we were only a mile down/upstream from the train trestle which was the site of almost every single run in 2008 track. This was still before either of us had gotten serious with training, or knew what training meant, and we would just run down to the trestle and jump off. Then go back to track practice. I remember freshman year of track we were supposed to do 400s once and we didn't want to so we did the first 200 and dipped out of the side gate and went to the trestle. That was led by our captain Dave though. Seemed like much more fun. It is amazing to think of how many times one of us fell on a run, particularly in the winter, yet not once did either of us have a mishap hurdling that bridge wall. After returning from Oklahoma, my first of many injuries occurred hurdling that bridge. I went to hurdle the wall and didn't put enough power in my jump and only managed to get my toes on the wall and basically wall planted (Tony Hawk game players) when I wasn't trying to and messed up my achilles. One of the worst memories on that route would be turning around and limping home with an extremely sore Achilles. I still don't have a proper diagnosis as to what kept me out for 6 weeks. I just diagnosed it as- muffed up achilles.

Times Invite '09, amen.

Mile 1.75- Merchant street was the majority of the 2nd mile and was home to a lot of our(Patrick's) spills. As you come down the brick road hill you have to make a sharp right turn that would always be covered in ice in the winter. That patch must've tripped Patrick up eight times. So funny. I would run behind him intentionally to see where the ice was by watching him. There is also a reflective window around that turn, which turned into a vanity mirror on all of my runs. This stretch is home to the most epic fall either of us had made, but it was on the way back, so wait. This run is an out and back. This stretch used to be beautiful because the newest gateway/interstate exit was being constructed for probably two years and every day we had the benefit of running right down merchant street without traffic because that road was closed. We didn't realize how nice that was until that s.o.b opened up and we had to deal with a busy 4 way. That's not fun, especially as we aged and began trying to run our normal runs faster. When this turns to mile 6.5, it is hilarious...

Times Invite '10

Mile 2.5- Crossing the street past NAPA was the scene of potentially the scariest series of events on this run ever. When you run through a town infested with idiots, you have no choice but to encounter countless idiotic remarks yelled at you. As we passed the street a man yelled something at us and I kindly let him know that he could fuck off. Next thing we knew the car was flying down the parking lot after us, similar to the Libyans chasing Marty. Patrick broke to the right; I split left. I caused another car to slam on its brakes as I jumped out in front of it to avoid the car trying to hit me. I was so close to the car that if I leaned in, I could've kissed it. I was trapped. I walked toward the now parked car and looked around and couldn't see Patrick. Me and the idiot exchanged a few words and carried on with our day, Patrick had returned by this point. Moments later I noticed that I pissed a few drops during the argument, or perhaps when he was chasing us or when I almost got hit by a car. I don't know what the cause was, but my shorts had spots of wetness. It was cold out figured into my excuse of why I peed out of fear.

If you text me, you text both of us.

Mile 4- The tunnel on the rail trail is weird. The lights inside are on all day, and they turn off when the sun goes down. I feel like it should be the opposite. Whenever we would run more than 8 miles, we would continue down the rail trail toward Prickett's Fort which was our turn around point for 12 milers. There is nothing scarier than running through a tunnel at night in nothing but dark. Since I put the picture up, I have to touch up on the result of all of the mileage that we put in together on this route. I can remember when he would run with me after I broke my femur on this course, the conversations we would have running through that tunnel or while we pissed by the tunnel. That was the pee break every run. Only section where we were secluded. Sophomore year/ his junior year, we never accomplished anything impressive on the local stage yet, but our aspirations were there. We never said- it'd be cool to improve a little bit. The idea was- Man, we need to get all-state. All-state this, all-state that. That was always the goal. And sure enough fall of '09 we both finished top ten and the picture to the side was after the 2010 3200m race where we both finished all state (1st & 5th). Huge races for both of us and the most gratifying day in high school. It would be significantly less of a memory if Patrick wasn't placing with me. I never saw him in the race, but had that feeling that I wasn't the only one feeling great that day. I went on the next year to get two all state medals- didn't collect either one of them. Getting all state was irrelevant at that point; nothing more fun than getting awards with your best friend. Especially when that was a goal that both trained for together for two years leading up to it; every single day.

Mile 6-6.5- For years I have said that my death would occur from a car on Elkins Street. There is a hidden left turn on the fastest stretch of road on our course. We would have to slow to a stop just to see if cars were coming, but my competitiveness with myself would often have me flying by the intersection just hoping a car wasn't coming. So if I ever return to Fairmont on a run and get struck by a car at that intersection, don't feel bad for me. Be upset that I saw that coming. Nothing worse than when I'm right. I intentionally avoid that stretch now because I am so certain in my ability to know things. Now for the most epic crash! As we take a left back up the hill that Patrick liked to fall at the bottom of, there are about three hidden driveways. Unlike Elkins st, no one ever takes those roads so we never thought twice about running right by the drives without looking. Plus, they have a stop sign if anyone ever takes that route. And everyone stops at stop signs. I'm sure that everyone in the world has seen Superbad at some point, this next scene will sound familiar. Patrick is on my left and I hear a car slam on its brakes and a thump. They hit Patrick's butt and sent him flying forward. Now, this is absolutely false, but in my memory- they sent him across the street and down into Palatine Park. In reality it was a fender bender and Patrick was completely fine, but once it happened I jetted off. Then I turned around and was completely surprised and confused as to what happened. We laughed about that for the rest of the run and for at least a month or two. The sight of Patrick being off of the ground due to a car hitting him will always be one of the funniest sights ever.

Family Picture 2010

Mile 7 - There is this kid. His name is David Collins. I have no idea how old he is, because in my mind he will always be a freshman in high school. He is the closest thing to a cartoon character that I have ever met. By far the goofiest, funniest, and caring little man I know. I have a ton of funny pictures of Collins. I will definitely share more stories about him; actually it's decided. In the future there will be a blog entry titled David Collins and I will tell the story of my relationship with Collins. I chose this picture of him to keep the bromance with Patrick going strong. David Collins... While me and Patrick would drag the rest of

We are coming for you, Collins.

our team on our route every day after school, most of the team would branch off early to go do their own thing. There is one guy who tried to run with us when he couldn't yet every single day. Every day David would go with us and turn around well before we did and we would catch him as we ran back down Merchant street every single day. Crossing the 3rd street bridge we would look back at us and try to keep beating us, but would crumble in laughter with my commentary. Every single day I would narrate his attempt to out run us word for word with the commentator from Spongebob when Gary the Snail attempted to race. And blew up, crashed, eye exploded. It was amazing; to see him giggling and slowing back to us. Running with us would turn Collins into quite the man however. I will touch on that once I tell his story.

Nothing super eventful has ever happened in the last mile as far as I can remember. But that is the end of this bromance and the tour de Fairmont. If you are ever running in Fairmont, try not to. If you can't run the only route in Fairmont like we do. Tomorrow is Sunday Funday again on the trail; hopefully next week will see 7 days of running. My knee should be good to go. and a week from today will be the second trail race of 2014. Exciting stuff...

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