Runs with tortoises

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While the Condor was splitting a weekend marathon over two days and mixed terrain, I found myself in the Land of 10,000 Lakes without running shoes. After the unexpected discovery that Minneapolis has more to offer than the Mall of America, we decided to stay through Sunday, so I started looking for a local route to accommodate my once-a-week running regimen.

Long Meadow Lake was the one nearest our lodgings, so I scouted it while walking to the hotel pool. There was an entirely suitable crushed gravel path parallel to the water’s edge, leading into a tantalizing verdant tunnel. This sight was powerfully inviting.

I decided I wasn’t leaving the state without a proper run. I experimented with a few strides in my flip flops, but they were far too annoying and floppy to be of use. Back at the hotel I looked hard at my leather street shoes: they would do in a pinch. But on a later visit to the mall, I spotted a pair of New Balance Minimus in my size and grabbed them without even trying them on. That night I found it was hopeless. Stuffing my feet into socks and the extremely snug shoes left me too uncomfortable to even walk around.

The mall wouldn’t open until late on the morning of our return travel day, so I was back to the dress shoes. Then I thought to try the shoes on without socks. Not bad. They were still very snug in the heel and midfoot, but roomier in the toes.

I started plotting a route. A body of water seems to demand a circumnavigation of some kind, and I saw a bridge in the satellite view that I could use to cut across and loop around the northern half of the lake. Strangely, I could not map a route across the bridge, but got a rough estimate of the distance by requesting walking directions from one end of the crossing to the other.

This would be my first outing in any kind of minimal shoe, and I wasn’t sure of what to expect from the trails or my feet, but I was looking forward to trying both. I got up in the morning a bit later than planned, dressed for an overcast 60° day, and slipped out past the breakfast buffet, carrying only my phone, a credit card and the room key.

The shoes were amazing, completely comfortable even across the parking lot. I have never been able to maintain anything other than a heel-strike for more than a few strides; it just felt too awkward. But with these shoes landing on the ball of my foot felt natural, like I wasn’t adjusting my form at all. Perhaps all I needed was the minimal 4mm drop from heel to toe in the Vibram sole.

It wasn’t long before I got my first reaction to the aggressively-styled shoe. On the access road, I stopped to photograph a trail map and then met a local resident.

The snapper did not seem too impressed by my footwear, perhaps even threatened. But both animal and shoe were out of their natural element on this asphalt. A little farther on and I joined the Hogback Ridge Trail, feeling utterly light on my feet. I glided nearly silently along the lakeside, spotting dozens of red-winged blackbirds, geese, goldfinches, and the ever-present great blue heron.

Up ahead I took a fork in the trail leading to the bridge crossing. This turned out to be a mistake, taking me to a long highway bridge with unwelcoming hard shoulders. I considered running across but thought better of it. I decided to continue on a bit then turn around for a somewhat disappointing out-and-back route.

But I hadn’t gone much farther when I found the crossing I had planned for, though it wasn’t exactly what I had planned for.

Again I considered turning back, but something told me this was going to be the best part of the outing. The day before, a four-year-old had shamed me at an amusement park attraction. Sure, he cried once, getting stuck on a particularly tight spot, but I was sweating and gritting my teeth constantly once we reached the second level. I wanted to cross the cables and wobbly plank bridges unaided, with the same casual disregard he showed for the dizzying, multi-story drops below our feet, but it was impossible. I squeezed his hand in my sweaty palm and clung desperately to the safety rope. I imagined taking a photo looking down between my feet, balanced on bouncy two-by-four-topped parallel beams, to the concrete floor far below. The attendants had caught me trying to sneak my phone along and made me leave it in the locker, but I could never have managed to take a picture anyway. Just as well, since I will never forget that view. So I was prepared to disregard warning signs, squeeze past obstacles, and tiptoe over rusty girders poised over muddy swamp.

Once across the bridge, I was committed to completing the loop and started to make good time, hoping to get in before breakfast closed. I stopped to admire some more turtles, which were busy digging in the sandy soil and showing annoyance at my presence. A walking couple suggested that they were laying eggs.

The trip record would show that I covered almost eight miles. Other than some tightness in one calf, I felt great during the run, but it turned out to be far too much for a first experience in a minimal shoe. My feet were fine, but my calves were knotted and sore for days. By Tuesday I was reduced to about the speed of those turtles, but looking forward to the next time I’ll squeeze into those shoes and hit the trail.

Manassas Airport 10K

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In a now-familiar pattern, the cat shattered all prior records of the condor, while finishing well behind the condor in the actual event. The Manassas Airport delivered the promised flat and fast runways and a personal best.

This modest show of alacrity was inspired not only by the increasingly distant tail of the condor, but also by a first and then second stroller-pusher. The first, bib #1449, was maintaining a prohibitive pace. While trying to keep up, the cat overheard another runner ask 1449 how fast he was without the stroller. “A little faster, but I donated a kidney recently, and since then it hasn’t been the same.”

A second stroller, possibly finishing the 5K, started creeping up from behind in the last mile. This, and a sudden flashback to the final scene in “Heat,” provided juice for a respectable finishing kick, leading to a minute of nausea after crossing the line. Time 47:47, pace 7:42 per mile.

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth

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“Sorry about that, bud,” I said to the guy behind me in the chow line after stumbling into him. “I’m feeling a little unsteady on my pins.”

“Understandable,” he said.

* * *

The threatened rain had held off, but the air was as cold as forecast. “There are reports of snow on top of the mountain!” the announcer called out to some thousand or so shivering nutjobs awaiting the start of the 2010 Hyner View Trail Challenge.

I had a liter and a half of water on my back, a GPS-enabled training watch on my wrist and a sour dread in my gut as we listened to the countdown. A final check of my gear, a last wave of encouragement from The Boss, and we were off.

It was a mile or so over road to the trail head. I had seeded myself some two-thirds of the way back in the pack starting out, which turned out to be a bad miscalculation. Once we hit the trail there was no room at all to pass, and I was stuck behind a bunch of lollygagging hikers, oohing and aahing over the trees and river. For the next mile or so we proceeded at a slothlike shuffle, and at times came to a dead stop. Finally hit the first real hill, and though it opened up a little bit, it was hard to get enough momentum to get around the shufflers.

That hill just didn’t want to end. Every time I thought I was near to the top, another 100 yard stretch would somehow open up past what I thought was the crest. My calves were on fire, but when the trail widened out near the actual last 100 yards I had plenty of juice to hump it around some of the tourists. I sprinted up to the aid station, chugged a cup of water, and took off down the trail.

I felt great over the next 9 miles or so – two long downhills, some flat meandering through the valley with several stream crossings, a couple moderate ups, and even the dreaded S.O.B., which was much steeper in person.

Passing was still a challenge, as the trail rarely got wider than a foot and a half or so. Had to wait for open areas to the left or right. At one point I saw a chance to blow by a line of 5 or 6 people and I took off through the scrub just to the left of the trail. I had about a three foot gap to get back on the trail before braining myself on a tree, and I realized that my momentum was going to carry me off the other side. Where there happened to be 50-odd foot drop down to the river.

I managed to grab the tree, swing around onto the path losing less than 10% of the skin off my left hand, and keep on rolling.

After the aid station at the top of S.O.B. I started to fade a little. I was reduced to walking even some of the milder ups. And then came the final indignity: a quad-shredding downhill stretch that just went on and on. I pulled aside a time or two to let some columns of stronger finishers past me. I was still keeping a pretty good pace, so I was a little puzzled as to why these people were behind me if they were fit enough to be blowing by me at the end. Maybe they’d taken some rest at the last aid station, but I’d expect people at this position in the race to be more concerned about their finishing time.

When we finally made back to the road I was determined to run the last mile or so back to the finish line. I was pretty much all in at this point, and I was still dropping places to runners who’d marshalled their energy better, but I stayed above a walk back to the final hill leading up to the finish:

The Boss was a sublime sight at the finish line. Some dude shook my hand and collected my chip. Somebody dropped a finisher’s medal in my hand. Within a minute after I stopped moving my legs were solid blocks of marble, and I could barely stagger through the chow line. I managed to down some bread, a single ladleful of ziti, and some chocolate cake with peanut butter flavored icing. The walk back to the car was excruciating and slow. It felt like it took me a minute and a half to lower myself into the passenger seat. I showered up at the B&B, and The Boss and I set out through the Pennsylvania hills towards home.