So many … here’s a few for today: (Special Thanks to YJ for her inspiration for getting this down in writing!) (And I need to keep remembering to link back to other sites that are referenced

Beautiful Day (U2), always the first the start a marathon

I Won’t Back Down (Petty), inspirational

Californication (RHCP), its California!

Born to Run (Springsteen), need I say more!

Blue Sky Mine (Midnight Oil), great beat

Allison Road (Gin Blossoms), true running

Are You Still Having Fun (Eagle Eye Cherry), upbeat and self-explanatory

Romeo and Juliet (Dire Straits), a long mindless song

White Flag (Dido), most inspirational

Mr. Jones (Counting Crows), beat and more beat

Peace of Mind (Boston), flashbacks!

Take it as it Comes (Doors), you have to run fast with this

Shakin (Foreigner), the first few notes push you!

Miracles (Jefferson Starship), great long song for long stretches

Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin), nanaanaaa etc.!

Long May Your Run (Neil Young), perfect running and car song

Green Grass and High Tides (Outlaws), the best running song for length and tempo

Revolution (Pretenders), motivational

Don’t Stop Me Know (Queen), the second best running song, starts and ends strong

Changes (Yes), great guitar licks and lyrics (”I’m moving through some changes …”)

Because The Night (10,000 Maniacs), tempo, tempo, tempo

Full Force Gale (Van Morrison), high energy song and windy

Time For Me To Fly (REO Speedwagon), a true running and moving along song

Band On The Run (Paul McCartney), love the second half

Bang and Blame (R.E.M.), beatful tune

I Need A Lover (Pat Benatar), lyrics and melody and tempo great

Black Horse and The Cherry Tree (KT Tunstall), can’t help but run fast to this one

It’s Gonna Get Better (Genesis), always motivating

Stand Or Fall (The Fixx), defiant!

Alison (Elvis Costello), another Alison song (must be a back-story and there is)

Take It Easy (Eagles), a very happy strumming song

Got It Made (CSN), meaningful - very meaningful

Today we ran a solid three hours at Annadel Park just north of Santa Rosa.  The total distance was around 16.2 miles but could have been more, my GPS decided not to work despite being charged overnight.  We set out around 730am on trails that were largely deserted, later we saw some bicyclists and horses and a few other runners.  It’s so hard to describe the feeling of the sun filtering through the trees, feet moving at constant pace up the difficult hills, side-stepping around rocks and cantilevered trails, looking at your fellow runner’s feet moving ahead and some inspirational music playing in your ears.

One of the fun parts today was as we were heading up one of the first hills we saw three bikers ahead of us.  One seemed to be getting closer and as it turns out we ran past the third runner (biker road kill and then past the other two as they were taking a break and we just kept on running past them.

Kim and I are both training for our first ultra -the 50k Skyline to the Sea run in late September and are very well matched as running partners.  Though we both want to go semi-slow and keep energy for the return, we seem to push each other up the hills and then down the descents.  What’s so different when you run with another, is that it pushes you so much more than just yourself, and for me, it helps set a more even pace rather than speeding up and then slowing down.   It’s hard to run with some other runners from PVAC, You Know Who You Are when they are running 6-7 minute miles so you’re either left behind or try to run at a uncomfortable pace and get burned out quickly.  We both also think its very ok to run with headphones and no need to talk most of the time, better to concentrate on the terrain.

What was so good about today, and Why We Run, is when you get into a very long stretch with little or no thinking, what I call a trance-like state.  Your mind is free, really enjoying the scenery, at one with your body and that feeling of strength and coincident pleasure that comes from pushing your body.  This is one of the true similarities with climbing - where your mind and body are somewhere else and you just keep moving in pace with your group (roped up or otherwise) and the thought of stopping is worse than the thought of powering through.  All in all a great day ….

1. Sydney - starting from the Opera House, going over the Harbor Bridge, running along the water, through the city, and even joining (for a bit and by accident) an ongoing Triathalon Race in progress.

2. Bois-de-Bouloine (Paris) - This park is like the Central Park of London and running through parts of the city, by people picnicking, past the lakes, beautiful spring day

3. Central Park New York - In a training run for the Antarctica Marathon, running through the snow in a cold-weather outfit and shoes, through all the landmarks in winter

4. Champes-de Eysee (Paris) - Running down the Champes-de Eysee, to the Eiffel Tower, to the Louvre, taking a cup of cappuccino along the way and through the city streets of London

5. Manhattan/Hermosa Beach (California) - The strand goes right along the beaches and other than dodging roller boarders, skate boarders, bicyclists, and body builders, a great run right along the beach

6. Green Gulch and Dipsea course - Running with a great friend, along the hills and trails, talking about real-life stuff, gazing at the Pacific Ocean, pushing ourselves up the hills, priceless

7. Hyde Park/Regent Park (London) - On a rare sunny spring day, running without a shirt on along trails shared with fellow runners, flowers in-bloom and landmarks in sight (and getting a bit lost along the way)

8. Stockholm - Training run for marathon, running over the big bridges, through Djurgarden (the Central Park of Stockholm), Swedes outside eating and drinking and admiring one of the most beautiful cities

9. Barcelona - Running through the main streets of Barcelona, in perfect weather prior to 3GSM, with city sites, people, dogs and transients along the way

10. Tel Aviv (Israel) - Staying at a hotel on the sea, running along the strand from the hotel up and down the coast with nothing but the sea, hotels and the thoughts and memories of Jerusalem the day in mind

One of the better articles I have read by Alec Isabeau, D.C. published in Fleet Feet Sports Santa Rosa newsletter …. More articles and tips on their site …

There’s so much more to running than just running…or at least there should be if you want to maximize performance and minimize injury.

Gone are the days of imagining that simply running more miles per week would magically translate into optimum race performance. It’s no mere coincidence that truly successful runners, those who race consistently well and run healthfully year after year, generally embrace a holistic approach to their training. That is, they do much more than just run. Whether we’re striving for peak race performance this upcoming season, or intending to run happily for many decades, we all need to embrace powerful fitness strategies that have emerged in recent years. Here’s a quick hit list of some key points to consider:

1. Quality trumps quantity, every time. We get the best fitness bang for the buck by emphasizing intervals, tempo runs, fartleks, hill repeats and the like, versus merely running longer and longer, day after day after day.

2. Get strong, stay strong. Endurance, power and orthopedic durability, all crucial for the high performance runner, are derivatives of strength. Devote yourself to a twice a week regimen of upper and lower body strength training, using free weights and body weight exercises — don’t waste your time on fancy weight machines. Develop a body that is strong,
lean, coordinated and powerful, not frail and fragile, nor big and bulky.

3. Improve your mobility, stability and symmetry. Stellar cardiorespiratory and metabolic fitness are wasted on joints and limbs that are stiff, wobbly and imbalanced. Optimize your fundamental athletic movement patterns with activities such as yoga, Pilates, core exercises and mobility drills. Identify your weak links and patiently work on your deficiencies. Learn how and when to stretch properly and how to use a foam roll, massage stick or professional manual therapy as part of your body maintenance program.

4. Recognize that everything affects your running. Sleep, diet, work, school, stress, fatigue, mood, motivation, illness, injury, hormones, medications and myriad other factors contribute to our running triumphs and humilities. Address these factors as best you can and and accept that we can’t control all these things, all the time. Chaos and uncertainty are part of the game and that’s the beauty of the race: a frank assessment of our abilities on a particular day, with all those factors thrown into the mix.

5. Don’t trip over yourself. Nothing ruins racing more than imagining that our self-worth is determined by our pace, time or place. Show up, do what you can, learn and celebrate.

In summary, there’s so much more to successful running than simply running. Run smart, run fast, run long,…but don’t just run.

Alec Isabeau, D.C.

Today, a small group of us, (Kim, Dave, Scott and myself) ran about 14 miles in the hills around China Camp and made the summit also.  Weather was perfect and except for a bunch of times we had to stop and find our way, it was a great run.  We were very strong, and once we got momentum going on the way down, we made really good time.  We saw a couple of deer on the way up (a fawn and her mother) and saw them also in the same place on the way down.  Running with shirt off and iPod on and carrying water, feeling the soft ground under my shoes and sun beating down, looking down at the Bay was just a great experience.

Of course, playing 18 holes in the afternoon on a tough course from the tips, was a bad idea, but this is what I did with Doug and a couple of his friends Ken and Chuck.

This was a good training run for the 50K Skyline to the Sea race in mid-September and we are going to try to go for 20 miles next weekend.

The most discussed topic on the mountain, besides when we will summit, is about food.  We fantasize about different meals that we will eat when we return and savor in our brains the different tastes and textures of food.  This is all understandable given that we are eating chocolate, nuts, packaged crackers and jerkey and cheese, soups, and an occasional home-made quesadilla or semi-pizza.  We mostly dream about fresh vegetables and steaks and burgers and ethnic foods and the ability to eat of of this and not worry about when the next bathroom break would be available.

I left for Denali at a low-weight for me of about 129-130 pounds.  When I returned I weighed about 124-125 pounds which is not too much weight loss.  This also includes whatever I ate in the few days after the climb - which was a lot.

Since my return I have been on the “post-Denali Diet”, as have most of the people that I talked to after the climb.  The week I came back, I had big steak dinner, chinese food, thai food, indian food etc.  We had a company picnic party at work where I declared that my goal was to take in 10,000 calories that day (I did not succeed thankfully - which is good since at sea level we are not burning 10,000 calories a day like we are on some climbing days. (An average height/weight person burns about 800 calories an hour running, and if you’re climbing with a full 50-60lb pack and pulling a sled of near equal weight, I think you can burn 1,000 calories an hour easily.  On summit day, which was 14 1/2 hours long, we hardly took in enough calories or drank enough water (only 2 liters plus a thermous), we must have burned 15,000 calories in one day.)

I’m still eating and stuff I shouldn’t be.  I still eat a lot of salads, but have had lots of burgers, and other unhealthy food, topped off with an occasional Cinnamon Dolce Latte from Starbucks, chocolate cookies, and worst of all, snacking at night while reading - even after I’ve brushed my teeth - yuck.

Despite working out for 10 of the last 15 days (running, weights, rowing and biking), I’ve put on the 5 pounds I lost and its time to go OFF the diet and back to “normal” eating (for me), mostly salads with grilled chicken, grapes for desert and cut out the snacking in between mails.   We’ll see how it goes as the urge to eat is still there!

I have now been back for 14 full days since Denali.  It took me a few days to get back to the gym, but by Wednesday, I had restarted weight training and by Friday had done my first run.  Legs were and still sore or achy but I’ve started reasonably slow progressing from 3 miles to 4.5 miles to last week’s 5.6 mile run on the course around work (which was super slow compared to previous record times.)

On Saturday I ran my longest distance since coming back, 7 miles, in a reasonably slow time also of 62 minutes, which I can normally do under an hour.  After working out the last two days also, I’m now up to 8 workouts/runs in just 15 days so a good start towards the next goal(s).

I was thinking of what I brought that worked well and what could have been better. Here is my short list:

1. Boots - The Everest Millet boots were worn on the mountain for the first time. They saved a lot of time with avoiding gaiters and overboots and except for banging around the ankle and blisters on the way down, performed very well ( cut through the fabric with my crampon one day but easily taped up with some ripstop.

2. Softshell pants - I used the same pair I brought for Antarctica some three years ago and worked well on the mountain while climbing and even while sleeping.

3. Thermos - The first time I have ever used one, this 1/3 liter small enough to fit in my hardshell jacket and large enough to hold enough hot chai tea to make me happy.

4. Solar Charger and iPod Nano - The charger worked great with the sun and charged other people’s devices also. The iPod stopped working due to cold but came back to life and worked well on the descent and tent music.

5. Gloves - I had the right combination of fleece, “guide” gloves, mittens, liners etc. for all the weather conditions.

6. Extra Nalgene - On other climbs we had reused water bottles for pee bottles, it was great having a dedicated bottle for urine and did not add any weight.

7. Pack and Duffel - Had been used before the the duffel was perfect for the sled.

8. Parka, Sleeping Bag - Both were for -40 and had been used before and were just right.

9. Overall clothing - Just the right combination of not too many layers on top (two capiline) and enough pairs of warm underwear and long johns (capiline), enough socks and liner socks for not too much weight

10. Miscellaneous stuff - The right cup/bowl, small knife with scissors (that did break though), a very small 5″ notebook, powders, tape etc.

Things that did not work out well:

1. Soft shell jacket - Was too tight and not needed with the other layers

2. Other hardshell/softshell pants - I have worn these before and not needed with the other layers (both of the above got cached at various levels

3. Food - Was mostly good, but the tuna and salmon and cliff bars were just not right.

4. TP - I could have brought 4 rolls instead of the 2 that were recommended though Sandra helped out with 1 1/2 extra rolls to give

5. Wool hat - I’ve used this one before and I could have used one with ear flaps or down lower. I could have also used a baseball style hat with neck and earl flaps, though mine worked ok.

As I had written in previous post, a lot of people ask how you go to the bathroom on a big mountain such as Mt Denali. The answer: very very carefully

First, for us guys, we have a much easier experience for half the time. We can take a pee most anywhere (if we can find it, think “shrinkage” from Seinfeld in sub zero temperatures). The biggest challenge comes in two places. One is when you have several layers of clothing on plus your climbing harness which cuts across your waist plus two leg loops, this requires some acrobatics to pull it out of the of the pants at the top, not through any normal zipper area. We try to use the same pee area in camp (usually marked with wands or a big yellow gash in the snow). On the trail, its a matter of timing on breaks.

The second area is during tent time. We used pee bottles, which were some nalgenes different than drinking water bottles (they had yellow caps for easy marking) The problem is managing to get in position in the sleeping bag to aim properly and contain in the bottle. The other issue is when the one liter bottle fills up during the night (which is normal) - so you can either dump it just outside the tent or wait or fill it to the rim and not spill anything. All of which is just plain unpleasant.

The other fun area is that other people are judging the color of your pee. On the mountain, you should be drinking at least one liter of water a day for every 1000 meters (so 5 liters for 5000 meters or about 16000 feet for instance). If you don’t drink enough, your urine becomes various shades of dark orange and others can see your colors at the pee hole you just left or the pee bottle in your shared tent, or when you go to empty it in public. If you can get to “clear and copious” it means you’re hydrating well.

Now, try to picture all of this and being a woman. They have to rely on this so called pee-funnel which like the name indicates is some sort of either anatomically correct oval shaped area connected to what looks like the end of a oil-funnel. They then (I think) have to manage to get this in place and collect urine and make sure none comes out the sides and out the other end. Oh, and all of this in a mixed gender environment where modesty has no meaning, and TP is still required.

All of our women on the trip did great, though they all complained of spillage in tent and sleeping bags. The funniest story (hope this is ok to share) came from Alex. We had a previous issue where Skittles got into our GORP bags so you would be happily crunching through nuts, raisins and chocolate when you bite something immovable to try to break your teeth - what fun. Alex told the story that she was really managing her pee-funnel well and one time she was urinating and the oval end started filling up and overflowing for no apparent reason. Except the reason turned out to be a Skittle candy stuck in the funnel end (it’s about the same diameter!) Hah!

One other personal note, many women get bladder infections from this whole process, between cleanliness, wiping funnels etc, so taking anti-biotics like Cipro becomes part of the regimen.

I don’t know how much I want to write about poop, but here goes cause it’s all - disgusting!

This was not a CMC. This is the “deluxe” can with a real seat at 17,200 - ok, it’s really near the tents as you can see

On Denali, at the National Park Service HQ before leaving, they showed us CMC’s (Clean Mountain Cans) - someone’s idea to manage defecation on the mountain and not pollute everything. They look like round office trash cans with a screw on top that holds a plastic bag. The idea is to plant your rump on this and poop and close the top and then someone comes and poops on top of yours etc. Then the bag is dumped in specified crevasses (that go who knows where). One time, Joey criticized one of us about “separate realities”. This being the concept that you should pee in a place separately before you poop because, well you can figure it out in a small plastic bag in a can.

This area was part of the bathroom area at 11,200′, and this little ledge is where people stowed their “bags” before transportation.

Advanced Base Camp at 14,400 was a real luxury though. They had a real toilet seat surrounded by a Very Low Wall of Plywood that had a small pit underneath. You could go to the bathroom and look out at The Headwall and the Mountain. But, but the time we came back down to ABC, it was so late in the season, they had taken it down and most of the rangers had moved off of camp. So, and this is really disgusting, we were reduced to - well - aiming into a plastic bag that you had to hold up to your arse. By this time, we were low on everything, but I still had one - one gallon bag left. Someone else, to remain nameless, had only a quart size bag, but were still successful!

At lower camps, we had built up (or had some existing) snow walls around the “bathroom” area that provided some privacy. But no matter what, if it’s sub-zero and you have tons of layers on, and have managed to get down to the bare areas, you still only have seconds to have a successful visit, it’s not like you can leisurely sit there and hope things work out - the pressure is always on and most people know where you have gone. The question usually is, “how was it?”. There were several answers: “disappointing”, “great” or “just ok”.

This is the deluxe bathroom at 14,400′. Unfortunately this was the best of the three weeks!

One key cleanliness note: everyone is religious about having hand sanitizer in their TP bag on their person and uses it after most every bathroom visit, especially #2. Since group gear and food is handled by multiple people, this is a most common source of GI issues and every trip I’ve been on, people take this really seriously both for themselves and for their fellow climbers.

Sam and Alex were a wonderful couple from UK that are both about 21 years old (three years younger than my Youngest (Nick).  I and everyone had nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for them.  They were eternally cheerful and happy and (I think) Sam was the strongest climber in the group (especially since he was asked to carry extra group gear a number of times and never ever complained).  I have never seen a couple that got along as well as they did and they were constantly singing and completing verses, laughing, giggling, chatting and playing word games.  (My favorite: “which would you rather do - be burned alive or ravaged by a thousand men” - something like that!).

Even in the small disagreements that they had, Sam typically had the ability to say or do the right thing to instantly defuse the situation.  One has to note that being on the mountain is stressful 24/7 for mere mortals, and for a couple to do it (this was the first that I have seen) was amazing.  They have been all over the world, like Antarctica, South America, Africa, skiing in France (they both spoke French also along with Sandra.)  They were much older than their chronological age and it was hard to believe that they were (are) so young because they were (are) so mature.   They said they had been together about 5-6 years (except for a short break) and I think they have many many adventures ahead of them.  You really could not ask for better fellow climbers and when I was on their rope team on the descent, it was a great experience as they seemed to move effortlessly and cheerfully.  (Plus Sam took most all of my Cliff Bars that I didn’t want!)

Laine

Laine was our tentmate for more than half of the trip.  Laine is CEO of a Ad/PR/Branding company in South Africa and was kind enough to let us use his Sat Phone for some important calls home.  He also shared his Ginger Snaps (Yummy) and I traded some Salmon and Tuna packs that he was craving and didn’t sound good at all to me on the mountain.  We had some good talks in the tent about golf, South Africa, telecoms, marketing and other stuff.  While we had some rope team issues, these things happen and they had no lasting animosity in the group and we were always able to talk things out in the tent and we (together with Paula) were quite pleased to summit together.  While the rest of us were reading or listening to music during downtime in the tent, Laine had brought work with him and I think he was working on his company’s business plan for 2009 at length.  He was speaking in Geneva (the Geneva Convention right after the climb and had the head back the night we got back to Talkeetna so we did not get a chance to say a proper goodbye and missing from our town picture when we were all cleaned up.  I wore my All Blacks rugby shirt to annoy him but he was unfazed!