More is Different

A week away from the winter solstice, I set out on a 5-hour run, up and down the white-, yellow-, blue-, and purple-blazed trails of Sugarloaf Mountain.  Sugarloaf is a monadnock, a compact oasis of rock and tree surrounded by farmland.  Scarcely a mountain at 1282 feet, some of Sugarloaf's quartzite-littered climbs are as steep and rocky as you'll find anywhere--high enough to create a distinct microclimate with its own peculiar mix of flora and fauna (chestnut oaks among the former, rattlesnakes and copperheads among the latter). From where I live in Maryland, the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia are just a little too far to drive for an ordinary weekend long run.  So, at just 50 minutes from DC, and less than that from my home in Silver Spring, Sugarloaf has become my default mountain, the place where, for better or worse, I prepared for the rocks and the verticals of Grindstone. I love watching the mountain change through the seasons. My last time up ...

For all the meticulous planning that goes into an event like this, you would think I might carefully read the directions posted very clearly, very explicitly, on the race site.  Mandatory 8 hours trail work .  Do it before September 1 or your entry is forfeit.  This rather crucial detail escaped my notice until sometime during the past week, so early last Friday morning, I set off from Maryland to Camp Shenandoah for a day of trail work and a 29-mile training run the following Saturday.  Both were more than worth the pre-dawn, three-and-a-half hour trip. The weather cooperated and work was a blast, despite or maybe because of the challenging tangle of branches and downed trees that had been dumped on the trail, courtesy of this past summer's "derecho" winds.  Our team performed brilliantly.  We worked under the watchful eye of our fearless leader, Daren Marceau of North Carolina--and I say fearless more than metaphorically.  As the rest of us ba...

Most of us who run ultras or road marathons have experienced this. An apparently fit runner drops dead in a major city marathon and friends, relatives, and colleagues send you the link with various well-meant, hand-wringing cautions. The latest argument that perhaps gardening or dog-walking would be a saner pursuit than running is a study coming out of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings (not a competitive peer-reviewed journal), and making the virtual rounds in various formats. The upshot of this article is that "extreme" and "chronic" exercise--which for this researcher includes the marathon on up, and any pace faster than 10 minutes a mile--can damage the heart and perhaps shorten, not lengthen, one's life. The instinct for ultra runners is to be dismissive, or say something about the inherent risk of any activity (or for that matter, inactivity). This time was different for me. It prompted some hard thinking. After 30+ years of relatively "normal...