In my humble opinion, snot on your shorts is a good look. It says, “I’m not out here to make friends, I’m out here to win.” Of course, it may also convey, “I’m disgusting and a slob. Stay away from me.” Either way you want to go with that is fine on a warm, sunny fall morning in Bent Creek (which means a crowded as hell morning in Bent Creek.) Long experience has shown me that most of the folks floating like blobs of cholesterol in the main arteries of the National Forest tend to stick to the lower trails. If you get high, you tend to have the place more or less to yourself.
I planned to get high, which both thrilled and terrified me. With a full marathon like six weeks away or something, I should be right in the middle of some high-mileage weeks. As previously over-hashed in this space, that’s not happening. Instead I’m trying to recover form after too many interruptions. If it did not go well today, I would be screwed. The plan was to follow the route that Drew Noga said was 13 miles. I do not care to verify that distance because the idea that it is 13 miles is working for me.
Not at the start though. The best part of my attitude at the start was the realization that the parking spot I finally found meant plenty of downhill to warm up with and very little running after the climbs were done. I started off with “Scarlett Begonias” in the earbuds because this was no time to get jiggy with it. A Grateful Dead song, or maybe something by Jack Johnson, has enough rhythm to keep me going but more importantly helps to keep the “holy crap you have no chance of finishing this run” freakouts at bay.
Before I knew it, I was ascending the Owl Ridge Trail within the Arboretum. It was at this point that the startling realization of what an incredibly beautiful day it is came flooding in. Incredibly. Beautiful. The canopy of leaves still shades the paths, but the light shining through the crowns is now picking up the golden tones of the fall that is imminent. (And yes, I know it is already fall according to the calendar, but we have yet to truly get our fall on.) In addition the sky is so tremendously cerulean that one wants to cut small pieces out and set them in gold rings. It’s a nice day outside.
And it may be that the weather plus an almost complete familiarity with the course I was running combined to make the run more than tolerable. After the endorphins generated by the first big climb subdued the anxiety of the start, I settled into a cadence of a long run. Ares, more than Hermes, is the god of the marathoner and the beats of the military bands which gave way to the sounds of the second line marchers which in turn inspired the tunes of the Meters gave me a perfect set of marching orders.
Which were only interrupted once when I perpetrated the most heinous act of vandalism I have committed since I cut up those seats on the bus in 7th grade. Someone had built a cairn where it did not belong. There is only one cairn on this trail, at the top of the last climb. This new pile marked some trail or another. I knocked down the rouge and instantly thought it was a terrible idea to have done so. Alas, I had to move on.
To the final cairn, which is in fact now a trinity of stone monuments, and down the opposite side. Marching gave way to dancing at this point, and Elvis (the real Elvis) provided the soundtrack with a little help from JXL. Descending mountains and rounding corners, I was pushed forward by the King’s insistent “come on, come on.” It seemed like a bad idea to risk injury or bonk with such a stunt so late in the game. It seemed like a worse idea not to. I found my car as the song found an end. The 13 (I don’t care what you say, that’s what I’m calling it) mile run which I was not sure I could finish in 2 hours was done in 1:46. Monkeys beware.