Sunday, October 11, 2009

Mountain Running

I had been toiling away in the summer heat the last few weeks, until one day not too long ago, I woke up to find it was Fall. The cooler temps were delightful, but I found myself suddenly quite aware of the oncoming winter (snow). Getting up on top of mountains has become PRIORITY NUMBER ONE (not sure that it wasn’t already). So with renewed vigor I have recently been up Peavine in Reno (snow on top!!!!), Brokeoff Mountain in Lassen NP (the meeting point of the Sierras and the Cascades), and just today an ascent of Castle Peak followed by an epic ridge run. After spending most of September getting reacquainted with the life of a commuter/student and doing altogether too many races, it is nice to look at the calendar and know that the only events planned for the next several weeks are based around running to a summit and returning to camp. Oh yea, I also ran (most of the way) up Mt. Whitney a couple of weekends ago, props to Elke for getting me out of the Tahoe Basin and running up the highest peak in the Continental USA (and also my first ascent of a 14er). As joyful as the Whitney trip was, it also signaled the end of the TOAD Era. Though I will miss that ugly little wagon, I am happy to report I am driving around in a truck now and the comparative amount of space for storage and sleeping is over the top to the point of near luxuriousness. Hopefully I don’t get soft or anything like that.

2 comments:

  1. How did the lungs feel on your first 14'er? Poor little abused TOAD.

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  2. ugh... for the last 1000 feet all I wanted to do was turn around and go DOWN.

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