On this day in 1996 I completed my 9th marathon, the 2nd Annual Moby Dick. It was a run on snow, and Georgie Hendricks and I wore snowshoes. The event began at the Greylock Visitor Center in Lanseboro, Massachusetts, and ran up the snow covered road to the summit of Mt. Greylock, then down to North Adams, and back. Covered the 28-mile version in 6:16:43.
Here is my old friend's recollection....
ODE TO REAL COLD MEN
So I thought I had seen and done
it all vis a vis running in strange places for insanely long distances. Then the farmer called to remind me of Mount
Greylock and his plans to conquer the beast in sneakers. I looked out the window that morning and
groaned. True dead of winter stuff here,
folks. Driving through northern
Massachusetts I looked over at the grin on this guy’s face and knew I was in
for it. I mean he’s Fitzcarraldo, the
windmill dude, Dr. Strangelove, all of the above when he gets this look in his
eye. I knew there’d be no stopping him
on this quest.
We arrived at the visitor center
around 9 in the morning and dodged obnoxious snowmobiles as we walked toward
the hospitable lodge. I sat on the couch
and admired the pretty park ranger while Ed ran his hands over the diorama of
the Mountain, mentally tuning his Zen state for that morning’s fun. No kidding now. This was really the last place on earth I
wanted to be. At least that’s how I felt
when I saw that Ranger Sally had a wedding ring. Then our fellow ghouls straggled in and I
could see that this was a for real event.
So I disappeared into the bathroom to write some graffiti on the wall
and hoped against hope that Ed would forget I had driven up with him.
SADDLE UP, EASY RIDER! His voice shook the stall. I fell off the seat. Here we go again. Fortunately the crew had left 5 minutes
earlier in pansy ass sneakers. We Bulls
would be lashing Snowshoes for this trek.
Only problem was that I had never worn snow shoes. It wasn’t a pretty sight. The first 7 miles to the base of the summit
were, however, quite beautiful. Ed and I
even managed to smoke Dion, Joe and the boys.
I should have relished the moment.
It’d be the only Moment that day.
Because Lord Greylock was readying some payback for the proud.
Leaving the protection of the
trees below the summit was like getting hit in the chest with a sledge
hammer. Naturally, I wore my 1930’s
issue wool hunting uniform and I was soaked in sweat. 50 mph gusts of arctic wind sift through
those fibers and find your very white blood cells in no time. I knew my number was up at the summit, mile
8. Bob Dion joined us at the top,
allowing me a chance to pullback from the duo a little while I waited for the
downhill section. So I waited and waited
and waited. Mile after mile after mile
and the damn mountain wouldn’t go down.
Truly dispiriting. So I did the
old, walk, trot, jog, walk thing until I met up with Ed and Bob coming back up
the turnaround. They looked like Chechen
Rebels home from a night at the front.
“You don’t want to go there. Don’t do it,” they warned. I would have gone, really would have done the
upright thing, finished the steep section, real man and all that. But they had good food. I thenceforth trailed them like a beggar,
picking up scraps they’d toss over their shoulder. Believe me you lose your pride pretty quick
out in no man’s land. That’s why they
call it no man’s land.
It was a mutually beneficial run
from there. Bob and Ed set the pace just
ahead, providing me with a little motivation to put one weary foot in front of
the other. And I gave them that healthy
fear of failure, of being passed by a highly competitive opponent breathing
down your neck. Yea right.
At the junction leading back to
the summit, we stopped to discuss making the extra 3 mile run to the top and
back. I fiercely argued that we had to
go the extra yardage and finish the quest or we couldn’t live with
ourselves. Ed said something about bad
luck visiting a mountain top twice in a day. Bob kept looking down the hill
with an insane smile on his face. I
decided that this crew really didn’t have the je ne sais crois necessary to
reconquer Greylock so I took command and ordered my men down the mountain. Of course I trailed at a good healthy
distance in case either of them fell by the wayside. A really good healthy distance.
Bob and Ed bounded down the hill
like kids at the final bell. I stayed
behind and ran to the summit on my own.
And I did it extremely fast. Extremely. Extremely enough that I ended up finishing
the race in about 7 hours. The latter
hour of which found me crawling on my hands and knees as women in thongs and
fine tan lines whizzed by on flaming green and red snowmobiles. I must have looked pretty scary because
nobody stopped to pick me up. By the
time I hit the parking lot, Bob and Ed were fast asleep in their cars inhaling
carbon monoxide. I pulled off my socks
in Ed’s truck and watched as my toenails came off in the process. Seems the crusty buggers had snagged on my
wet wool socks. I hadn’t felt the pain
because of the frostbite.
So here’s a healthy Bronx cheer
to those of you who decided to opt out of the Greylock quest.
I’m going to say that you really missed out
on the time of your lives, a unique opportunity to test your primal bounds, to
run with the wolves, to gasp on the edge of being, to wake up around
oh....
11:00 on a Sunday morning, lounge
on the couch in the sunroom and browse through the paper, enjoy a piece, two
pieces of cinnamon raisin toast, take a nap, take another nap, watch an old
movie with a pint of ice cream and some cute thing.
Ahhhh heck.
So maybe I made all this up.
But
maybe I didn’t.
If any of you get a
mouthful of hair when some freak streaks by you this coming season, just look
down at his mangled toes.
You’ll know
where you should be next February.
