a trail run in october.

Juking through the trail, the trees & roots of blue clay, its not fast but i'm working, running, midmorning october, orange leaves under long blue shadows, jarred horizons push and pull, merge and blur like a rothko, hips shift in quick tag of earth and eyes root to the trail, the mud-spine switching back against ankles & knees, lumbar and shoulders, and i'm aiming for a rapid cadence that smooths the work, shortens the stride, less jar to the kicks, a smooth roll of thrust/lunge, thrust/lunge, and i'm keeping the shoulders rolled back, neck is long and throat is open, breath steadies to fill the chest, the mind is even and quiet and tuned in.
thin layers of breath move with heat from chest into muscle, exhale steam, a fugue of moves, symphonic.

it's my creative act to articulate a trail well, to immerse myself in that work, to grind down the whole being over a distance, to emerge from a passage of earth exhausted, quiet, fulfilled, its an act of artful expression.  this is where i find my core, in raw nature, this is my honest primal place... when running, the world's noise can straight fuck off, fall away, dead october leaves fueling a fire... when i run, i can burn the world from the inside out, my own private anarchy, my own graces and brutalities.
catharsis and meditation, the falling of leaves, the nature that shares an infinite spectrum of moods, the rothko-thin layers of thanatost and libido, glazed into a whole form of a man, an illusion possibly, a body, succumbing to nothingness and everything, moving through it until the bones fall away from the soul.

A Run in the Uwharrie Range.

...in pursuit of some moving ecstasy, in liberation of mind and spirit, as a private act of rebellion & anarchy, there is a run, something primitive in the act of running a trail. it was time to move through some of god's good land on the momentum of my angst, on the power of legs, on the remaining keenness of mind and near the land of my birth, the familiar rolling pastorale of my formative years, is a range of mountains that carry my youngest memories.  they carry the cathartic and carefree remembrance of running the wooded acres behind my grandparents house, a boychild moving in new earth. it feels good to be back home, in the piedmont of nc, good to be in the ancient land of the uwharrie.

i.  the medicine: a few hours of solitary running in a gnarly stretch of woods where i can feel self-reliance, where i can move into intuition, in the movement of the soul, where i can ascend and descend mountains that carry the history of their birth and formation and the archaeology of use, where unknown generations of Indians ran on leather soles chasing animals and children and women and each other, not knowing the game was timed.  to fall into that trail, wholly immersed, you mark the blaze and fucking run until the breath is lost, the body is wrung out with salt crystallizing on the bellies of muscle and the vision blurs and the landscape fades to a deeper space, a world beneath the mind, at a bodyless vortex, mud of body and mud of earth, river of mountain, river of body, cuts of blood and bone and the primitive stoneface steep against october mountain, clashes of body-wood through narrow chute of limb and branch, endless spiderweb entanglement (like a beekeepers hat on head), the pale green mosses of rockface thrust, the diagonal cuts of limestone and the irregular face of granite, low pyramids of white quartz like some ephemeral timekeeper, the sienna and ochre carpet of fallen leaves and the secret surface beneath, a rare splash of yellow-orange on a branch, wheatgrasses brushing leg in low meadows, the dull light beneath a still thick canopy of hardwood leaves, the undulating horizon from which streaks of sun pour down to splash trail bright, a strobe effect of light and shadow, slope of space, the ever bending horizon the everbending body the jut of leg and the pistonhammer feet ache on stone protusion and the gut churns at the prospect of being waterless and the mind just burns on, an endless light fueled by a Divine spark that exists here, in this space, on this trail, in this mountain, and is, for this moment, Yours. an absolute moment of Existence, an absolution.

(ranger warned me that "the snakes are out right now, moving, and the rattlesnakes are moving, seen a few in the past two weeks, rain brings 'em out, and they are ill-tempered, yeah, ill tempered right now...be careful")
... and to be IN the acoustics of the motherearth, to be present and alive in the land... had driven 3 hours to arrive here, had driven anxious and energized, music blaring the whole way, and here was the quiet of ancient mountain woods, containing me in my traverse, shirtless with thin-soled shoes, two bottles and a sweat-blotched map that was (literally) dissolving with each paused orientation, a thunderstorm moving in from the northwest, black and bleak, but the day so far was sunny and clean-aired though the trail was puddled with overnight rain and the rocks and downed trees were as slippery as polished cement beneath a pickup truck oilpan and that ideal weather ended two and half hours in when the sky shot down raindrops, the size of golf balls, a cool but muscled/fisted rain, and i found a service road to runrunrun back through a hunting camp and up/down until being deposited back at the parking lot.
aww man & oh boy! soul was revved and language and cherokee and twombly and the rip of land beneath the kick of foot restored the ache to be alive, the will to be a part of this lifething, the mad courage to go forward and to do.  proud to be here, alive, and able to offer something, if only a body and the language of legwork.

ii.  and thirty minutes up the road came a clearing of clouds and morrow mountain state park and i decided on a quick loop across fall mountain trail where fire had devoured part of the landscape and left strange charred forms, previously tree trunks, now a surreal display of natural sculpture, and somewhere two miles in i lost the trail and descended a rocky scramble to the shore of Pee Dee River and, realizing my errant direction, backtracked, pawed up the scree past what looked like a dismembered still and back onto the red mud/blackened soil surface and craggly oaks and the flat rocks like stacked iron pans reaching off of the shallow summit and ended that run with a sink-bath before heading to salisbury for a thai meal.  all in all, a 17 mile day in the uwharries, three hours of good wholesome running...

iii.  and thats that.  and what is that?  an exjunkie kicking miles in ancient wilderness earth, shirtless and proud and burning the body open... the power of movement, the power of body: a grateful thrust of his entirety.

labor day run in remnants of isaac.

... gotta get behind the mule again, shoulder plow into hard earth, bend to the wind and start the work of miles and pigment.... early morning run, grayblack day like soot dusting dawn, the torso arches into moderate pace, the heart leads, a pulse feeling fires of late summer, coals of burning lungs, fatigue in the launch of leg... an arrhythmic event of muscle versus mass... when, now, like a promise broken or fulfilled, storm collapses onto land, the vast flat land, bending on asphalt, empty windows of resting homes become shallow and pale... rain applaudes itself as a bleak black horizon pushes down on earth... shoes absorb puddles to swell heavy, eyes sting, lips collect the rain, shoulders and back cool and the body opens, kicking fluid into inhale, feeling length in stride, a body in push, and the back arches like a bow, an arrow of effort jamming into the blind courage of distance... regardless of mindcloud, the questions, despite clouds of exertion rolling through mind and muscle, riding blood, the histories of this moment building like a cacophony in mind.... the continuum of habit is a history to be admired.... bending back tall as pushing heart into rain, churning legs, churning wind and rain, fury of it all, something staged or hollywood with lightening and thunder, naked chest pounded by tiny fists of rain, the body's gravity, the breathlessness, the soul heavy in solitude of the rain run, the ridicule of such an act, raw arrogance and fuck it all-ism, the angst of the legs. . . . fury of it all, solitude of it all, kicking like a mule in a storm-rattled stable. . . . and then the paint, the paint is dry and the runner is wet, irony... the vigor of yearning, the proof of form, the time-starched hopes of charcoal and burnt sienna and red oxide, ochre and cerulean, the burning of a figure silhouetted by rain and angst and cloud, raging against apathy, charred lung and brilliant whiteheat light... a clay sag in the rain. . . . the work is the love, the work is the meaning, the work is the nexus.  the work is the bones in this heavy sack of clay doubt, the work is the pursuit... paint, ecstasy, illumination, equanimity... work is anything that brings you love.  work is the proof, is the gift, is the expression of god.  

Kunga Yoga, Kunga Running. (still in edit, but whatever.)

As cosmic collaboration would have it, I found myself registered for a 220hr yoga teacher training program three days before the commencement of a three week immersion program.  New to the art and practice of yoga, my connection to the power, the medicine & synergy, the joyful work of disciplined movement, all was aligned sufficiently to alter life-rhythms (my own and many others) and embark upon the journey.  Welcome to Kunga Yoga Teacher training at Shell Island Resort in Wrightsville Beach, NC.

Kunga Yoga is a yogic belief-system central to Wilmington Yoga Center, the hosting studio of the ytt school.  At the philosophical core of Kunga Yoga is the belief that Yoga is a service, is an act and offering of compassion, and that practice is an opportunity to reconcile. Kunga yoga believes that everyone is a yogi, that yoga is accessible to every body.  In serving our bodies in asana and pranyama, we build a personal strength that can translate towards a communal power.
Kunga yoga brings a monthly theme to its classes, and that theme is introduced into each Kunga class, often connecting the category and flow of postures.
Kunga yoga classes donate a percentage of proceeds to a charity, annually chosen. The young girls of the Home for Hope in India are 2012's recipients, and there is a trip organized at the end of the year.


i.
Rather than write anecdotes and vignettes describing the three weeks of ten hour days of practice, posture work, reading, studying, refueling and resting (rich days my friends!), I persuade you to check out a class or a workshop (www.wilmingtonyogacenter.com for those in the area).  Yoga practice is a transformative, expansive, magical thing, and every yoga experience can be a gift to yourself and others. 

ii.
Yogic philosophy is a direct complement to kicking out distances.  Burying the mind in the solitude of miles makes yoga feel more elegant, more nuanced, more subtle.  Braiding in both, in yoga as in running, is the idea of space, openness, breath, heat, and, most importantly, a strong communion with the earth beneath you as well as the clay that composes you.   Clay and breath and light, light that emits various levels of heat.

iii.

I came to yoga from a spectrum of injuries.  Yoga was a gentle, a healing or nurturing meditation; a preventative, in-the-meantime deal. Soccer stretches.  I quickly learned that yoga can be equally physical, massively challenging to strength and mind and endurance. Forgotten areas of my body struggled with basic movement & patterns of movement. Tensions poured through muscle thicker than blood. Slowly, a new body, a waking body, merges into breath through posture, distills mind into focus, a calm, engaging meditation towards inner-stillness,.  It is a process, a gradual process.  A journey.

Yoga contains running and running contains yoga.

Moments in my trail running have a sacred lucidity.  Likewise, I have fallen deep into my body and inner-bodies during shavasana, exploredvast mad spaces during cycles of surya namaskar B... felt fires in core and legs while holding warrior 3... yoga and running are acts that open the body to new aptitudes, open the heart to new experiences, nurturing a healthier, happier person.  Both stabilize the body and mind.  Each is an action rooted in gratitude.

iv.
I think all creative actions can be an ascetic.  Drop labels and the cultural models, let fads fall away, minimize the noise of a thing, transcend to your own expression of an act and search out the ascetic root.  Find a mindful connection to the act.  Sculpture, masonry, cooking, writing koans, cleaning, story telling, sketching a rock, skipping a rock, reading, meditation .... in every creative act is an ascetic potential.  More to this later...

v.
Yoga, the physical elements (only two of the eight branches of Yoga), is a meditation that moves through postures and patterns of breath.   Asana and pranyama are powerful practices, but I would extend Yoga to include running, cycling, swimming, jumping rope, dancing, eating, having sex: anything can move towards a yoga-based practice.   Anyone can find some form of yogic practice and celebrate that immediate place. Start here and now by noting the here and now.  Breathe into the three spaces of your torso's cavity, filling the belly, expanding the ribs, lifting the heart, and then pouring that breath out mindfully from the belly. . . . yoga dirgha breath.  A mindful nodding of the head, a roll of the lower spine,  scorpion pose, walking to the mailbox, any mindful movement can capture the spirit of yoga.  Everyone is a yogi, and it does not require a mat to find your yoga.  to move consciously, to feel the weight of one's body on the support of an earth, to yoke the love and heat and strength of a challenging posture, to remember the steadiness of breath and the awareness of body and mind, and then to project that as an energy into our relationships and community, it is an offering. movement as prayer. an exalted, basic Act.

We do not learn yoga so much as we excavate the yogi within us.

**********************************************************************

Interestingly, noted Yogini Sharon Gannon argues that asana does not mean posture, but translates as "seat."  Meaning a stable connection to the earth, to the processes of the earth, to the dynamics of a moment, to being still and conscious, reaching from within with compassion.

The history of surface. Approaching summer.

Got some New Seeds shaking around the seedbag. Ink on rice paper. Language charged fresh, muscle charged flesh. Sandalwood and ts eliot. Shostokovich, holy lands, projective verse & newspaper excerpts, transfer drawings and vast hee-hawings. . . monotypes, titles forgotten, brokenspine books, libraries empty in the rain, l.a. rose gardens, ecstasy in the vein in north decatur & the cold fear of speed versus the lax heat of dope, coastal miles and the whispering sand of lowtide runs, the push of body through heat and fatigue and doubt. . . . sexual tension or creative tension, an energy source, like the clangor of rachmoninoff, schoenberg, the terse verse of buk, a fullmoon thing, ebb and flow and oxbow.  

i am a freerange mind: Uncaptured, mostly. A trek covering some 38 years of wondering, wandering. Jesus. Je suis. Sex and creativity and running are all just a hunter's instinct. A freudian exertion.

Imagination and sovereignty. Let collapse the constructed mind and quit clasping the umbilical culture that binds. Burn into dance. Pour into intuitive existence and be enraptured by what waits. Amaze yourself. You ARE a phenomenon. Imagine, cultivate, ruminate, be sovereign. Desire something beyond yourself.

Dance your spinning world around, rumi, gibran, st. paul. . . whoever gases the grand ideal.

ii.

Palettes sit newly sealed in white, previous layers of colour covered in strange geography. (I get lost in the narrative of topography, the history of surface.) The dried puddles of once-pigment, ridges of brushes, weight of touch and drag, the valleys where mixtures were diluted, exhausted. Now white. Titanium white. The total of all light and its pigments. A historied topography absolved of specific struggles. Clean. Start new. Spin out of your dwelling, your rut, your denizen, your mindnumbness.

iii.

A coastal run of 14 miles, an unrushed&freelyworking form kicking sand through a earmix heavy on modest mouse and marley. Dehydrated launches of legs lose power, cramp, pull into stomach like a band weakening around a wrap of papers, like a scroll.  The muscle and mind and desire unravel to a lost momentum, the settling of blood in feet and swelling and discomfort and the final fallaway of mind from the work at hand. Meditation becomes something ugly and debased; the act works against the focus. No longer a positive, but a mind full of suffering, the escape of which was the reason for running in the first place. End of a cycle, pause of a process, like knowing that a drawing is complete. Hit the garmin and breathe.

iv.

Form that is not simple, but elegant and ancient. Ephemeral. But above all, Elegant. Miles' sketches of Spain, Stravinsky's rites of Spring, drums and the slap of feet. Ink on rice paper. Sole on dirt. The nimble seriousness of this life is best expressed not in contours, form, layers of language, but in the body. The calligraphy of the erotic, the powerful bending of the yogi's body, the armature of mind in synch with body in synch with trail that runs like rain down a mountain. The cadmium red-orange burn of quads. The dance of the original hunt. The gasp that is a hymn, an Om, a settling of chaos into rhythm. Illumination by way of the physical:  sometimes you must push the body to quieten the mind.  

Let the madness drive.

stretching canvas, stretching body, stretching mind. a big pile-up of words.

Massanutten running & a mashup of a May catch-up, mid-april, mountain running, a grand exodus of the familiar, injury and a heel defeated and a run de-footed.   a mention of the yoga gradually stretching into the routine to knead body of jangled knots.

i.

Massanutten is a mountain resort that lays outside Harrisonburg Va, butting up against skyline drive and george washington national park. The mountain looks like a muscular fin, a massive, scalloped jut of limestone and evergreen, anchoring april sky against that lush bucolic landscape of farm and town, quiltwork, dairy stacks, silos.

This area of the Virginia blue ridge is wrapped with miles of trail to include Kaylor's knob, the massanutten trail, the AT, and the many color-blazed trails that Massanutten Resort and the IMBA carve and maintain. Daily trail-play and one road 5k (with my wife on the occasion of the Boston Marathon!) brought a total of 50 miles in four days of running, with three days of running lost to travel. The heat was frying sweat on rocks, lifting finally a storm out of the afternoon scree wednesday, but the heat was detoxifying, energizing. despite my lack of a runner's world physique, it was refreshing to run shirtless in splits and minimal shoes in self-reliant solitude.  it was indian and pure and playful.  minimal intrusion and maximum output.  a judgement free zone of zoning out into a run.

its a minimalist act, a good run. . . . a gel, some food, two handhelds (strong Heed and cold h20), an occasional hoop-whoop chant to avoid startling a bear around a blind turn, and the burning of foot and leg and core and the fade-out of jabber and mind-clutter and false fears.  another body or no other body, music or silence, sky or ocean or mountain or earth, a run can be as simple and raw as one wants. . . . some good old-fashioned trail running across the rockpiled appalachians, where overlooks let vision hang like a hawk in the wind.

The thing, for me, in running a mountain with shallow lungs, with coastal lungs, with ex-smoker's lungs, is the difficulty of climbing. While it is a joyful and rewarding thing, I slow on the uphills, powerhiking, running only what I can. I try not to judge my run, my body, my efforts, or my abilities.  When I do run, it is a pace that  invigorates, focuses, challenges, while maintaining a pleasure in the run itself. To lose the run to the abstract credentials of a runner is the work of thieves. To see a mountain push out of a farm's fields while running a dozen miles is a gorgeous thing, and to work your way back up switchbacks and limestone vertebrae teething out of the spine of a mountain and to peer across vast american space with a turkey taking flight or a deer bounding across splashing leaf to disappear in wooded, dusted siennas. . . . to burn thighs and sole and breath-dried mouth down a mountain, it carries the lithe language of nature back into mind with the fragrances of  animal, evergreen, exertion, sex, spirit, sun-hot rock.  To run a mountain is a constant amazement, an ecstasy of movement coalescing through space.

Now is much resting, stretching, and massaging out the soles of my feet with a roller from where the limestone outcroppings of the mountain trail beat the shit out of them.  My body works into some yoga recently and the body appreciates, my breath, my serenity, appreciates it.  I can feel the openness of my chest, the lengthening of muscle and the engagement of core.  I run with a whole sense of connectivity, feeling the relationship of momentum in my right leg to my left shoulder and elbow and wrist.  I feel the drop of chest across knee during tired moments and I feel the flatness of chest against effort-driven gasp.  I feel a solid body, even with the mileage sinking beneath my hopes.  But ultimately, the numbers are just another layer of abstract credential, a false signifier of joy in an act.

ii.

Currently I feel good, healthy, optimistic.  No races, no expectations, just a mindfulness of the current Being I occupy.  A faith in a good orderly direction.  There is even a series of paintings starting in journals and mind-canvases.  There is language forming towards something, there is interest in various things, a passion underlying efforts, and there is a generous love that forms beneath my thoughts in quiet moments.  I am trying to be a good person.  Miles and pigments and language act as armatures of my faith.

iii.

To move towards and with something-- to flow with the movement of an energy and commit, that is the freeing key. That is the lesson and the point and the reward. Raw faith. The full-life confidence to be mindfully present, to be engaged, to be kind with a generous love. The kindness to be generous, the love to be kind.

Some days move towards a gradual requital, a denial or a refusal; it is a gradual and unconscious shift. These days are tiring, daunting, cumbersome. To breathe into the act, cycle the work as ocean and muscle and heat. to burn a thing anew. to keep at it and to stay in it, that is the work of the day.  be a movement that gasps into the earth, burning with something fully of a moment and yet ancient, ephemeral, a hymn or a howl. be the fire and blaze.

Gator Trail 40k (of 50k) 2012.

 

Flash back one year ago to the 2011 Gator Trail 50k. Held on the trails of Lake Waccamaw State Park, Grant Egley's event was my first ultra and, in terms of mileage, it also contained my first marathon. The 31 miles passed as a personal triumph and cornerstone in my running life, imparting a new philosophy regarding my body, my mind, my abilities. The people I met were as supportive as they were diverse, and they were enjoying their lives.  Amazed and proud, emboldened and sovereign, I felt I could gain speed and confidence in distance running. I was hooked. Fast forward through a MTC shirt run, Grandfather Mountain Marathon, Weymouth Woods 100k, Wrightsville Beach Marathon, 1800 miles and 370 days.

2012 Gator Trail unfurled a new set of issues but the biggest was my 3h30pm shift. A vicious list of reservations had already populated the seating chart and there was no getting out of the shift. So, Friday's shift clocked out around midnight and the 5h30am alarm sounded Saturday with the dripping of coffee and a boiling h20 pot for oatmeal, some gear loaded up and then the family and we were off. Slightly Stoopid and a sunrise and a reunion with some familiar faces, the line up and briefing, and Grant's easy countdown to begin the big kicks into the sand and roots and lake mists of this coastal salt lake.

This was a jaunt and taunt run with a grand sense of reunion attached.  Mark Long, Bill Wiemer, Donald Drees, Marie-Ange and Stephanie Carter were there and I had something invested in each of their successes.  My run was more of a social thing with some trail mileage sandwiched in.  I had not planned on running the full 50km and, this being a looped event, I had easy options to drop in increments of 10k. A DNF bothered me little, rather the DNF-factor alchemized towards a rare opportunity for a “disposable” race. My decision and strategy was to charge ahead until the chain slipped the gears- just see what my legs held. The result was a great deal of play and excitement and an actual lead on the first lap. I've never been in first before, so to try a front-runner position was a helluva lot of fun, even if a total flop. Alternating pours of rain cooled the legs and torso and kept me feeling like a wild wet wolf on a hunt, invigorated. But I also knew my limits were hanging after the 18 mile- 20 mile mark.  And when I fell into third while urinating behind a tree, I felt part of my wolf-fight yawn.

Around mile five, a female caught up to run in synch with a bit of conversation, saying that this was her first 50k with one prior marathon. Her name was Leaanne and she turned on some mad afterburners about mile seven and became a Trysports-jerseyed flash in the woods. The girl was killing it, running the sandy access roads like it was the loop at Wrightsville beach, running the technical sections like she was navigating a low tide beach. She ran with a grace in the work that few accomplish, and she powered through for an overall first place after leading for nearly a marathon's distance. Marie-Ange was nearing with her artful form, and I was reminded of the strength of the local female running community. (New Hanover county boasts many talented female runners, but I don't know if the Gator Trail has ever been bested by a female. . . Leanne put up a great set of miles to get to that line.)

From there it was a good progression of miles with alternating rain in the flat light of an overcast morning. The surface of the trail offered passages of churned black mud and faster sandy stanzas (packed and manageable from the rain), staccato roots biting into stride with an increasing aggression as the miles accumulated in the legs. Breathing went ragged in the warming of the day and a consequential humidity, and my pace began struggling towards 8m30sec on the third lap. My IT bands and quads were getting slowly microwaved and, with one more loop to finish but an eight hour shift ahead, I formally dropped at mile 23.99 and 3h 16mins. I thanked Grant for putting on another great race, and he thanked me for coming out and participating. This is a man who created the Mississippi 50 mile run several decades ago, and who remains so humble to us stumbling newbies, so his graciousness is a diamond kindess. His wife was awesome and warm, offering one of her famous sandwiches. I shoved my soggy self into the car to start the process from trail running shoes to Danskos. 

Sushi and coffee and a shower and the time clock and I am polishing silverware and taking drink orders on a 9-top. Work went well and finished well, excluding a setting fatigue and a voracious appetite for every plate of food I served.  Especially the grouper filets and pommes frites and chocolate mousse. 

Many lessons came across my body, including:

a.) the need to pick up some S-caps for the Southern running season (thanks Brett!).

b.) Extend the long runs-- if your body is only accustomed to 18 mile runs, then 31 miles holds too much unknown, too much unencountered muscle damage. Your long runs in training constitute the high-water mark for stamina in racing-- Adrenalin only forgives so much.

c.) I need to learn to run through the pain. I continue to enpower the difficult parts over the passages where I run well, and the difficult miles cost all benefits of earlier exertions.

Finally and d.) I've learned from the Weymouth Woods and from the Quintiles Marathon that the training is as much about the recovery as it is about the actual race. To prepare the body for the work and the damage, and to teach the body how to heal itself, is as important as learning the footwork to take roots on a trail.And I felt good after the race, a minimal discomfort.

I think these are universal obstacles, and tomorrow, I will get an easy ten miler on some trails to start kneading the legclay back to a workable shape.