gator trail 50k-- prelude and fugue, book one.

Haydn string quartet cycle, opus 33. sketching between pushups (with kyote climbing across my head) trying to keep ideas and images in pre-thought state, pure and instinctual, impulse-driven:  unjudged (unfiltered). but a simple act of expression seems an impossibility. . . judging the image-in-process is denying the image. moving on.

i've decided that tomorrow's ultra is like dropping acid: its going to be long, its going to be strange, and I may see some shit that isn't there. My body will ache and it will suddenly not ache. I will want to push and I will want to drop back. I will want it to be over. I will have little option but to finish. Interaction with others will be kept to a minimum afterwards to think things over. I may have to remind myself that this is not a permanent state, nor is it a natural state of being. And the mind may fold back on itself to reveal interesting things.

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

trying to figure out how to eat a banana at mile ~18

Well the Gator Trail Run 50k slung me into the guts of Lake Waccamaw for five 6.2 mile loops, composed of four miles circulating into a two mile out-and-back, and it passed with strength and endurance. A pace of eight-fifty minute miles felt smooth and perpetual for a solid 4h 33 mins on the trail, landing the fifth position. I ran with a talented runner named Mark and he glided through the pace with wholesome encouragement. My body ran well, my mind juke boxed random excerpts of marley and velvet underground, and I had no poetic thoughts or spiritual insights other than driving forward, a purely physical event.

before as gathering gear.

I will write more later but now I must waddle into work.  

A pause in the breath, a break in the stride...on second thought.

less than two weeks until the gator trail 50k.

Meanwhile the past week has been a physical disaster and my body remains slumped, choked, uncertain. It began with thai take-out, green curry with eggplant, bamboo, tofu, to be followed by 48 hours of misery, my body folded horrendously into itself, an internal meatmash out of a sinclair novel. . .the running rhythm collapsed and my 50 mile week decayed to a 17 mile week with my longest run being a struggling eight miler on Sunday (where I learned that I do not like body-warmed strawberry-banana gu gels). I am left with one more week-long cycle of running and a three day ween before my first 50k will spin its own organic experience, a free-form narrative finding its own pace and tone and extemporaneous momentum. . . the layers of self will be pulled back to some raw core where paint and language and trail and solitude and music will fall away into a pure act, an act perhaps approaching ascetic in its surrender for a brief moment. . . a passage of satori at mile 27 would be nice.

*************************************************************
completing any path of any distance is ultimately putting one foot in front of the other and breathing and having patience and the guts, pushing the mind-- pushing the legs...feet grinding out bones and blisters across the increments of space. Covering miles requires an actionable faith with multiple layers of belief and drive, the ability to push through physical burnouts, to endure the emotional upheavals, to fuel an engine of physical mantras. It's the drive to complete something no matter how anonymous and strange and personal. . . running a 31 mile circuit on a trail in the middle of the woods is an abstract art and few others will give any attention to this spiritual/physical/mental work; long-distance running is not a universal goal.  But this is my experience and its culmination, a distinct passage in my life fugue.  Running is my time of recreation, a time to reclaim, my time to Re-Create. Its a binge, its a purge, a tribal sundance, a sweat lodge.  A run as in Life. Putting one foot in front of the other and following through, into the nexus and the core, into a continuum, into an actionable faith and self-reliance.

dead bird in laundry room, gator trail 2011, live birds push into sky.

november 14th.    bird carcass in the laundry room, spray of fallen feathers. proud cat purrs.


i am preparing my entry form for the Gator Trail 50k, the closest ultra to my hometown at about an hour's drive west. . . last referenced here, i’ve wanted to do this race for two years; so 2011 is the year of the commitment regardless of my current patellafemoral pain. thirty-one miles ought to prove a solid physical challenge and a base for a significant emotional journey, with the reprieves being the location and the small race charm. . . check 'M' for shirt size and gender, sign the liability clause and the check, stamp and drop.  Done.

November 17th, 2010. Schubert’s string quintet in C. Ferocious, rabid, erotic.  schubert, dead at 32 years of age from syphillis & alcoholism.  the guts of decay and chaos remains the soul.

nov. 23rd. Three and one-half miles with no grand happening, with a minimum of tightness in left knee. New shoes felt good, a little fluffy in the sole and stiff in the kick, but thats expected in their newness. . . stayed in neighborhood for the run, seeing one marvelous bird formation, hundreds of birds, congregating in treetops and exploding out into spontaneous flight and spiraling back into trees, then launching in silhouetted chirp-cloud towards the south.  i wonder if their sound waves influence their formation waves. . . . a fractal type function? A marvelous sight, the cool ballet of birds in punk screeches. followed by french roast, brahms string sextet, a brief essay-effort and then work-grind.

(run for ray trail half-marathon packet is signed and sent. run for ray 2010's write-up is posted here, and then the brutal follow-up blogpost of scarred & scabby nipples. )