The Legend of the Gadfly

If you're looking for a post to leave a curtosy comment, please scroll down to my previous post. It's all pictures, and won't take up much of your time. For those of you who can't get enough of my suffering, read on my friends!

Alternate title for this post: Loon: as in, "You'd have to be a..."

Right when I got out of my car I saw Gadfly Thom chatting it up with some other running characters in the parking lot. I walked right up to him and said, "Peer pressure's a bitch, Thom!"
"Are you ready?" he asked.
Flat out, no hesitation. "No."
"Aw, you'll be fine."
"Thom, I did a half ironman yesterday." The way it came out it was like even I was surprised by it. Like, "My goodness, it's 6:00! How the time flies!" Saying it out loud did really bring home what a stupid idea this was.
"Oh, well then I guess you're not ready," Thom said, and laughed. "Well I'm glad I'll be ahead of you, because you're sure going to be mad at me!"

People have asked me why I call Thom "Gadfly Thom". It is because he emails me about once a week trying to convince me to do races that appeal to my I can't do that! Sign me up! nature, and routinely wind up kicking my ass. For evidence, read the race reports for Stu's 30K, Martha's Vineyard 20 miler, and the Cranmore Hill Climb, among others: all Thom's doing. So what the hell is a gadfly? Excuse the lesson in Greek Mythology. In traditional Greek style, I'll tell you the story in the form of a play:
Zeus: Man, that Io is one hot piece of ass.
Hera: What'choo looking at that slut for?! You are a pig! I hate that Io bitch.
Zeus: (to himself) I'll turn Io into a cow, so that way my old lady won't get all up in her grill and I can continue to hit that shit. Because I'm Greek, and I'm a god, and I'm a baller, so therefore bestiality is cool.
Hera: Where's that Io bitch that be all macking on my man?! There she is! In the cow.
Io: La de da de da... I'm a cow. Oh my god! What's that fly. God that's annoying. OW! Did it just sting me?! I'll walk over here to get away from it.
Hera: Haha! My horsefly plan is working!
Io: Ow... I'll walk over here... Ow! I'll walk over here... Ow!... (and on and on, until Io finds herself in China, in Africa, in wherever. For the rest of her bovine life Io wanders all around the world, forced to never stop moving because of this annoying fly.)

River next to the starting area

So that's what a gadfly is. It's something that's always buzzing around, and that makes you keep moving to try to get away from it, making you wander into stuff you never would have done on purpose. Do you get why I call him Gadfly Thom now? Thom isn't annoying (although his writing skills could use some work), but the rest of it fits. Like I said, peer pressure's a bitch.

The starting area

So here I am standing outside a ski lodge in northern New Hampshire in July, the day after a half ironman, about to run 5 miles up a mountain. What the hell was I thinking? While last week we started in a thunderstorm, it was already almost 80º today and sunny at 8:30 in the morning. It was going to be a hot one. Normally I don't warm up for running races because I'm too lazy, but since the starting line was about a quarter mile away and downhill, I figured I might as well run down there at least. Oh. My. God! It was like running on two peg legs. I was running at an 11:00 mile pace, down hill and still felt like I was going to die. This was going to be messy. I took solace in the idea that we were just running UP this mountain and not back down. If it was anything like last week, 90% of the uphills would be un-runable anyway. I knew I could walk. Run? Forget it. But I could walk.

Thom and I chatted about people who had died at races as the runners sauntered in to the starting area. When someone started yelling something off near the front I started pushing my way to the back of the pack. There was about a mile of flat running at the beginning, and I did not need to be crushed by a stampede, thank you very much!

For someone who would have rather shot herself in the face than run uphill another inch yesterday, the uphill didn't feel so bad. We ran uphill out of the start, through the flat parking lot, and then up a grade that I was able to run (or most of it anyway). Then we came around a bend and started running DOWN! Well this was stupid! I did not want to give up a single foot of elevation that I had gained by running back downhill. I had signed up for this race to run UP, and up I would run (or walk, or crawl), but not down! Mile 1: 67' ascent, 49' descent.

Cross-cutting the mountain somewhere in the second mile

The second and third miles were equally disappointing in their ease. I would run up the trail until I was hyperventilating and my legs were burning, then I'd walk for a little while, then repeat. I wanted the steep uphills to come along already so I could relax and just walk to my heart's content without feeling bad. Then every once in awhile we would come around a bend and walk the flat way across the mountain, zig-zagging up the trails. Why wouldn't they just let me walk, dammit! I passed a few people on my run breaks, and talked to a guy who was here on vacation from Colorado. New Hampshire is pretty and everything, but who would think to come here if it weren't nearby?! I wasn't in a hurry, so I started taking pictures any time I found a nice view, or whenever I thought I would be able to get an impressive picture of the inclines. Just as I feared, most of the hills wound up looking flat on camera. As we got farther up the mountain the trails got increasingly steep, but none of the ass-blasting, hamstring-tearing ascents from last week. Mile 2: 394' ascent, 94' descent.
The sun was really strong, and there were several unshaded portions of the course. I was soaked through with sweat right from the beginning, and as I ran I could feel the sweat dripping off my elbows. I was able to run less and less of the course, and even when I ran I wasn't moving very quickly. And that's when the horseflies showed up. The damned things were the size of hummingbirds! There was one that I think started following me around mile 1.5, buzzing in my ear, smacking on my face, and trying to land in my hair. I must have looked like I had turrets swatting with my hand, flicking my ponytail around, and twitching my shoulder towards whatever ear they were buzzing in, swearing like a sailor and grunting at this damned gadfly. At one point I put my hand on my head and my finger landed squarely on a fly. It was almost the size of my whole fingertip, I thought I could feel its fly fuzz. Another time I felt a sting on my shoulder and put my hand there only to land on another fly. The slower I went, the more they seemed to hover around me. I started running more and more just to try to get rid of them. This, I thought, THIS is what Io felt like. No wonder that stupid cow just kept walking, I would run up ANYTHING to get away from these goddamned gadflies! Mile 3: 446' ascent, 44' descent.

I hoped this picture would show the steepness, but it's so hard to tell in a photo. If you have a really good imagination, maybe you could see that the camera is being held straight, so the slope is climbing up. Oh, never mind, just take my word for it!
Cross-cutting the mountain again... or maybe we ran up that. I'm not sure. Excuse my finger getting in the shot.

The third mile got steeper finally, and I could feel like I was really working when I was walking. The loose sand and rocks on the ground sometimes were so slippery that I would step up, only to have my foot slide back down to where I'd started. It was like being on an elliptical machine.

There had been this irritating old woman... (not old, let's just call her a "Masters Runner") just ahead of me for miles with a ponytail bobbing smack on top of her head like a blow hole, and a running stride that rather than moving her legs was more about elbows at 90º angles away from her body swinging out to nail anyone who got close to her. She insisted on "running" the whole thing. "Running" in the loosest sense of the word, because she was moving no faster than me, just swinging her elbows out higher as the terrain got steeper. Finally, in this mile, the trail go so steep that her arms could move her uphill no faster, and I finally got to WALK around her (wide, of course, to avoid getting a bony elbow to the nose).

One of the downhills. Again, please use your imagination and the trees along the trail to start to imagine the steepness. Or just take my word for it.

I remember hearing a woman behind me say, "We've still got about 2 miles left!" right before I came over a ridge... and there was the top of the Gondola! What the hell?! All the spectators and families were there along with the race officials. Was this the finish?! That was disappointing. But no, they were waving us through to the back side of the mountain. I took a cup of Heed, and gulped it down. When the taste registered, I spit what was left in my mouth right back out. GROSS! Does Heed make a flavor called "Cake Batter"?! It was absolutely disgusting. After some nasty Heed experiences the day before, the Cake Batter, or Vanilla Pudding, or Vomit after Ice Cream or whatever it was, turned me off Heed for good. Mile 4: 735' ascent; 50' descent.

Note the ascent far to the right that stays around 40+% grade for half a mile, or the long, slow 20-25% nearly constantly from miles 2-4... And the downhills weren't a cakewalk either, half miles or more at a constant 20-25% grade at times.

After throwing out my Heed cup the volunteers flung me off a short and neck-breaking descent. Right next to me two runners were coming in to the finish line in the other direction. They were neck-in-neck scrambling up this hill, elbows flying, and noses just inches from the ground in front of them. It was incredible to see them running up this mess, busting a gut at a 20-minute mile. If they leaned any farther forward I swear they would have been climbing on all fours and/or get dirt up their noses.

I followed the trail down, down, down, and then turned a corner and ran down some more. It was nice to be moving fast enough that the gadflies didn't bother me, but I did not like the way this downhill was going. Every foot that I ran down, I was going to have to climb again!

Note the guy in the white (in front of the guy in the blue) with his hands on his knees catching his breath.

Then I turned a corner and... Nuh-uh! You have GOT to be kidding me! There was the longest, steepest monster I have ever stared down, or, in this case: up. It looked pretty bad, but I knew it was even worse than all that when I saw some people crab walking (side-stepping) up the trail, and others stopped, bent over with their heads down and their hands on their knees trying to catch their breath. I started walking up it, and it was so steep that my calves (which admittedly are not that flexible) were not able to stretch enough to have my toe and heel on the ground at the same time. It was THAT steep. For AWHILE, roughly half a mile! I would love to see what the elites look like on this hill. Lore has it that last year only ONE man was able to run it without walking.

I never stopped moving, but when my Garmin stopped because it thought that I was standing still (I was going at about 45 min/mi) and wouldn't recognize this as "movement" I turned the autopause feature off. So while I was moving so slowly that my GPS didn't even register me as moving, I was still passing people. I passed people who were trudging up the hill at an impossibly slow pace, taking a micropause to collect themselves between steps. I passed people who were crab walking sideways up the hill, switching sides every couple of steps. And I passed people that just quit walking altogether and stared down the hill with a dazed expression on their sweaty faces until they caught their breath. I certainly did not stop moving, because the gadflies were back. I could not outrun them, but I could at least keep twitching and moving so they wouldn't land on me. I think I heard in summer camp one year that a fly throws up seven times every time it lands. That's why they're always rubbing their front legs together. I know it's probably not true, but I didn't want to take my chances. These flies looked like they could hold a lot of vomit.

The view from halfway up. Note the women to the far right crab walking. Please tell me you don't need to use your imagination to see how steep this one is!

Towards the top the trail started making S-curves, which did remarkably little to cut the steepness of the trail. Finally, FINALLY I got to the top and started running... down?! We had actually climbed past the summit, to the OTHER summit. Whatever that means. I ran down the hill, got to the bottom of the last steep scramble to the finish line, and started walking. I could deal with another 30 seconds on my race time if it meant not going into cardiac arrest in the last yard of this race. All the spectators and other runners were standing along the trail cheering me on and telling me to run. "GOD you people are impatient!" I yelled as I kept walking up the trail. Maybe I could have run, MAYBE, but it would have looked ugly anyway. As I crested the hill and ran the last couple of yards to the finish line the race officials beckoned me across in 1:25:38 for 5.15 miles. "Way to finish strong!" said the race official as he tore the tab off my number. Don't you condescend to me! I thought. I knew that walking the last 100 yards of a race was pretty low on the "strong" scale, but whatever. I knew that I was a badass, and that's all that mattered. Last section: 770' ascent, 484' descent (the race web site has the race listed as a 10K. It wasn't, so the mile/elevation breakdown isn't quite right).

At the top I saw one of Thom's millions of buddies. This one was a gregarious redneck-looking type with a handlebar mustache and no shirt. In the parking lot this morning he'd smelled like cigarettes. He asked me if I'd had a good time. "That was just silly!" I said. "I hate running."
"This is what I live for: mountain running. If I didn't trail run, then I wouldn't have a reason to get up in the morning. I'd probably die." This was the second time today he'd said he would kill himself if it weren't for some kind of running. "You know, that's why I think that religion was so much more popular back before running got big." The conversation was more tongue-in-cheek than all that, but we were joking about something deeper that we both understood. (When I ran into him again at the lodge I said, "What? You haven't killed yourself yet?!" That tells you A) how factitious the conversation was, and B) that you can never trust me to say the right thing.)
"You know, I feel like I could have gone my whole life without ever climbing this mountain and been okay," I said. "I just get my rocks off in other ways." I think how he feels running up a mountain is probably how I feel climbing up (and then back down) a mountain on my bike. "Still, I'm glad I did it."
At the same time as our race was going on, somewhere nearby there was an outdoor church service going on on the mountain. The churchgoers had paid $14 a head to take the gondola up to the summit. I still would have rather get up there closer to God our way, even though I hate running, I hate sitting still and listening to someone else more. Plus, I bet the churchfolk were getting eaten alive by gadflies.

I took the gondola back down with a family of 3. The daughter was only 14 and had run about 50 miles this week. I wish I were into this kind of thing when I was 14, then I might not hate running so much. I wish my family were into this stuff. I didn't have anyone to share the experience with other than the crazy, suicidal mountain runner, Gadfly Thom, and all the other gadflies. If you haven't figured it out yet, I guess I did have fun after all.

Oh, and the shirt was WICKED cool.