Michael: Delayed

The rat a tat tat
From the distant woodpecker
Is a beat that works.


Monday, May 11, 2015

We had to postpone our play date with the volcano yesterday. We’ve been keeping our eyes open for a forecast of late afternoon thunderstorms so we could be well away from the peak and on the descent by the time a storm arrived, but on Saturday the forecast shifted and had the storm coming in at 1p.m. Not enough margin of safety for us. The weather does look good for Wednesday or Thursday so hopefully we’ll gear up again in a couple of days.

So yesterday it was back to the gorgeous but always challenging Quetzal Trail. The Quetzal, as a running trail, has proven to be an invaluable learning experience for me.

Looking at the trail from a runner’s perspective, going from west to east,   the first two kilometers are on a steep, rocky but runnable jeep road on a grade equivalent to the Bull Dog trail in the Santa Monica’s back home. That section ends at an ecological station and the single track begins. The next kilometer and a half is pretty level and the easiest running section.  The next kilometer and half after that is over a section that includes many tall steps that requires more of a bounding/jumping motion on the descent and a power hike on the way up. The final two kilometers to the road are on a gradual grade and are runnable in both directions but is rocky and rooty so a moderate pace is risky but manageable.

The trail also includes one or two thick branches that you can swing under and a few large downed trees that can be pummel horsed over. There are a few wood plank bridges, one wide steel bridge with wood planks and one suspension bridge, some stump steps with chicken wire to short step across if it’s rainy or muddy, and a river crossing that’s been becoming easier to step across as the months have gone by. But I expect that to change as the rainy season picks up.

I strongly advocate wearing gloves on this trail in particular. They allow me to one; grab on to things as I swing through the forest two; lobster crab walk up some of the steeper steps, and three; prevents shredding my hands when I stumble. But I always wear gloves on trail runs. Previously, it was for reasons one and three. No one has seen me yet crawling up the trail, but I’m sure I’ll hear some pretty hardy laughs when I clutch onto some tourist’s or guide’s ankles to boost myself up. 

In the almost 4 months that we’ve been here, we‘ve run the Quetzal almost every Sunday. On those runs I’ve only seen two other runners, and that’s Kimme and a lady that decided to run with her toward the end of the trail once. But running the sections of the trail we can has proven to be a very rewarding experience. If there’s something out of the ordinary we’ll stop, look and listen. We don’t treat it as a race, but as a treat.

It’s that one and half kilometers of tall steps that have given me a very humbling but rewarding lesson in trail running. Outside of the temporary joys of crawling like a big kid, I’ve discovered that after a grueling walk, I can gather myself and run again, sometimes even at a pretty decent clip. Until now, stopping to walk once I’ve started running was mentally debilitating. I’ve DNFed my share of ultras shortly after walking.  During a race any amount of walking would just take the wind out of my sails. I felt that walking was like getting off your bike and walking up a hill. If you’re rider, you just don’t do it; and if you’re a runner, you don’t walk.

 I’m hoping that the next ultra I run where I feel I may be required to walk, I’ll reflect back on how quickly I’ve been able to recover from my Quetzal crawl/walks and joyfully began running again. I’m not sure if I’ll ever work up to a run to walk ratio strategy like I know many ultra runners do, but if I can lift my head up and get my head back into racing, that change in mindset will largely be due to my many experiences doing so on the Quetzal.