A week where Johnny was made.

Low tide, Manomet Bay, Plymouth, MA

We missed what I presumed would be the best fireworks shows in the country. Instead, we were on a delayed redeye flight the night of July 3rd. We would not lay our heads horizontal until the birds sang for the sunrise near Brian's house on Locust Street. We spent the morning with Brian, Milla, and smart little Leila, then the evening with Mary Ellen, Erin, and Martin.

While the Manomet beach front expended most of their fireworks the night before, we got to see what I found much more spectacular. As John helped explain, we sat at the thumb joint of a fist with an index finger curved out in the air. Cape Code bay is an approximate circle 40-50 feet in diameter. From where we sat on the darkening beach, fireworks shows pulsed along the entire horizon. Their base explosions resounded across the Atlantic ocean. Steady beams of bonfires illuminated the peripheral horizon extending from our feet. The moon eventually rose through the center of it all, casting its blood orange beam across the water to our summer fire. The moon rose and grew larger while the famous fireworks of Massachusetts pulsed steady and small at the edge of our world.

We talked about the Fitzgerald, O'Donnell, Fitzpatrick, and Flaherty families. I listened to them banter in a familiar Fitzgerald fashion I could never keep up with. I learned more about the Manomet Conservation Center, originally gifted in pieces from around the world. It was co-founded by a wife who lay headstones for her dogs.  As we spoke, the moonbeam inching towards our feet with the tide, it was all washing away. Slowly, but with the same permanence as the bonfires that would disappear by tomorrow morning A grand show before us, and an infrequent, audible peanut gallery of dry bluff eroding behind us.

Dogwood dream Manomet house.

After a couple nights in Massachusetts, we headed to Vermont for four nights. This is the beautiful cabin hand-crafted by John's uncle Mark, a carpenter. He's built this cabin on his weekends, and although it is far from the "finished" carpentry of his craft, it is a work of art. 

Dream stream downslope from Uncle Mark's cabin.

The princess and the fiber glass bed. If princesses snack on fresh caught brookies, write by candlelight, hike/run all day, and bird bath in sinks and cold rivers, then I was the prettiest princess of them all. Waking up at 5 am each morning, beside this picture window, to the sounds of birds (HAH HAAAAH HAAAAH you ripped your shoe), percolating coffee, and popping wood stove fire was heaven. 

Toll road run up Burke Mountain on John's birthday! My kind of road running. 

07/08/15 Pemigawasset Loop. Mount Flume, Mount Liberty, Little Haystack, Mount Lincoln, Mount Lafayette, Mount Garfield, South Twin, Mount Guyot, Mount Bond. This is 29 miles with 12,000 ft of elevation gain in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The first 1.5 miles and the last 4 miles are on a perfectly flat, perfectly straight old railroad grade. If your brain is like mine and has a hard time comprehending square or vertical feet, that means this hike/run was 12,000 ft gain in less than 25 miles. That means each mile either climbs or descents 1,000 ft. Pain!

Rocks were more common but these ladders up Mount Liberty at least gave a semblance of rhythm. 

Mount Lafayette. People always tell me they don't run because it hurts their knees. We weren't really running much, but my knees HURT on these rocky trails.

I was definitely not smiling by the end of this run. John tried to get me to stop and smell some pine needles and I think I just ran by with my claws out.

Bondcliffs. Strong John smiled the whole way through. In fact, he just kept getting goofier! The last group of people we stopped and chatted with were having a hard time understanding his slurred words, devoid of calories.

The Pemi loop seems to circle the headwaters of the East Branch Pemigewasset River. Pemigewasset means "where the entering current is." I went straight for this perfect plunge pool at the end of the trail and was finally able to put my claws away.

The next day we hiked up Mount Washington with Martin. We had plans to do the 18-22 mile Presidential Traverse, but decided on an out-and-back in order to have time for breakfast at Polly's Pancake Parlour. With 17 miles under our belt, we basically did it. Mount Pierce, Mount Eisenhower, Mount Monroe, Mount Washington. 

Mount Washington summit [line] selfie! This is the tallest peak in the northeast, and you can get here on foot, by trail, or by vehicle. Needless to say, it is kind of a zoo. The trail we took up, Crawford Path, is the oldest footpath in the country!

Double fun day with double Fitzcereals!

We left the cabin in Vermont at 5:30 am on Friday and made it to Grannie Annie and Gramp's hotel room Portsmouth, NH, by 8:50 am. We were there for Joey and Kara's wedding, the most extravagant affair I will probably ever attend. John had completely ripped his running shoes he planned on wearing golfing the day before. So by 9:15 we had taken our first shower all week, by 9:30 John bought a new pair of running shoes from the blasphemous Dick's Sporting Goods, and by 10:00 am John made tee time (not tea time like I at first assumed).

Photos are "worth a thousand words" but they do not describe how sweet Grannie Annie and Gramps are.

Last night of our trip, back in Brockton, MA. A couple of Johnny's at Johnny Macaroni.

Eric Carle's Fibre Optic Light

Before there was much of anything, there were plenty of fireflies.

"Are you a firefly?" Asked one, looking for a mate.
But it was only a campfire. Few and far between, but cherished for their warmth, cooking abilities, and light.

"Are you a firefly?" He asked again. Not all firefly genders light up so obviously.
But it was only a candle. More common now than the campfire, but cherished for their mobility and brilliant light so luminous that paranoia still mistook it for yesterday's fire.

"Are you a firefly?" He kept trying, lighting his most unique signal.
It was only a porch light, enjoyed for its immobility and everlasting signal of home. Definitely not a firefly.

"Are you a firefly?" He asked again, ready to give up.
But it was only a cell phone screen. Unbelievably cherished for all its cracks and nonsense. It was the first cold light he had even seen, so he'd been easily fooled.

Cold light is 100% efficient and emits no heat with its glow. But the firefly learned that no light was coldest light of all.
"Are you a Lampryinae?" Asked the microscope.

Good bye beautiful trails. This is a shot from Mount Pisgah near Lake Willoughby in Vermont. One night at home with my Murph dog and shnuggs then the rest of the month in the field for me.

Challenge you to balance, Part II.

I got my last blog post completely wrong. I'm just as competitive with training as I ever was. It was all wrong because I failed to realize my biggest competition is schwork (i.e., when school is work).

04/08/2015 Piceance valley field reconnaissance -- A year of jumping through hoops later, we got to put some boots on this beautiful shale canyon's ground. Natural resource extraction and serious concern for safety means no one wanders around off the dusty roads out there .... Until Lani and Hannah arrived. Example of one weird rule, "no picnicking" in these gamble oak patches, damn.

Multiple times lately, people ask if I have been "training much" with school being so busy. This question catches me off guard, but yes I have been training much. Grad school has not prevented me from putting in two hours of training on average every single day for the past two months. Nor has my training prevented me from getting a shit ton done every day. It takes a lot of discipline (and the occasional mental shut down) to GO from 6:00 am to 10:00 pm most days, but that is the only way to have time to train twice, eat at least thrice, and put in the time at school. Most importantly, somehow it keeps me sane.

Winter field work on the Poudre River with Johnny<3

School is also busy. My eleven month anniversary of starting graduate school at CSU is approaching mid-May. In case anyone in the internet world wonders what the heck I've been doing,  I wrote and rewrote a research proposal, then discussed it with big scary smart scientists. The second time through, my proposal ended up being about how a non-native riparian plant may alter terrestrial and aquatic insect communities, and also the larger food web. Through collaboration with the best-group-project-member-ever, we will look at the diet and behavioral responses of riparian birds to this plant. On Monday, I officially start the field work portion of the project, and I hope it's interesting enough to deserve a Master's. Soonish I can finally finish analyzing the results of my attempt to use my adviser's, W.H. Clements' B.A.M.F (bad ass microcosm facility). I looked at how copper contamination may influence microbial respiration and aquatic insect communities differently in pools and riffles. I've gotten all but four credits of my coursework done, and maintained my streak of being the first finished with all five statistics exams this past year.

My friend Becca wrote a blog about wanting "less in life." I see her point in wanting to avoid the sickening addiction of more, but my tendency for perpetual productivity leaves me feeling I should contribute my own nuance. I want more out of less in life.  I want to get more out of my work and spend less time working on it. I am fixated on efficiency so I waste less time working or getting wasted running. Of all the people I've met who are shamefully and shamelessly addicted to their work or their running, I am shamelessly addicted to the challenge of finding balance in both.

Also, in case anyone in the internet world wonders where my cheesy engagement photos are, I draw the line at planning a wedding before my first field season. All I know is Tahoe at some point next year:) Cheesy engagement photos will probably never happen.

Challenge you to balance.

I've grown to dislike competition. It's strange since I was obsessed with triathlon only two years ago. There is competition in sport, competition in work, and competition within yourself, and I have dueled enough with each.

This time two years ago I was around 300 days into my most focused training. I wanted to be pro (didn't we all), at least in the minimum sense that I wanted to win Wildflower. My friends loved training nearly as much as I did, we went places warm, and all I had to do was turn my homework in on time. I swam until 10 pm and woke up at 4:30 am a good chunk of my mornings (I don't know how I did that). While I may not have won, I finished less than 4 minutes and seven positions back.

Hayley, Megan, Dan, and myself before the SHAC Triathlon, 2013. Megan would brush her shoulder off but that would ruin her fueling strategy.

The summer after Wildflower I began "training for life," meaning I just wanted to have fun, not get injured, and train in the name of longevity. Maybe I adopted this mindset because I am not as talented at  pure running as I was at triathlon, and therefore definitively not as competitive as I once was. I have, however, also watch competition ruin many perfectly sane people.

Last year I signed up for nine ultramarathons. This year I am signed up for two. The ultrarunning community is small enough that races are synonymous with reunions. Many of my friends, however, I never saw because they holed up to hide from what they assumed to be the spotlight, but what I interpret to be delusional nerves.

Running is fun. It's cheap. It's what you do with your friends or your parents and your dogs, in the snow and the sun, on the beach or in the mountains. Competition is important for the growth of the sport, and for the betterment of our own personal selves, but it is something I find more joy not getting wrapped up in.

Defenders of the weekend.

I mentioned competition in work, and I think that is a great example. Comparing ourselves to our coworkers motivates betterment, but mulling over it too much is just stressful. If everyone worked on the weekend, those of us who didn't would eventually get fired. So defend your weekend, run only as much as you need to get the job done, and keep it enjoyable. I would not be able to maintain my sanity in grad school if I didn't have running, but I would run myself into the ground if I didn't have grad school.

While I am claiming I lost my competitive edge, I am not suggesting I've lost the motivation to work hard. My overarching goal for what I've deemed my opportunistic off season was to keep it crazy consistent, but not crazy. For me, this ended up meaning four months of ~40 miles running, ~2 hours weights/core, and enough cycling to round off 11-14 hours training per week.

A 35 mile runventure in Canyonlands with John and Hilly was the only crazy part of my crazy consistent off season.

In sum, competition is fun. It's what makes me run faster up Towers with Becca than when I'm alone. Competition is necessary. It's given ultrarunning recent legitimacy despite its perceived insanity.  But competition is nothing if it is not fun.

Backwards gloves. Photo by Myke.

Theodora, sweet remora, I wish you hadn't presented this pandora. 

If I had known this symbiosis would end in blind hypnosis I would have rubbed you off a rock a long time ago. A great deal, you cleaning, me killing. Gluttonous attack after hedonistic snack. Until we could no longer separate the two acts, afraid to expose your sucker head and my suggestive preying.

With your drag on the left, my swimming shrank concentrically until all I could dream of was the beat of my own tail, alone without your persistent flail. Sharks can be social or solitary, so please respect my solidarity.

A morning story and other photos from Kalalau Valley

The chart-topping runs are the ones you literally cannot run on, where your stride becomes a walk then a stupor as you ogle over your surroundings. You never really know when those are coming though.

John and I did not know. We were just happy to feel light beneath the weight of our packless backs after two days of packing 11 miles into Kalalau Beach with my moms. I was surprised my shapeless socks and Saucony Peregrines still worked for running, leadened with water and mud.

We followed Kalalau Trail back, the same one we'd hiked in on the afternoon before. Barreling waves to our left, tarp-topped camps to our right, and earthy smelling "locals" passing towards the front. Eventually, sandy beaches gave way to rounded lava rock shores. As we climbed out of the beach camp, we looked over our shoulders to the spired cliffs that buttress our home for the next two days.

The new trail veered up canyon to our right, no more than a mile from camp.  We climbed up valley, passing smooth barked eucalyptus trees and  bamboo forests. Mud always intermixed with ancient terraces bolstered with those rounded lava rocks, now coated with neon moss bright still beneath a thick canopy.

The only person we saw the whole outting, which ended up being around 2.5 hours, was one woman. Young, a little older than me, and far too clean to have been out there more than the morning. She definitely could not have been out during the downpour we endured in our moat-lined tents for 13 hours the night before. Her hair was wrapped in a small turban and she carried a bushel of chard in one hand.

"What are you picking?" John asked after breif casualties.
"Oh it's from the community garden. Is that where you're headed?"
We had plans to go to the "big pool" but we were next informed by this apparition to turn left at the cut guava tree after the second river crossing.
"Do you know what a guava tree is?"
I admitted no, was descriptively informed, and as we headed out of this conversation on our way, she called out, "have fun running around out there."

The left turn after the cut guava tree was inconspicuous for 50 yards, then an obvious foot path. We dipped down a few more terraces and suddenly the canopy opened up, prefaced with a sign warning tourists not to pick unripe fruit. This garden is filled with taro paddies, squashes, orachard trees, and the tickling trickling sound of irrigated water from the adjacent creek. Breathtaking and obviously maintained in the constantly growing foothills of the world's rainiest place.  But the trail was not run out, so we continued its course through the garden.

We crossed the creek and followed the footpath up the slope to another terrace. This one different, huge. Most noteable were a handful of old 15 foot-diameter trees evenly dispersed around the large pad, as if delineating rooms or compartments of some ancient family's dwelling. We found ourselves tiptoeing around this old landing. We could see, if not feel, what it would be like to live here. Life here. And not just the life of modern day hippies, but ghostly life as if walking through the coleseum.

A little freaked out, we decided to start backtracking. We headed down to the creek we last crossed, but instead of crossing, followed the path up alongside the creek. It began to rain, the double rain consistent of densely vegetated landscapes. One drop from the sky, two drops from slapped plants. Our path petered out alongside a pool. The big pool? Swollen from the previous night's rain. Maybe, but probably not. We briefly strategizd under the cover of the Na Pali coast's giant bromeliads, then headed back down to seek the trail that would finally lead us to the big pool.

We crossed some creeks and terraces only vaguely familiar until we finally reached the garden. But with a sinking feeling, I creepily realized this was a different garden. This one with an orchard tree sagging from grapefruit, shading a colorful Bhuddist shrine. We had felt lost for awhile, and John had already asked if I was fucking with him, but you can't admit to being lost in a valley where all streams lead to the ocean.

All we could do was follow whatever trail we were on down. Who knows how long those little footpaths have been there. Trodenned by bare feet of history's ghosts, a labyrinth remain of an ancient civilization. Dense tropical vegetation made the place feel huge, except for the brief glimpses of humbling canyon walls through the overstory.

Down we ran, looking for anything familiar, until we passed the cut down guava tree. We passed it coming down the main trail. A complete, tidy loop. A time warp, into an 800-year-old civilization and back out into modern paradise. Gratefully it had stopped raining, and releived to know where we were again, we stopped to explore a few more terraces, then continued down the trail.

"Have fun running around out there." Was she a dream? We ran back down through the same tree tunnel, marked by its whorled branches, we had run up hours before. This time, we understood it to be an entrance.

The Kalalau Trail on Kaua'i is 11 miles one way, with one 2-, 0.5-, and 2-mile out and backs at miles 2, 6 and 10. Check mark them all.

The trail can sometimes be hairy, especially if you catch it in the rain.

.

A special time! Living carefree, all things damp.

Camp!

The waves were straight from my reoccuring nightmares of shores sloped so steeply, waves would suck you out and toss you up before you realized where the sand went. Except it was heaven. "The most random wave pool," our camp neighbours Neil and Chelsea called it.

I only heard one account of flesh-eating bacteria in the water. Skin dips so worth it.

Boardrun on the impressively extensive boardwalks in the Alakai Swamp, located on the flat-topped ridge 4,000 + feet above Kalalau Valey. 8.2 miles that day, plus 4 hours of waiting in the windy sun for my mas to do the same hike. It would only be appropriate that John and I get our most epically dehydrated a stone's throw away from the wettest place in the world, depending on the year. 

The understory at the Alakai Swamp.

From tallest to shortest: John, me, MK and Vicky. They are though mamas. 

Poker face

We've already walked circles around each other,
passing over-the-shoulder glances until our tread

formed a Venn diagram clearly defining what's mine
and yours but especially where we keep mixing up

the point of holding these cards so close to our chests,
biceps strained to deny that photos are worth their weight in gold

like that elementary trick where palms pressed against a door frame, 
suddenly released, give arms a mind of their own to feel

the fleshy figments of imagination shuddering, in real life,
from the simplest massage: wrung out forearms.

Photos are worth a thousand words, but only a fraction
of the action freely translated senses can take.

See two sharp jawbones with bristled clenched
fists advantaged with emptiness you fear are revealing the

Feel of air displaced by one jawbone onto mine, kinematically conjoining
hands to ears to stop the words you can't keep from explaining

Hear what I'm saying about the fingertip tracing
to rouse you back to your photos.

Swoop them up and pivot each just right. These photos are worth their weight in the gold we seived over leaf-matted fingers. Not worth much, so pretend I never saw those.

Water rights

Pretend this is a story about getting my Master's degree.

In reality, I've stopped thinking about it as a big person job. Coffee cups and personal spotlit office desks aren't fooling anyone.  It is a servitude to my unflagging synapses. It is true it is the most fun I've ever had. Someone also once told me it is the best running I'll ever do. Hear me say "I agree" as I sit here with an unrun jelly knee. For example, I realized this week while mapdreaming that I nearly connected a third of the trails on my two National Geographic maps on backyard runs this summer. 

In this story, people and places are fictionalized and sensationalized. Any resemblance to persons or places living or dead is purely coincidental.

Tucked north of the Colorado, engulfed a vineyard of wrath, lays a Steinbeckesque valley, though only in character. In person, it's only shrubby dry land with squat little valleys. This land can be taxed as agricultural because its mostly sageland, rangeland and weedy hay fields. In character, the valley is weaved with silty roads leading to gleaming well pads riveted for permanence and economic dismemberment, or houses unplumbed by wind and winter. These are the homes, respectfully, of the man with the upper hand and his minions.

That's not very fair. Not minions like farmer ants, blindly following some scent, blazing some unforeseen trail. People with families, hard jobs, smart minds and belligerent self regard. Like you, and especially me.

The "man" with the upper hand should also not be misconstrued as anything different from his subsidiaries. Same family, hard job, smart mind, and belligerent self regard, just a bigger pay check to dress it with.

It's easy to dislike this guy, so delay the temptation. He towers like his machined blazing chimneys, but his disposition is no where near as hot. His good nature can be trusted, if only based on his signature spotless leather hat. His worn leather cowboy boots leave tenderer footprints than the cement ones he supervises. For months after we met, I could not relax around him until I discovered he obsessed over fluids other than the semi-gas he siphoned from earth's pitch.

Water! Water rights! You can't fix stupid! He was always says that last one. We became our own exclusive book club, teasing out embarrassing facts about water history and legislation. To him, water is the fruit of the loom dangling over the line we crossed when we sunk our teeth into this apple. Proof that it isn't his natural gas that made him owner of the land and its people.

Thanks to the book club, our conversations moved beyond land, past water, and onto ourselves. He told me I indulged too much, I told him he worked too much, we both agreed we spent time alone too much. He at least had an excuse. It is not easy to make friends if your job is to legalize and sanctify all human behavior. I just thought it was confusing making friends. We'd debate if our passion for solitude made us a wild beast or an Aristotelean God. I said he could be the God. Him, standing cast under the shadow of his leather-rimmed hat in his ropey artery watershed. All I saw when I closed my eyes was a stock chopped slide show of increasingly resolved topography.

Here is an interesting fact about surveying rivers. You can keep right and left bank straight in your head by facing downstream because you have to work upstream. That is how I arrived at my final site. Face down working against a current. A small current. These are only 1st or 2nd order streams. But still. I looked around at the pinnacle canyon walls that encompassed my last site, and saw my water was borne through a hole in the wall.

My River Continuum

Us crazy ass humans can be thought of as a continua of patches and kinetic aggregates.

Such an image is particularly appropriate to streams. Generations of fishermen have visualized streams as omnivorous gradients of species assemblages, adjusting its insatiable appetite according to physical gradient and landscape morphology. We call this the River Continuum Concept. Population density and gross domestic productivity measures metrics of humanity's successes and tribulations across a landscape. The River Continuum Concept describes the structure and function of communities along a watershed.

Headwaters are perched on a high shelf in clear cool round jars. Inefficient unproductive oligarchies with a sense of slipping place but no sense of purpose. So they fall, don't shatter, and ripple instead. Spreading wider through grout valleys of linoleum I swear will be granite one day.

Lakes were once thought of as microcosms. It was assumed if the world outside underwent an "annihilating event," lakes would feel the effects decades later. Apparently language like that isn't used in research papers any longer, which is probably why no one has stopped to consider lakes as microcosms of their own annihilation. 

Jars fall off shelves to prove a point. Pursuing a passion with simple minds geared towards the least resistant path. Taking opportunities as they come with increasing velocity, though their free fall trajectory approaches undefined. But the depravity of gravity is headwaters leave that mountain high to seek autonomy in a less corroded valley, weakly spreading thin on the littered floor, only to lose the shelter they started with. A puddle weakly gaining ground, growing big with tributaries from other jars so inclined, cannot help but feel honed to precision.