I wasn't always an athlete. Oh I suppose I played,ran around,biked etc. but for a child who grew up in the 60's this was par for the course. My family always had a tradition of walking, not just one or two blocks,but often a mile or more.
Our vacations were always in the outdoors. My first trip to Yosemite was about 1966 back in the days where they still did the fire fall off glacier point! We did hikes and not the easiest ones.
To this day I can't believe we hiked from Onion Valley trailhead starting at 9000 feet and went up to over 13000 and that is when I was 9-10, my sister was 8.
I began formal competion in College joining the Crew team which was in its embryonic stages in 1976 at Humboldt State University. We did Ok as a crew team, I suppose the pinacle was when we defeated the University of Washington in a heat. Basically a unbeatable team. Honestly I was in an altered state after that race as we did the "impossible". I did some club rowing back east in Philadelphia and tried out unsucessfully for the national team in 1982. The boat that came out of that camp finished 3rd in the world.
I started running after my Junior year in high school which helped a little when I began rowing, But I never had the inspiation or frankly was never asked to join the track team in high school.
My first race was not until the spring of my freshman year in college just a 8.5 mile local race which was quite fun. I had some natural speed, not enough to place in the top 10 in races but I managed to run a 38 minute 10k, 1 hr 3 minute 10 mile, 1 hr 25 minute Half Marathon and a slow PR in the Marathon of 3 hrs 22 minutes.
I was about 35 when I did my PR in the Marathon. I suppose I determined at that point that it was unlikly that I would go much faster and I also decided, "so what". If I did a 3 hour Marathon a bag of money would not drop from the sky. At that point I had discovered trail running, Why go fast when there are so many beautiful trails to enjoy?. I now pick my courses by the scenery of the race and my goal is to run well and enjoy the scenery.As my friend Mike and I joked during a race in the Sierras last spring, "Those Fast guys are paying way more per hour that us, they got rooked".
So at this point I have done 24 marathons and 30 Ultramarathons up to 100K or 62 miles. The 100K was the Passatore in 2004 which starts in Florence and goes up to Faenza.
I also enjoy multiday hikes. I did the 10 day tour of Mt Blanc in 2006, Climbed Kilimanjaro and Mt kenya in 2005, and did a few hikes and climbs in 2004 in Africa as well. In 2006 I also did a running tour of Patagonia.
I also enjoy long dayhikes in the Sierras like Mt Whitney, and have done 14 trips to the Grand Canyon where I usually do a 2 day 45 mile hike/run from the South rim to the North and go back North to south the next day returning by the Bright Angel trail so we finish at the lodge.
My plans for the rest of this year are- Old goat 50 K in April, Wild Wild West 50K in May,
June/July Sierra hikes, Maybe Holcomb trail 33 mile, Sept 1- I am going with my wife Peg for a "warmup" hike for my Nepal trip. The Alta Via 1 in the Dolomites which we plan to do on a short schedule of 9 hiking days for the 100 mile hike.
October Grand Canyon Number 15, followed by the climax the Nepal Christmas trip 2008.
