A little Vertical with some great people.

From what I can come up with I've put in about 20,000' of vertical in 4 states in the past 10 days. My "job" has given me the extreme pleasure of being in NC, CO, UT, and NH in the past 10 days taking me from the top of Mt Pisgah, Loveland Pass, Lone Peak and Mt. Washington. Along the way I've stayed with Lucho who lives at 8,160' and has the best home office I've ever seen. There are no easy days where he lives, just slower runs. Not only did I get to stay with a really fast guy, a person you'd love to see suffer at the end of a training run, but I was able to stay with a person who's a great person well above a fast as shit mountain runner. The Memorial Day FoCo TT on Round Mtn. gave me the opportunity to get a headstart on these speedy mountain goats and film them finishing a 4.5 mile, 3,000' climb. I have some footage of Lucho finishing, shattering the FKT, coughing up a dry luggie and apoligizing to a hiker for ruining their morning on the summit of Round Mtn. "I'm sorry," Lucho says to the hiker, "I got to the summit and watched a guy puke." Tim W may have coughed and dry-heaved a bit, but was fresh and ready to go about a minute later.

I'm holding onto this film, waiting for the right offer. I've already turned down a few offers from the producers of Lost, Dave from Beauty and Change, and National Geographic. Tim and Nick are going to be big stars and I'm willing to hold my hand for a few more months.

A few minutes later I have Nick Clark finishing very strong on legs with about 50 miles and a shit load of vertical in them the past 2 days. I'd really like to see these 2 guys battle it out with fresh legs and a proper w/u. I get the feeling they'd like to race eachother in an informal TT as well. Perhaps we'll get to see something like this soon, once WS and Pb is finished. There were a few other guys there that might want a little say in this, as well. A guy named Bob Sweeny(sp) could split Nick and Tim and maybe even take the win for himself, a guy named Eric might screw up the whole table. Perhaps a guy named Scott, aka fast eddie, or a person named Anton. Shit, what might happen if a guy from Alaska heads down to make sure a guy, Killian, from spain doesn't riun it for the Americans. OK, I've gone too far, if that happened somebody would put up some money on that TT. My money would still be on Lucho though - you should see him bounce off Sanita rocks. Scientist have yet to discover wjat I witnessed, elastic rocks. I was behind him and could have sworn that the rocks were bouncy. I was wrong, the rocks were actually thick beach sand.

The highlight of this 4 state trip was the hike up Mt. Washington via the Tuckerman Ravine Trail with my Uncle (in-law) Steve who will be 60 next month. Oh yea, if the next TT is on this 4.1 mile trail with about 4,200' of gain to the summit of MW I may need to put my money on Kevin Tilton; he went sub 60 and after hiking this trail, that's just silly - yea, I laughed about a minute after I finished and realised KT went under an hour on this trail! My other pocket has money on my uncle who grew up at the base of MW and raised his 3 kids here as well. My other pocket has money on the best mountain story. When Steve was in HS most of his mates played hockey, but his 3 best friends and he were skiers. The kind of skiers that hike to the top of MW, 4,500', and skied down the nastiest shit they could find. Like most teenagers in the 60's-70's they looked for a way to make a few bucks to support their skiing addiction, so these 4 guys would buy 2 cases of beer and hike through snow to the top of MW with skis and a half a case of beer each, then sell half the beer at the top to the tourists for a buck a bottle, drink a few themselves before dipping the tips over Tuck's Ravine. Get to the bottom and drink a few more. As much as alot of people would like to match up an Ali/Tyson fight, I'd like to see these 4 teenagers from the 60's-70's get up the mountain without skis and beer and see how they could match up with some of the speedy guys today. The ski/beer guys didn't just make 1 run, they went 2-3 times for about 9-12,000' of vertical in the snow for a day. All in all I've had a great couple of weeks, a time that has reminded me that great athletes need to be great people first. A lesson learned that 30-40 years ago people did some bad ass shit just for recreation and fun. My uncle's story about hiking up MW in the snow with skis and a 1/2 case of beer makes the running goals I have just sound silly. Those guys really knew how to have fun and do something really special, physically, at the same time. Perhaps someday I'll do something really cool like that. Maybe I already have, but won't realize it until one of my kids writes about it someday.