Alone with my thoughts

It’s been a while since I’ve posted to Taking the Sharp End. I’ve been busy, but it isn’t really an issue of time. Instead, it’s more a matter of my state of mind in the free time I have been able to carve out for myself. I’ve been teaching and coaching, which makes for an 8-6 day (albeit with some breaks during free blocks that are usually spent running). By 6pm, my focus has shifted to dinner, watching the Bruins, going to Bruins’ games, meeting up with friends, etc. etc. etc.  When I’ve felt like I’m too busy and overwhelmed with everything to bother writing, it’s been my own doing. Socializing is usually the culprit. Truth be told, though, by the time lacrosse practice ends, introspection and putting words on paper (or in this case, on a screen) just aren’t very high on the list of things I feel like doing.

A drawback of living where I work is the lack of separation: there’s no feeling of returning home or even really a coming to a place where I’ve chosen to make my home. My apartment is a matter of convenience – the price is right and the commute is easy, but there’s no escaping work. I live where I work, and there isn’t enough separation to make a huge difference between being on and off duty. Thus, for the past month or so most nights I’ve managed to get out and go off campus, or at least interact with friends when I’m on campus. This makes work seem slightly more different, but I haven’t had much time alone with my thoughts. There really hasn’t been much time to relax and reflect, and the view of the Worcester Hall parking lot doesn’t really inspire.

*****

This evening might be the first real opportunity I’ve had to just relax and be alone with my thoughts since the beginning of March. This winter, being up north in New Hampshire meant many evenings alone listening to the river and processing all that was going on in my life. It was quiet, serene, sparked my creativity, and left me inspired to write.

It actually makes no real sense for me to be up here tonight. Although I climbed on Cannon today (a story for another day), I need to pick my partner for tomorrow up in southern New Hampshire, driving by where we will climb to do so. In many ways, it would make a lot more sense to have headed down to Waltham after climbing today. But the view from Worcester Hall has nothing on the view of the Pemi and Franconia Ridge from my chair in the window here, it’s good to have an evening alone with my thoughts.

River, Scotch, and Writing… Good combination

25.3

A marathon is 26.2 miles. Those who complete it wear that number as a badge of honor. On your next road trip, count the number of 26.2 stickers you see on the cars around you. They’re everywhere. For so many, that number is astronomical – the thought of running 26.2 miles is paralyzing to most, and yet there are tens of thousands of people who not only run that distance, but do so at mind-boggling speeds. The winner of this year’s Boston Marathon completed the race in about 2 hours and 10 minutes, or 26.2 5-minute miles.

Currently, in my possession, are about 10 of those 26.2 stickers. They’re extra swanky, official 117th Boston Marathon 26.2 stickers. None of them are going onto my car just yet.

*****

At Boston there were likely thousands of other people just like me – regular people who were running the marathon to raise money for various causes. We weren’t running it to race, we were running it to finish. Each of us had our own personal goal, whether to finish, to run the entirety, or to meet a certain time, but those goals were entirely self-defined. Of 27,000 runners, maybe a handful had a realistic shot at winning, so personal goals really were all that mattered.

My goal last Monday was to run all 26.2 miles. I didn’t care what pace I went at, I just wanted to run the whole thing. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. For the first 22 miles, I felt great. I was feeling strong, my legs felt fine, and I was cruising (at least by non-elite runner standards). Looking at the photos of me from those 22 miles, the thing that strikes me is that I’m smiling. I thoroughly enjoyed those three and a half hours of running. Coming down Heartbreak Hill (which really isn’t that bad, it’s only 88 feet of elevation gain) however, my body finally betrayed me. I started experiencing pain in my left knee and had to stop running. I kept moving towards the finish line, walking, trying to run for short distances, then walking again, but I had failed to meet my goal.

As I made my way towards the finish, I felt resolved to the fact that this wasn’t what I’d hoped for, but I was going to run the last leg down Boylston Street to the finish line. For me, it wasn’t just a marathon, it was the possibility to put something behind me.  After 5 months of raising money to fund cancer research in memory of Emily, it was time to run 26.2 miles, and in doing so, maybe afford myself the space and ability to move on with my life. It was the opportunity, at least for those 4 hours or so, to put one foot in front of the other some 50,000+ times towards a definite end point. Perhaps physically crossing that line through the blue and yellow gate would bring some closure, even if the style wasn’t exactly what I’d envisioned.

*****

If miles 1-22 were great, then miles 22-25 were excruciating. Not necessarily physically excruciating, but rather emotionally so. I was frustrated, angry, disappointed, and really fed up with all of the drunks on the sideline goading me on to keep running. There’s nothing that I’d rather have been doing at that point, but it just wasn’t going to happen. At that point, any sense of accomplishment (22 miles was the longest run I’d ever done, and it went surprisingly well) was eclipsed by disappointment.

This disappointment was quickly put on the back burner, however, as we made it past 25.2 and the one mile to go sign, only to find our way blocked by a few thousand people milling about in the middle of the marathon course. There’s be no right on Haverford, left on Boylston. We were close enough to the time of the bombings that there was no diversion to the Common or even any kind of official word of what had happened. Passers by spoke of explosions at the finish, and finding friends and family supplanted frustration over not meeting my goals.

*****

Between the 25.3 miles I covered on the marathon course, the 3+ miles I covered walking to Cambridge after stopping on Mass. Ave, and then walking to the car from Kelly’s house in Cambridge that evening, I covered well over the 26.2 miles of a marathon. Despite this, it feels unresolved and unfinished. Not being able to run past 22 miles sucked, but I wonder if I’d feel differently if I’d been able to cross the finish line instead of crossing over the BU bridge.

I’m proud to have run in this year’s Boston Marathon. I’m especially proud of my sister-in-law, Bradley, and my step-brother, Anthony, for joining me for it and helping to raise over 28,000 dollars between us for cancer research. They, and the 4500 runners who did not get to finish the marathon as a result of the bombings, all earned those 26.2 stickers. Though I’m not ready to actually admit it, deep down, I know I did too.

2014?

Obviously, given what happened last Monday, there’s far more important things than the style with which I completed the Marathon. If my knee hadn’t started to bother me, my splits would have put me at the finish within a few minute window of the bombs going off. In this sense, I was lucky. Many others were not so lucky. Below is a link to help support the family members of one of my DFMC teammates who were severely injured in the bombing. Please consider supporting them or others who were not as fortunate as I was to avoid injury. http://www.gofundme.com/CelesteandSydney

*****

I’m not sure what I’ll do with all of those 26.2 stickers. I joked with a friend that I was going to strike out the numbers and write in 25.3 with a sharpie. I may just hold on to them for now until I can meet my goal of running all 26.2 miles. Perhaps then I’ll feel like I’ve earned them and can put them on display. Until then, you can bet your ass I’ll be wearing my official Boston Marathon shirts with pride!

Marathon Monday

It’s been almost a month since I last sat down and wrote. Truth be told, I haven’t really had the time to properly think and reflect lately. Starting back up with work has meant I’m spending my time feverishly trying to stay ahead of classes in terms of lesson plans or otherwise planning lacrosse practices. By the time I’m done with lacrosse each day (usually around 6), I’m not really in the mood to sit and reflect. Instead it’s a constant rhythm of classes, sports, dorm duty, planning, and trying to make time for fun and marathon training.

With the marathon coming up on Monday, I’m getting a lot of wishes of “good luck” and the question of “are you ready?”. I definitely appreciate the support, but the latter question makes me chuckle internally. I suppose it would be normal to be nervous about running one’s first marathon. Most people will never even run a distance nearing half of that length. 26.2 miles seems staggering to most. But I’m not worried about the run, it’s everything else that goes along with it that’s occupying my mind.

*****

I definitely have not properly trained for Monday’s marathon. When the choice was between climbing and running, climbing almost always won out. Nevertheless, it’s not like I spent the winter on the couch, and I managed my 15 and 20 mile runs with no real problem. Running with Cory, Maura, and Caitlin on my 20 mile run a few weeks ago was actually enjoyable, and I was able to walk the next day, so I’ll count that as a win. As long as I can maintain a nice slow pace, I’m pretty sure my body will hold up from Hopkinton to Boston.

What IS on my mind, however, is everything else the weekend (and everything this week leading up to it) entails. Reading through the paperwork about race-day, a phone interview today with a local newspaper reporter, bib# pickup and the expo Saturday, dinner with family on Sunday, getting to Hopkinton on Monday, seeing all the other DFMC runners (and in fact meeting them for the first time) is forcing me to think about things that have been on the back-burner for the past month. I’m not just running 26.2 miles, I’m running it for a cause, and a very personal one at that.

I’m not sure how I’ll feel or how I’ll react to being in Hopkinton Monday morning or finishing the Marathon in Boston that afternoon. Although Bradley, Anthony, and I had hoped to run together, the reality is that we’ll start together but will have to run at our own paces. Once it starts, I won’t be worrying about writing mid-terms, grading papers, slide packages, or who I can use as a sub at midfield. Instead, I’ll have 4+ hours to think, reflect, and take it all in, and I’m looking forward to that opportunity.

*****

For the 12 of you who actually read the blog, you can track my linear, if not psychological you’ll have to keep checking back here at Taking the Sharp End for that) progress on Monday: http://registration.baa.org/2013/cf/RegAthleteAlert/iframe_AthleteAlert.cfm

My bib# is 23214

Sure there’s a run on Monday, but that’s not what this weekend will be about for me. If anyone wants to make a last-minute contribution to help raise money for Dana Farber’s cancer research, click here: http://www.runDFMC.org/2013/patrickc

Overcoming Fear

On our third day in the Canadian Rockies I backed off of the second pitch of Whiteman Falls. Whiteman was undoubtedly the hardest pure ice line I’d ever attempted to climb, but the truth of the matter is that I retreated not because the climbing was hard, but because I was scared.

Even from the base, Whiteman Falls is an intimidating line: a cone of crazy aerated bobbles of ice the consistency of styrofoam (if you’re lucky) leads the way up to a cave on the left below a crazy mushroom that looks like one of the monsters from Calvin’s Imagination as he daydreams of being Spaceman Spiff. From there, an often hollow tube of a pillar leads to further overhangs that guard the exit.

Approaching Whiteman Falls

Al quickly dispatched the first pitch, and I was up. Despite the intimidation I felt below, I was feeling good, but that would quickly change. The “easy” ice heading up from the belay station of course was harder than it looked from below. The good ice leading up to the pillar was actually glazed over ice bobbles that took shitty screws. My first two screws were not confidence inspiring at best, and awful at worst. Just past the second, moving right from the cave toward the base of the pillar, the bulge with my tools in it gave out a funky cracking sound. Moving further, I finally got a good screw, but I was done. I didn’t really know it yet, but I was done. I was in over my head.

From the third screw, I moved up to the pillar itself and managed to find what was, at best, another marginal screw. Digging at the base of the pillar with my tool, I managed to scrape out a good screw placement and clip in direct – 2 decent screws out of the first 5… not good enough for me. Looking up, it doesn’t seem like things are going to improve. The pillar is hollow, the outer layer a lattice of tinsel for the next 30 feet or so. To the right, things don’t look much better.

Al leads pitch one of Whitman Falls.

On this day, fear wins. I know I can climb the ice above, but I don’t know if I can protect it. Fear is clouding my vision. I know the climb has been getting done (later a guy we ran into who had been there the day before called it “a gift”), but I can’t figure out how to make it reasonable. Maybe people are just bolder than I am. Maybe they’re more creative and thoughtful in how they protect the climb. Maybe I just haven’t paid my dues.

*****

The long hike out from Whiteman Falls offers a good opportunity for reflection – headphones in, I trod forward, largely oblivious to the amazing scenery that surrounds me, completely engrossed in the machinations of my mind. I’m breaking down the climb, from how I approached it, to the line I picked, how I protected it, to how I bailed from it. From this hour or so of reflection, I come to the conclusion that I need to become mentally tougher.

I need to approach climbs thinking “how can I climb this?” rather than “can I climb this?”. I need to push myself more by spending more time leading things that maybe aren’t straight-forward. I need to lead hard pitches and then turn around at the belay and repeat that process again and again. My mindset can’t be “that looks hard”, but instead needs to be “I can do that”, even when I’ve just pushed myself on the pitch before. If I want to tackle something like Whiteman Falls, I’m going to have to push myself not when I’m at its base, but every other day.

*****

Now cognizant of what I need to do if my abilities are going to match my ambition, I found myself confronting fear yet again two days later on the Weeping Wall. In the middle of the second pitch, fear once again threatens to overwhelm me.

The Weeping Wall – 600 feet of steep ice leads to the ledge with trees on it. If you’re a true hardman, another 600 feet of even steeper ice waits above.

Just like on Whiteman Falls, I have no one to blame for the setting other than myself: Al and Pat seemed set on a line on the left side, but I was insistent that the steeper right side offered a better line (even if only for my ego). Just like on Whiteman Falls, the steep ice is a lattice of delicate blobs, hooks, and other features that make the moves technical and anything but straight-forward. Unlike Whiteman Falls, clearing off the outer layer yields solid ice and good screws. I move up confidently and consistently. I have to work for solid placements of my tools, but they’re there.

All too often, the transition from calm and confident to terrified is brutal and abrupt. There is no warning, and in an instant everything has changed. What looked doable now looks impossible: sticks that were bomber seem tenuous, features that were solid seem delicate, and ice that was forgiving now stares back at you with contempt, ready to spit you off onto the screw well below your feet.

*****

I feel like I’m running it out a bit, but with a full 70 meter pitch, I can’t afford to really sew it up. I’m making a rising right-hand traverse towards a steep corner, working my way through some extremely featured ice. Even if I wanted to sew it up with gear, I’m not sure I could – there’s only so many places where I can find good screw placements. Fortunately, all of the screws are good.

My left tool is placed and I swing with my right. Instead of the reassuring thwock! of a tool driving into solid ice, I hear a sickening crack! and feel the outer layer of ice containing my left tool shift significantly. “Oh Fuck!” My right tool has dislodged the chunk of ice I swung into – the chunk of ice with my other tool in it. This is similar to what happened to me on the Poko Waterfall a month before, only the ice isn’t just cracked, it’s actually dislodged.

Somehow I am able to move my right tool back down into its previous pick hole, move down a step, and free my left tool without the layer of ice crashing crashing down and potentially sending me for a ride. Without my left tool in it, the small coffee table-sized chunk somehow stays on the wall, though I’m not really sure what’s holding it there. In reality it’s probably just sitting on the features immediately below it. I give it a whack with my tool, yell “ICE!!!!!”, and it goes hurtling down the cliff.

Looking back down at the belay, it’s clear that Al and Pat don’t realize how close I came to whipping. I don’t know how it is that my tools didn’t just rip off the ice when it separated. I have a screw maybe five feet below me, and the ice is steep enough that the fall wouldn’t have been huge, but I’m glad it didn’t happen.

*****

Looking back at my last screw, and then up at the line of ice above, my first thought is “can I bail from here?”. Once again fear is the only thing I feel. It isn’t fun anymore. But I’m still feeling like I need to redeem myself for Whiteman Falls. I take a solid 5 minutes without moving and force myself to think. I force myself to look ahead at the ice and really read it. I force myself to figure out where I can get rests, where I can place screws, and what it will take to keep moving upwards.

What’s the point of moments of self-realization if you’re not going to act upon them? I continue up.

Proof of Life

Good day on the professor falls.

Headed up to rampart creek through friday night and probably will have no service, so for all you worriers out there, this is my proof of life for the next few days!

Weeping Wall

I had a great post written on my phone here but it of course randomly deleted 95% of it when it was mostly done…

So fuck it… I’ll write it when I’m home and have a computer.

Haiku version:

Whiteman redemption
On Weeping Wall almost whip
Mentally stronger

Lots to tell about today, but it will have to wait until I have better technology.

50th day out on ice this winter, 600 foot line, 2 wi5 leads, good partners, and great views.

Day 4 – Louise Falls

Noon on a Saturday and we have Louise Falls to ourselves?!?! That is, if you don’t count several hundred tourists gawking at us.