It's a Boulder Experience

Here in Boulder, we love our sports, the outdoors, food, our meditation and Christmas is the perfect opportunity to celebrate something of ourselves and Boulder. For many, a short run on the fresh snow from Christmas Eve would be a perfect way to greet the day. Indeed, in many cases that would be my primary choice as well, but as I’m settled into 30 days of yoga, a yoga practice would be the more perfect choice for me on Christmas day.

The Little Yoga Studio in central Boulder seemed to be the only yoga studio in town offering a group practice, so that was where I went. More than thirty of us showed up for this donation based class with funds going towards Western Resource Advocates. This class was to be led by Valerie D’Ambrosio, the founder of the Hanuman Festival here in Boulder, so somewhat of a yoga celebrity in Boulder. As we’re all getting ready, I see someone who looks like Scott Jurek, one of the top ultrarunners in the world, walk in and set up his mat. While I didn’t know many others my name, I seemed to recognize other well known Boulderites as well.

The class itself was amazing with Valerie inviting us to celebrate ourselves and our commitment on this day of offering gifts, either to ourselves or others. In the middle of the class, Valerie put on a couple Christmas classic songs and sent us off dancing. Another great way to celebrate movement and joy together!

I suppose this whole experience would seem odd to many, but

this is Boulder – yoga on Christmas, seeing amazing people, dancing.

Who knows what will happen next!

ps. After class I introduced myself – and sure enough, it was Scott Jurek.

Humbled

At the end of the running in Africa, I had badly strained my right Achilles, and my left one wasn’t too happy either. Since returning more than 6 weeks ago, I hadn’t run until a few short runs last week. It’s felt good to rest my body and listen to the necessary rhythms after having a rather phenomenal year of running and adventure.

Sunday’s are when the Mindful Runners meet. Where we go and how far we run vary depending on the weather and time of year. It’s often a pace where everyone stays together, we enjoy each other’s company, and relish in the experience of where we are. I hadn’t run with this group for more than 2 months, since before leaving for Africa and missed running with them. Today I decided to stretch a little bit, run a little farther to see how my legs were doing, and catch up.

The run for today was a trail running up to the Flagstaff amphitheater from the backside off Boulder Canyon. It’s up all the way there and then a pleasant return downhill. I started off slow letting my body, my legs and Achilles warm up. About halfway up I suddenly that the realization of how slow I was actually moving and how humbling this experience was. Over the summer I’d run this hill several times and felt strong. The experience today was quite different – it was one of knowing the deep reservoirs held inside, but ones that hadn’t been used in weeks. It was one of feeling my experience more deeply, sinking into the feeling of just being out and just running. And it was one of humility. While I certainly would have loved to have run faster, I enjoyed the humility and the slowness to take in the Boulder mountains deeply.

As I start running again, I imagine this feeling of humility will arise again so I run my favorite trails, but with a different idea in mind. For that, I’ll just enjoy the run!

Roof of Africa Run - Stage 4

Stage 4 - The Farms

To Simba Farm

38km / 23mi – 3500 feet vertical, 6:45

This morning as we awoke we could already hear kids coming to school – it was before 7. Soon enough they were all assembled, doing warm up exercises – including head, shoulders, knees, and toes in Swahili and English. And then they were off in groups for a morning run chanting and smiling. Another of the amazing experiences we witnessed this trip.

For us, the first few miles we warmed up on a gravel road continuing around the northern part of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Simon seemed to believe today would be a shorter day and so we took our time for the early part of the day. After those early miles on the gravel road, we began an ascent into and through farm fields. That’s what we would see the rest of the day – farm fields. Today we would run through and along four very large (multi-thousand acre) farms. The warmth we experienced early on seemed to dissipate both as we climbed in elevation and light clouds covered the sky. After yesterday’s heat, I found today’s coolness refreshing and really woke me up.

For the most part of this trip we were pretty isolated from what was happening in the rest of the world. There were no TVs that we passed anywhere, or newspapers of any kind of scan. The Tanzanians had cell phones, but nothing like the smartphones commonly seen in the US. A few of us had phones, but mostly they were used to send short text messages since air time was relatively expensive. Andrew, though, had his phone going almost continuously as he communicated with his camera crews who were preparing for other assignments. It was at one of our water stops today that we received just a few bits of news. We heard two headlines – Armstrong stripped of his titles by the UCI, and Obama pummels Romney in the second presidential debate. On the second bit of news, we were a small cheer thousands of miles away from the action. Both made for a few bits of conversation as we headed down the trail.

After the slow morning, Simon realized this day was going to be a bit longer than he had thought, so we began picking up the pace a little bit and keeping stops shorter. We still had plenty of daylight left – in fact I don’t think any of us were worried. By now we had come to accept that the day could be long or short – all we had to do was keep moving and enjoy ourselves.

One of my favorites trails of the whole run was on this day. After we had peaked at around 7000 feet we began a slow descent along tractor trails along the fields. Soon enough we were on the acreage of Simba Farm. At this point we began what I think was a 15-20 minute descent on the smoothest, windiest, downhill of the whole route. If you like mountain biking this would be awesome. On foot, I felt just as awesome flying downhill, planting my feet in the corner berms, and riding the wave of fun all the way down. It was steep enough to be effortless, but not so steep that using the quads to brake was needed. What a blast!

Today was also the day my body decided to wake up! Having done many multi-day events before, I know it usually takes my body 3 days to warm up. And it was warmed up now. Halfway through this day my body changed gears and suddenly I had new energy and a smoother gait. I just motored along the second half of the day.

After our 23 miles of farm land and rolling terrains we arrived at Simba Farm where we would be treated to beds and hot showers, not to mention the beautiful grounds and amazing views of Mt. Meru across the valley. The dining table was outside under a canopied roof looking over the same green grass, plentiful flowers, and grace of Mt. Meru.

We ended the day with another amazing dinner family style, this time with some other guests at the Farm, including a couple from Vancouver who would be heading to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro the next day. At this point we were halfway done and it seemed we were all feeling pretty good!

Roof of Africa Run - Stage 3

Day 3 – The Easy Day

32km/20mi, 1200 feet of climbing (2400 feet descending), 4:45

This was another day of complete contrast the first two. Today we would run around the northern part of the flanks of Kilimanjaro. In the morning we ran through some pines forests. Pine is not a native tree, but they grow it here and harvest it. It felt completely odd to be running on a bed of pine needles in Africa!

For most of the day we would run on dirt roads. We passed through many Masai villages, we saw many farms and the people working their farms. Today would be the day we would run past and through many small herds of cows or sheep being herded down the road – either to market, or back home, or to another feeding area. Today we would see the most evidence of the water situation here, especially at lower elevation (I think we ended at about 4500 feet). All day we would see people, mostly women, walking to town with their plastic buckets to get water. In the towns we would see the well and all the people there waiting to fill their buckets to head home again.

Today would be the hottest day, and I really felt it, especially with no shade for most of the day. After about three and a half hours of running, we stopped for our snack/lunch break. I could feel the heat and knew I needed to keep moving – so I went on ahead with Sigfrid. After two long days I hadn’t fully recovered yet and so my pace was slow, but I could keep moving. I figured we had anywhere from an hour to two hours left of running before reaching camp, so for me this was a case of mind over matter. I just kept moving – when I stopped I would start to get light-headed. I knew I wasn’t dehydrated or slow to heat stroke, but I was definitely overheating. I’m still amazed as what the human body can go – with or without willpower.

After I finished, I drank a ton of water and kept taking in electrolytes. I pulled out my watch from my bag which showed a temperature of 90 degrees – thank goodness we were finished. As I lay in the tent for the next 3 or 4 hours I tried to keep myself cool and positioned in the breeze that was blowing. By the peak of the afternoon heat my watched showed 99 degrees in the shade. So much for all the wool clothes I had brought!

This night would be spent on the grounds of a school. We had arrived in the early afternoon and we were treated to watching the kids line up after school. They would sing the national anthem and do some exercises before heading home. It was truly an honor to be witness to this experience.

From the school we could see a long ways – towards the northern plains and Mount Meru, and of course an amazing view of Mt. Kilimanjaro. This was one of the best places to see where electrical was and wasn’t. Once it turned dark, there were very, very few lights anywhere within our view.

Despite how rough I felt during the latter part of the run, and how long it took me to recover, I still feel completely amazed to be here. I felt a lot of gratitude for the run, the people, and all the experiences that have brought me here. I realize I’m probably repeating myself already – but this truly is an amazing place and an amazing run.