A New Beginning for 2007

Well, fall has arrived and Cimarron the Trail Boss and I have been walking 4 or 5 miles per day at 6 AM. For the past six months our friend Art Harrison has joined us. Art is a Farrier having lost his machinist job when the Westinghouse Nuclear Power generator parts production plant closed a dozen years ago here in Pensacola. Art is an old running buddy and once did my Punxsutawney, PA, Groundhog Fall 50 Run. That was a race Millie and I directed that was in the top ten in numbers of runners for a 50-mile trail runs in the United States. Millie and I were race directors and put on the race for ten years. I completed the 50 miles all ten years. The year Art ran (it was his only 50 mile run) he went out too fast and I caught him sitting in a chair at the 47-mile mark looking exhausted. I took on fluids and food and encouraged him to come with me for the final three miles. Another friend, Joe Gramigna, was several more miles behind. I’ll never forget the sitting Art saying, “No thanks, I’m waiting on my friend Joe!” And so some hour and a half after my finish, Art and Joe came in to complete the course.

Another time Art and I were in Triathlon training and I was out running at midnight doing a 20 miler at our university. I was chugging up a hill with my head down and in my usual overweight condition plowing along facing traffic, as runners should do. Suddenly a bike flies by brushing my shoulder going at least 35 mph down the hill with the traffic as any good biker should do. It was Art and he shouted out, “Gary, is that you?” We could have been killed out training at midnight. He came back and we sat on the curb and relived the harrowing experience. That was in our youth when we were about 35 years old. Now at age 62 we’re still trying to reset the clock of old age.

These morning walks create a lot of BS and dreaming until Cimarron, the 85 year old hiker, finally said, "Hey, it's time to get back out on the roads on the bike. I’ve got the VW van in shape and I need to leave home for a little adventure!" He is still dreaming of completing the Appalachian Trail (all 2170 some miles of it) in one year and thereby becoming the oldest to have done that. He did hike the entire Appalachian Trail over two years when he was 82 and 83 years old. But that isn't good enough for him; he wants the old age record. Currently Earl Shaffer, at age 80 is the oldest one-year hiker. Cimarron wants that record so bad that he had back surgery for a pinched nerve this summer so he could quit having leg pain. The doctor told him he could walk a mile in a week if he was up to it. He said, "I already walk 5 miles per day. So the non-walking doctor said, "Do whatever you think is okay." So on postoperative day 4 he did a mile to church and on day 5 resumed his 5 miles per day. He has recovered, but still has some of the pain in the leg, mainly because the real problem is in his hip, not his back. Oh, well, I’m only a retired doctor and haven’t even stayed in a Holiday Inn in a long time.

Millie and I have volunteered to go on a church mission with the St. Luke United Methodist Church for the week of October 13-20. The mission is to Henderson Settlement (www.hendersonsettlement.com/) in Frakes, KY, in the extreme south east of Kentucky north of Knoxville, TN. On the 20th the Trail Boss will meet me there and Millie will come home with the church group. The TB and I will drive 70 miles north and begin on the Trans-Am Bike trail eastbound at Berea, KY. We will need to do 527 miles to join up where we left off last fall at the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia near I-64.

Cimarron the Trail Boss left Pensacola with the trusty VW EuroVan a week ago and drove to Providence, RI, where he attended his high school class reunion and a reunion of the University of Rhode Island Cross Country Team of 1948. Cimarron was a star on that team, as the second seeded runner behind Bob Black who the TB said could never be beaten. Having already served in WW II, Cimarron was the oldest member of the team as he returned to college from military duty where he was an aviator. Of interest is that on Pearl Harbor day Cimarron was enrolled in college and when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, all 28 members of his fraternity went to the draft board and enlisted immediately. Would kids do that today?

Cimarron and Art are concerned that I should actually ride the bike a little before I go on the 527-mile ride so now Art has a trail name—The Trainer. While Cimarron went off north to his reunions he assigned The Trainer to ride bikes with me each day. So we went out on our 5-mile woods trail called Billy Goat Hill on mountain bikes. It took us the same time on the bike as it takes us to walk it! We’ve done that three times, learning to put the seat lower for better balance. Once the bottom bracket (holds the pedals) caught on a root and the bike stopped suddenly and I went over the handlebars. This was on trail cut through forest. I landed in a nice soft roll on leaves and missed all the trees. The Trainer said it was a beautiful fall especially for a 62 year old.

Then last Friday we went over to Milton, Florida, to the Blackwater Heritage Trail. This is a rails to trails conversion in which the state of Florida spent about $5 Million paving the old railroad right of way. We did 16 miles on the trail and then 9 miles of roads to Bagdad, Florida, a small town in the Florida panhandle. (Bagdad is the hometown of Bubba Watson the longest hitter on the PGA golf tour and a real “good ole’ boy.”) In Bagdad there is a small factory that makes frozen dumplings’ and frozen biscuits. We looked in the window and the manager came out and explained all the procedures to us as I asked every question in the book. Finally The Trainer said, “We’ll never get home until dark if you don’t stop with the questions.”

Now for the last several days we have done a 3.375-mile loop around our neighborhood. On day one we did 3 loops, day two 4 loops and today 4 loops. Tomorrow we will do 4 loops again and then I will play golf. It sounds like enough training to me! While we have been at this extra bike training I have shot 78 and 80 on the golf course so I think the training is helping.