"Off the Beaten Path" - Poetry/Trail Running Mini-Camp - Recap - Courtesy of The Sasquatch Navel Gazers

"...Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse." 

  - from Walt Whitman's O Me! O Life!

Question. 
What the heck is this "Off the Beaten Path"?
(AKA, What the heck is this Studio S Poetry/ Trail Running Mini-Camp"?)

Until this fall, I never hosted a trail running camp before. I didn't have interest or energy for coaching trail running. Maybe that's because I perceived it to be too exercisey or too lessony. Too regimented, mostly, for the otherwise luxurious beauty of a typical fall day in Cincinnati. But then I figured that it might be pretty gnarly if I could mix in some ass-kickin' poetry. That might be something worthwhile. Looking back on it, I have to say that it was way more rewarding than I had anticipated. 

I needed this trail running camp to really DO POETRY. Write it, read it, tattoo it, sweat it, or just DO ANYTHING POETIC for two to three hours on four Saturday mornings. I wanted an adventuresome crew to really DO AUTUMN -- exploring our parks, covered in mud, totally sweaty, wandering around, being irreverent, getting inspired, sharing some laughs, maybe some tears. 

If no one signed up, fine -- I'd have fun by myself, in a usual way. But if I had even just one person along for the ride, then it would be phase-shifting. It would be exponentially better because it would add an element of surprise, extra iterations of contribution, and permutations of co-creative recreation. It could no longer be solely, what I alone imagined it to be, but suddenly, we would be a group, grasping for interpersonal meaning and fun. 

I never considered that there could be a learning curve to the "sport" of trail running, but there is. (It's funny to even call it that. I mean, if trail running is a "sport", then that's like saying squirrels are really keen sportsmen and they have overtaken the soccer possums.) Over the years at the Studio, I've gotten to chumming it up with enough folks from the marathon training teams and group fitness classes that it started to sound like a broken record - equal parts excuses and deep longing. "I really want to get into trail running, BUT..."

The common excuses are legitimate and I've mostly overlooked them because I haven't mastered putting myself in other people's shoes. They sound something like this:
- "I don't know where the good parks are."
- "I don't know where the trailheads are."
- "I don't know how far the trails go."
- "I don't feel safe when I'm alone."
- "I don't know what shoes to wear."

Even though I don't have the same valid reservations, I definitely share that deep sense of longing for the beauty, wildness, and pure freedom that comes from the woods. And poetry!

THE FORMAT
It was simple and more-or-less repeated for 4 weeks:
- Pick a local park with unpaved trails -- 4-6 pre-marked miles that could entertain various levels of running experience
- Pick a poem, so steeped in carpe diemness that you can practically smell its adventury B.O.
- Bring some friends
- Share some real food (homemade trail snacks)
- Bushwack
- Loaf around stretching, micro-journaling, chatting, philosophize on life,  and the Revolution
- Do some hip-stabilizers (we all know we need 'em)
- Leave the campsite cleaner than we found it
- Finish in time for brunch or coffee 

 

CONCLUSIONS
The past four "trail poetry slams" indulged me with a palpable sense of the Mystery. To me, it felt like we circled Mystery, as we ran. Never held it. Maybe dipped our toes in. But mostly jumped from shadow to shadow as its gentle rays filtered through the canopy.

Under a humid gazebo at the Cincinnati Nature Center on the third morning, Steve shared a selection from the indomitable Emily Dickinson and proclaimed, "Right now, the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up." Then that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up! Then Crystal practically channeled the ghost of Emily Dickinson and totally hybridized astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson.

After our final bone-chilling session, at a wonderfully sloppy Idlewild Park, Rachel, who is not so easily impressed, had only to say, "It could really only be made better with a hot cup of coffee to finish... and more sweet potato cakes." 

The grand-daddy of all kudos came when Jonathan let it be known that our little Saturday trail running poetry experiment had "just the right level of cultiness. Like in Dead Poets Society, when they're in the cave."

 

What more can we possibly say about this sequence of weekend micro-adventures? Everything could be better said with a poem. Or with a run in the woods with friends -- where so much becomes self-evident. Or as Thoreau might say, where "[We, the Sasquatch Navel Gazers] live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”

 

I will ABSOLUTELY be rallying another group of awesome people for some more marrow-suckin' poetry/trail running/space exploring adventures. Next time, I'm thinking we double up on the interstellar space studies with some good ol fashioned night running with head lamps + bonfire!! I was going to add drum circle to that equation, but I should quit while I'm ahead.

 

Happy trails, amigos!

...Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd
the earth much?

Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?

Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin
of all poems,

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books,

You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

- From Walt Whitman's Song of Myself

Dog + Boston + Pig + SCAR

Kilian is the sweetest and messiest puppy ever.

WOW! - things have dang quiet on this blog for quite some time. Not for lack of life-content, I can assure you. Most of my absence is due to the new doggy lifestyle of the family, which has been a lot of fun and a lot of work. But I thought I would share a couple of quick reports from a the more notable adventures from the last year or so, beginning with the Boston Marathon recap.

Adventure 1 - My First Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon is THE epicenter of the heart of the running running universe. But running in your first Boston Marathon is NOT like being a red blood cell, bouncing around the arteries of the Run-God's circulatory system. More than anything else, it turns you into a military grade sperm cell.

For so many years, the idea of running in the Boston Marathon is just an idea. Formless, disembodied, out there in the future, somewhere over the horizon, but beyond your capabilities and imagination. Only a foggy idea in your head, "One day that would be nice," you say. But then one day comes - the sun hits your face just right out on a routine trail run, and you say, "I feel it now. I want it now. I'm going to GO FOR IT!" The seed of an idea enters a dangerous phase - unstoppable growth.

It's a glorious culmination of years of training when you finally qualify - worth celebrating in the best way you know how - going on a run with thousands of friends in an exciting new town - Beantown!

I actually believed myself when I told my wife that for my first Boston Marathon my goal was simply:
"Just run it like a tourist,
soaking up the experience, 
running leisurely, 
kissing babies, 
snatching peoples' coffees and donuts, 
and just celebrate all the effort and sacrifice that went into manifesting my dream." 

When the day arrived, ominous storm clouds hovered, and I was corralled in Hopkinton with a bunch of sinewy freaks in neon. The happy-go-lucky tourist plan was out the window. Suddenly, it felt more like I had been enlisted in an elite special forces branch of military-grade invasion... ready to storm the beach in Normandy...in hot pursuit of Helen of Troy's resurrected uterus... in a high stakes game of geo-political impregnation by the Platonic form of the Run God himself.

Considering my other goals for the year were to:
a) race race the Flying Pig only two weeks later (May 3), and
b) more importantly, achieve a FKT (fastest known time) at the Smokey Challenge Adventure Run May 30,
on EVERY single level, "kissing babies" and "running leisurely" on Patriots Day (Patriot's Day) was the appropriate way to approach my first Boston Marathon. I was hoping to just catch up with my buddy Franklin, who had just moved away from Cincinnati. That would have been smart. And darn fun, too. The problem is, whenever I run with that guy, things are always more fun than expected and they never go according to plan.

Chris and Franklin in Hopkington. On a full stomach, about to charge toward Boston.

Helen's royal egg beckoned from 26.2 miles away on Boylston Street. We could hear her biological clock ticking, beating to the rhythm of the cosmic drum. The city center pulsates with the energy of the great nuptial dance of creation. Off in the farthest distance of the point-to-point race, I am swept up in the vaginal canal of quaint cities along the way. Picturesque towns like Ashland, Framingham, and Wellseley transform themselves into veritable military bases - walled-in by row after row of crazed lunatics - cheering us onward, to go wayyy faster than we should be.  UNBELIEVABLE!!!! - an ocean of the world's best runners trapped between seawalls of the world's best fans. "Hurry up! Go get her Royal Highnesses's egg before her minions of suitors beat you to it!"

World's best fans. Some Bostonians from Cincinnati

"Franklin, are you sure we should be running 6 min miles?"

I should have brought food. I should have studied the course. I should have contained my excitement. I should not have run the first half on zero calories, racing passenger trains, and schmoozing strangers, while running 6:00 miles. This always bites you in the tush. When Franklin and I reached the halfway point, we were at about 3 hr pace, which is ludicrous speed for doing leisurely tourism.

I was headed into a worst case scenario - going too fast to enjoy Boston AND too fast to do well at the Flying Pig but NOT fast enough to qualify for Boston the following year. Mulligans are trickier in running than golf. A do-over in golf costs only the effort of one measly swing of the club and maybe a beer for your golf partner. But when it comes to a Boston marathon, you can't just start back at the beginning. You have to qualify again and that isn't ever a sure thing.

With the wet and chilly weather, there weren't many babies to kiss or kids' donuts I could snatch. I was running with an empty gas tank. I was at a crossroads - Wellsley women's college. I either needed to contain myself and start kissing babies and stealing donuts...OR, I had to race Boston like a real race and try to qualify for Boston next year...where I could have my mulligan, my do-over. There was a big section of minority students at Wellsley, so I made a point to start snatching some kisses as any tourist would do. This was the beginning of my end. The divided mind - the kiss of DEATH. For what are stolen kisses without stolen donuts? They are negative calories!

From Wellsley onward, I was useless. The temperature dropped. My glycogen gone. I tripped and fell twice over dense clumps of frigid Boston air, slicing my shin and hands. I begged Franklin to go ahead without me so he could at least qualify for Boston. He darted ahead in the last few miles, keeping my company way longer than he should have. Meanwhile, I finished in pain, shame, and shivvers several minutes behind.

When I finally met up with Susie and her Sister, they offered me the warmest congratulations anyone ever got. "Chris - congratulations!! You qualified for Boston again!"
"What are you talking about?!"
"Didn't you realize -you're in a new age bracket next year, so your qualifying time is 5 minutes slower than last year."
"Haha! You've gotta be kidding me! I accidentally qualified as a geezer."

Technically, my acceptance will depend on how many other people reach the qualifying time, but maybe I'l get my mulligan, after all. In any case, I'd LOVE to do it again!