Time to be Tire-ed...

Now, about that tire. A few months back when Alpine Ascents had its Denali cybercast up and they were running expeditions on the mountain, the third team that flew onto the mountain named itself "Brownie and the Legal Limit" (more about names later). When the team did their carry up from camp 2 to camp 3, the team leaders made this comment on their cybercast:

"Kick (which I believe should have been Rich) says thanks to his wife for making him drag the tire up the mountain. He said it really helped him make it up today." Most people don't know much about the day-to-day process of climbing a big ass mountain, so it may come as a surprise to you to learn that a person must drag a sled laden with about 100 pounds of equipment behind you while wearing a 50 lb. backpack. I don't know about you but I'm not yet ready to do this day in,day out, much less at 16,500 ft. above sea level.

But this gave me the idea to actually drag a tire around the 1.25 mile long path at a nearby park in Edmond where I work. I have been running and walking in this park now for about 2 years and it's a wonderful place to spend your lunchtime. Why not expand my repertoire of noon-hour self-flagellation to include tire dragging? So I decided to give it a try.



First thing was to get a tire. This proved pretty easy. All I had to do was ask around at work. It seems everyone has an unwanted tire they'd happily give you. A coworker brought me a good-sized tire. I then went to my local Lowe's store and bought the riggings, which consisted of 2 eyebolts, some washers and nuts, 3 cheap little carabiners and some rope. To attach this odd contraption to me, I used a retired climbing harness and cut the leggings off of it. I collected all of this together in one spot (my garage), grabbed a power drill and bada bing, bada bang, I'm ready to start dragging a tire.

With 30 days of 100 plus degree weather over the last two months my daily run in the park might have appeared to be more like an exercise in masochism than a practice of physical improvement. My run in the park today was made so much better by the beautiful 71 degree noon time temp. Today I was able to double my average summer mileage, by the simple reduction in temperature. I don't know how simple it is or isn't, but I was loving it none the less.

The worst part of training during the summer months is the heat. I don't get tired so much as hot. And after about 15 minutes of running in 106° heat my head is pounding and I start to see double. My clothes are literally dripping with sweat as am I. My mouth is so dry from breathing that I dare not try to swallow for fear of choking on the tissue as it sticks to itself in the back of my throat. By the time I get back to work from my hour long jaunt outside I'm little more than a specter of the person I was before I left.

I'm often warned about being outside in the brutal Oklahoma summers, by both my wife and coworkers. But the regularity of workouts is without rhythm. For instance, yesterday Katie called me at 11:00am and asked if we could meet for lunch, which I was more than happy to do. But afterwards I wondered if I am putting my ability to climb Denali and my life at risk by not having gone running. After all the number of days I have to train for this climb are finite. And as far as I know there is no prohibition on sushi in the works for Oklahoma. That said it was a good lunch and I always enjoy time with Katie.

So this brings me to the decision I've made. I will do some form of training every day in between now and the time I get on the plane for Alaska. Today I ran at lunch. Tomorrow I will drag my tire around the park (more about this later). And then a trip to the gym. And so on and so forth. Until I am climbing up into the thin air of North America's highest mountain.

Provided everything goes well in between now and then, I will be standing on the summit of North America's highest peak, Mt. McKinley (or Denali as the climbing community rightly calls it), in June of 07. Since the blisteringly hot August of 1993 when I decided to climb all 50 of the states' highest mountains, I've had mixed feelings about Denali. On the one hand: Hell yeah, Denali baby! One of the Seven Summits. Woo-Hoo! On the other hand: I could fucking die!



Well...it's done. I'm going. We put the $1000.00 "NON REFUNDABLE" deposit down and I received my letter of confirmation about a week ago. I'll be climbing with Alpine Ascents out of Seattle. They've been guiding climbs up the world's great mountains for about 20 years and have a load of experience on Denali. But deciding to climb and putting down the money is the easy part.

The first real hurtle is making sure I'm in good enough shape to climb, and already I'm having trouble. A week ago (Fri. Aug. 11) I slammed my knee into a car door in the Target parking lot. It hurt pretty bad. At first but I thought I'd get over it quickly enough. Apparently I hurt it much worse than I thought I did. Here it is a week later and I'm about ready to start training again.

I think I'm going to use this ill conceived blog as an area to record some of my thoughts on mountain climbing, training for mountain climbing and as is the case with blogs in general, thoughts on what ever tickles my fancy that day. I doubt I'll check in consistently but I will do it.