Note from the Editor:
It was time for my first mountain-ridge marathon. What? There are such things? Yes.
I remember how difficult and dangerous it was for me to be undertaking the Marine Corps Infantry training, having come from the flat and sea-level lands of Texas; it had nearly killed me several times. Now? I was volunteering to do even harder training, ascending mountains to their summits, and casually jogging between them.
Look up The Bridger Ridge Run. It requires runners to drive dozens of miles into the wilderness, up to a remote and little-known mountain lake, hike up many switchbacks along a narrow trail, and THEN start the race. The route takes you along a ridge connecting five mountaintops, if you can believe that, and it is complete with inclement weather, amazing flight-like views, and even a few mountain goats or rams.
There are professionals who train on this run more than any other. One team is called The Wind Drinkers. Hundreds of people annually fly from all over the world to participate, too. It is a VERY big event.
I was a nobody coming from a doughnut shop at the last minute, having not even heard about it soon enough to register, and having zero training on the course at all. I was woefully unprepared, but, like I always do, I went anyway; opportunities like that don’t come often, especially for someone as busy and recovering from bullshit attacks as me.
Without a number, I could do whatever I pleased; the person at the end, keeping everyone from falling out, could basically ignore me, which allowed me to take all the pictures I love to. I think I got a hundred or more by the time I made it to the halfway point. I managed to jog and keep up with some of the packs of runners in between.
Fatigue doesn’t even begin to cover how I felt at the end, but I can tell you it was worth it, and I felt like a million bucks for weeks and months thereafter, having gotten to go up there and try. Having had no intentions of placing, I felt fine about having been near-dead-last. I got what I came/went for; the experience, the views, the networking, the photos, and the sensations in my legs and feet like I hadn’t felt and enjoyed since the grueling marches and hikes in the Marine Corps.
I will do more mountaintop marathons… but I think most of them will be up onto, around, and over the top of… that special central mountain in Inisfree.
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Vocab of the Day:
- Sayoc Kali: a martial arts style based on using short blades or sticks to strike the highest number of the most vulnerable and critical body-parts in the least amount of time, such as severing all arteries in a rapid sequence designed to make the targeted individual expose each upcoming strike area and then collapse (featured in the film The Hunted) (*Note: All Inisfreeans learn this martial art during their regular schooling at L.H.S..)
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2013-2014 articles are here.
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Haunebu Prototypes: successful hover and anti-gravity devices from the 1930s
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Poking Fun at Fake News:
In our (the American/human/global) system, where you can actually pay someone to legally lie about and for you, and sue, fine, and otherwise punish people for telling the truth, even if it’s just due to a technicality in a contract, which could be falsified itself, do you really think ANY news, claims, or people are not fake?
Look up posts about the court cases this year –or from ANY year– and you’ll soon see; it’s all fake.
Maybe EVERY case is fake; maybe there never were any real courts, judges, cops, or rights at all, only posers.
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