Training – Our Pod Life

July 14, 2012April 23, 2020

Kilimanjaro Through the Eyes of Our Guest Blogger

Traveling expands our world in uncounted ways. One of those is meeting people who are equally insane and become life-long friends. This post was written by our friend Graciela, who we met when the entire group of travelers convened at Kilimanjaro International Airport in Tanzania. It’s a wonderful description of our shared experience ascending Mt. Kilimanjaro.

In case you haven’t heard, read in the NY Times, seen us on Headline News or on the Today show, Klemens and I successfully conquered Mount Kilimanjaro – that’s 19,343 feet! Yahoo! Here’s a little about our trip.

There were eight in our group –
Bev: Police Officer Extraordinaire and 1/2 Ironwomaner.
Greg: Banker, 100 Mile Bicyclist and Bev’s Beau

I am ADVENTURE MAN! — *Tom: Ironman and Cross Country Cyclist* *(FYI Tom – they now have planes, trains and automobiles for that!)*

Robin: Glamour Girl and Professional Hiker – her mascara lasted the entire trip – go L’Oreal!

Bionic Mickey scanning the terrain for predators — Mickey: Federal Agent, Special Forces, Border Patrol and possibly animal rights violator (LOL)

Jane: Our Colorado librarian and mountain goat

“Sure - I have some pizzas in here. How many do you want? — *Klemens: Here to celebrate his 50th birthday – No Experience*
*Me: Along for the ride – No Experience*

In addition, we had our American guide, Zach, very knowledgable, and our two Kili guides, Killian “the mountain goat” and Robert, the strong, silent type. To carry our eight 15 kilo bags, tents, chairs, food, tables, cooking pots, etc… we had 25 porters. These guys are truly amazing! Earning less than $5.00/day, ill equipped and carrying 70 pounds of equipment on their heads, they would bound past us each day arriving to camp way before we did. These guys are responsible for their own gear which at their salaries is nearly impossible. Hence, one of the reasons you are receiving this e-mail. More on this later.

The excitement began when we landed into Kilimanjaro International airport. Klemens and I thought surely one of the planes’ engines exploded. When we looked out the window for the huge fireball all we saw was blackness. Apparently, KIA has no running lights, or in fact, any other source of electricity to help the pilots know when the earth is approaching. Welcome to Africa!

Thankfully, we all arrived safely to our hotel, the Springlands Hotel. What seemed to us the first night as possibly a one star hotel would prove to be a 5 star luxury resort on our return. Moshi is very dusty; as hard as the staff at the hotel tried, cleaning our rooms each morning, by the afternoon everything was covered in a film of dust, people included. This though, would prove good practice for the days to follow.

The evening before we were to venture out, Zach did equipment checks, med checks, oxygen and pulse checks. 15 kilos was suddenly not that much weight when you consider 5 pounds of home made trail mix, peppermint patties, cough drops, protein bars, 20 hand and toe warmers (just in case), and my snow leopard hot water bottle – this was such a luxury that it really should be included on the mandatory equipment list. Zach and I did not see eye to eye on this.

Day 1
After our 8am breakfast, we all piled into the van, drove 10 minutes, stopped for gas, drop another ten minutes stopped at a souvenir shop, drove again – well, you get the idea. We finally arrive at Machame gate and wait some more. Efficiency is not a term that is known here in Africa. Permits, sign-ins, pee, weigh station, have lunch. Are we ever going to start this adventure?! Pole Pole (pronounced pol-ay) as they say here – slow, slow. This is how we will be hiking up the mountain – pole, pole.
1pm – (I think) Finally, we all anxiously begin our trek.
From here the days blur together. At the start of the hike it is 85′ humid, a rain forest. As we ascend, it gets cooler, the rain forest disappears and we find ourselves in a rocky, desolate landscape. Did I mention it starts to become cold – like freezing cold.

Days 2-4
6 am – wake up. pee, wash up, dress for the day’s hike, pack your day pack, roll up your sleeping bag and air mat, pack your duffel.

7am – breakfast – (best be packed and ready to go). Sterilize gallons of water that you will drink that day, eat, eat and pee.

8am – line up for daily pic taking and start the hike. Switchbacks, ups, downs, arounds. Mostly ups. Robert would lead the way and the pace – pole pole. These are the key words to ensure you arrive at the summit.

Lunch – if it’s a long day we’ll have a box lunch/ short day arrive at camp and have lunch. Our gourmet box lunch would consist of a piece of malnourished, emaciated chicken, a boiled egg – even the yolk was white, cookies, juice and more carbs. Really delish – you are so hungry!

Arrive at camp – pee. The awesome porters would have arrived ahead, set up our tents (including a bathroom tent) and set our bags out. Unpack, roll out mats, roll out sleeping bags, get head lamps out, try and set up for tomorrow.

Tea and a snack. pee and maybe a nap.

Dinner and more peeing. It was a lot of water you have just consumed! Try and stay warm. The nights were very cold making it even that more difficult to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom tent. Often at night, well, most times, it was just too far to walk the 10 feet and the ground next to your tent looked very appealing indeed.

Wake up and do it again. Day four was notable as we hiked over a sheer cliff known as the kissing wall, did rock scrambles and some rock climbing (no ropes). Again, the porters are doing this with our equipment on their heads! Then it was hike up, hike down and then hike back up – why don’t they just install a zip line – much more efficient. Oh well, by this time we’re practically pros.

Day 5 – Summit night

We’ve hiked over 17,000 feet and back down to Barafu camp 15,200 feet. Hike high, sleep low. Tonight we are having dinner at 5pm, going to bed and getting up at 11pm. Sounds fine except the air is thin, the wind is howling and it’s really really cold. Sleep? Don’t think so. At one point during our evening sleep, the food tent collapses causing quite a commotion. Is our tent next? OK – really no sleeping now.

Klemens and Graciela at Barafu Camp. — *Klemens and Graciela at Barafu Camp, before the wind blows everything off the mountainside.*

11:00 pm – wake up. pee. The wind is howling – 60 miles an hour. Maybe they’ll cancel and have us hike in the morning – sounds much more reasonable.

11:30 pm – breakfast. pee.

12:00 midnight (12:15 am – Klem and I are late). Off we go. It’s even colder than before. Our water has frozen, no snack to take as food tent collapsed. It’s dark except for the full moon shining on us. We look up and see headlamps way way off in the distance. very bad sign – means we have to hike up there. Don’t look up! Switchbacks and more switchbacks. Ankle deep in scree! Good thing it’s too dark to see. Cursing Klemens at every step. I suddenly can’t keep my eyes open – they’re closing all by themselves. Zach asks me how much 4 plus 3 is – I think really hard – Man! this is a hard question! Finally, I tell him it’s 7 – very proud of myself! Robert brings a porter,Edward, over to carry my day pack. Makes sure that my mittens are on. Pee – oh no! Please no peeing! On one break I open a gu that Robin the pro hiker gave me. Awesome! So excited. I can’t open it. When I finally open it it falls on the ground. Curse! Don’t know what to do. Cursing Klem some more!

6am (ish) Stella Point – 18,500 feet (5739 meters)
OMG!! We’ve made it – well, almost! Watch the sunrise way above the clouds – stunningly beautiful! Freezing cold and those damn winds are still blowing! I’m happy to call it a day – 18,000 feet is pretty good – I’m done. I can’t breathe. 1 1/2 hours more to go – so don’t want to do this! Where’s the spa?!!

Uhuru Peak – 19, 343 feet
We did it!! Hallelujah!! I can’t believe it!! 10 minutes and 5 pics later we are running back down to Stella Point. Arrive Stella Point 30 minutes later – weren’t we just here? Now I really can’t breathe – getting scared. Where’s the oxygen tank??!! Finally, Killian and I start back down – skiing down the sandy scree filled slope – Haraka! Haraka! Fast! Fast! Still can’t breathe.

3 1/2 Hours Later
Our team finally arrives back at Barafu camp where we left the night before. It feels like a dream Did we just do that? We have lunch and a much needed nap before hiking down another four hours to Millenium camp. One more night on the mountain. We all dream of hot showers and beds. Springlands Hotel sounds magical! Congrats everyone!

September 9, 2011April 23, 2020

Sister Act

It’s been over a week since we conquered Mt. Whitney, the highest summit in the Lower 48 United States and there’s a whole lot of stuff to write about. We did something that very few accomplish, climbing the entire Mt. Whitney Trail, 22 miles round trip, from 8,200’ to 14,497’ in one day. Many people ascend Whitney in two or more days, camping along the trail. Few attempt to do it in one day and for good reasons. The change in altitude is dramatic, the trail is rocky and difficult, and climbing the entire trail in one day requires starting in the middle of the night and, for many hikers, finishing in the dark. On the other hand, you don’t have to carry camping gear and sleep on the ground.

There are many stories, so this will be the first of a few that will likely follow as some of the memories crystalize.

My sister, Sheryl, has never been considered an athlete. Growing up, she was more likely to be called a book worm and probably dreaded Physical Education classes. For you readers under 30 years old, this is a historical reference to a time when schools required you to do things like push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks. What are those? Oh, never mind. It involved more than shifting your numb butt in the chair and moving your thumbs. Anyways, until less than a year ago, Sheryl was a self-proclaimed couch potato and while she admired the feats of others, I doubt she ever pictured herself doing them. The other five members of our mini-expedition had completed marathons, double century bike rides (200 miles in one day), rock climbing, full and half Ironmans, and hundreds of other races. Sheryl might have last run a mile in 1978. Our mother was pretty certain that Sheryl would die on the mountain. I was betting against death but wasn’t quite sure if she was tough enough.

People have a long list of reasons for pushing their bodies to new extremes. Proving a point, exorcising demons, seeking a thrill, postponing death, and sharing the experience with a loved one are just a few. I don’t know what Sheryl’s reasons were for tackling such a huge goal, but I suspect that they included a little bit of all of these. Whatever it was that drove her, she would need a lot of it to prepare for this adventure. We knew that she had a PLAAAAN but with two weeks of business travel every month, it was hard for her to fit in all of the training. She hiked and squeezed in workouts wherever she could. We got to hike all around the San Francisco Bay while Sheryl was grinding away on a crappy hotel treadmill in Wichita.

Our group of six embarked on Mt. Whitney Trail at 2:15am and were together for the first five hours before the terrain and pace split us into several groups. Bev and I regrouped with Tom on the summit and we were descending when we came across Sheryl, Laura, and Steve on their way up, about 30 minutes from the top. My brain was processing information slower than normal in the higher altitude, so I didn’t even recognize Sheryl leading them across a snowfield. Seeing my sister hiking through snow at 14,000′ with trekking poles and a backpack was simply bizarre. I might as well have sighted Santa’s workshop on the North Pole. Yet here she was, looking great, showing no signs of altitude sickness, and leading the others (who didn’t look nearly so perky) to the summit. I was proud and thoroughly confused. I’ll remember that moment for a long time. I’ll also remember her afterwards at the hotel, looking like she’d just taken a short stroll while most of us were still trying to remember where we left our legs.

In the end, everyone summited. Six went up and six came down. Nobody died. And my sister? No altitude sickness. No blisters. No issues. She’s damn tough enough.

August 23, 2011April 23, 2017

What Would You Run For?

We didn’t have enough to do in our lives, sitting around on the couch and eating bonbons, so we decided to sign up for a half-marathon and train to run it “fast”. Because we both do a much better job of sticking to our workout regiments when we have an event to train for, this seemed like a reasonable plan. The first step was to decide which race to sign up for. We chose the California Wine Country Half-Marathon because it has the word WINE in it. And one of the major sponsors is Kendall-Jackson, which beats the hell out of any race sponsored by Gatorade (gag) or Crystal Geyser. Also, this:

“A post race wine and beer tent will be set up at the finish line. Several Sonoma County Wineries and local Breweries will be pouring samples for the athletes. A race logo wine glass will be included with your entry fee.”

YES, I WILL RUN FOR WINE. The non-runners are thinking “You’re an idiot. You could drive to the wineries and get samples without running 13.1 miles.” Yes, but I wouldn’t get the fake crystal race logo wine glass and the ambience of a giant tent with ripe sweaty runners. And I’d miss the wine tasting banter: “This Chardonnay is buttery with hints of male perspiration and a leading anti-chafe balm”. MMMMM.

But everybody isn’t as motivated by the words “wine and beer tent” as I am. That’s what makes the world go ‘round. One man’s Cabernet Sauvignon is another man’s Budweiser in a can. Or something like that. If there were a “chocolate cake tent” at the finish, Bev would crush her personal best time and injure a few runners along the way. Pity the poor people who get between Bev and chocolate cake. Actually, the perfect pairing would be a chocolate cake and dessert wine tent. I shall suggest this to the sponsors!

We also thought this would be a perfect race to run FAST, thinking that it would be a flat course. In fact, when we signed up, we were excited about the blistering pace that we would set. Then we found the elevation profile. CRAP.

That does not look like “flat”.

THIS would be a flat course.

But then we’d have to run in San Antonio, Texas. And I’m pretty sure that there won’t be a wine and beer tent with local wineries and breweries pouring samples at the finish. But they might have BBQ. YES, I WILL RUN FOR TEXAS BBQ.

Once we decided on a not-really-flat-but-has-a-wine and beer tent-half-marathon, we hired our coach. She’s a woman who gets results by knowing how to push her clients to the point of near death. She gives us our training runs in two-week increments, then discusses the results before cooking up a new batch of customized torture. The arrival of her bi-weekly emails are greeted with ~~joyful sounds~~ loud curses and a whole lot of “she’s got to be F-ing kidding”. Then we figure out how to fit in all of her workouts, even if it means running in the middle of the night, because we’re afraid of our coach and don’t want to tell her that we chose sleep over a training run. She scares us.

Now, I know what all of you non-runners are thinking. Unless you’re being chased by an angry mob trying to force you to listen to Celine Dion songs, there’s no logical reason to run. Survival of the species no longer depends on man’s ability to run. So why bother running at all?

I suppose that’s a personal question with many possible answers. Some run to win races, others do it just for the “runner’s high”. I’ve run some races for special causes and late in every single marathon, when I want to lay down on the curb and go to sleep, I run for my Mom because she can’t. And sometimes I’ll just run for wine. Or BBQ.

What would you run for?

July 31, 2011April 23, 2017

We Keep Ending Up in High Places

Another weekend, more high places. It was just a week ago we were hanging by ropes on the side of a very tall building in San Francisco and now we were hiking up Mt. Tallec, overlooking Lake Tahoe. This was our first attempt at high altitude hiking, even though the summit would “only” be 9,875′ above sea level. Our first experiment at hiking in thinner air was successful, although it was humbling when we realized that the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro is exactly twice as high. Wow.

Because of the record snowfall this winter, a portion of the trail was impassable and we found ourselves scrambling up and down treacherous scree and large jagged rocks. Other stretches of the trail required hiking through the snow. Note that we were hiking on JULY 30th.

The hike was only 9 miles round trip but it was moderately strenuous and took us 6.5 hours, including time for photographs along the way and eating lunch at the top. It was a long day with 7 hours of driving and nearly that much in hiking, but it was worth the effort. We couldn’t have asked for a better day and the photographs tell the story better than anything we could describe here.

Check out our photo gallery.

And our pal Tom took this video on the summit!

July 14, 2011April 23, 2017

This Is How the Crazy Talk Starts

I’ve decided that crazy people don’t know that they’re crazy. They believe that their behavior is perfectly normal. If a crazy person walks in circles talking to nobody in particular and all of his friends do the same thing, he could only conclude that his behavior is perfectly acceptable. To some extent, certain behaviors can be socialized across a group, introducing ideas that were previously considered ridiculous or unattainable. The same thing occurs with endurance athletes and adventure junkies. Somebody says ” I’m thinking of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro” and before you can engage the part of the brain that controls rational thought, your mouth forms the words “me too”.

Your friends do events with titles like Death Ride and you start to wonder… maybe. This should not be considered normal behavior in any population, yet we accept it, embrace it, and even turn it into a badge of honor. The insane in a constant struggle to out-crazy themselves. The latest example of this came after volunteering at the Western States Endurance Run, a 100 mile trail run in the California Sierra Nevada mountains. This is a race, where runners have 30 hours to run the course, which includes 18,000 feet of ascent and 22,000 feet of descent. The runners use pacers who accompany them for 20-30 miles at a time to provide safety and motivation. The course is pitch black at night, lit only by each runner’s headlamp. The trails are very narrow and the runners’ instructions warns of trail hazards including bears, mountain lions, and rattlesnakes. Runners are told to watch where they place their feet and hands. If you complete the race within the time limit, you get a big belt buckle. Silver for finishing under 24 hours, bronze for sub-30 hours. Unless you’re very fast, you will be running for two sunrises. Before the big day, night, and another day of running, you train for months, running 50 mile qualifying trail runs. You enter a lottery and hope that 1 in 10 odds work in your favor. If you hit the race entry lottery, you pay a large registration fee. Then you train more. You convince friends to pace you for a marathon distance in the dark woods with bears, cougars, and rattlesnakes. Once you’ve found enough ~~stupid~~ loyal friends to serve as pacers, you train more. You pay a bazillion dollars to a chiropractor and a massage therapist to keep you injury-free. All for a belt buckle with huge bragging rights.

Our primary reasons for volunteering were to give back to our running community and to check out the race. We’d heard about it for so long and I had even met someone who’d completed it a few years ago. We were intrigued by it. Upon arriving in late afternoon, we pitched in to help with assembling the aid station, located at the Auburn Hills Trail area, 85 miles from the start line.

All runners began at 5:00am and the first male runner arrived at our station at 6:07pm. He had been on the trail for just over 13 hours and looked better than I do after a five mile run. I should also mention that his name is Kilian Jornet and that he broke the record for running up and down Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,540′) in Africa last year. He did it in 7 hours and 14 minutes. It will take us eight days. Check out Kilian Jornet’s Kilimanjaro Run on YouTube. Those who knew the story of Kilian Jornet were a little star-struck when the Spaniard came running into our aid station. He was completely relaxed and very engaging with all of the volunteers. At that point, he held a four minute lead over the second place runner, the exact gap between them at the finish line 15 miles later.

The majority of runners arrived in the middle of the night after they’d already been running for 20+ hours. We witnessed runners in various states of physical distress but we were prepared for all of them, even though it meant staying up all night.

A normal person would have taken all of this in and wondered why in the world anybody would ever voluntarily put their body through such an ordeal. I can tell you why. Crazy people hang out with crazy people and none of them know that they’re crazy. They all think that paying a race organizer for the privilege of inflicting pain on your body is a perfectly normal thing to do. Proof? The conversation on the drive home went like this. “I would love to do that”. “Me too”. This is how the crazy talk starts.