AT14 Day 33: The Captain
6/16 Monday
Wolf Rocks->Gren Andersen
1280->1221
No case of the Mondays here. Excited for an early morning town, new shoes and camel back. Half awake, I floated over those man-eating rocks they have here in PA. Haha. Okay, its a simple paychological explanation. I am not going to deny that there are rocks in PA. But there are rocks everywhere. I remember some rooty/rock descent out of NC that was worse than anything in PA. It is like my buddy Rusty said when I asked him about PA, "people got to have something to complain about". Bingo. PA is long, flat, boring, uninspiring and lacks views. But please don't take it out on the rocks. I love the rocks! Running on rocks is like getting a foot massage all day..Awesome. I had to run all day in PA, I like mountains and I cannot stand slowing down to eat when it is flat. I guess I am just complaining now. Boo hoo. So I got top of the last hump before dropping to town. Mt MiniSi. Made me think of Jurek and Mt Si training for Western States. We will get back to him later. Gorgeous view with some sprawled fog. Takes my breath away. Descent over in no time. Not to brag, but I am a pretty fine descender when I bring my A game. I get to the Village Farmer. Sounded good. It was a bakery. Last resupply candy shop, this one a bakery. I half debated getting a pie. Also, I was in a foul mood for the TWO outfitter stores in town were only open 10-5. Honestly, this has always irked me. It was before 9 and I don 't have the patience or luxury to sit around for an hour. Both stores. 10-5. Not even an 8 hour day. Lazy bums. Anyhow, the only juice the bakery has comes in 2oz cans. After 3 V8s I gave up. And for food. Chocolate covered nuts and candy. Gosh my diet has been hell for a few days. Okay off and running. Cross the Delaware river. PA behind me and welcome NJ. I ate my loaf of cranberry walnut bread up the climb. By far the best food I have had in 3 days now. I started down that path... The one you shouldn't ever go. Negative Nancies path. Well it was getting out of hand after about 20 minutes. Instead of slapping myself around, there were people close by. I decided to stop, lay down and just slow everything down. Amazing how this trick works. I laid on my back with my feet up and updated my blog. I saw I had a text and comment from my dad. He went out hiking again. I just broke out in tears. This is awesome. My dad has worked his ass off his whole life. Out here we get trail names. Well my dad has a life name. Captain. Captain Insano really. But he is a Captain. That means he commands a vessel. And my dad is out there. So you know its not a boat. It is like spacecraft or something crazy. I don't think he is insane. If fact the opposite. He is a genius. Sometimes he might come off as crazy, but he is doing what he has to, to get what he wants. He taught my brother and I to work our asses off and make something of ourselves. He has truly made me who I am today and I am forever thankful. I filled up on water and a young gentleman showed up to also rest and enjoy the spot along sunset pond. I enjoyed talking with him but felt the need to get going. Fortunately, I drank a lot of water and had to use the facilities. He caught up to me and we walked and talked for about a mile. He energized me and lifted my spirits. I felt bad, but now I wanted to run and run fast. I said good day and good luck. Brian if you read this, I would call you "little enlightened one". If you wanted a name. Well here I am off flying. I felt like I had just pulled a Jurek. In 2005 I believe. Don't quote me. It has been a long time since I read "Eat and run". Jurek was laying on the ground at Badwater mile. 70. Feeling like he was about to die. Then pulled himself up and finished in record time. I didn't get a record time, but I got to Branchville fast. I walked into the Gypsy Tavern. An absolute beautiful spot on some lake. The world cup was on, USA V Ghana. I couldn't have planned this better. So 6 cokes, 8 glasses of water, cheeseburger, sweet potato fries, pepperoni pizza and a lot of question answering later. USA won and I was out the door. I walked the 3 miles to the shelter and couldn't have felt happier or prouder of my day. Sure I wanted the 5 more miles to the next shelter, but screw it. World cup baby.
Oh and it started pouring 30 minuts after I got to the shelter. So cheers to avoiding that one.
USA. USA. USA. USA. USA.
Oh yea we are in NJ. Shot out to the boss.
"Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we're young
`Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run "
I was born to run
Just found out about you. You are killing it.
ReplyDeleteYour pace is putting you two days behind Meltzer's supported thru...
Would love if you gave some info on your background. Maybe I missed it in another post.