Admit One- My Forest, My Life, My Experience

Hello out there!!!!!!!!!!

I was recently approached by a good friend, Chris Russell and asked if I had ever considered creating a blog. I responded that the thought had never crossed my mind, but I took the bait and asked, “Is is hard?”. His response was, “To set it up or come up with material that people may find informative and interesting?”. I quickly found out that for someone like myself, it was a little tricky because I have no idea what a hyperlink or HTML Text is. It will remain to be seen if I can continuously come up with interesting and informative entries.

Let me start off by saying most of my entries will be brief. My posts will hopefully focus on a single topic and will contain a few supporting statements. I do hope they provoke laughter, thought, and comments. I am sure the bulk of the entries will focus on training, racing, the recovery process and how it all relates to balancing my professional, family and 'recreational’ life.My profile provided a brief summary of who I am, but as time goes on and my entries add up, I am sure most of you will have a clearer picture of what makes me tick. As I listed in my profile, I am an active individual, I am truly grateful to have a wonderfully supportive wife who is tolerates my activities (or she just likes it when I am out of the house).

I live in the Northeast and I am so pumped that Fall is right around the corner. Now Fall may mean different things to different people around the world, but to us active folk from the Northeast who pronounce Harvard, “Hahvid”, it means prime mountain biking and running season. The trails we run and ride on in the Spring are nothing more than mud bogs littered with downed trees and broken branches. The Summer somehow takes care of these trails. The trails mysteriously dry up and logs and branches are somehow moved to the edge of the trails. The trails in the summer are super fast and dialed. Then enter the Fall. The Fall is a season in the Northeast when the forests attempt to take back what is rightfully theirs. In a scene straight out of a low budget Independent Film Channel movie, the forest attempts to scare its visitors with showers of gold, yellow, and red leaves. These leaves cover all that is sweet in the forest, the trails!!!!! My riding buddies ask why I never take the lead when we ride in the Fall, and I respond that I would rather have them find, and fall, on the slippery moss covered roots under the leaves. They don’t find it quite as funny as I do. A 15 mile mountain bike ride on familiar trails in the Summer can turn into a 20 mile ride on the same exact trails in the Fall. One must really scan the forest floor to stay on the trail when it is covered with leaves.

I like to think that I am very aware when I run and ride in the forest, but I would like to share an experience while riding solo on my favorite trail that some of you may find enlightening but I am sure will scare the &%$# out of my wife. Let me start by saying that I rarely leave my house with my Ipod when I run or ride, I would rather listen to the crackling sound of leaves being crushed by rubber than the latest Metallica song.

I left my house early in the morning last October for a quick 10 mile ride. This 10 mile loop is ‘My Loop”, it is one that I have helped cut, clear, and mark, one that I have provided trail maintenance on, and one that I have either run or ridden on hundreds of times. I know where every rock and root is located and where the muddy sections will be after a rainfall. On this day everything started out perfectly. I left my house at 8:00am and I was at the trail head at 8:05am. The sun was still very low in the sky and it provided great light for my ride. I was no more than one mile into my ride when I hit the speed section of the trail. There is a 150 yard flat, hard packed section of trail that begs for speed. I dropped it down a few gears and started to hammer along when that familiar sound caught my attention. It was the sound of crunching leaves under rubber. Impressed with my speed, I decided to look behind me to see if there was a high flying multicolored rooster tail of red, yellow, and gold leaves. I felt like a little kid with a baseball card 'clothes-pinned' to my frame making the coolest flapping sound when rubbed against the spokes. Well, I turned around to see what was happening behind me, and I guess I should have been paying attention to what was in front of me because while I was admiring my rooster tail of leaves, I was soon lying flat on my back after a few cartwheels. While looking back, I drifted off the trail and my crank hit a rock which immediately sent me airborne. After a quick trauma assessment, I figured out I wasn’t hurt and soon realized that I was lying in a comfortable bed of dried leaves. I made no attempt to get up; I just lied there and enjoyed looking up at the forest canopy. There were squirrels doing the branch to branch dance, and there were a few birds trying to figure out what that weird figure with the obnoxious spandex clothing was doing in the leaves looking up at them. I soon noticed that I was in the middle of a leave ‘snow storm’. There were leaves falling all around me. I started playing a game called, “I bet I can guess where this falling leave will setle”. Sir Issac Newton has nothing on this guy. After a few minutes of watching the leaves falling towards the forest floor, I was getting pretty good at predicting where a falling leave would eventually end up. I actually was soon able to figure out which leave would land either close to, or on me.

But all good things must come to an end. A very nice woman walking her dog approached me and found me lying on the ground staring up at the trees with my bike close by on the side of the trail. She ran up to me, informed me she was a nurse, and frantically asked if I was OK. I responded I was. She asked what happened. I informed her I crashed. She asked if I had been there long. I informed her I had been there for about 30 minutes. She asked what I was doing and I responded that I was mountain biking but now I am looking at leaves. She asked if I had blacked out and I responded no, but added that I almost fell asleep a few times. I tried to explain that I was in a beautiful location, I was comfortable, and I was enjoying the view. She explained that speaking as a nurse, it was her professional opinion that my mental status was ‘altered’. I responded with, “Yes, most of my friends would agree with you”. I informed her I was a firefighter and an EMT in the area and I was aware of the signs and symptoms of Altered Mental Status. I went on to tell her that I started out riding and was now perfectly content watching the falling leaves. I invited her to join me, but she respectfully declined. She wanted to call an ambulance, but I somehow talked her out of it while still lying on the ground. I finally convinced her that I was fine and she agreed to continue on her walk without calling 9-1-1, but said she was looping back in 10 minutes and if I was still on the ground she would call 9-1-1. I thanked her for her concern and she was on her way. Why is it that most grown ups seem to take such pleasure in ruining or spoiling some one's good time? Did Darwin ever comment on this phenomenon? After 9 ½ minutes ( I stayed there as long as I could before Nurse Ratched returned), I jumped back on my bike and finished my loop. The rest of the ride was uneventful.

Whenever I ride or run My Loop, I always stop at the spot where I crashed and look up. If it is Summer, I think to myself what it will look like in the Fall. If it Fall, the view never looks quite like it did on the day I hung out and studied that section of forest's canopy. I attempt to explain the location and the significance to others when we run or bike by the location, but most don’t get it.

The forest is a wonderful place, it is full of surprises and undiscovered experiences. I didn’t intend on being a ‘leaf peeper’ that morning, but that is what I became for a short time. As runners and outdoor enthusiasts, do we spend too much time looking down in front of us? Do we see the big picture and really enjoy where we are? I know I do. Sometimes it is fun to look up when you are running or riding and trust your reflexes to carry you safely over unsteady terrain, give it a try. Next time you are out in the forest, look up, you never know what is up there.