Luggage hostage crisis just ended!

Big sigh of relief - I've never been happier to see two suitcases. Like Joni Mitchell said, "you don't know what you've got til it's gone".

I've picked up my race number, and now everyone's in town and raring to go. Now I'm going to try and wash my dirty clothes before they run off to Norway without me.

Benvenuti a Bari, part "due"

With no luggage in sight, I decided to go walking, to get oriented, and hopefully to find the race site at Stadio della Vittoria. I did both, and ran into this delightful specimen on the sidewalk in one of the seamier parts of town. Delightful.

The good news is that I managed to find the stadium, race director Ingo, the medical team, and a number of old friends - Jan, Tomas & Helmut from Germany, Gerard & Nicole from France, Trond from Sweden and Ria from Holland.

I gave blood and urine samples (I swear I'm "clean"!), and spent a very uncomfortable & claustrophobic hour being MRI'd.

Three days to go. I have one pair of sneakers and the clothes I'm wearing. I ask you - would Lance put up with this?! But at least the man on the Hotel Boston desk has been very helpful trying to track down my luggage - full marks there. Patience, patience.

Benvenuti a Bari

Welcome to Bari, indeed! It would have been much nicer if my luggage had arrived on the same day that I did. It's still worryingly missing - thanks a millions, Alitalia. And doubly infuriating as they charged me nearly $400 in overweight charges.

So after a long wait at the airport to file a missing bag claim, a taxi driver brought me to my hotel. He had absolutely no regard for any street sign, road marking or speed limit. Neither did he seem to believe that sharp cornering at 70mph was in any way challenging the laws of physics. I think I tipped him more as an offering to the gods, than for his maniacal service.

Roses from Kenya

Thought for the day, six days from the start...
I was supermarket shopping today in England with my father, and spotted a huge display of roses. "They're probably from Kenya", he suggested ... and he was quite correct. I was amazed - roses grown in Kenya, then shipped and sold in UK suburbia. Now, I'm sure that Kenya could use the export trade...but...how surreally ungreen is all that? Trucks at both ends, cargo ship in the middle, and all for perishable items which last a week. Maybe not the biggest contributor to global warming, but crazy wasteful nonetheless. And last time I checked, roses do actually grow prettty well in England!

I've had 3 comfortable runs each day since I got here, just to keep everything flexible, and to remind my legs of what's to come. Today Claire joined me along the towpath of our local canal, and we chatted for 6 easy miles. Miraculously at this stage, nothing hurts. I fly to Rome and then on to Bari on Thursday. I'm ready - or at least as ready as I'll ever be!

Austin is one Fit City

And big thanks also to Pam LeBlanc of the Austin American Statesman, a long time supporter of my crazy adventures, who gave me a nice plug on her Fit City blog today. Don't trust her natural modesty - Pam's a strong runner these days, and to prove it we chatted the whole way. We also had a lot of fun shooting some video with Jorge, and I worked on them both to run Lake Tahoe with our Rogue Running group in September. I'm betting even money that they'll be there!

Local TV last night

Thanks to reporter Jim Swift, our local news station KXAN ran this great piece on my race last night.

L'Aquila earthquake

The epicenter of today's tragic earthquake in Italy was only about 30 miles west of our race route on days 5 and 6 (April 23-24). A terrible nightmare situation for everyone in the region. I wonder what damage we'll see along the way? Our campsite plans on the nights of stages 3 thru 8 could be affected, but I'm pleased that we're not staying in sports halls or school gyms on those nights, which could be weakened by today's quake, or even destroyed by aftershocks with us sleeping inside them. Scary stuff, and yet another horrendous unforeseen complication for our poor race director Ingo, as he tries to get us through Italy.

It's April tomorrow!

Gulp! Only 19 days to the start of the race. What was once years, and then months, away is now just around the next very sharp corner. Today was officially my last day at work; my co-workers sent me off in their usual wonderful style. All I have left to do now is running, packing, eating, taking care of my dogs, and attempting to stay healthy.

I know race director Ingo Schultze (behind me in this photo) is having problems arranging accommodations in Italy. He's a great guy, and I hope he can work something out. Camping is our fallback strategy, which is fine with me unless the rain gods decide not to cooperate. At this point it looks like I'll be spending my 54th birthday weary and under canvas. Cool, eh?

Four weeks to go...

For the last two years, time has moved very slowly towards the start of this race. Now it seems to be picking up the pace. I have several big things I need to get done before the start - a family wedding in New Jersey, retiring from my corporate job after 23 years, getting all my equipment together and carefully packing it, running a decent number of final training miles, and then travelling to the UK for a few days to see my family, before flying on to Bari in Italy.

My chief nutritionist Claire has recently switched me to a veggie "Engine 2" diet. I feel surprisingly good - plenty of energy, and a certain "lightness of being". And it's all very tasty. I gave up alcohol last July, and now goodbye to meat and dairy, at least until the race gets underway. What an ascetic life!

Some interesting news with 5 weeks to go

Wow! Race Director Ingo has just announced that the 2009 Trans Europe Footrace will be accompanied by 3 scientists and a mobile MRI machine from the German Research Foundation and the University Hospital of Ulm. They will be scanning participants regularly and doing what sounds like some fascinating research. Scans will include musculosketal system, brain and mind (or whatever's left of it!), heart and cardiovascular system, and body composition. Very cool stuff. I hope it can help me contend with - or at least understand - issues like the shin splints I had to deal with across France.

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An ironic morning...

My commute to work on foot this morning was interrupted by a lady making a right-on-red turn in a large SUV. After hitting me with the hood on her passenger side, she managed to run over both my feet, and then knock me to the ground with her wing mirror. Why was this ironic? Because my first appointment of the day was with my friend Sarah, our Notary Public, who had kindly agreed to notarize my will this morning. Not a moment too soon, it appears. Now my left foot is very sore, along with my grazed right hip - hopefully nothing broken, so close to the start.

3 months to go to Trans Europe

I celebrated having only 90 days to go to the start of the race last week by running 90 comfortable miles. I've run 300 miles in the last 4 weeks - that's good, except the race will require 300 miles EACH week! Oh well - tortoise and hare attitude required.

Apart from fatigue, the only part of me that's hurting at the moment is my right hip, glut and IT band after 12 or 13 miles. But that does mean that my feet, shins, achilles, quads, hamstrings, SI joint, back and abs are all holding up just fine! I'm always thankful for small mercies. My Raynaud's phenomenon is getting significantly worse, and is making my right hand ever more cadaverously cold and white, but my many pairs of gloves and mittens will hopefully deal with that problem.

Each day, I'm more excited about getting going with this adventure. I've booked a hotel room for 2 nights before the race starts at the Hotel Boston in Bari. I will be there just as Claire heads to Boston again for the 2009 Marathon - what cool symmetry.

I've achieved New Balance!

Christmas came early for me this year, thanks to the good folks at New Balance. Six shiny new pairs of 757s arrived at my Hoover's office today; they should hopefully get a grateful me & my aching feet across Europe.

Four months to go, and feeling strong. My plane ticket to the start line in Bari, Italy is purchased, as well as an optimistic return ticket from the airport closest to the finish - Alta, in northernmost Norway - 10 weeks later. Just the small matter of Austria, Germany, Sweden & Finland in between!

Lake Tahoe 72-mile Ultra

This race starts at 12:01 a.m. at the Pope Beach, Nevada finish line of the Marathon, and the 72.2 mile course is the circumference of the lake. Just before midnight, about 20 intrepid souls with headlamps and reflective gear briefly milled around before been sent off towards the “bright lights” of South Lake Tahoe, home to tacky gambling casinos and a few drunken late-night revellers.

My run started smoothly and easily. Each runner was supposed to have a support crew & vehicle, but I wanted Claire to catch up some overdue sleep (she’d just returned from the UK where grandbaby #2 Ben has just been born), so I ran alone, hoping that the liquids I’d cached the previous two days were still there. Thankfully, they all were. I carried a small waistpack containing two PBJ sandwiches, some GUs and plenty of heavy dose anti-inflammatories.

Once clear of South Lake Tahoe, the streetlights ended, and without light pollution the most incredible display of stars and galaxies came into view. From time to time, I turned off my headlamp for 30 seconds, to get the best possible view. Words cannot describe the sight – a most remarkable 5 hours of stargazing. The lights all across the lake were a perfect man-made complement to nature’s phenomena. The temperatures never got below freezing, and there was almost no wind. In all, a perfect night to run through.

Before 5 a.m., I heard my cellphone ring. It was Claire checking in on me. I was pleased to report good progress. I’d reached 20 miles - the top of Spooner Summit at over 7,000ft - by 3:15 a.m., and was closing in on Incline Village at about 30 miles, still feeling strong as the dawn started to send the stars to bed. Suddenly though I started to have what we can delicately describe as “tummy problems”. Each time I needed to deal with one of these little problems – at least 3 of which I can clearly remember - I would emerge from portajohn or woods to see one or two of my competitors who had passed me while I was indisposed, and were now headed off ahead of me into the gloaming. This was a little worrying and dispiriting, but gradually my system returned to normal as I crossed the stateline back into California with about 37 miles to go. Ultrarunning does teach you patience and the need to accept the inevitability of fate. Eventually I pulled back on the folks who’d passed me, and realized that they were by that time in sorrier shape than I.

Between miles 60 and 66 there are some monster hills on this course and the combination of 75 degree temperatures and brutal climbs was taking its toll, but I confess that I did feel super-strong over the last 6 miles. I had managed to qualify for Western States by completing the first 50 miles in under 11 hours (actually 9 hours 35 minutes), and I got a nice piece of mantelpiece decoration for finishing fourth overall in 14 hours 6 minutes. This was my last real test before attempting Trans Europe in Spring of 2009, and I was very pleased that I managed to complete it feeling strong and without the injuries and pain that have been troubling me for the last two years.

Triathlon Long Course World Championships

Claire placed an outstanding 9th in her age group at the ITU World Championships in Almere, Holland on Sunday. Like many other competitors on a very sunny day, she struggled towards the end of the run, but put in great swim and cycle performances, and beat her goal time of 9 hours by 10 MINUTES! Most importantly, she wasn't intimidated by a field of awesome athletes from all over the world. I was a very happy witness & proud "tri sherpa".

Nine months to go

The start of Trans Europe in Bari, Italy is 9 months away, and it finishes 11 months from today in Norway. Midsummer's Day, in fact - so far north, I'm sure it will be daylight for all 24 hours. I can't wait to get to the Arctic Circle and see the Northern Lights. I'm feeling very good these days; all my muscle problems which made 2007 so miserable & painful for me have receded, and training is going very well. 70+ miles this week was no problem, and so I'm getting more confident that I will be able to ramp my mileage and make it to the start...making it to the finish will be an altogether different and harder challenge.

I like this quote just in from the ocean rower Roz Savage, who's right now in the middle of the Pacific Ocean:

In ordinary life on dry land, I get so wrapped up in the general busy-ness and bustle, and it's only when I get out on the ocean, or into the mountains, or otherwise into the wild, that I am reminded that in the overall span of time and space, my little life - although very important to me - is smaller than a grain of sand on a beach.

Back from Nepal

We made it to Everest Base Camp, and climbed Kala Patthar, both in the 18,000ft range. The last hour or two to Base Camp was terrifying - heading up the Khombu Glacier, we had massive avalanches on our right side and rockslides on our left, as we picked our way over snowy, rocky terrain. Tom got hit by a flying rock on the leg, but adrenalin was flowing, and we made it.

Two weeks sleeping in a tent without seeing a vehicle - let alone a wheel - was a unique experience. The scale of the Himalayas is unforgettable yet so hard to describe, let alone photograph. But as ever, it's good to be home.

More photos at:
http://s316.photobucket.com/albums/mm354/rsecker/?albumview=grid

Busy June...

I'm heading to Nepal and Mt Everest base camp with my newly graduated son Tom, before he leaves Austin to become a UNC Tarheel. Other son Rob heads to Anchorage, Alaska by bike with the Texas 4000 program, and Claire does her first Ironman in Coeur d'Alene. A crazy month!

Shoe collection

Lots of people ask me - probably because they can't think of any other topic - "how many pairs of shoes do you get through"? Well, this weekend I dug into my Aladin's Cave of past and present sneakers, and came up with this Emelda Marcos-like array. Yikes.