Travelling By Foot

"Is there anybody out there?" Pink Floyd, The Wall Roger Waters asks but his haunting, echoing voice gets no response. The song's intro is particularly appropriate for Grindstone, one of the few 100 mile races that start at 6pm instead of a more traditional early morning start. "Well, only got an hour of daylight left. Better get started"  "Isn't it unsafe to travel at night?"  It was Saturday night and I was alone in rural Virginia at the top of Elliott Knob , the last major climb of the Grindstone 100. I had been steadily moving forward for 30 hours since the race started 88 miles ago. I had been awake for 42 hours since I woke up in Boston on Friday morning. Like all the climbs of Grindstone, going up Elliott Knob was long, hard, exhilarating, and rewarding. Ascending 1,500 feet in 2.5 miles is no joke, especially at the close of a race that has 22,000 feet of going up and an equal amount of going down. Maybe the race o...

In his nasty, profane Glengarry Glen Ross monologue, Alec Baldwin berates a group of real estate salesmen. “A: Always, B: Be, C; Closing” he demands as he implores them to sell. Casey Neistat expands on this idea, that “you can never let your desire for perfection prevent you from finishing something that is good. To finish something, even imperfectly, is to learn from it and then you can move on and get closer to perfection… It’s the last 4 miles of a marathon that are 80% of the work” “Perfection” is a strange concept in general, and even stranger to apply to a 100 miler. Stay healthy, have fun most of the time, and finish. Is everything else just gravy? I have no idea how Always Be Closing became my mantra during the Massanutten Mountain Trails (MMT) 100. Maybe it was mentioned on a Lewis Howes or Rich Roll podcast? My wife recalls our watching some or all of the movie back when we were getting Netflix DVDs in the mail. The last race I finished was the Charles River M...