Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 13:45:36 -0600 From: "Rich Limacher" THE UNLIKELY ADVENTURE OF KITSCHME SIOUXME AT THE SUPERIOR TRAIL 100 Part 12 On My Belt I Have My Pouche, So I'm On My Way To Tettegouche "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad." --Opening line of "Scaramouche" A romance novel by Rafael Sabatini So I'm traipsing along without a prayer or a song in the middle of the Haunted Forest, accompanied by nobody, abandoned by Dorothy, outrun by the Woodsman and Scarecrow (Toto never showed up), and I know that damn Lion is out there--somewhere--just beyond the high beam of my headlight, looking at me and licking his chops. But what I DO have...is my pouch. It's hanging down in front of me (my double-holster Western States "Dream Pack" is at my back, my sidearms at my side) and right now I'm fumbling around inside the sucker, looking for a fresh battery. But! Amazing fact of geology! The earth is round after all! The globe is turning! And there, way off to the east, I see some light! We are rotating toward the sun! So I don't have to go fumbling around in my pouch after all. It's times like these that I'm so happy for people like Copernicus. Or maybe it was Galileo, or Euclid. Was Pythagoras involved in this too? Well, I am definitely glad for Columbus--because that dude proved 'em all right! We ARE on a ball and it does spin and it circles around the sun...and here it comes!!! So I zip my mouth shut. And then do the same for my pouch. But my mind is wide open. I have always found, at times like these, that it's quite helpful to keep an open mind. And it's also quite helpful to think, at least occasionally, and to try to remember your Latin lessons. You gotta figure there's a reason for everything, even for learning a language that's been dead approximately 1500 years. You have to be able to come up once in awhile with stuff like "cogito ergo sum" to blow the minds of others. I have always thought (and said so to anyone else who's interested) that, really, your mind is all you've got. And when they say that 90-percent of ultrarunning is all mental, they're not kidding. Man, when you are alone in the woods in the dark--in a race!--if you can't entertain yourself with your own thoughts, hey, you have a real good chance of NOT finishing any one hundred miles. For anyone who's never run that kind of distance, I'd like to clue you in. It is like NOTHING you've ever done before. Get it in your head: there is no finish, there are no other people, you do have to keep moving overnight, you don't get to sleep, and the terrain and conditions really can kill you. And this is no joke. The ONLY thing, in fact, that you have to counter this inhuman situation is your very own head. So, use it. And this entire "Adventure" is being altruistically written to show you how. HAH!!! (Fell for it, dintcha?) I'm feelin' all right. I'm feelin' kinda gouche. I'm on my way to Tettegouche. So, lemme tell ya aboot mah pouche. THE "thing," you see, (or one of the "things," you see) about the Superior Trail 100-Mile Endurance Run is: HOW MANY HOURS YOU RUN IN THE DARK. And we go right back to Copernicus again, or Galileo. [And pay attention to this; there'll be a quiz later.] One of those guys discovered that the sun (mmmm, that blessedly *warm* groovy "hot" orb) actually moves upwards and downwards in relation to the earth's surface in a north-south direction as the seasons change. Uh-huh. In summer, if you're in the north latitudes, that wonderful sun is UP THERE high overhead for a long, long time. In winter, in those same latitudes, that blessed ball falls down the sky, appearing much closer to the horizon, and shows its face for a shorter period of time. Uh-huh. In Minnesota, in September, you're practically at the North Pole anyway, and that damn sun's only UP THERE during bankers' hours. So, if you're running overnight, you're gonna be in the dark for a long, long time. Uh-huh! This simple fact of Euclidean geometry (is that right? probably not) will mean that you must therefore start this race with some kind of light, and then you must also be able to have the use of it later. And this means, in short, that you CAN'T drop it off in a drop bag at Tettegouche (the first aid station). No, you probably should still keep it with you. And THAT simple fact of racing logistics invented centuries ago by Fanny (!) will require you to carry a Fanny Pack. Which brings me back to my pouch. My pouch, that is--which is already full--into which I'm planning to place my light. "Oh my God!" I holler to no one in particular, since there's no one there. "What have I DONE???" I recall these three facts immediately: 1) I have only two drop bags out here, 2) neither one is at Tettegouche, and 3) I have no way to empty out the junk from the fanny pack so I can make room to put the headlight in! Wouldn't ya know it's getting lighter by the minute and my headlight is getting heavier and heavier on top of my Mad (City) hatted head. "Am I gonna hafta WEAR this f***ing sh** all the way to Grand Marais???" And I holler that out, too, to no one in particular. "That's OK, buddy. You can take it off here. I won't mind." It's a female running me down from behind. Wouldn't ya know. And I thought for a minute it was Little, but no. It was just Fast. "Oh, uh, sorry," I stammer as she breezes by. "I'm just talking through my hat." "That's OK," she says. "It's better than blowing it out through your ass." "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I say. Well, no. That's only what I think. And then, while I'm thinking all this, a couple more people overtake me from behind. And THEN, I swear to God, here comes the leaders of the 50-mile race! THEY'VE CAUGHT UP TO ME WITHIN THE FIRST TEN MILES! It's not even fully daylight yet, and these studs are almost one-fifth finished!!! I step aside for each one of them. "Go get 'em, buddy," I say. "You're doin' awesome!" It's kind of like track. When you're running along the inside lane and you hear somebody breathing--hard--behind you, you should really move to a more outside lane. Well, in the deep woods along a single-track trail, there just AIN'T no more outside lanes. And they always tell you at pre-race briefings, "Be courteous to faster runners. Please allow them to pass." Which usually means stepping off the trail into the big weeds while all the studs--and stud muffins--breeze on by. And I suddenly realize, what a long strange trip this is gonna be. I'm about to be overtaken by EVERYBODY running that dumb fifty-mile race! Back to my "pouche." It's packed. There's a PowerBar inside. There's a poncho. There's a band-aid. There's my "winning secret"--a small jar of Advils. Oh yea. I have a pup tent, a paper, a pilaf, a poem, a prawn, and a thing. I've been up and down and over and back, and I know one king. Each time I find myself lying straight to your face, I pick my feet up and get back on my pace...that's strife! (Sorry. For no points, who can tell me where THAT comes from?) But, of course, I'm only partly lying because I really do have a "paper" inside my pouch (as well as some of those other things, like the poncho, which now, suddenly, I figure I can dump in a garbage can at the aid station--because it doesn't look like rain--which will then give me room to store my light). This particular "paper" is my other (identical) bib number. Oh yea! I remembered my pacer! (Did you remember my pacer? This is a story which came to be in the first place because of my pacer. And her name is Hihowarthya. Did you remember that I came to Superior to run with her specifically, but then she became injured, but she still promised to meet me along the way somewhere, so she could pace me a little along with her main hench Heap Chef Hatchetman. Well? Betcha forgot all about THAT now dintcha?) Well, that's why they give you an extra number, and, hey, I even remembered to put safety pins in all four holes, too. (Aintcha prouda me?) [Don't answer that.] Well, guess what. It's dawn. I mean, it's, like, daylight. It's like this nifty mist all over the forest floor and I'm breathing in the cool damp air and, like, feeling totally relieved. The bears and the wolves have NOT had me for breakfast. And I am also somewhat relieved because--I THINK--I won't be seeing any more red glowsticks. The pre-race re-meeting re-managed management had told us all that: "the first eleven miles to Tettegouche are the toughest." Uh-huh. "Hey look!" some girl up ahead shouts. "It's the *SHOE* guy!" Well, son of a new pair of britches. If it ain't the gal herself from the start line who drew my number out of the shoebox. She's standing there clapping at the side of the trail. "Ha!" I say. "Didja bring 'em with?" "Nope!" "WHY NOT?" "I don't know your size!" "Hah! Thanks a lot!" "You're welcome!" "Where the hell am I?" "You're at the aid station!" Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll ll... Could this be true, sports fans? Is our hero Scaramouche with the pouche at Tettegouche? Has our swashbuckler finally arrived at the very first place he can unbuckle his swash? And can he now have room, under his zippers, for that zoom light and Snickers? Or, amid all this derision, will he eat all provision, just to make space to save face? And besides, just what in the name of the Landlord of Oz is this thing called a "Tettegouche" anyway? Some kind of cliff? Some kind of rhyme? Some kind of riff? Stay tuned next time! Uncle Gitche will answer all your questions (and his) when he comes back again, kids, with "The Further Adventures Packman and Bobbin'" (up and down and up and down, dangling from his waistbelt and drivin' his nuts). [Oops!] Tell ya 'bout Tettegouche in Part, yes, 13 already! (Time really throbs when you're havin' fun, eh?) Auntie Friggin' Em TheTroubadour@prodigy.net (Ha! Fooled ya! It's really just me, Kitsch Limacher)