People and Travels

Here's a few interesting people photos I've taken along the way. The top photo was taken while riding a taxi van in Trinidad.... The photo below that was taken while on a 3 1/2 day ferry ride through the Patagonian Channels of Chile.... Below that is the party atmosphere of the opening of Carnival on the Caribbean Island of Dominica.... The kid with bike was taken while I roamed the streets of Katmandu years ago..... I studied photography for two years in High School and went on to study a bit of film while in college. I have since resorted to the instamatic type digital cameras but looking at the B&W I shot in Katmandu leaves me thinking a good old fashioned 35 mm SLR is still the best way to go. Light reacts much differently with film compared to digital....

A Brief History - Running - Yesterday and Today

Pepsi Challenge 10km
Houston 1980









My social life in Houston revolves around a running club and many of my running friends visit this blog but I rarely write about running.... Anyway, after Helping out with the Houston Marathon, a week ago, I began to reflect on my years as a runner. The ups and downs along with the ins and outs so here's a general history of my running.

For whatever reason, as long as I remember, I've enjoyed running and have been inspired to do so. I don't know if it came from admiring my fathers running medals as a kid or if I was influenced by the publicity that popularized running after Frank Shorter won Gold at the '72 Olympic marathon ?...... Perhaps my grandmother was right when she said it was the splash of native American I inherited on my mothers side. Indians had been known to be good runners. I was never interested in short distances. I was more fascinated with the mental challenges faced by the endurance athlete. I was not your regular 10 year old and that's when I got serious..

In the 1970's AAU age group track was quite popular and for a kid interested in running there were opportunities to compete. There were a number of teams throughout Texas and Louisiana with regular well organized meets that drew sizable crowds. Since I grew up on the west side of Houston my parents signed me up for the Alief Track Club. I took to it instantly and was happy to be amidst other 10 & 11 years old kids that liked to train in the heat and humidity of a hot Houston summer. We were all happy to do so and I never remember anyone having a problem with it....We trained !.. Long slow distance, quarters etc..

I was serious about my running and at the age of ten I was running 5:50 for the mile. By the age of eleven I was running 2:29 for the half mile. I also ran 10ks and 5 milers on occasion. I don't remember doing any 5ks back then. Most road races were 10k..... I ran with the Alief track club until I was 12 or so. I then shifted my attention towards Jr High Track.

After watching Frank Shorter win silver in '76 I wanted to be an Olympian but as is the case with lots of young runners aging doesn't always work to ones favor. At the age of 11 I was a national caliber runner but by 8th grade I entered the tumultuous world of inconsistency. One week I'd race the mile at 5:04 and the next week I'd run a 5:34. I had become kind of a head case and lacked the guidance of a good coach. I became very disappointed and burned out on racing. My freshman year of high school I didn't join the team but I ran regularly. I had become addicted to how it good it made me feel and ran for the pure enjoyment of doing so.

During my sophomore year I rejoined the track team and quickly developed a stress fracture in my right knee. I was forced to take 6 weeks off and missed a lot of early season training. When I got back into it the coach recommended I race the 2 mile. Before taking my freshman year off I had been inconsistent but I was still considered a pretty good runner. The 2 mile would be my come back.

It was small meet after school so there really wasn't much pressure but I wanted to do well. When the gun went off I got a reasonably good start but things were not the same. I gutted it out, dug deep and ran hard. I put everything I had into it. Coming down the straightaway I was neck and neck with the leader as we stared down the finish line. People were lined along the track and yelling like crazy. I could see the finish tape. Harder I ran. Stride for stride, I broke the tape with my competitor. He had won but I still had another lap to go..... It was the most disappointing and embarrassing track race I have ever run. I improved little over the rest of the season and was denoted to Junior Varsity. I would not qualify for Varsity again until my senior year.

High school was not a good time for my running. I was a mediocre mid packer at best. My workouts would show promise but my races tended to be one disappointment after another. The most fun I had in High School was during Junior year cross country. There was a lot of team spirit and we all had fun training, racing, and hanging out together outside of running. A couple of the guys that year were really good. Sometimes I could hang with them in the workouts and afterwards they would shake their head and wonder why I wasn't racing a lot better... Truth be told high school was not a good time for me for a number of reasons. I ran with and a without the team more for my mental health more than anything else. Racing just didn't seem to be the reason. I should have been a much better athlete at the time but I lacked the guidance of a good coach and my mind seemed to be in a different place competitively.

By time I arrived at college I was completely out of the competitive thing. I still ran regularly but did not compete. During my college years interests turned more towards outdoor pursuits such as hiking, rock climbing and mountaineering. I had left Houston immediately after high school and lived in Colorado before moving to Washington for college. Right after graduating college I traveled overseas for 4 months and moved to Boulder, Colorado upon my return to the states.

It was in Boulder that I got interested in racing again. Boulder is internationally known as a place for world class runners to train and an easy place to find inspiration to run. There are loads of paved and dirt roads as well as miles and miles of mountain trails great for running. All of it amidst the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. Since I needed to work I got a job selling shoes at a running store. I quickly met other runners and became kind of obsessed with the sport. At 24 years old I was all fired up and decided to train for a race that always impressed me. The Pikes Peak Ascent. It was March and I had until August to prepare.

Boulder was great. At the time it wasn't uncommon to see running legends like Rosa Mota, Rob DeCastella, Frank Shorter, Steve Jones, etc out for their workouts. I remember a day at the track when a friend and I were doing mile repeats at 5:20 and feeling pretty good about. After our first repeat former 10k world record holder, Arturo Barrios, showed up and started doing repeats at 4:40. To top it off he was doing twice as many with half the recovery compared to what we were doing. Not to mention this all took place at high altitude. Whenever he ran upon us, we moved out of the way. The great ones always make it look so easy....

When summer rolled around I moved to Aspen where I obtained a job as a Seasonal Wilderness Ranger for the US Forest Service. The Job entailed living in the backcountry 4 to 5 days a week and hiking all day patrolling trails, doing trail maintenance etc. I also made time to run. It was a perfect situation to train for Pikes Peak. The summer proved to be awesome and I had an enormous amount of energy. I loved what I was doing. I usually camped up around treeline at 11,500 feet. From there I'd run up to passes at 13,000+ feet. On my days off I'd hike and run 14,000 foot peaks and didn't consider a climb a climb unless I gained at least 3,000 in uphill elevation. My activity level was a bit extreme but I was really into it. Needless to say I got in REALLY good shape...

When I lined for the Pikes Peak Ascent I was confident, fully trained and totally acclimated. The summit of Pikes Peak is over 14,000 ft. The race starts in the town of Manitou Springs and ends over 13 miles later after gaining 7,800 feet in elevation. Except for a short bit of road in Manitou its all on dirt and rock trail. Most runners compete in the Ascent which means once you finish you get a ride down the dirt road that climbs up a different part of the mountain. For those who feel compelled to run all the way back to Manitou there's a round trip race the next day. The ascent is basically a half marathon and the round trip is billed as a marathon...The day I raced was a perfect day for it. Beautiful weather and all. Everything went pretty much as I anticipated and I reached the finish in 2 hours 43 minutes. It was a time good enough for 21st overall. I was very pleased and inspired to do more with my running...

For the next four years I split my time between working for the Forest Service in the summer and living in Boulder in winter. I then moved to California for awhile before returning to Colorado and eventually Texas. Through the years I've maintained a consistent racing and training program that has earned me the following Pr's along the way. 5K – 16:10, 10K – 32:56, ½ Marathon 1:14, and Marathon 2:45.. At this point I'm fairly certain these will be my lifetime bests....

Running continues to be a regular activity in my life but racing has not been a part of the picture for the past couple of years. Racing is a funny thing. In my 33 plus years of running it has been both greatly important and greatly unimportant. For me the I find the most satisfaction in simply being able to run. To put on my shoes and move. To feel the blood flow and lungs breathe. To feel the stresses of life fade into a clear perspective of healthy body and healthy mind. The benefits and rewards are too many to express but well understood by others who have embraced running as part of who they are. The freedom of movement is a great gift and one I don't take for granted... Therefore I run and greatly value the gift..... Regardless of the amount or intensity, goals or no goals, racer or not, I'll always be a runner.....

My Beer Can Collection - 1979

When I was 14 years old I had the coolest room and was quite the entrepreneur when it came to Beer Can Collecting. I joined Beer Can Collectors of America when I was 10 and traded cans through the mail with collectors all over the world. I got my dad kind of interested so every year we would go to the national "Canvention". Hundreds of collectors would gather from all over the states and trade cans. I collected heavily until about the age of 20 or so and amassed a collection of over 4,000 different varieties. As you can see in the photo I filled my room with shelves to display as many as I could.... I still look for older cans so if you come across any feel free to drop me a note... The photo above was taken in 1979....

Daydreaming At The Crossroads - Snowy Tropics

Time slips through the wind like water through a fall. Day folds into the night and the future reveals itself with the rising of a giant fireball in the sky 93 million miles away. The beginning ends with a new beginning. What was new is old and what was old is older. Memory fades and a week passes...Then a pause... Some say, Where is "The World Traveler and Thinker" ? Thus thou have not heard nor seen written word as of late. Has he disappeared into the ether of unlimited potential or is he wallowing in the perplexion of quandary?....

I'm attempting to add a little creative wax to my lyrical enterprises. It's all part of a loose plan that's slowly taking form.... After an unplanned two week hiatus from Blog Posts I'm returning stronger, wiser, and more ambiguously inspired than ever ! Yes ! I have focus !

I returned to Houston on January 9 with a strange headache that started on the the 7. It finally faded away around the 13. That was followed by a rash of busyness pertaining to resource management and general rig a ma roll which caused a two week departure from this blog..... As far as the headache goes I'd like to think that my brain was undergoing a natural healthy balancing adjustment of left and right hemispheres. You see, right brain is creative and left brain is analytical. I tend to have a problem with the left side snubbing out the right. Fortunately the right fights back but I tend to find myself stuck in the middle. The middle is like being at a crossroads. It's not a bad place per se but I tend to spend a little too much time checking out the signs, weighing my options, daydreaming etc. etc.... Sometimes I'll make a relatively quick decision and start heading down a path while other times I'll hang out for days, weeks, months, or even years. Figuratively speaking of course.... I don't think the Colorado altitude combined with cold temps and vigorous cross country skiing up trails with names like Terminator had anything to do with the headache... What ???

My Colorado winter holiday lasted a little over two weeks. The snow was fabulous. I got in 6 days of good quality cross country skiing on my light weight racing skis and one day of skiing the lifts with my Telemark skis. I spent a week in Aspen and had a lot of fun running into a number of people I haven't seen in quite awhile. My time is Denver was spent mostly with family..... I made the drive back to Houston from Denver in 16 hours....

Overall, Colorado was a great excursion but after 2 weeks of cold snowy weather I was ready to get back to the mild winter climate of Houston. It's funny. For so many years I enjoyed living in cold and snow but for now I've had enough of it. I currently prefer having the opportunity to run in 70 degree weather during the month of January. I quite fancy a more tropical like climate these days....I recently had a thought. Wouldn't it be nice to buy a sailboat I could live aboard ? Well, I think I'll be at the crossroads awhile with that idea.....

Skiis, Showshoes, and Bombs

When I last posted I mentioned that there was a bomb threat in Aspen. I assumed the threats were probably bogus but they actually turned out to be real. Most of the business district of Aspen was evacuated and blocked off. It started sometime during the afternoon and was not resolved until around 3am after several real bombs were located. The suspect was found after he committed suicide sometime around 1:30 am. Needless to say, New Years Fireworks were canceled along with most other celebrations. Since I’m staying 10 miles outside of Aspen in Snowmass Village I was unaffected but it was a big deal. No one was hurt but many businesses took a large loss on what is usually one of the best nights for bars and restaurants…The perpetrator was a long time local who was apparently disgruntled over town politics or something. I'm not too sure of the details... Rumors fly.... Crazy things happen...

I drove into Aspen around 7am New Years morning to snowshoe up Aspen mountain. I met an old friend by the name of Mark along with others. Talk was all about the Bomb incident but things were already getting back to normal. The walk up the mountain was nice. It’s a fairly steep grind all the way to top with an elevation gain of 3,000+ feet. It was a clear morning so the views were awesome as usual. I spent some time at the top before taking the Gondola down. Uphilling as a sport is a bit of an oddity but it's quite popular between the communities of Aspen and Vail. There are a number of races throughout the winter with the biggest one taking place in March. It’s called Americas Uphill and is held on the same route I snowshoed up on New Years day. The race attracts over 400 participants and is very competitive. The vast majority uphill on Snowshoes while others use various varieties of cross country skis with climbing skins. Skins allow the ski to slid up with out slipping back.

After uphilling in the morning I pulled out the skate skis for the afternoon and zipped around the cross country trails of Aspen Valley. While doing so I ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen for years. His name is Tom and he’s married to a woman by the name of Diane. Diane is one of the first people I met when I moved to the Aspen area in 1984. Tom is now the principal for Aspen Middle School. Tom and Diane have two sons. One in 7th grade and the other in 10th grade. They live in a house in Aspen that has a great view and backs up to cross country ski trails. There’s also a lift right below them that accesses Aspen Highlands ski area. Wow ! What a spot ! Of course they all ski. The sons are most enthusiastic about ski jumping and Tom and Diane think it's pretty cool…..What a life !…. Anyway, Tom and I got to talking and he invited me to join him along with family and friends for a Turkey dinner. Naturally I took him up on the offer and it turned out to be a very nice evening. It was really great to catch up and to see how fast their sons have grown. The years pass by so fast……


Today I spent my time cross country skiing around an area known as Ashcroft. It’s about 10 miles outside of Aspen at the end of Castle Creek valley. It’s one of my favorite places in Colorado. In the 1880’s Ashcroft was a silver mining town. At its peak it boasted a population of 3,500 with 20 saloons and 6 hotels. Very little of the town remains but there are a few abandoned buildings that are preserved in arrested decay by the local historical society. It’s a very beautiful place that offers good skiing in winter and great hiking in the summer. Today I experienced spring like conditions with temps in the upper 30’s combined with a good deal of sun..….