Surprise!

Wow, I didn't know this blog was still alive! I'm going to update it again. I'm on a recovery journey from alcoholism, a learning journey about my ADHD superpowers, and a fitness journey of a 1 month challenge to exercise 30 minutes a day. Join me!

Quad Rock 50 and Never Summer 100K

Recent lessons learned (the hard way):

Don't overdo the stair workout. I jumped stairs for 25 minutes 3 days ago -- My abs still hurt!

Do sign up for Spring and Summer races to get pumped for training (Quad Rock 50 in May and Never Summer 100K in July).

Hike up Flattop, Hallett, Otis, and Taylor

I hiked this weekend with a meetup group in Rocky Mountain N.P. I can't remember when I realized it was an incredible hike, whether it was while hiking into the clouds or sliding down a glacier on my butt or jumping into a frigid glacial lake. The meetup members were great hiking partners. We stuck together as a group, and made decisions together. Our decision process went like this:
Hike one more peak?
Yes!
It's getting late. Hike one more peak?
Hell yeah!
The highlight of climbing up Flattop, Hallett, Otis, and Taylor Mountain was actually getting down. Not to escape Altitude sickness, but because the fastest way down was sliding down Andrews Glacier on my butt. The sign atop the glacier says to use extreme caution when traveling down because of deep crevasses. The glacier went from steep to steeper, and peaked in the middle with boulders and crevasses lining the slick sides. What I thought was ice at the bottom was actually slush, thankfully. I used a garbage bag to slide on. My butt is still sore from all the bumps. At the bottom was a beautiful tarn that ached to be swam in. There's nothing so invigorating as all your body heat being sucked into a pristine body of water. The taste of the water reminded me of sucking on ice cubes, yet with more grit.
On the 5 mile hike back, just when we thought the adventure was over, we missed the last park shuttle back to our car. We were stranded 4 road miles from the car. Luckily, a nice couple from Kentucky stopped for us and gave us a ride in their rental car - the trip leader, Adam, and I crammed into the hatchback trunk.

Someday soon, I'll hike my first 14'er. Not this hike.

Also, I'm running the Blue Sky Trail Marathon on Sunday, Oct. 4. Basically, I'm trying to jump start my running routine again after an exhausting start in my first year teaching Fourth Grade.

Hike totals:

15 mile trip.
4 Peaks.
Flattop Mountain: 12,361'
Hallett Peak: 12,713'
Otis Peak: 12,486'
Taylor Peak: 13,158'

Winter Break

Hi World,

As I journey through the forest, across the icy gurgling streams, I notice there's so many more rocks than usual to trip over. So much crusty ground. Each freeze and thaw pushes rocks up through the earth, and the ground bursts anew. The cycles of life don't stop over the winter, but they sure do slow down. Have you ever thought of the slow yet powerful changes in the rocks, the plants, the trees -- they will outlast most human lives. Maybe they carry more wisdom about the art of slow living and strength. Have you asked yourself, "What impact on the world will I have in my life? Is there something I can do every day that, over my entire life, will accumulate into a legacy?"

Worries come to mind on my rare runs these days. Will I be a proficient teacher some day? Will I be satisfied to teach indoors all the time? Do I always have to agree with my boss? Will I ever be able to find and afford love during grad school? I quicken my pace, trying to outrun my worries.

Today we celebrated Valentine's Day in third grade. A student, fresh from emigrating from Egypt, gave me a note. "You're the best student teacher in this school." The note and then the hug, that's the love that will inspire my next teaching moments.

No races in the future yet. I'm still recovering from runner's knee.

Happy trails,
Steve

Injury and Recovery

Hi world,

My routines for the past year and a half have adhered to my graduate school's academic calendar. In rare times, I get released from this schedule and get to align with the changes of the day. The sunrise, high noon, and sunset. In these times, I get to experience what nature feels like, hot and cold, wet and dry, windy and calm, and always fresh. These escapes, you might have guessed, are my camping experiences. But they are also my extended running experiences and my hikes. I like to be in the spaces that we don't control as humans, spaces allowed to grow and be wild.
Last week, my parents and I flew to Arizona to tour around. We rented an RV in Phoenix and visited Sedona and the Superstition Mountains. I didn't know the cacti were as huge as trees!

Injury: I've been dealing with knee pain since last Spring. I've gone to a doctor, 2 physical therapists, and a chiropractor. I've gotten and done X-rays, pain meds, adjustments, strengthening exercises, yoga, expensive orthotics, and more. I've gone through a transformation from looking for the panacea to realizing I need to change my lifestyle. Gone are the 12 years where I usually went for a run without stretching. Now, my daily routines are yoga for my hips and hamstrings, strengthening exercises, and wearing orthotics all day. It's about maintaining good posture, and listening to your body.
Another big change I've made is going vegetarian. I've met other runners that are vegetarian, vegan, or keto (and eating humanely raised meat jerky) and it's changed my ideas about what I want to put in my body and what effect that has on the environment. I totally recommend everyone to see the documentary, Food Inc., and read the popular book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. They will open up your world to the inhuman ways our country treats animals and the environment on factory farms, feedlots, and in industrial agriculture. I rarely eat meat now, and sometimes eat fish. And I stay away from gluten. It clogs my system. Like I said, listen to your body. I eat a lot of rice and beans, veggies, and other grains and pulses. I'm hungrier when I can't figure out what to eat, but I know I have a lesser carbon footprint, and more compassion for animals' lives. I'll eat an animal if I know it was raised humanely. Hell, I love the taste of meat and eggs and cheese, yet I avoid the cheap stuff and can't afford the humanely raised products. I'm more like a compassionate omnivore now.

Super Summer Stills.

So I've had an amazing past few weeks and wanted to share some golden moments with everyone. Here's the recap:

Pennsylvania: I spent one week at Journey's End Farm Camp as a family camp counselor. This is my 6th year consecutively working there! It feels like a lovely second home these days. I go back this weekend for Folk Song Weekend.

Maine: My dad and I sea kayaked out of Portland, Maine and camped out on islands on a three day trip at sea!

New Jersey: I celebrated my golden birthday (turning 27 on Aug. 27) by attempting a 27-mile trail run, eating a meal with family, and going out with a hot date!

Vermont: My beloved friends Ryan and Kara got hitched, and they invited me to celebrate with them.

I'll start with pictures, since descriptions would take FOREVER from all these trips. Sadly, I don't have pictures to share from camp or in Vermont yet.

Maine Islands Trip! Includes a view from WWII Tower on Jewell Island. A picture of a Jewell Island campground, with my dad sleeping in the foreground - paddling is exhausting!




Birthday trail run. Lenape Trail, from South Mountain to Montclair. My new friend Tim joined me for part of the run and helped me rally to finish. Pictures are from South Mountain.


Fairy house in South Mountain. Rare species :)

Vermont 100: The Start

The race started at 4 AM on a cold rainy summer morning in a hayfield in central Vermont. I had never been with so many 100 miler racers before, and all 300 of us made quite a buzz for so early in the morning. The race organization couldn’t be beat. For the start, they had coffee and bagels under the main football field - sized tent, but I was full from my banana, peanut butter, and granola bar hastily scarped up in the car. In the crowd, people wore headlamps, water bottles, backpacks, tights, t-shirts, running shoes, compression socks and sleeves, and more. The field included elite athletes that were attempting the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning — running four of the oldest 100 mile races, all in one summer. The first race of the summer, Western States Endurance Run, was only 3 weeks prior to today, and runners I passed said they still felt the fatigue from it. One older thin man near me wore a yellow shirt with signatures all over. I asked who signed his shirt. He said all the elementary school girls from the Girls on the Run program he coached, as well as family and friends. What a great idea, I thought, to wear a shirt signed by so many loved ones and young runners. I put that in my hat of tricks for when I became a running coach and educator some day soon. What I didn’t know then was, the man’s name was Rolly, short for Roland, and he would be my running partner for the first 30 miles.

There wasn’t a starting gun that was fired, on account of it being 4 AM on a Saturday in rural Vermont. We had heard from the race director, Amy Rusiecki, many times to be kind, respectful, and unobtrusive with the private landowners whose land we would run through on the course. Drive slow, park only where directed, and, most importantly she said, don’t poop on their lawns. The fact that this needed to be asked of us was proof that, yes, people had pooped on lawns, in gardens, driveways, you name it. I also later learned in the race from returning racers that they had shot off July 4th- intensity fireworks at 4:30 AM a few years back, and that really pissed off the landowners.
After we counted down from 10 to 0, we all sleepily started jogging down a gravel and dirt road. I felt like we were falling over from sleep rather than bounding towards the finish line. When I looked behind me, I saw a sea of dancing white lights and heard countless footsteps and gear rustling. A truly unique sight in all my 27 years. I was so giddy to finally be at the pinnacle of my training, a 100 mile race. I was so grateful and happy that I was healthy, depression-free, and had direction in life. I was living the dream! I wanted to qualify for the Western States 100 through completing this race, though, so I had to ensure I finished. Slow and steady, I repeated. Slow and steady.

To be continued…

Vermont 100: Mental Strategies

Hi all,
So my experience at the Vermont 100 last Saturday was so deep, spiritual, emotional, and memorable, it's hard to decide where to begin and where to end. Here's my first attempt:

When people hear I ran 100 miles last weekend in one day, they ask how I could do something like that. To start with, I've been running for 13 years now and this was my 4th 100 mile run. I've also trained all year for this race. So I was well-prepared. Included in my mental preparation was visualization and mantras. For a few nights before the race, I visualized the course as vividly as I could, and imagined in great detail completing my run perfectly with all the challenges and strategies that might come up. The mantras helped me on race day to stay focused and spiritually and emotionally grounded the whole day.

My mantras for the race were many, but simple. I have a tendency to start a race too fast, so one mantra that kept me well-paced was: The race starts at mile 50. I know, it's a strange statement to light and non-runners. My next mantra helped me during the second half of the race: Open up your stride. After running a few marathons, my legs and back tightened up so much that I had to constantly remind myself to take longer strides as opposed to the stiff shuffle my body wanted to do. And the course was all hills, so I had plenty of down hills to take advantage of and run faster. Now, in my first 100 mile race, I mentioned I used the mantra "right here, right now" to stay present and not worry about the impending pain and miles. In this second 100 mile race, I used that mantra but I also broke down the race into tens. I just worried about the 60s, or the 70s, and so on. That helped a lot to break up the race into achievable intermediate goals. I had on my person a list of Marshall Ulrich's Ten Commandments of Endurance. He taught these lessons to the Navy Seals before their Hell Week training and he wrote them into his book, Running on Empty. The ones that stuck with me were, "Suffering is okay", "Expect a journey and a battle", and "Don't dwell on the negative." Lastly, when I bonked during the 70s miles, I used a lesson from mindfulness that, "This too shall pass," --and it did.

To be continued!

Vermont 100 Race Review Intro

Hi everyone, Exciting news!

I ran in the Vermont 100 mile endurance run last Saturday and I survived. Better than that actually, I thrived. I thought I would finish in 24 hours, but I surprised myself by finishing strong in 19:50! My parents were crewing for me and they were so thrown off by my predicted pace that they missed me at two early aid stations. I am going to write a proper story of my journey soon, but for now, I'll show you some pictures.

Margaritaville Aid Station, Mile 58.5

My dad crewing for me while I think, "Do I really want to stop for sunscreen on an overcast day?"

That's me at the finish line. I finished right before midnight. I'm being handed a 6 foot long sub. Just kidding, it's a towel.

Who could ask for better parents?

Summer, sickness, and Sun in the Fun!

Here's me with family at a nice hotel in Long Branch, NJ. Note: We agreed to take a photo at the beginning of the trip, while we still liked each other :)


Hey friends,
So yes, I've forgotten about this blog again. Nobody told me summer grad classes would be so darn intense! I just finished an Early Literacy and Language class, am about to finish an Adolescent Development class, and have yet to take a Science and Tech class. Holy Moly! In between my classwork, I've found some time for running. Beyond my usual Mills Park run in Montclair, I've ran at the Delaware Water Gap and the Jersey shore. The Gap was brand new to me and it was STEEP! Also included were many hairy caterpillars, the thrills of tripping while running downhill, and frigid gushing streams.

My Vermont 100 race is in 10 days! I'm very excited for this challenge, even with a respiratory virus I'm battling at the moment. Yes, I believe that's my cue to stop procrastinating, write my finals essays, and rest up before the big day.


Happy trails,
Steve

Mayapple 100K race report part 1

If you name something, can you still deny it ever happened? I attempted the Mayapple 100K last Saturday. After 12.5 hours of stomach pain, chafing, and endless hills, I did something I've never done in a race -- I quit. I did lie to myself enough to complete 51 miles of the course so I feel accomplished about that, at least. Still, I have this gnawing melancholy feeling inside me now. Runners call it the postrace blues. I keep wondering about Saturday, if I could have willed myself to press on and finish the last 10 miles.

After the race, my stomach felt so terrible, like times before when I suffered from food poisoning. 30 minutes later, I was vomiting on the side of the road. my dad had been driving me home and I felt that rush of saliva fill the corners of my mouth and told him to stop. Then I was finally expelling whatever had been tying knots in my stomach the whole day. Maybe that fat-laden buffalo chicken dinner I ate the night before was a little too much? It was filled with bars of cream cheese, two types of cheese, bacon, and mayonnaise. Bleh, that was a mistake alright.

Summer graduate classes have begun, so I'll finish up my report soon. It's filled with self-deception and unstoppable racers from around the globe. Goodnight y'all.

3 lessons learned from a long run

My long run today was great. I ran the Lenape Trail from South Mountain to Brookdale Park. 22 miles I estimate. It was hot, it was sweat-in-the-eyes, it was hardcore. I ran the same route in March through mud, snow, and ice. That was treacherous. That run took me 5:30. This run, with great surface conditions but hotter weather, took me 4:50. I learned three things from this run.
1. Do not chug 2 cans of pure coconut water on a long run. Little coconut devils will twist your intestines into knots.
2. When you get sick of drinking coconut water after 2 hours of running and finally come to a water fountain, do not chug water like it's the fountain of youth. This will have the same effect as lesson one.
3. Always say yes to free ice cream.

Spring Runs

So my training run today got ambitious. After my friend bailed out on a run this morning, I did something I've wanted to do for months. I ran a good chunk of the Lenape Trail in Essex County. I had been waiting for the snow to melt entirely, but I couldn't wait any longer. I ran through snow, into deep mud, slipping over ice, splashing through creeks, and climbing over mountains. For five and a half hours. It was a blast!

One funny part was when I passed by Verona's main street. I remembered my friend said there was a bakery there with the best donuts that I had to try. So I found the bakery (conveniently on the Lenape Trail), and went in for a donut. After waiting in line for a while, I asked the employee for a donut and a personal pizza pie. I showed the lady my credit card for payment and she said, "$5 limit for credit cards." This was confusing, and I said, "You mean minimum?" and she agreed that was the right word. So, grumbling, I ordered an oatmeal raisin cookie. She rang it up on the cash register. "$4.25. You need to buy something else." What a pain! I felt like I was in a Seinfeld episode. So I got a chocolate chip cookie. While the lady rang it up, the guy behind me said, "Watch, it'll be 4.99" and laughed.
$5.45 was my total. Finally!

Trail conditions: The trails were either flooded, still partially covered in ice, or muddy and hollow (I never knew when I would fall in suddenly). The worst conditions were in South Mountain Reservation.

Next, I'm excited to run the whole length of the Lenape Trail, from Millburn to Newark.

Trail Closure: After leaving South Mountain, the trail stops in some private community. You have to take a left, two rights, and follow the road out to Rt. 10. From there, I descended down and took a left on Mt. Pleasant Ave. where the trail rejoins the road again, originating from the direction of a power line trail. The trail website says PSE&G is still replacing their transmission towers since starting in 2012.

Happy trails everyone!
~Steve

Let it snow!

Discovery! I found an ultra running group on Meetup called New York Trail and Ultra-Running that's great fun! So far, I've joined them at Bear Mountain and Harriman State Park for runs along the North Face Bear Mtn. 50K course that I'll do this May. Here's a taste of what we've been up against in the woods with the snow and ice and freezing water:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y3lyCHzyDY

Happy trails!

Wintertime

Here's a few highlights from my winter and new year:

I earned straight A's my first semester at Montclair State. I've never done that in school.

I just started to learn to play the guitar. When I was a kid, I played the saxophone, clarinet, and drums. I've forgotten all that by now. In college, I loved watching others play their instruments at Open Mic's. I've written song lyrics over the years and soon I'll be able to play the songs too.

I've wanted to make beer for years. Today my dad and I started a batch of Whiskey Barrel Stout!

What are my New Year's Resolutions? 1) Maintain better mental health. 2) Become a better teacher. 3) Bring more peace into my relationships.

I wish everyone a great New Year, full of love, peace, and laughter!

Play!

A few days ago, there was a rainy, dark, and bitter cold evening. Now I had been trying to run every day, for my health and for my spirits. I was in the middle of final projects for grad school, and my strained muscles itched for movement. All this aside, I knew on this evening, if I went for a run, I was going to get wet, and I was going to get cold.

They say the hardest part of a training run is getting out the door.

I did get out the door. And if you know me, you know I don't plan much. In fact, I even decide where to run sometimes, while I'm running. I took a page out of my high school cross country team's playbook and went for a "scrambled eggs" run --an improvised run without a destination. I wound up at Brookdale Park in Montclair. I preferred the muddy paths to the concrete paths, and soon I was darting around the many trees in the park, blazing my own trail. This evolved into a game. Mimicking the orbital paths of planets shown in the TV show Cosmos I love right now, I slingshot myself around the "gravity" of the trees, dodging left and right and left again. It was so fun because I was running in the moment, and I rarely ran in the same direction for long. Of course, getting whipped by tree branches I couldn't see in the dark or sliding on muddy tree roots wasn't ideal. But it was exciting. What's my game called? Well, I know what I won't call it. I won't name it after one of the boring research papers I've read for my literature review project. No, this game will not be called, "Small-scale Kinesthetic Modeling of Planetary Orbits As a Coordination Building Exercise and Dopamine-inducing Event"
Maybe it can be called, simply, "Orbits!" It reminded me how necessary PLAY is in my life. Adding variety, and curiosity, and the space for discovery to all parts of my life is to invoke my inner child's playfulness, to enjoy life more.

Happy Trails everyone,
Steve

Quit Facebook

Hi again!

I forgot to share something. The reason I have the time now to post on my blog and CREATE (as opposed to just consume) online content, is very simple. A few days ago, I made the choice to quit Facebook. Here's the explanation. It was my last post on Facebook:

"Dear Friends,
I think I'm going to leave Facebook soon. Facebook can be a good tool for communicating with far-flung friends. And sharing pictures and memes and online article links. But it's got nothing on real face to face meetings. And posting protest images on your profile page isn't as effective as staging real protests and writing real letters to politicians and leaders. It feeds our desire for instant gratification. I can waste so much time on Facebook without realizing it. Lastly, I just don't need some group of strangers to organize my friendships.

I want to create a REAL sense of community. I think texting, social media, TV, and fast food can alienate people from each other, their surroundings, and their impact on other beings on this Earth. I think we would be so much healthier if we all lived in caring communities.

I want to stay in touch with all you friends out there, so here's how:

you can email me at humphreyss1@montclair.edu. And if you don't have my cell number, you can message or email me for it. Or visit my blog at spiritinmovement.blogspot.com. And let me know your blog, email, and phone if you don't think I have it yet.

I hope to see you in the real world!"

It's only been a week since I quit Facebook, but I feel slightly different. I've been calling friends and emailing them more frequently, and that's more satisfying and intimate to me. On Facebook, I was just perusing mass-publishings of social content that wasn't meant for me alone. Replacing the wasted time on FB is a focus on my self-growth. And I don't mean growing out my hair : ) I'm creating goals and priorities for myself, which is timely, since I'm in Finals Week for Grad School now. Of course, as you know, the most exciting goal for me right now is running the Western States 100 miler in 2016. It's strange...I've never been this excited about something so far in the future.

Keep dreaming y'all,
Steve

Grad School

So here's a sample of what I've been studying in Grad School. The assignment was to create an artistic representation of a social justice issue.

It's a comic explaining school funding inequities in the USA. Excuse the mirror image, I took a picture of it with my computer. The story starts in the middle. The man represents a U.S. state, and he's handing out equal amounts of funds to two types of schools. The school on the right resides in a low poverty (richer) neighborhood while the school on the left has high poverty. With more property tax funds, the richer school can still fund Physical Ed. classes, has ample computer access, and highly educated and experienced teachers. The poorer school, on the other hand, has inadequate temporary buildings, overcrowded class sizes, and poor student achievement. Federal education funds are being dropped from fighter jets and helicopters. The US government spends 19 times as much on the defense budget as it does on Education. Feeling the sting of injustice, the poorer school's student is asking, "How is this fair?"

Do you like it? I'm proud of this poster. My professor liked it so much, she hung it in her office.

I'm back!

Hey everyone, it's been a long time since I last posted. I know. I've been busy with Grad School! I'm getting a masters in teaching elementary school at Montclair State University in Montclair, NJ. It's a great program. I had no idea that it would click so well with my interests. The social justice and multicultural education is right up my alley. I will post some assignments to give you a window into my studies.

So - I have a big goal I want to share with you: I want to run the Western States Endurance Run in the summer of 2016. If you know anything about the race, you'll know that it's one of the toughest footraces in the world. You run 100 miles over the Sierra Nevadas in California. You run from snow-covered mountain-tops down through brutally hot canyons.

I want to run this race for a lot of reasons. The elite ultra runners around the world compete in this event. The course is so beautiful and natural. It's also the gnarliest terrain I've ever heard of. To me, it's like the Olympics of Ultrarunning.

Not just anyone can run this race. You have to qualify by running a 100 mile or 100 KM race the year before. The qualifying race I'm picking to run is the Vermont 100 next July. The funny thing is that you have to qualify for the Vermont 100 as well! Thankfully, I completed the NJ Ultra 100 miler in 2013 so I qualify.

All of this is very exciting for me as I haven't really DREAMED BIG since deciding to apply to grad school last spring. And the big dream I had before Grad School was to apply to Peace Corps, which came to me two years ago. DREAMING BIG really motivates me to do my best. I hope all of you readers out there have BIG DREAMS lifting your spirits and efforts every day too!

Happy trails everyone!
-Steve

Spring is here.

I didn't think a bad day could be helped, but I went for a run and thought, in the words of Barney Stinson, "I can turn this around."

I haven't been running much lately, and I certainly haven't been training as I'd like for a 24 hour run. But I still go out for a 45 minute easy run. And now that I am with my girlfriend Becca in Monterey Bay, California, I have the good fortune to run on the beach anytime I'd like. I also get to pick wildflowers, a simple delight of mine. Although recently I did learn that picking Poppies in California is illegal, as it is the state flower. My bad, Cali, my bad.