An Unbearably Beautiful Run

If my experience as a high school athlete has taught me anything, it's that runners tend to have a negative disposition towards hills. Whether it was a hill workout or simply a long incline on a Cross Country course, an aura of dread always seemed to fall over many of my teammates at the thought of hills. I say “many,” because there were a few, including me, who welcomed the notion of hills. I'm not sure if it was the prospect of burning legs or the chance to pass runners on an incline that appealed to us, but appeal to us it did.

My tolerance of running up and down hills led me to pursue the Youth Sky Running World Championships, which will be held next week. The race consists of a 1 vertical kilometer on August 3 and, on August 5, 21 kilometers of steep up and down hill inclines in the Apennines Mountain Range. As a Virginian, I thought there would be no better place to train in my state than Shenandoah National Park. Here is where my story begins.

A dramatic walk towards the sky.

Upon my first training session in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I stayed overnight in a cabin near the trails I planned to run. The day before my run, I scouted out a trail near Milam Gap that was both steep and technical, in one word: perfect. That night, as I was walked to my cabin, I saw movement in the darkness and my intrigue quickly turned to fear: a bear. I rushed to my room. Now, black bears tend to be more cowardly and passive in comparison to their much larger northern cousin, the grizzly, but to me, a bear is a bear is a bear. I went to sleep that night reflecting on how cool yet scary the whole ordeal was. The next morning, I drove across to Milam Gap and prepared for my long run. As I descended into the trail head, the though never passed my mind that it was black bear mating season.

My first two clues stumbled across me only about a half mile into my run. Just as I passed over a stream crossing, I saw a sow and her cub foraging for food about 20 feet in front of me. According to the Boy Scouts (of which I was one), when one sees a bear, one should back away. Cool. But what the handbook doesn’t tell you is that a bear can outrun a horse.  I cannot out run any horse, but I am faster forwards than backwards, so in my mind, my path was chosen. A quick sprint back up to the road, and I was bear free. Time for Plan B-- as in bear avoidance.

Thirty minutes of running later I had arrived at my alternate route, a steep horse trail. The trail was actually connected to my original path and I had planned to climb it later in my run, but in times of struggle one learns to improvise! At this trail head, I was greeted by two friendly rangers. This duo was cutting up a tree and gave me a cheerful grin and nod as I passed by. “This is a safe place!” I naïvely thought. As I scaled down the steep mountainside, the roars of the rangers’ saws became more and more faint. When the noise was all but a memory, a new sound reached my ears. A rustling. I stopped both my watch and my pace.

Making a new friend...

I was already paranoid after seeing the first two bears, and I was not about to have yet another bear sneak up on me. I peered to my right, facing down the mountain. Nothing. I peered to my left facing a wall of boulders. Nothing. Then, I determined that the coast was clear, so I faced forward to continue my run. It did not take more than three steps to see how wrong I was. From behind a thicket of mountain laurel, around three feet in front of me, was yet another bear.

In the strongest second wind I have ever mustered, I sprinted up the horse trail. Exhaustion and lactic acid were not factors in that moment. In fact, I feel like I may have reached a personal best in that mile. Each step I took the whine of the saws grew louder and louder until I reached the two bright eyed rangers. Through pants of breath I managed to sputter the word, “Bear,” as I gestured down the trail. Their reaction was not one that I was hoping for. One said through a wide grin, “Oh yeah. They’re like dogs to us out here”.

As I started up again in confusion, but then something became clear to me. The nonchalant tone of the merry rangers opened my eyes to a new perspective. Bears and mountains are quite similar; most people become uneasy at the thought of encountering either one, but there are a few, a minority, who grin at the prospect of an encounter. As for me, I will take a vertical run over a bear any day. On to Italy!!!!