A Ruthless Friend?

An unusual friendship has been forming in my life lately. It has taken me by surprise, and to be honest, I’m not sure how much I enjoy it…or her.  

She’s a grumpy, crotchety ol’ thing who seems to receive great pleasure from intimidating others. Many people experience her for the first time and vow to never return.  One taste is simply enough. Perhaps it’s because of her affinity for placing her hands on a person’s throat and making it difficult for them to breathe. 

 I’ve experienced her wrath first-hand. She’s been known to punch me in the teeth and elbow me in the gut on a regular basis. Case in point, she sank her nails into my right calf (drawing blood) last week and bruised my hand simply because I wasn’t paying enough attention to her. Ruthless.

Despite her consistently foul temperament, I still find myself looking forward to our next meeting. I continue to knock on her door and seek out her company. Maybe it’s the way she makes me feel after our time together, or the way she’s teaching me about life, but she always leaves me coming back for more.

Let me assure you this is not a love affair. I’m officially off the market. Besides, she’s way too tall for me--I’m 5’7 on a good day and she’s over 2,000 feet tall. Her name is Miss Incline, and she makes her home at the base of America’s mountain—Pikes Peak.

Miss Incline may have a few more wrinkles and a few less teeth than twenty-five years ago—when she served as the railway that proudly ushered people to the incredible views at the top of Pikes Peak—but, those days are gone. She was hit hard by a rock slide in 1990 and deserted by the operators of the Cog Railroad. She’s never been the same since. I think if she were honest she would confess that she still feels the sting of abandonment, being cast aside for a newer and younger track that was built right next to her.

After her rejection by the railroad company, she was accepted with open arms by the hiking community. While it may have been difficult to accept her new role in the world, she was actually a perfect fit for the job. Hikers love (and hate) the fact that she maintains nearly perfect sitting posture—2,000 feet of elevation in less than a mile. At her best, her terrain is at a 68% grade.  Plus, she is still beautifully adorned with many of her former railroad ties which provide hikers with natural steps.  

Photo credit: Tom Carlson/Ashley Hernandez

Don’t be fooled though--she still has a thing or two to learn about hospitality. Wikipedia lists the following as hazards to bear in mind while enjoying her company: Storms, Great American Bears, venomous snakes, and mountain lions. In addition, the aging process has left her with exposed metal pipes that can slice your skin with the smallest misstep.

But, if you listen carefully to her silence and embrace her crude humor (false summit), you can learn a great deal about life.

She’s teaching me that a slow and steady pace often beats a sprint that’s destined to fizzle. Sometimes the hardest thing to do in life is to hold back on the throttle. If you're like me, it's far more natural to sprint out of the gate like your hair's on fire. I've learned through experience that it's a lot more efficient to slow down, develop a rhythm, and simply place one foot in front of the other as we move in the direction of our calling.

Miss Incline is also teaching me the importance of keeping my eyes focused on the next step. The reason she clawed me last week was because I was descending at a rapid pace while looking too far ahead. My feet and balance were clearly betrayed by my mind and attention. My body and PRIDE felt the blow as my brutal skid was in clear view of several other Incliners. I let out a groan while they tried to conceal their laughter (for the record, they failed miserably). The only one who was silent was Miss Incline, but her message was clearly noted—the most important step is the next step.

Lastly, my wretched and cranky friend is teaching me to enjoy the view in life. Sure, Miss Incline tries to suck the breath out of you while offering plenty of seemingly good reasons to cuss, but her stunning views are equally as breath-taking.

When I’m hiking, I have the choice to either focus on the pain or the beauty. The same can be said about our ascent in life.  I have often emphasized the pain, the negative, and what I perceive to be wrong in my life while neglecting the beautiful views offered by God.  I’m sure you’re well aware of the grueling circumstances in your life, but are you aware of what’s right? Are you pausing to enjoy the beauty that surrounds you?  Are you aware of how your Creator is currently working in your life?

These are a just a few of the lessons I’ve learned recently from my new, old friend.  While I have many reasons to despise her, she’s actually growing on me. I am slowly but surely developing a fondness for the silent teacher.

Who really knows where this new friendship is headed?  I certainly  don't want to get ahead of myself. After all, I may soon tire of the old geezer and settle back into a much more pleasant and comfortable friendship with….Miss Couch.

Now, there’s a ruthless friend. 

A Friend Like Humpty

I thought he was crazy. Billy thought he was crazy. And yet, maybe Billy and I were crazy for agreeing to participate.

My brother, Scott, called me several months ago and told me he was preparing to run in the Leadville 100—a 100 mile trail run that starts in the second highest city in North America, Leadville, and only gets higher as it winds through the steep terrain of the Rockies, above the tree line, and over an oxygen deprived mountain pass on Colorado’s highest peak.

In the book, Born to Run, Christopher McDougall tries to put the difficulty of the Leadville 100 in perspective by writing:

 “Try running the Boston Marathon two times in a row with a sock stuffed in your mouth and then hike to the top of Pikes Peak.  Done? Great. Now do it all again, this time with your eyes closed. That’s pretty much what the Leadville Trail 100 boils down to: nearly four full marathons, half of them in the dark, with twin twenty-six-hundred-foot climbs smack in the middle. Leadville’s starting line is twice as high as the altitude where planes pressurize their cabins, and from there you only go up.”

“Wow,” I said, “Sounds like fun.”

While I’m not sure my response was entirely truthful, I knew Scott well enough to expect this kind of news from him. He’s one of the toughest people I know. He’s a rare breed. In high school, he captured three consecutive state wrestling championships and earned the reputation as being a wrestler with an endless gas tank. If matches lasted sixty minutes, I’m not sure he would have ever lost a single match. And the scary thing…I think he’s probably in better shape now.

He wasn’t just calling to inform me of his upcoming adventure, but he was also inviting me to join him. “Gabe,” he said with confidence brimming in his voice, “I want you to pace me, to run 25 miles with me and keep me going.”

“Keep you going,” I thought to myself, “If I were to run 25 miles at that altitude, you would have to use your helicopter pilot skills and fly my half-dead body off that mountain.”

But, the words that actually left my mouth were, “Sure, count me in.”

His next objective was to find an additional pacer, and he knew exactly who he wanted—Billy Gabel. Billy and Scott had been best friends from the time they could waddle around the neighborhood in diapers. Where there was a Billy, there was a Scott; where there was a Scott, there was a Billy. Their friendship only grew over the years, and the year Scott won his second state championship, Billy claimed his fourth in as many years. Billy blazed a trail in the state wrestling history books as he became the first ever 3-2-1A wrestler to become a four time state champion, a feat that even landed him in an issue of Sports Illustrated.

I think Billy would gladly admit that he is not in better shape now than he was during the glory days. In fact, shortly after he agreed to be a pacer, Billy commented, “Gabe, I don’t get it. Scott signed up to run a 100 mile trail run, and he chose ‘Humpty’ and ‘Dumpty’ as his pacers.”

I’m not sure if he was referring to me as the "Humpty" or the "Dumpty", but I really couldn’t argue his point. We were in the same boat. At one point we were each successful high school and college wrestlers, but those six pack abs were a thing of the past. We now look like…Well, dads who are each working, raising a young family, and working through graduate school at the same time.

Neither of us had adequate time to train, but we cared enough about Scott to show up in Leadville last weekend with our running shoes on and our nerves running high. The only thing higher than our nerves were the herculean mountain peaks that appeared to be taunting us as we pulled my exhausted four cylinder car into a parking space in downtown Leadville.

“I wonder which one is Hope Pass,” I said as I punched Billy on the arm. Silence hung in the air as the reality of what we were about to experience became clear.  I followed it up by emphatically declaring, “You got this, man.” By the look in his eyes, I wasn’t sure he agreed.  He had signed up to take the first section of the paceable course, which happened to be the section including the lung squeezing climb over the infamous pass. He simply responded by saying, “I wish I would have trained more.”

The race started at 4am on Saturday morning in downtown Leadville. By 9am, Scott was passing the 25 mile marker, and we welcomed him into Twin Lakes after fifteen more miles of steep mountain hills shortly before 1pm.  He looked fairly strong, but he was about to embark on his first ascent up Hope Pass. He had to make it ten more miles over the pass and into Winfield before he was afforded pacers.

Billy and I (along with many other wonderful family members and friends) hurried to Winfield where we waited anxiously for him to appear. The race rules state that all runners have to make it to Winfield (50 miles) before 6pm if they are allowed to turn around and continue the second half of the race back to Leadville.

There was still no sign of Scott at 5:50pm, and we were beginning to wonder if he was going to make it.  5:50 turned into 5:55, and our hope of seeing Scott finish the course was fading. Then, at 5:57, Scott popped out of the mountains and sprinted (more like Sprint wobbled) the final half mile to barely cross the marker in time.

We erupted in cheers as he gave a fist pump communicating he could go on. His hard work earned him the privilege of turning around and doing it all again. However, this time he would have "Humpty" and "Dumpty" alternating sections and helping him along.

It was evident the race had taken a toll on Scott as he made his way back to the trail head. Little did he know that the perfect storm was brewing. His body was already oxygen deprived, and the strenuous finish to the first fifty, combined with the lack of time to eat and resupply his body, left him feeling weak. It was a bad time to have a depleted body, because Scott was about to start the steepest and hardest climb on the course—the dreaded back side of the pass.  This time he would have Billy by his side, and like a skilled jockey on a race horse, Billy prodded and encouraged him to start passing one person after the next as they started the ascent.

It was less than two hours before they surfaced at the top of the pass. "Humpty" was feeling surprisingly well after charging up the mountain, but Scott’s body was fading faster than the Colorado sun.

They cleared the check point in time at the top of the pass and started the descent when Scott realized he couldn’t really move his lower body. The same legs that had been screaming at him for the past several hours as he travailed fifty-five miles finally decided they were done.  As bad as this realization was, it was about to get worse. They were still well over five miles up the mountain and more than a half mile from the aid station when Billy discovered that Scott was dealing with more than just muscle failure.

 While trying to lay down on a rock, Scott’s eyes rolled back in his head.  "What is happening?!?!" Billy thought to himself as he tried to formulate a plan in the dark of the night. His mind instantly flashed back to the previous night when he listened to my dad, while choking back tears, say, “Billy, I don’t care what you have to do, but just make sure Scott is safe.”

 Billy knew they didn’t have time to waste, so he grabbed Scott by the wrists, lifted him to his feet, spun around and loaded him onto his back. The jockey became the horse as he hauled Scott for the next several yards down a particularly steep section of the trail. They eventually arrived at the aid station where Scott was immediately placed on oxygen and provided with much needed medical attention.

After receiving oxygen and nourishment, Scott received more bad news. The only way off the mountain was to hike. The medical team had apparently enlisted a team of llamas to haul their equipment up the trail, and the trail was even too dangerous for an ATV to attempt a rescue. They only had one choice, so Scott and Billy (alongside search and rescue and medical personnel) reluctantly set out to tackle the remaining five miles in the dark of the night.

While Scott was determined to walk on his own two feet, he still couldn’t bend his legs in order to step over logs or any other obstacles on the trail. Billy spent the next several hours walking next to Scott, shining a flash light in front of his feet, and lifting him over rocks and logs that blocked his path.

At 6am—26 hours after starting the race and 12 hours after starting the second ascent of the pass—Scott, and his faithful friend, appeared in eyesight.  Their nearly frozen bodies (they had to walk through the frigid Arkansas River in the final mile) were met with warm smiles and hugs from family members before they were handed off to a doctor for further evaluation.

As for me, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face as I thanked God for protecting my brother. The smile remained as I thought about Billy’s comment from several weeks prior: “What was Scott thinking when he chose ‘Humpty’ and ‘Dumpty’?”

I actually think he was thinking quite clearly. In fact, I think Billy was the perfect man for the job. Sure, "Humpty’s" waste line has probably grown a few inches over the years, but it’s nothing compared to the size of his heart.