Julie R Fricke

I'm writing my entry this morning while my husband, O, is busy elsewhere, as usual. Hmm, you might speculate that he has a love interest somewhere. You wouldn't actually be wrong, just misguided.

Every Sunday morning I stay at home while he goes somewhere to bike. Saturday mornings he usually swims. And Tuesday evenings he usually runs. I'm left home. Sound like a drag? Au contraire!

Not only has the triathlon training provided me with a fit husband, it has brought me all kinds of adventure as well. Sometimes much more than I bargained for. I'll fill you in on that later.

In high school and college O. ran cross country, quite successfully, I might add. But starting his career and family gave him other things to think about. Nearly twenty years went by without so much as a "jog." In fact, it was his twenty-five year high school reunion that got him back on his feet. One of his high school cross-country team members suggested they launch a little "reunion run." Three out-of-shape, forty year old guys who used to be buff, stumbled through a three mile run,  

Upon arriving  home, the first run he did was six miles. He was exhausted. I was appalled. Six miles? Was he crazy? Soon he ran ten miles. I was even more aghast. He definitely WAS crazy.

Soon he was joining various running groups. He was meeting people. Saturday mornings he would go down to the Pacific ocean to run. He invariably would call home to tell me, "It's spectacular! You should have been here!"

Considering that it was I who had been left at home to care for our three young sons, his exclamations fell a little flat upon my ears. 

It was a pulled muscle or some such injury that halted his vigorous training. Temporarily, anyway. He soon realized that if he took up biking, in addition to the swimming he was already doing, he would be all set for participating in the swim, bike, run triathlon. And so he did and thus a love affair was born.

Of all the events and training sessions he had joined, he eventually found three or four buddies with like obsessions. Soon signing up for the latest 5K or 10K wasn't enough. They were in this for the adventure. A yearly expedition of outrageous intent became part of the program.

One of the first was their "rim to rim to rim" blast through the Grand Canyon in October of 2002. That means that they started on the South rim, ran down to the bottom. Then they went up to the North Rim. And yes, you guessed it, back down again and out the way they went in, via the South Rim. This entailed starting at about 5 a.m. and finishing sometime around midnight. Total mileage: 45 miles.

Of course they carried hardly anything. As a long time Boy Scout, whose well- known motto is "Be prepared," I shuddered at the cavalier way in which they took off. I insisted that my husband add a large trash bag to his itty-bitty stash of equipment. (Three peanut butter sandwiches and about a liter of water in a camelback--they would refill it at the tap down at the bottom.) That year they were caught in a hailstorm. The trash bag was worth its weight in diamonds. Another year they went so late in the season that the water to the pipe had been shut off. All in all, they went four different times.

Several years later they decided to climb Half Dome in Yosemite, California. I thought this would be a great idea. After all, I was an avid hiker. This was something I could join!

I did. As usual it was a long day. We climbed about 5000 feet and hiked about 16.5 miles. Adding difficulty to an already challenging day, the soles on my hiking boots self-destructed and I was forced to flip flop all the way down the mountain with soles only attached at the heels of my shoes. The hike was beautiful, but we were all exhausted. We hiked the last several hours by the light of our feeble flashlight. Bonus: we did get to see the nocturnal wildlife; mice were scurrying all over the place.

Below: O and I posing with Half Dome peeking out just over my right shoulder. Our T-shirts read on the back: "Run hard - Live Easy."


Another event I typically attend is Wildflower. This is held in the hills northwest of San Luis Obispo. The only sane way to do it is to camp there. Thousands of tent-campers show up and make a weekend of it. One of the unofficial highlights is the naked run that spontaneously erupts each Saturday afternoon. Yes, I always watch. No, I haven't ever run in it, nor has my husband.

      
photos: #1 the guys sitting around, enjoying the slower pace of camping,  #2 Doug cooks steak, with plenty of supervision, #3 O after his event, #4  a new friend.

O has now taken to scanning international lists of events around the world that he could sign up for. When he said he wanted to do the one in Reykjavik, Iceland, I said, "Let's do it!"

 It was fabulous! Geysers, roaring waterfalls, black sand beaches, lava beds; I'd show you more Icelandic countryside, but that will have to wait for another post.

Below: countryside in Iceland


But I will show you the marathon, or maraþon, as they spell it in Icelandic. . He had a pulled muscle that day too, but, hey, you're in Iceland. You're not going to sit it out!

Snacks are typically served after running events. In Iceland he got pretzels!


Last October, the epic adventure planned was to hike down the Virgin River in Zion National Park. It sounded fun! Walk downriver, IN the river, until you reach the parking lot. True, it was sixteen miles. The water was alleged to be cold. But how hard could it be? 

Well it wasn't actually hard. But it was 16 miles. You go a lot slower when wading through water, balancing upon bowling ball-sized, mossy rocks. Using a walking stick to help you balance is recommended. We rented walking sticks and took the bus up to the upstream tarting point. A recorded message explained many of the sights as we drove. It also intoned, "Remember, your safety is YOUR responsibility."

Our friend Justin, who had done this hike numerous times before, advised to walk as quickly as possible. We should be constantly alert to the development of flash floods. If one should come along, we were to climb to high ground. Since we would be spending most of the day in the water, occasionally even swimming, we were told to leave cell phones and the like in the car. We didn't even consider bringing a flashlight for the same reason.

It was gorgeous. The water wasn't even cold. And by the way, we didn't see a whole lot of accessible high ground.



But it was a long, long way. Little did we know that the allotted time would not be enough. We were fording the stream for perhaps the hundredth (thousandth?) time in wet clothes when we realized that the daylight was fading. We pushed on. You can usually see something in the early parts of the evening. Right?

Wrong. Really wrong. In the dead center of a vigorous stream, in the absolute darkness that is pitch-black night, we realized we had to get out of the water and find a safe place to spend the night. Going on ahead would be asking for a life-threatening injury. Our companions had hiked faster than us. We were alone.

By walking very carefully in a sort of walking Braille through the rushing water, and holding hands so as not to lose each other, we found a suitable spot where we could sit down that was just upstream of where we had been. We used the very last remnant of disappearing brightness to find a sandy spot that had no boulders where we could lie down. We knew it was going to be a long night. We had not forgotten that this was the night of the new moon. It would also be a very dark night.

So far we were not cold. We evaluated what resources we had with us. We had plenty of food. We ate our peanut butter sandwiches. Food gives you valuable calories which translate to body heat. We had a black trash bag-of course!  We cut it open and laid it over us for added insulation and wind protection. Fortunately I had two jackets; I gave the fleece to O and kept the nylon sweater for myself. We curled up together to share our body heat. Every hour or so we would turn over the black trash bag. We were so wet that the drying river water would condense and begin dripping on us!

People have asked if we were worried about animals attacking us. No, I tell them, in this environment, there really weren't any animals to worry about. (Unless they were capable waders, of course. I've never heard about the deadly wading mountain lion.) O worried about flash floods. I told him that the weather was clear and thunder showers rarely came up in the night. At one point O began to shiver uncontrollably. I recognized that that was a bad sign. Fortunately the weather really wasn't too cold. I figured we would get through it. 

We also realized that our hiking friends had no idea what had happened to us. They would undoubtedly be imagining the worst. We knew that there was no rescue in this slot canyon. Any rescuers would have to schlep through the same river that we were in. The canyon walls were too high and too steep to send in a helicopter. Besides, we didn't want to be rescued. We'd only have to start walking again!

All night long we watched the thin strip of stars inch across the narrow band of night sky above us. Morning eventually came. After eating another power bar and doing some vigorous walking to warm ourselves, up and down the shore where we camped, we started back on our hike to the bottom. We weren't even close. It took us another several hours to get there.

We sincerely apologize to our friends for all the gray hairs we caused them. We do feel a little stupid for the things we didn't have with us, like the flashlight. I'm sure we could have done something with a zip-lok bag.

But frankly, at this point, we consider it one of the most incredible nights of our lives. Wouldn't have missed it for anything.

But when we got back home, O did go out and buy a half-dozen emergency blankets , however!

Just in case.

(Below: me eating a gourmet breakfast of a power bar.)


Though we spent the night in this little alcove, we didn't even know there was a wall so close behind us until the sun came up. It was THAT dark!)

http://www.ocregister.com/news/group-338595-running-run.html Current event: Reporting on a marathon being held near us. O had his fastest marathon time at that race ever: 2:58 in 1999.