Wanna Buy A Rock? (Silverton Style)
July 11, 2014
Running a Marathon on One Foot
August 6, 2014
I fell down a flight of stairs two days ago and broke my heel. In other words, lots of extra time to work on the writing all of a sudden while going through the recovery. This is an essay that I actually finished on Monday night before the accident. Great fun to put together.
Word Count: 835
God Eats Peanut Butter
& Jelly Sandwiches
I often tell people that I’ll probably be doing Yoga as my main form of exercise till the day I die, but these days I still do a fair amount of distance running also. Now that we’ve fully immersed ourselves in the summer months, I’m squeezing my precious time outdoors into skirting from one spot to another. Along those lines, the main event of my running season happened this past weekend. Namely The Kendall Mountain Run, which is a thirteen-mile jaunt from downtown Silverton to the top of Kendall Mtn. along a dusty jeep road, followed by a mad dash back down into the valley. In some people’s eyes I seem to have these yearly brain lapses right about this time in mid-July. Result being that now I’ve done the race thirty-one times. I wasn’t around for the six year’s I missed out on the fun so that’s sort of been my excuse in those situations. Maybe I was deliberately gone those Years?
The 2014 masochistic foray edition was notable for one thing. While milling about at the starting line the announcer told all of us that one of the legends of distance running here in Southwest Colorado was participating in this year’s affair. Rick Trujillo of Ouray, the guy who started the whole distance running craze here in the San Juans. His exploits are legendary and include being a multiple winner of the Pikes Peak Marathon and a stellar distance runner at CU.Also one of his training runs back in the glory days happening to be a jaunt from Ouray to Telluride (which soon turned into the Imogene Pass Race). Among other notable accomplishments he also happened to be the inaugural winner of the Kendall Race way back in 1978.
I first learned about Master Trujillo’s running exploits when I got into distance running as a way to get ready for the upcoming ski season. My job as a printer’s devil at the local newspaper allowed me to witness a classic Trujillo mountain run. Before the Kendall race ever came into existence, my editor/boss arranged for Rick to come over from Ouray and he bound his way straight up the front side of Kendall Mountain. Up through Tiger Claw Gulch to the top and back down. Obliterating what is believed to be a record miner’s run to the top and back down.
Then I read an Outside Magazine article about the man detailing his exploits at catching a herd of elk during one of his training runs and his stellar career as a runner at CU-Boulder. The article also delved briefly into aspects of his training diet and noted his prolific consumption of Hamburger Helper, Baloney sandwiches, and Peanut Butter and Jelly. That pretty much sealed it as far as I was concerned and I started eating PB & J’s and other items from the Trujillo training regimen on a regular basis. If it’s good enough for God then it’s damn sure good enough for me.
Being obsessed with the myth of an individual can cause problems, and a Rock-n-Roll group wrote about this in a song titled “Cult of Personality”. In this case I went into the fall of my junior year at CU-Boulder thinking I was a pretty hot distance runner. So good that I started attending the school’s cross-country practices with the delusional view that I might actually get on the universities’ squad as a walk-on.
This optimistic outlook was “delusional” all right. The CU cross-country squad finished 5that the NCAA Championships the previous season and was very deep and very talented. After most practices I’d find myself tripping over my dragging tongue and bringing up the end of the pack. So bad that the guy I’d consistently run a head of was just getting over tendon surgery from the previous summer. Most of the top dogs had already left practice for the day. The coach would compliment me on my efforts, but I pretty much knew I sucked harder than a souped up Hoover at a vacuum cleaner rally. Nothing like being humbled on a daily basis to put you in your place.
Through out the years I’ve continued to keep tabs on the latest running exploits of the master, but it’s getting harder. Age catches up to everyone and you don’t hear that much about Rick anymore. The durability thing has definitely caught up to yours truly. Case in point, my finishing time on the Kendall Race two years ago was an hour slower than my fastest time on the course.
Some things never change, particularly a person’s fan worship of another individual. There’s a shortcut one can take when driving into Ouray that bypasses the last paved switchback descending into town. The dirt road passes right by a Swiss Chalet log house. One time while driving back to Telluride a buddy of mine asked if I knew who owned it. I casually replied, “God lives there.”
