Outdoor Week Ending 5/19/13

Things have been great out on the trail, and I've been very fortunate to be able to get out there as much as I have -- over 14 hours per week for the last 8 weeks. Most of my time on the trail is hiking, with about 20% running. I'm finding a great balance between my enjoyment of hiking and the fun of trail running, without the push to have to train for events.

Some recent pictures (click to enlarge):

Shawangunk ridge looking south from sky top tower

Slide, Cornell, Wittenburg mountains from 20 miles

Spring growth exploded between mid April to mid May

Ahhhh springtime at last

Racing and Hunting Madden the Mind

Twelve

The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavors dull the taste.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Precious things lead one astray.

Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees.
He lets go of that and chooses this.

The above is from Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English, (c) 1972

I first read this book a few years after it first came out, when I was about 14, I puzzled over all 81 verses, but some in particular caught my attention, as if I was closer to grasping some faint understanding of those, while not having a clue about most of the others. I'm not saying that I understood verse twelve more than the others, but as an avid sports enthusiast, I did take particular note of "racing and hunting madden the mind".

Now it's 35 years later, and I don't claim to understand any more than I did back then, but I come back to that one sentence now, and it makes a little more sense to me. I grew up athletic and loving sports of all kinds. Basically, I was a jock when I was young, and I was pretty competitive. Racing was fun! Now, while racing can still be fun sometimes, it's no longer a goal or end of itself.

For many years I used racing as a goal to motivate myself to train, and often enjoyed the adrenaline-pumping thrill of the race itself. I will probably feel the same way again, and I have one race I plan to run this year, the big one I've done for the last 8 years: the escarpment trail run.

Now overall I have less desire to race, and more desire to run and hike freely, without much plan or restriction, staying fit not to race, but to be more free. Health and fitness lead directly to more freedom, and the ability to roam and go places on foot expresses that freedom. As for racing maddening the mind, it can come to define your athletic pursuit to the point where you don't enjoy it very much; that much I can say. I'm enjoying my hiking and running as never before.

For last week -- over 17 hours of roaming on my feet. Click on Pictures to enlarge:

This is the creek I fell into recently -- upside-down in the middle of that waterfall