Well, we have a new addition to the Pirañas. Actually, not a new addition, just a new classification. P.I.T. (Piraña In Training) McLuvin was on the short list from early on, but had not completed the requisite distance runs necessary to earn him Brotherhood. After his valiant and superior service to Brothers Big, Mav and T3 at the Heartland 50, it was decided that he should begin his trials.

Here is McLuvin after the 2003 Pike’s Peak Ascent:

P.I.T. McLuvin began his running career after becoming an accomplished walker. Yes that is correct! After 42 years of walking to get from point A to point B, McLuvin realized that running will get you there faster. So in 2002 McLuvin began running the local trails in the OKC area. This led to trail running events in Oklahoma, Colorado, Arkansas and Texas. McLuvin enjoys running events such as Pikes Peak, Palo Duro Canyon, Lake McMurtry, The Dan Man, Oklahoma City Memorial, World Run Day etc…

McLuvin also enjoys giving back to the running community. He offers assistance to many local race events, acts as Assistant Race Director and Logistics Coordinator for the Oklahoma Redman Triathlon, and is President of OTRA.

Yesterday and today were the 14th Annual Draper Lake Duathlons. The two day event includes an off-road duathlon on Saturday and an on-road duathlon on Sunday with special awards for those who du both.

Mav is the Race Director for both events and spent the days leading up to it preparing packets and such, then basically lived at Lake Stanley Draper from Friday until the end of the race today.

This was the debut for Sweet Tee in an adult multisport event. He helped Mav all day Friday and the better part of Saturday, then got up this morning and raced the on-road duathlon. The morning dawned to steady heavy rain, but by race time the rain had ceased and cool temps and cloud cover helped to offset the high humidity. Sweet Tee was a tad nervous on this his first adult du! He got his stuff set-up in transition and warmed up a little and then towed the line with about 150 other eager beavers.

When Don Garrett of DG Road Racing fired the gun, the athletes began the first of three times they would climb the hill to get up to the lake road from the Marina. Sweet Tee look relaxed and confident, and he never did throw up!

Sweet Tee finished the first 5K run in 23:22.6, just 9.8 secs behind the leader in his age group (Zack Lavergne):

who happens to be from Little Rock, AR. That is Zack’s dad beside him. Sweet Tee lost about 9 seconds to Zack and Jake Hooper in T1 (0:38.1) and they all went back up the hill on the bike for 14.5 miles around Lake Stanley Draper. Unfortunately, Sweet Tee lost time to both Zack and Jake on the bike and came in third in 51:56.6, almost 4 minutes behind. He lost another 5 seconds in T2 (0:27.7).

Out on the second 5K run:

Sweet Tee ran hard. At the turn he spotted Jake and told him he was going to catch him. He did. In fact, he almost ran Zack down too (25:12.6). During the second run Sweet Tee made up 5:30 on Jake and almost 2 minutes on Zack to finish second in his age group (1:41:37) behind Zack (1:39:49) and in front of Jake (1:43:29):

Congrats to P.I.T. Sweet Tee and Brother Mav. You both did great things this weekend!

It is Wednesday. That means 5 @ 5, Happy Hour, trail running, fun. Of course, today it rained. actually it poured. Mav was elated when he called, “It’s raining!” he said. So we got our mud on. Here we are before:

The young man on the right is our newest P.I.T. (Piraña in Training). He is T3’s eldest son and will be 14 in August. He completed the first 5 mile loop with Mav and T3 and did very well. It was his third trail run. During the run we baptized him (in mud) and gave him his Piraña name: Sweet Tea.

This is us after we completed 8 miles. We felt and smelled a lot dirtier than the picture shows!

We are also dripping wet because in addition to the warm temp and very high humidity, it did in fact rain on us for the last three miles or so. Very fun!

T3, Mav, Mark, and the Brothers…

That was the single hardest thing I have ever done.

April 12, 2008. Bear Mountain, New York. The North Face Endurance Challenge 50k.

Maybe I shouldn’t have signed up for this race the day after Sapper try-outs. I must have been out of my mind. Surely I was still delirious. Or, it could be said, I was in a perfect state of understanding pain. Sapper induced the kind of pain that I liked, and something in me knew that the Endurance Challenge would do the same. No matter the rationale – or irrationality – back in February, I clicked “submit” on my entry form, and there was no looking back.

I got one of my Firstie (i.e. a Senior, Class of 2008) friends, Wilson Galyean, to sign up with me – even if he was only going to do the half-marathon. In his defense, he has Nationals competition for his Combat Weapons Team next weekend, which is why he chose to forego the 50k. Wilson and I wanted to run in memory of a mutual friend, 1LT Tom Martin, class of 2005. Tom was killed in Iraq on 14 October 2007. He had been over there for 13 months, and had led his platoon over 1800 miles of walking in that time. Not mounted, not driven… Boots on the ground. 1800 miles. Wilson and I decided that logging a few painful miles would be a good way to honor Tom. Tom was an Armored Cavalry officer, so I wore a “Cavalry” cap in the race. The back of it says, “If you ain’t Cav…!” To finish that statement in euphemism…if you ain’t cav, well, you ain’t really worth very much at all.

Race morning… Crash, flash, boom. Thunder and lightning, baby. I woke up to a storm that the 50-milers were currently running through. I briefly felt like a lesser man for not being out there with them. But the storm that I awoke to quickly passed and – though it left a sloppy, wet signature on the course – we would run dry for the rest of the day.

The start of the race itself was the most low-key “Ready, Set, Go!” I’ve ever experienced. Having never been a part of a trail race – or the trail running community – before, I took an observer’s back seat, trying to learn the culture, customs, and etiquette. The field of 70 or so gathered around the start line in a horse-shoe formation, no one wanting to volunteer to be the front-runners. The starter announced, “5 seconds, folks….go!” And most of the runners took another 5 seconds beyond that to say their farewells. Having no wife or kids to kiss good-bye, I strode to the front, and even my pedestrian 9 minute per mile pace was more than enough to snag the lead. Ha. I had no idea what I was doing…

I ran the first 5.3 miles (until the first rest stop) with a group of 3 other guys – Chris, Alex, and Matt. Alex, I learned, was a Class of 2000 graduate from West Point. He’s now out of the Army and working for a Fortune 500 company in NYC. He said I could call him in 7 years and he’d hook me up with a job. Alex went on to win the whole race by over 30 minutes. Go Army.

Shortly after the first rest stop, I faded off the pace of Alex and the others and knew that I would be alone for the next marathon or so. I began to notice the scenery and analyze life as a race. The brief rain yielded into a thick fog. Then once that fog lifted, the air was thick with humidity. On the tops of mountains it was sunny and hot, but in the valleys below it was shaded and cool. Temperatures ran the spectrum, up and down.

Terrain… How do I describe the terrain? Mortal man has tried to describe it with a 5/5 difficulty rating… Cycling vocabulary would almost certainly call it “hors categorie.” What I have in my head, what my eyes have seen can hardly be described in words. Boulder fields. Countless stream crossings. At times I felt like I needed a helmet and ropes to get up – and down – some of the terrain. I don’t know if this was a “trail” race or a “creek bed” race. And “race” should be used sparingly. This was an endurance event where some people get to the finish line before others.

At the second and fourth rest stops I had to have my ankles taped up because I was rubbing and bleeding pretty badly. Lesson 1: wear quarter-length socks. Lesson 2: don’t buy trail shoes online. In the end, I had 5 quarter-sized rub marks on my feet, but in the moment I didn’t care about any of them. On, pressing on! I kept thinking about the rules of the Brothers: Never let the colors fall! (Not that I own the colors yet…) Get to the finish line, period. My mind added to that mantra when one guy on the course, making encouraging conversation, said, “It’s just pain. Keep moving…” It’s just pain, it’s just pain…

The stretch from the rest stop at mile 19.6 to the rest stop at mile 26.7 was the most brutal. I got passed by a few dudes, and I was ok with that. In high school I would have made excuses, downplayed the performance of my competitors – even teammates – or claimed I was having an off-day of sorts. But this day, this course, humbled you to the point where nothing resonates but extreme, utmost respect and admiration for anyone who is out-performing you.

Seeing the sign at the 26.7 mile rest stop, I thought to myself, “So, this is the absolute farthest that I have ever run. Each step forward is a new P.R.” That was a neat feeling, but it wasn’t as epic as I thought it might be. It was almost a “business as usual” feeling. Why celebrate when I still have 5 more miles at the office?

Those last 5 miles I felt a new revitalization. The worst of the hills and technical terrain were over. I actually re-passed a runner in those last 5 miles, gaining back one place. Having memorized the elevation chart for the course, I knew exactly when I was making the last (comparatively) small climb and I was grinning ear-to-ear when I was descending toward the finish line. When the finish chutes were in sight, and I could hear my friends calling out my name – including Wilson, who had finished hours earlier -, I threw my shoulders back, stood a little taller, thought about Tom Martin, and ran strongly on in to my first ultramarathon finish.

Endstate: I finished in 7:29:43 – 15th place overall and 2nd in my age group.

The North Face deserves a mad shout out for the show they put on. Now, I’ve never experienced a trail race event before, but I can imagine the problems that could come with marking a trail course. For 31 miles I followed a train of blue ribbons, no two more than 20 meters separated from each other. The rest stops and rest stop volunteers were everything you would/should expect. I had the opportunity to experience the medical tent - twice. I had my heels taped at the 2nd and 4th rest stops. The medics were quick, caring, and very professional. I appreciated the speed mixed with proficiency. Food at the rest stops was superb, too. The apples were amazing…! And gummy bears….perfect. At the 4th rest stop I felt a little like I was force fed, but I’m ok with that. The volunteers kept offering me stuff, and I kept insisting that I was fine…and they kept offering still! I would finally agree to one of their suggestions just to get them to leave me alone. This was repeated 4 times at the same rest stop. But in the end I recognize how delirious I was at that mile 19 and how much the food was truly needed. And the schwag was tops, too. The race t-shirt was a top-tier North Face technical tee. Also included with registration was a North Face visor, socks and a water bottle with a hand strap. For my 2nd place age group finish I won another technical tee and visor. The top 3 finishers won hundreds of dollars of North Face and Accelerade junk.

The morning after a race like this there are 2 possible thoughts that could be spinning through one’s mind: 1) Never again! 2) When’s the next one?? Me, I’m hooked, baby.

Is it sick that I’ve already considered signing up for the September 6th North Face Endurance Challenge race in Washington, DC? Yes. You guys should come do it with me. A little prep for the Mother Road, yeah??

Next time I hit the trails I’ll have better shoes – ones that I’ve actually tried on before purchasing them. And I’ll have better head knowledge about what to expect on a 5/5 trail.

And that’s the race report. So, The North Face Endurance Challenge at Bear Mountain, NY… Yeah, that was the single hardest thing I have ever done – to date.

Rape, pillage, and plunder…
Take all you can, give nothing back!

P.I.T Swanson

http://www.thenorthface.com/endurancechallenge/

Respectfully,

Cadet Corporal David Swanson
West Point, USCC ‘10
F2, The ZOO!

GO NORDIC SKI!

x4890

PIT Swanson competed in the North Face Endurance Challenge on April 12th. Billed as, “A serious, hardy test for trail runners of any level”, The North Face Endurance Challenge at Bear Mountain, NY, takes place on the western shores of the Hudson River, in the craggy foothills of the Catskill Mountains. Runners negotiate technical terrain and rocky footing that cuts to the chase, with some trails heading steeply uphill rather than zig-zagging at a gentler grade. Descents end in wooded hollows before the next rapid climb ending with a breathtaking view. Make no mistake: this is a tough test of off-road endurance. You can view his race report here.

Our boy represented both West Point and the Piraña Brothers with honor. He was joined at the event by several other West Point men.

PIT Swanson finished the 50K trail race in just 7:29:58 making him the 2nd male under 20 and 15th overall in the race. Nothing good comes without some sacrifice and pain, however, as we can see here:

Way to go Cadet Corporal Swanson. You keep this up and you just might be a real Piraña some day.

The Piraña Brothers would like to introduce you to a Piraña-In-Training (PIT). Cadet Corporal David Swanson is currently at West Point training to be all he can be. When he is home we work on his Piraña training and we have high hopes for him. He keeps us posted on all things West Point and sometimes we even count what he is doing there toward his training here.

Recently he completed a 30K ruck march/run as on the way toward earning his German Proficiency Badge. What the heck is a 30K ruck march/run you ask?

Here it goes: 30K with a 22 lb. pack (his actually weighed 24 lb.) The course was three 8.3K laps (3 significant hills each lap) and one 5K lap. Lap times were 1:10, 0:53, 0:53 and 0:32 (he ran the first lap with a Navy girl which he claims cost him 17 min, but whose counting anyway?) The Gold standard requires a 5:00:00 finish but our boy cruised in at 3:27 and change. Hooah!

2 weekends from now he is doing a 50K trail race (North Face Endurance Challenge) and then the Jersey Marathon (hoping to get his BQ.)

PIT Swanson signs all his emails to us as follows:

Rape, pillage, and plunder.
Take all you can, give nothing back. Hooah.

We think he is going to make a great Piraña!