12 Summits at Tiger Mt. was so much fun last weekend that I plan to run it again this weekend. At least this time I'll be in the company of Steve Stoyles the human GPS. Hopefully I won't find myself on some new trail and adding extra credit miles to an already taxing run.I hope we get an opportunity to see a bear on the course however I'm sure the chances are low with all the jabbering that Steve and I do during our runs. Rob Hester has advised me to consider using some of his "visualized" wildlife self defense moves on any bears we may encounter. I guess pretty much any move is allowable. I think my first move if attacked would be to litter the trail with anything I happen to be carrying including clothing if it helps slow the progress and buys time. If I'm caught my next move would be to play dead followed by the please just let this be over with move, and hopefully with a final "I hope I don't bleed to death before help arrives move. Maybe I can get Steve to mule my bear spray for me however bear spray+steve+eric=trouble. Why did you spray me you SOB! I didn't know it was pointing toward you! Oh so you were trying to spray yourself you D#*#S**t! No I was just.....
My recovery from last week has gone slow and my quads are still barking at me. Tear em up and build em up is my motto when it comes to training for hills. I will seek out a large body of cold water or an ice bath after the run to hopefully prevent the pain I experienced this week. It's not like I had to use the handicap bars in the restroom but I thought about it a couple of times.
The picture at the beginning of this post is from an old Canadian archive of a trained wrestling bear. According to PETA it's against the law in 20 US states to wrestle bears. I guess I'll need to look up the local laws pertaining to our state to see if Steve and I can even engage with a bear. We could try the "NO! That's against the law!" move on the bear to see how it reacts.
I'll report back on our adventure on Sunday.
Happy running!
12 comments:
After you cpnquer the black bears of Washington, er I mean the 12 summits, you will be ready for the grizzly bears of Canada, er I mean the Death Race mountains.
Cardinal rule of running in bear country: Always run with someone slower than you as the sacrifical bear meat.
Good luck and have so much fun!
Meghan
Thank you Meghan! I consider you an expert on such matters. It will be a good footrace between Steve and I.
Have a good time - I know you'll bear up under the pressure. Look out for falling dead trees too!
Laura - The trees are probably more of a danger than the bears. I look forward to another good day on the mountain.
Remember, when you're being chased by a bear, there is no need to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun Steve!
I guess since you and Steve can both outrun me I am glad I did not join you this time. Maybe I'll play along in a couple of months when I'm faster.
Thomas - Yep, that was my plan but we didn't see any bears. We did pass Scott Jurek on a training run and a while later passed Brian Morrison, both world class runners on training runs.
Rob - There's no way you could have kept up with us today. We tore it up! I actually feel better today than I did last week. Followed my own advice and took a 20min ice bath. I'll just sit around and shiver the rest of the night.
You hope you run into a bear?!!! Are you nuts?? My dad has one come and feed out of his bird feeders about every three weeks. I think that he is just making his rounds.
Ice Baths are our friends and I for one love what they do for recovery.
Looking forward to reading your adventure report. A running human GPS... now that is funny!
every few weeks i go to the grizzly bear research center on campus and practice my stare-down technique. i look at the bears very serious-like and the bears look at me and i talk to them with my mind and say things like "sure there is three layers of 100,000 volt electric fence between us but i'm still your friend." i'm pretty sure they pass this information along the bear information superhighway so i'm confident i'll be fine if i ever meet a bear on the trail.
Robin - Just got back from our Sunday Y-Run Club run and Starbucks event. I'll post later today. As predicted Steve and I made way too much noise to see any wildlife.
Scott - I'm going to head out to a local Wildlife Habitat that has some g-bears. One of the marketing folks at the facility is a runner and gave us passes to go with the staff at feeding time for some up close encounters. I'll ask if they have heard about you.
too bad you missed your bear sightings (maybe?)
I had a teacher in high school who wrestled a bear when he was younger. He had the pictures on the walls of the classroom, along with one of him, shirtless, holding some kind of really big gun, with a sign that said "did you do your reading today?" He was certainly an eclectic teacher :). He said wresting the bear was easy, but the chimp he wrestled afterwards almost killed him.
Addy - I don't imagine you did too much goofing off in class with Mr. Bear wrestler as your teacher. He learned that you don't mess with mad monkeys! Primates will tear you to pieces and then play with them.
I had a high school teacher that was a bit eclectic as well. Don't ask me why but he had a stick shift handle cover on his old Ford truck that was made from a deers scrotum. None of the boys in his class ever really misbehaved.
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