Ultrarunners... ultra-bizzaro

Ultra-running is any sporting event involving running longer than the traditional marathon length of 26.2188 miles. The most common distances are 50 and 100 miles, or 50 and 100 kilometers. There are, surprisingly, a lot of people who are 'into' this, most of whom are completely bonkers. I'm often asked what I think about during my hours on the road, how I prepare, and what to expect from a 50 mile run. I'm still learning, but here are some things I've learned the hard way...

* At the end of my first 50-mile run, I upchucked something that looked like bloody coffee grinds. I thought I'd inadvertently killed my organs and was going to die. As it turns out, it was a peptic ulcer! Lesson ... eat more on the run.

* Vaseline and Moleskin are your friends. Any inch of flesh that rubs for hours will be chafed, including unmentionable areas.

* Ultrarunners pop tabs like candy - glucose, salt, and caffeine tablets and of course, plenty of Advil or Tylenol.

* After 50 miles, your feet will swell like water balloons, so have your support crew bring an extra pair 1/2 size larger than you normally wear for a change out.

* The smallest grain of sand will eventually feel like a boulder in your socks.

* You will have to eat as well as drink regularly. Any food consumed will be associated with pain, nausea, and suffering... so don't eat anything you really enjoy.

* Coke, potato chips, PBJ's, ice cream and pizza are actually considered good run energy food. You're not going to finish "powered by salad greens".

* Ultrarunners are not motivated to run so much for weight loss... we run for the sake of running, nothing else.

* Toenails that turn black and fall off are a 'badge of honor'. Some ultra-runners have them permanently removed (an inconvenience?)

* You learn to lace your shoes at least 7 ways to avoid 'hot spots', tongue migration, and to accomodate swelling. I spend more time adjusting my laces than I do styling my hair.

* If you don't have a pacing/support crew, you're as good as a fish on a bike.

* Killer distance runs on consecutive days are necessary to train your body to run through pain.

* It helps to have a pen and paper handy; I get my best inspiration during my long runs. After hours of running, I'm so exhausted that forget almost every brilliant idea I had.

* My OCD-related compulsion to count actually comes in handy. I count cars, people, break down music rythyms and lyrics into multiples of six, and even count my steps.

... 100 miles = 528,000 steps

Happy trails, Cher

Aliens...from earth

Global commerce and travel moves everything from running shoes, money, cars, and iPods. The implications of this “brave new world” have caused some people concern, particularly with the worldwide economic collapse. Relatively few people have noticed a more menacing form of globalization – the transport of alien plants and animals into virtually every ecosystem on the planet. Ecologists sometimes refer to this as the “‘homogenization’ of the world’s ecosystems or "biological pollution".

Aliens… aka, non-native, exotic, introduced, or non-indigenous species. These terms apply to any plant animal, or microbe found outside of its natural range. They are organisms in places they don’t belong – an assault that could bring along the greatest mass extinction of species since the age of the dinosaurs. And yet… the ‘genocide of native species’ continues, unabated, in plain sight.

Species have always been restless, dispersing and migrating to new habitats. Living things continually test the boundaries of their ranges. Natural movement and range expansion is typically very slow and rare… only as far as organisms could swim, fly, walk, or could be transported in feces and pellage. That is, until we came along. Now with increased traffic to every remote corner of the earth, almost everything can move anywhere, leaping over previously impassable boundaries.

To a large extent, organisms are held in check in their native habitats by their native predators and competitors, which have evolved ways to prey upon and compete with, those organisms. Beyond their native range, free from familiar constraints, alien species are free to run amok, particularly in host habitats with climates similar to their native range.

Many of us never notice the uninvited visitors in our midst until the situation becomes a crisis, but ignorance is seldom bliss. Plants seem gentle enough, but they can be just as menacing as any vertebrate. They can fight for resources, use chemical warfare, and even strangle each other! And they do... kudzu, melaleuca, miconia, yellow starthistle...the list goes on and on.

We are in the throes of a vast and little-noticed ecological upheaval. Worldwide, non-native, invasive species are already the second greatest cause of extinction behind habitat destruction. Don’t believe me? If your property has been ravaged by sudden oak death, yellow starthistle, or feral hogs, then you know the impacts that non-native, invasive pathogens, plants, and animal can inflict on our beautiful "Golden State" native ecosystems.

Lest you imagine that invasive species is simply an ecological crisis, a group of scientists estimates the annual cost of all invasive species within the U.S. alone to be more than US$138 billion – and that estimate is already a decade old. I’d say that qualifies as an economic crisis.

The cultural effects of alien species can be just as profound. Old World human diseases such as smallpox and malaria precipitated one of the most profound cultural crises in history. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease), epidemic cholera… the hits keep coming!

… don’t even get me started about impacts to our estuarine and marine ecosystems and commercial fisheries.

Now that we know the destructive power of invasive species, will this great reshuffling continue unabated? What is it worth, to be more cautious in our individual actions as travelers and consumers? To be more cautious as societies watching over the vehicles and vessels that inter-connect us? What will it cost not to?

What can be done? Who will serve as a beacon of hope amidst a sea of “biological pollution”?

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Nah, it’s Cal-IPC….

Invasive plants... me vs. "them"

Why Cal-IPC? It's been suggested that if I'm to put myself through so much physical pain and mental torment for a cause, it should be for something truly worthy of the effort, like UNICEF, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the like - worthy causes, of course. But read on... if you had no opnion of invasive plants before today, I hope you feel your blood boiling and your check-writing hand twitching to support my fund-raising efforts for Cal-IPC and their mission.

My distain for invasive plants crossed the line from professional to personal long ago. During the course of invasive plant field work or 'weed wacking', I have been ambushed by an alligator, pursued by water moccasins, attacked by 60,000 yellow jackets (painful, but worth it... I still managed to killed the jubata grass where the nest was), and charged by a very angry wild boar who was scratching his ginormous hairy butt on a tallow that I wanted to sample.

I have nearly decapitated myself while noodling around in a Chinese tallow swamp on an ORV, fallen out of tallow trees, come within inches of planting my foot directly on the bitey end of a 5' eastern diamondback, and have been bitten beyond recognition by every disease-carrying mosquito in the Everglades and Savannah NWR.

I have been crapped on by virtually every bird species in south Florida, had as many as 45 ticks in places that polite people refrain from speaking of after a field day at Ossabaw Island, and waded waist-deep through canals I know to be teeming with gators - how else are you going to sample that last tallow tree? I've naively engaged characters of questionable repute and sanity, discovered a dead body, and have been side-swiped by a crazy horse. I've even been nailed squarely in the head by a leaping red drum (true story to which there are witnesses) in Ossabaw marshes. My friends say I really haven't been right since.

And still, I got the data or killed my target.

As if all this isn't enough, I've exposed my friends and field assistants to the same misery in the name of invasive plant ecology. Jeanne and I spent an 'unexpected' evening in a south Georgia swamp with KKK members - not the most savory situation in which a NY Catholic and a NJ Jew could find themselves, but it's amazing what a 6-pack of beer and a few jokes can get you out of. Gayle attended her own wedding covered in mosquito and tick bites after a weekend of tallow-busting (thank you, PhotoShop). Aimee literally crawled on her belly for hundreds of meters under mats of Colubrina with a foot of ground clearance in a full bug suit in 100 degree weather in south Florida. Andrew risked life and limb in tallow tree canopies to collect seeds for testing...but then, that crazy monkey liked it.

Amazingly, they still talk to me.

Clearly, invasive plants are conspiring to kill, hurt and/or humiliate me. By raising funds for Cal-IPC, I ensure that I get the last word.

Visit the California Invasive Plant Council (Cal-IPC) website at: http://www.cal-ipc.org/ and please generously support my "100-mile Run for the Wildlands" event. Thank you so much!

Here's how: http://www.cal-ipc.org/Run4Wildlands.php

"Sore" to new heights

Pounded out a 40-miler today and boy was it slow. But then I was reviewing the Ulmstead 100-mile race and the expected finish time for first-timers is about 23 hours! Suddenly, I am feeling like a cheetah and not a tortoise. Holy canoli, I think I'd die of *boredom* instead of pain. Who in their right mind would want to run for that length of time? I think that is both a question AND an answer...

T-minus 50 days...

"You're not taking this very seriously, Cher. Especially for someone your age". Ouch, that hurt. The last part, I mean...about my age. As of Wednedsay, July 8th, I have 50 days until my 100-mile "Run for the Wildlands" fund-raising event for Cal-IPC, and I knew Coach was right. I tend to be cavalier about my running. In the past, I'd competed in races and consistently ranked the top 5 women in my age class well into my late 30's with very little serious training or preparation.

However, I've noticed that at my age (41), my body is indeed changing. I can no longer take weeks off from running, eat like a linebacker, forego stretching, or crawl out of bed and go for a 35 mile run with little or no preparation. Nope, those days are over. In late April, the high winds and hills of the Big Sur Marathon made the event feel like a 50-miler. I barely made the 4-hour mark, and it was demoralizing. I've concluded that my best race days are over, and unlike Lance Armstrong, I'm not making a huge come-back at my age.

My longest run to date is 50 miles. The 100-miler will be my running swan song - and when I accomplish this goal, I'll hang up my racing flats...for a while, at least. In the meantime, I have a lot of physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional preparation to do. Coach is right... I haven't been taking this very seriously. And as soon as I finish off my pint of chocolate peanut butter, I'm turning over a new (training) leaf.

Anton LaVey (1930-1997) said, "It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful". I'm quite certain that I'll demonstrate that, on the contrary, stupidity can be not only painful but chronically debilitating.

I hope you'll join me on my journey.