I read this and thought of Spaniel:
http://www.irunfar.com/2014/01/the-hunt.html
Have you qualified for Boston? I want to interview you!
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www.miloandthecalf.com
Good read.
"He conquers who endures" - Persius "Every workout should have a purpose. Every purpose should link back to achieving a training objective." - Spaniel
http://ncstake.blogspot.com/
Feeling the growl again
Thanks. Good read.
I'm not sure I totally agree with his basic premise, but I am sure that there is a lot of individual variation involved here. For me, I think the linkage is largely related to the focus issue he mentions. Anyone who has ever been keyed up in a big race, where your mind and body are totally synced with the race and other distractions excluded as you are laser-focused on what you are doing, could relate to what a hunter experiences in terms of focus and the adrenaline rush during the prime moments of a big hunt. In many ways, they feel a lot alike.
Then there is, runners like to challenge themselves. Hunting, especially the on-foot, physical type he describes (which is exactly what I do when I go out west) is every bit as challenging as running. The hardest thing I've ever done is not finish a marathon hypothermic or hypoglycemic for 10 miles (done those too, not fun). It was to pack a hundred pound over an 8000ft pass in an ill-fitting pack, carrying a 12lb rifle, with 60mph wind gusts, when my body was already beaten up from 2 days of hard hunting. It was brutal, but in a way I enjoyed it (especially AFTER).
Coincidentally, as we're snowed in here I already have 2lb of this guy in the slow cooker making a nice mushroom stew:
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
I’ve never hunted anything in my life (except for mice in my apartment, but that’s more trapping). However, I can definitely understand the appeal, and the appeal of the challenge, especially of this type of hunting. I’d be tempted to give is a try someday except I don’t think I could hit the side of barn with a shotgun, never mind a moving creature with an arrow.
Ostrich runner
I actually have Spaniel deer chili on the stove right now. Smells nice and distracts from the thumping of the flaps of vinyl siding colliding with the wall next to me. Sometimes it's nice to rent.
http://www.runningahead.com/groups/Indy/forum
Wow. I wish I lived close enough to get a taste of that chili.
MTA: How do you move an animal that size, Spaniel? Were you able to get a vehicle right up to it?
I'm working...best i could do was to give the article a good once over.
My initial thoughts from what I read...some people will get it, some will not. I'm happy to be in the "I Get It" category.
Nice photo Spaniel...good reason for that smile.
Wow. I wish I lived close enough to get a taste of that chili. MTA: How do you move an animal that size, Spaniel? Were you able to get a vehicle right up to it?
It took us three hours to hike into the spot where I killed that elk. Probably 5-7 miles, hard to measure distance there. We parked at maybe 4000 feet and climbed over a 8000ft pass to drop down to perhaps 5000 feet in the valley; the elk was at 8000ft on top of the next mountain over (we called him in from over the top with a bugle). I would have liked to be closer but he had us pinned down and we could not move without being seen, so I shot him from 683 yards before he got down into the treeline and escaped as he had the day before (when I almost shot him at 70 yards).
So we climbed about 3000ish feet to reach him. Then we took the backstraps, tenderloin, and some other body meat pieces off and packed them in bags in my pack (probably 90-100lbs fully loaded). The guy with me had only a small day pack, so we strapped the rack to that. We removed the four quarters containing the remaining meat, skin on, and drug them under a pine tree a couple hundred yards away (hoping bears/scavangers would go after the carcass and miss the quarters). Then we humped out; took close to 5 hours because my pack did not fit and kept riding down over my hips...made it quite painful to move. My HR was probably close to 200 all the way up the climb, it's steep enough to switchback.
My local contact had to go back to work, and the guy who went with me was in no shape to help me pack the rest out. So the local guy convinced a couple real cowboys to hunt through there and bring the quarters out on their horses. We hiked back in light, dragged the quarters down to the trail (another miserable experience, I'd have rather packed them out). Met the cowboys coming in as a blizzard it.
They never showed up with my meat. We were afraid they got caught in the wilderness in the blizzard. Turns out they misunderstood and thought they had an extra day to get back. So after backing over their cell phone and not being able to call us, they went to the Indian bar, got hammered, and passed out in their truck. I didnt' get the meat until going back the next year.
I paid them $50 and a fifth of whiskey to do this for me.
The second one I shot with a bow at 30 yards. We got 200lbs of meat off of it (did I mention elk are big?). We had to hump it up about a thousand feet of elevation and two miles to the truck....it was 85-90 degrees so we had to do this all fast to get back to ice. But that was a lot more pleasant experience.
MTA: So now I am famous in one small corner of Montana. Two years later I was in a different spot, someone saw my license plate, and immediately asked if I was the guy who shot an elk from half a mile on the next mountain. Apparently, as the story has been passed the range has kept increasing. It was good for a beer at the bar.
Hey, aren't you the guy who shot an elk from North Dakota?
Perhaps, but he would have had to walk a long way. I couldn't ask him. He was kind of dead.
Well played.
Reading about you carrying the pack made me think...
When my old pack used to slide down a bit, it would put pressure on my gluteus medius and piriformis. Essentially, that deactivated the muscles while climbing, and made them exceptionally sore for several days. That was with half the load you were carrying. Is it possible that is when you screwed yours up?
Yes, the pack would not adjust small enough and under heavy load I could not keep it properly positioned. I did not have the after-soreness but during the hike it was excruciating.
As I had the inklings of this problem as early as fall 2006....did this hike in 2008....and it did not flare up again until fall 2011, I don't see a cause/effect relationship. However, however I am built I think I am susceptible to these sciatic/piriformis issues. In 2011 when I tried to train for my first 50-mile attempt I tried running with a waist pack with a couple bottles and some gels....I didn't make it a mile before stopping because the pressure it put on the relevant spot caused significant discomfort.