Waldo Lake

Eugene, November 23, 2008

The intensity of my marathon training has reached a new level of understanding. I am starting to get shivers down my spine at the end of runs. I have not felt that satisfying sensation for 8 long years. For 8 long years I have been in the wilderness, numb to the joy of running. I just finished a 130 mile week! With a 24 mile long run! And Oh Lord does it feel good. Sometimes I just don't want to stop running, I feel immortal, like I could run for ever, one foot in front of the other. . .

This past weekend my friend Kelsey and I drove up toward Willamette Pass, past Oakridge to the Waldo Lake turn off. The difficulty became that at over 5,000 ft., the weather quickly turned to a blizzard, and the unplowed road had almost two feet of snow. I put chains on and we started up the 13 mile access road to Waldo Lake. (Waldo Lake is exactly 26 miles around, so in preparation for the trip in the warmth of my Eugene home I figured that with a 40 minute warmup Waldo would prove the perfect training ground for the CIM marathon in a little less than three weeks.) We made it about 5 miles up, when my little Toyota Tacoma pickup started spinning wheels in the ice up the steep grade, and it looked as if we were going to be stopped dead in our tracks. Luckily around the next bend we found a sort of flat turnaround. Utilizing all the muster of my little two wheel drive truck, and a few potently directed prayers, we were able to turn the rig around. I pulled the clutch into neutral, pulled the emergency brake and let motor run while the heater kept us warm; while Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" was blaring from the stereo speakers and we debated our next move. Somehow I persuaded Kelsey to camp in the back of my truck with a soft topper shell for protection. So we unloaded the canoe, bike and gear and set up camp in back of the truck. Somehow I managed to get a pretty raging fire going, on top of two feet of snow in a blizzard, and we nuzzled as close as we could to the blaze keeping the immediately exposed portion of our body warm. With a thick foamy for padding, warm blankets and below zero sleeping bags we were able to keep surprisingly cosy through the night and the storm. The next morning I awoke at 4 am, put on my running clothes and sat in the cab with the heater on to get nice and toasty before my run. Luckily it had only snowed another couple inches in the night, and the sky was now crystal clear, as the stars sprang down to mother earth with that freezing clarity that burns a whole in one's soul!

My journey through the morning twilight was sublime! I made it to the virgin snow covered lake at dawn. I ran 24 miles, and snowshoed another 8 miles for a 5 hour expedition!

Thanksgiving day I am running a super elite 5K race in San Jose. . . CIM December 7. "The hay is in the barn" as Bill Bowerman liked to tell his athletes two weeks out from their peak championship race.

Godbless and Godspeed!

Gabe Jennings