This year’s attempt to complete the Triple Crown and the Ascent seems snakebitten. Intermittently I’ve lost about two weeks of training due to physical ailments. Now I’m not looking for sympathy because I know there is none to be found, at least not with the crowd I hang with. One of the real joys (not) of aging is the innumerable, inexplicable aches and pains that pop up as in “What did I do to deserve THIS?!” It’s one thing to twist an ankle on a trail and immediately know what’s causing the hurt. It’s another thing entirely to have a good week of training, feeling good about your running only to have your knee announce to you, on a Friday night, that it’s not happy. Just a little soreness mind you so I rose at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 22 because I had a long hike planned and was eager to see if I could do that kind of distance. So thanks to a very patient (might I also add younger, a LOT younger) companion who knew the way, I hiked up North Cheyenne Canon to the summit of Almagre (12,367 feet), my first serious elevation gain of 2014. Almagre offers a great view of the south side of Pikes Peak, which, of course, serves as a reminder to the lungs that they’ll have another 1,648 feet of elly to gain during the Ascent. The roundtrip excursion to Almagre amounted to a little more than 22 miles, a good day’s work and good prep for the next two legs of the Triple Crown. As many of you know all too well and in the words of Tom Petty, “Coming down, is the hardest thing.” Since it was downhill I had foolishly entertained a faint hope of keeping up with my younger hiking partner. Ha! That silly notion quickly evaporated on the steeper sections as my knees warned me that, if I pushed them too hard, they would abandon me altogether. Young at heart, young in mind and spirit but the body reveals the stark truth of so many miles on a system not designed for long-term abuse. Or in the words of Little Feat (Old Folks Boogie) “You know, that you’re over the hill when your mind makes a promise that your body can’t fill.” Amen. It seems that I read or heard, a long time ago, that the knee is “the poorest designed joint on the human body.” I played a lot of pick-up basketball, maybe as much as three decades worth. All that racing to keep up with the faster players, the abrupt stopping and starting as they were already headed back in the other direction and those high-flying layups I attempted, coming down hard from the apogee of my six-inch vertical leap, all that certainly took a toll on my knees. As I said, however, I don’t seek sympathy no more than I seek personal glory. PRs and age group medals aren’t even remote fantasies. I’m out there just to see how much more abuse this old chassis can take, for the sheer joy of being outdoors, testing one’s mettle, sharing the experience with fun people and the vain attempt to “stay young.” I go at my own, comfortable pace. When I finish, I finish. If nothing else maybe I can be the poster boy for the mudders and pluggers of the world, an example that one should never say never, never say die, just go until you drop or come screeching into that final finish line in a battered, well-worn body. Carpe Diem!