Meeting My Maker on a Sunday Night - My Aron Ralston Near Miss

"The word adventure has gotten overused. For me, when everything goes wrong, that’s when adventure starts."

-Yvon Chouinard

I am so glad you are reading this blog entry.  Let me rephrase that, I am so glad I am sitting at my computer on a Monday and am not presently buried beneath dense foliage in a ravine with a broken leg, or worse.  It was a rough night, last night...

NOT A THROUGH TRAIL - that sign is for other people... not for me!

I've been running my whole life.  I have come to develop an identity problem which is to say, I can't imagine myself not running.  I can't even imagine identifying as something else.  My wife Kate is struggling with that identity challenge right now (she broke her right leg and had surgery in November), and I'm doing all I can to support her emotionally and physically through it (stopping just short of running way less myself so she's not confronted by that reality).  It is one of the greatest challenges we've yet faced as a couple.  Sometimes we're both worn down emotionally, and we get into a fight over absolutely nothing (bear with me, this sets something else up).  We have recently fought over navigation, missing part of a hockey game, leaving the house on time, and an online GoPro order.  Seriously folks, these fights might have had a deep undercurrent of something else, but they were fights about absolutely nothing of substance.  Nothing essential, nor important.  The last two fights we had were back-to-back nights (Friday & Saturday) and combine with that my not running nor working out since Thursday, come Sunday I was in a bad, overly emotional, and mentally dark place.

So I went out for a run Sunday mid afternoon.  I didn't know how far or for how long I'd be gone, but I knew I needed something long to clear my head.

Backbone Trail selfie, almost one of my last photos...

***FLASHBACK***

Last bit of sunlight fades away... this is getting interesting.

It's around 4:45pm, Sunday, January 12, 2014.  The sun has long since disappeared over Temescal Ridge & Cathedral Rock, and I'm buried in a canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains, part of the north splintering of Rustic Canyon.  I have taken a horribly wrong turn.  Wandering up a creek bed I thought was part of the old (and heavily overgrown) Bay Tree Trail, I got stuck where landslides have boxed the creek in, so I start to climb out & around it.  I find myself on the side of a crumbling rocky hillside utilizing plants & branches to not fall down the steep slope.  At one point, every brittle, dry piece of chaparral is breaking off in my hands, no matter how thick or deeply rooted it seemed.  The rock starts to crumble under my trail shoes and I notice that there's nothing to catch my fall before about a 4-story (60 foot?) drop into the rocky creek bed below.  Looking off into the distance, I'm probably 3/4's of a mile from any real trail.  I don't have my cell phone.  I don't have a light.  Nobody knows where I am.  "Genius, Jimmy! Absolute genius,"  I say to myself.  My last bit of ambient daylight is fading like a K-mart beach towel.  I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  I must start carefully calculating every movement, and at the same time, if I stay in the same spot too long, the hill will crumble beneath my 180+ lbs. and give way to big air.  I force myself to keep moving and mentally brace myself for the worst.

Trying not to achieve a similar fate, unsettling at best.

Thankfully, I'm not panicking, but I am acutely aware that if I fall, I'm very likely going to be too injured to crawl out, in a place inhabited by at least one mountain lion (I've discovered lion scat and deer skat on the game trail I'm now crawling up to get to the ridge).  After crawling sideways and upwards for at least 45 minutes, breaking branches to climb towards the ridge line, I end up in a clearing (relief).  With two large sets of bones (relief just left the building).

"When I've lost my way or when I am confused about a path to take, I remember that most answers I need I already possess – deep inside. I am naturally creative, resourceful and whole. If I consult my invisible compass, I’ll know what to do."

-Steve Goodier

Estimated route = GREEN / Incidents = YELLOW

The sun is now gone but atop this ridge I'm getting a little light from a relatively full moon (full moon is 3 days later).  I start to realize crawling through this game trail at dusk (in darkness) probably isn't a great strategy anymore.  I can see the lights of the San Fernando Valley about 1.5 to 2 miles to the north, but would have to drop into another canyon/ravine to get there.  I resolve to keep climbing and to stay standing as much as I can to avoid looking like the prey of a cougar.  I climb through multiple brier patches and stop occasionally to pick a half dozen to dozen thorns out of my hands.  I'm still not panicking, but I'm wondering if I should hunker down and wait for daylight.  I have half a bottle of water left, a 200 calorie granola bar, and my legs are starting to cramp from the fatigue of forcefully climbing through (and over) dense vegetation.  After what seems like 2 hours, but is probably in reality 75-90 minutes of dusk, I reach the ridge line above Fire Road 30 (a single track trail we jokingly call Flyer Road 30), one of my favorite lesser known paths in the Santa Monica Mountains.  I am overcome with emotion.  Not really joy, but rather, a profound relief that I'm not hurt, and I'm not spending the night facing the fears I was just crawling out of a canyon with.  I dump the rocks and dirt out of both shoes and start to piece together how I'm going to get home.  At the very least, I feel safe again.
***END FLASHBACK***

First photo after crawling out of the unknown.

Looking homeless, dirty, cut & bruised.

I have always had a rule to not drink when I'm upset, angry or depressed.  I have a new rule now to not go trail exploring when in that same space.  When I went running yesterday, I didn't know where I was going to go.  I didn't know for how long, nor how far I was going to run.  As I ran up Sullivan Ridge, I made up my mind to do a loop that dropped into Murphy's Ranch, climbed J-Drop then the section of the Backbone Trail known as Rogers Road, take Temescal Ridge to the Hub Junction, drop down Fire Road 30 to Bent Arrow connecting to Dirt Mulholland, then run that to Sullivan Ridge, and drop back down to my car.  I estimate this loop to be something between 15-18 miles.  When I reached the upper part of Rogers Road, there's a drop down trail back into Rustic Canyon called Bay Tree.  I've always wanted to explore it, and know 2-3 people who have.  I thought, "I know there will be some bushwhacking, I know there's not much daylight left, but what the hell, it's only a couple of miles!"  I had a secondary intuitive sense that said, "this is gonna be an adventure" and I thought, "hell yeah, I'm ready for an adventure!"

My skin is gashed and bruised all over, this is one small sample.

This was the part where I greatly erred.  I ignored my intuition which said, "this is shaping up to be a bad idea.  Ooh, sounds like a fun bad idea!"

RULES I ALREADY KNEW (AND PREACH)

*Whenever possible, don't run trails alone

*When running alone, let someone know your planned route

*Have a planned route

*Carry a cell phone, in case you get stuck and need to alert someone

*Carry a light if there's any possibility of getting lost or running after dark

*Carry more than adequate fluid & calories in case you get lost

*If you get to an impassable patch of trail/creek bed, turn around and retrace your steps, don't be a hero

*Let someone know your planned route (restated for it's importance)

*Help others learn from your most boneheaded mistakes (check)

A NEW RULE

*Just like drinking: when you are upset, don't go seeking "adventure" on the trails, just go run a super intense speed workout on a track or treadmill or something like that

GENERAL LIFE SIDE NOTE

Consider for a moment the last thing you said to your loved ones.  Would you be okay with that message if it was the last you ever delivered to them?  One of the things that haunted me, maybe what I was afraid of the most out there, was if the last things Kate & I said to each other (prior to my misadventure) were etched into eternity as the final exchange we had.  I got home and we immediately put it all behind us.  You have an opportunity to say things to the people you love, from love, each and every time you're with them.  I encourage you to utilize every opportunity to do that.  For your own sake.

Thanks for reading this.  I appreciate you (even if we don't know each other), no matter where you stand.  One more parting thought:

"If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning."

Running Through the Darkness - Exercise and it's Effect on Depression

I'm going to attempt to make this short and sweet (post blog note... NOPE, I didn't).  Although y'all know that nothing I do/say is short, I run forever and the only thing that moves more than my legs is my mouth. Those who call me a "blow-hard" in reference to my constant jabbering have some merit to their argument, I get sick of hearing my own voice sometimes.  All that said, I have a deep commitment to make a difference in the lives of others around me.  I have many restless nights devising ways to help others live happier, healthier lives. I hate sleep, in that it takes me away from what I most crave, "to make a difference, small or large, in the well being of my friends and family" and you should know that I consider my friends, family, and most complete strangers, friends.  Already, I'm talking too much and NOT about what's important:

MY 4 LIFE BOUTS WITH DEPRESSION

I invite you to read that line above, again.  It's ALL CAPS and IN BOLD PRINT, for emphasis.  A great many of you know this about me already, but to the many of you that are newer to my life, or don't know me as well/deeply as you may have thought, I have had a few battles with depression (a couple of them serious).  There were 4 rounds of these spells of darkness, and while I'm not going to dig fully into the muddiness of all 4 of them, I will say they each involved unwelcome transitions.

*Age 12 - my parents' divorce
*Age 19/20 - walking away from a degree/education/college to a steady paying career
*Age 22/23 - after a messy breakup with my girlfriend of 2.5 years whom I then lived with
*Age 26 - a running injury post-1st-marathon (quadriceps tendinitis, brought on by overuse and over-enthusiasm) that took me out of running for a solid 10 months



ROUND 1 - AGE 12 (1989) *WARNING - graphically described and disturbing content*

This was by far the most intense, dramatic event of my 35 years of life (to date).  My parents divorced (after a couple/few years of in-home conflict and ugly fights), and the demise of our family unit led to much inner turmoil. I stopped caring about school work and my grades. Many kids have a rough transition from childhood to adolescence anyway, I felt like I was fast-tracked. My thoughts were dark. I withdrew. Initially, I lived with my mom & baby sis (Mary) and saw my dad once every couple of weekends, some months once a week for dinner too. After a notable fight with my sister and then a blowout with my mom & her boyfriend, I took off to hang out at a nearby creek and returned home to a squad car sitting outside my house. I walked in to see a cop sitting at our dining room table who then instructed me to sit down at the table and talk to my mom. Not wanting to be threatened or intimidated, I declined and walked to the bathroom where I locked the door.  Things escalated. Through the door, the cop threatened me, I threatened right back.  They took my words (in defense) very seriously. The next thing I knew I was in a psychiatric institution: GLADMAN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL in Oakland, the adolescent lock down ward. I pray that none of you ever experiences what I experienced there. I was a caged animal. Escape attempts were treated like jail breaks. Watching a human being struggle for some semblance of freedom be tackled by 5-6 hospital workers, security guards, then be strapped into a straight jacket onto a gurney, only to be sedated by syringe then carted into "the quiet room" is a visual that haunts me (albeit infrequently) to this very day. I learned quickly the rules of this new life.  I missed my last 2 weeks of elementary school.  I was told by doctors I would spend the whole Summer there.  At 12, I was 3-5 years everyone else's junior (at that age, a huge gap).  Many of the 15-17 year old patients were recovering drug addicts, OR people who had either tried to kill themselves or harm others.  I quickly adapted.  Before I knew it, I was fully participating in all hospital groups and activities.  I was released about 3-weeks later and went through "psycho therapy" for the better part of the next 6-years.  I was never medicated. From that point forward, I felt like I possessed an adult consciousness and awareness of all things surrounding me.  I transcended much of the social pettiness of junior high and high school, becoming an astute observer of human behavior and interaction.  I even found myself at times spending the social times alone, eating lunch up against a tree by myself, just watching life happen around me. To this day, when something bad happens, I often think to myself, "well, I'm not in lock down right now, so this can't be THAT bad."

ROUND 2 - AGE 19/20 (1996-1997)
Not much to say here other than: gave up on college, had an opportunity to make good money working for my dad's business partner full time, in sales. While I did succeed in sales (calling, talking to people, and selling them something they needed), there was always something missing. I won't say I regret leaving school, I learned many lessons about life working those 6 & 1/2 years from 1995-2001, but I knew it was time to leave by 1999/2000.

ROUND 3 - AGE 22/23 (1999-2000)
It was suggested to me in my now adult battles with depression that I be medicated. I refused. I remember hearing my doctor say things like, "well, we could give this drug a shot or maybe try that drug" and I'd ask about side effects and many of his responses frightened me more than being depressed. It all seemed like guess work, and I didn't want to grow dependent on some magic pill to solve my problems.  I bought a bunch of self-help and relationship books.  I signed up for self-actualization seminars.  One seminar I took (the Landmark Forum) lead to me getting back into running, something I had set aside for a few years. I cut a lot of the unnecessary things out of my life.  Got back to essentials. Got back to chasing silly dreams. Running became a few times a week activity again. I got the crazy idea to train for a marathon. I failed, over and over again.  Started training for my 1st marathon in January of 2000. FAILED to train for more than 1-month.  Started training for the 2nd time for my 1st marathon in January of 2001 (gotta LOVE New Year's Resolutions, which I no longer make), FAILED to stay healthy, injuring my IT band so badly that I couldn't run for 4 months.  Went and completed 26.2 miles in JUNE of 2001 anyway, but broke the distance up into 2 half marathons, one Saturday and one Sunday, a part of the Suzuki San Diego Rock'n'Roll Marathon, which I had registered for that January.  There was hope but more importantly, now there was determination.  This determination has stayed with me in the years since.

ROUND 4 - AGE 26 (2002-2003)

I finally ran my 1st marathon after my 4th attempt to train for one, completing the 2002 Chicago Marathon 1 day prior to my 26th birthday. I missed my goal of qualifying for the BOSTON MARATHON by 12-seconds.  3:11:11.  I resolved to reload and run my 2nd marathon less than 2-months later at the California International Marathon in Sacramento.  I never backed off my training and 3 short weeks after Chicago, I had developed a severe overuse injury, quadriceps tendinitis. This subtly stabbing pain in the top of my knee didn't heal for 10 months.  Fear turned to despair. I again withdrew.  At the time I dove into the world of videogames, often logging 50+ hours a week, and in a rather pathetic irony, I was commissioner of a videogame football league (Madden NFL Football 2003), organizing 30-guys from around the country to play their league games every few days. I couldn't be an athlete, but I could virtually manipulate one. I wasn't a good sport. I was so angry/frustrated/depressed about not being able to run, sometimes I'd lose a game and turn into the Incredible Hulk and smash controllers, keyboards and headsets into pieces.  It was the first time my then girlfriend Kate had seen this side of me. I'm still not sure how it didn't scare her away for good. After 10-months of this dark cloud, one day in August 2003, I accepted Kate's invitation to go for a jog around the park near our house. 30-min later, feeling healthy again and empowered, I vowed to never allow myself to be THAT injured through ill-timed, impatient over-use again.

ROUND 5 - TBD

I have often said that RUNNING saved my life. I do mean that quite literally.  There is something emotionally and psychologically cathartic about sweating out stress chemicals, and having them replaced with healthy self-produced chemicals. I now avoid depression with EASE (Electrolytes, Adrenaline, Serotonin, Endorphins). I am dependent upon no FDA approved mind-altering drugs. I'd like to believe I'm a member of our society that helps offer reasonable solutions, not one who contributes to the underlying problems. I have grown a healthy distrust of Western medicine (based on my personal experiences with it) and an even greater distrust of Western media (for continual fear mongering and perpetuation of beauty myths).  I'm not saying "all doctors are bad" nor am I implying "all media perpetuates the beauty myth and fear mongers" but what we think to ourselves becomes our words.  What we say becomes what we do.  What we do defines our life.  I've gone to the root of my depression: negative thoughts often stemming from deep fears related to unfulfilled expectations. This negativity and fear leads to paralyzation (of both thought and action).

No, running isn't for everyone (I wish it was, we'd likely have a clearer thinking society). Using exercise to help your mental state takes a calculated form of patience, or one's enthusiasm will cause that same individual's next bout with depression (as in my Round 4, stated above). At the end of the day, we are capable of anything: most importantly we are all capable of elevating our own well being.  I don't ignore the little things anymore, and doing the little things consistently has lead me to run more consistently.  I'm not the first to say this, and I certainly won't be the last... "Running is my Prozac" which is to say movement is one of the most vital healthy mood inducing things that we need every single day. Sweat is a key to unlocking one's bliss.

Now get out of your seat, step away from the computer and get out there and RUN, dance, hike, play and move! If you view your life as a runner views a 100-miler, you know there will be hard miles, good miles, ugly miles and miles of beauty, what counts is relentless forward movement. Just do it.