Thoughts on the Mtn God

There was a nice article in Runner’s World this week called ‘Twilight of the Mountain God’ about Rick Trujillo. I highly recommend you read it. Trujillo is an amazingly gifted runner and offers insight into trail running that I doubt anyone will ever match. Oh heck… I guess it is mountain running… not trail running… since what I consider a trail is probably an 8 lane freeway to him.

While I really enjoyed the article, especially since I am doing some trail running now… and I admire Trujillo and his accomplishments… the one part that rubs me the wrong way is the assertion once again that ‘if you don’t run my way… you run the wrong way.’ I saw it before in Gabriel Sherman’s article ‘Running With Slowpokes: How Sluggish newbies ruined the marathon’.

I just don’t buy that someone can define what makes and appropriate running experience and don’t believe anyone should poo-poo how someone else runs. There is a big contrast between Sherman’s ‘you have to run fast or it doesn’t count’ attitude and Trujillo’s ‘you have to run up the mountain because it is there and if you do it for any other reason you are wrong attitude’ is interesting, but they both take a jab at anyone who does it different. I guess runners in Kansas are screwed because they don’t have any mountains to run up. =)

BTW… my apologies for mentioning Trujillo and Sherman in the same post… they are alike only in the sense that they have particular views in defining what a real runner is, and not in ability. I would like to see Sherman try to follow Trujillo up a mountain… It just might make him realize how silly it is to try to define what Marathon’s are about.

While I know we have athletic competitions to see who is the best or fastest, to truly know the greatest achievement you have to know who did the most with what they were born to work with. You can’t find that in a time or medal or on a mountain and even then… I am not sure how relevant it is. Speed is only one aspect.

Trujillo more than anyone I have read about… seems to get that. It’s not about medals, or money or time. He does talk about *his* time and records in the article… but it is more from the point of how he is grading himself… not about how someone else should measure in comparison.

Back to marathon's... are they just races? No... I don't think so... I think they are experiences that just happen to contain a race... and internally each individual defines the power of that experience.