Have you ever had a friend that had a Birthday? I'm betting that
you have. If so, have you ever had a friend who is into exercise and feats
of challenge and strength? Well I just so happen to have a similar friend
by the name of Peter Grimes.
It was Peter's bright idea to run, walk, crawl 40 miles on or around
his 40th Birthday. Apparently it is an old tradition for those that are in
the know that you are supposed to do "x" number of things on your "x"
birthday. For the over achievers this means that you actually do "x" number
of things "x" number of times on your "x" birthday. i.e. on your 10th
Birthday you should do 10 pushups, 10 pullups, 10 situps, drink 10 glasses
of Kool-Aid, give someone a High Five 10 times and so on and so forth until
you've done 10 particular things 10 times.

Thankfully Peter was content with covering the 40 miles one time,
and even better than that, chasing the 40 mile jaunt with 40ozs of the
beverage of your choice. Of course my partaking of some of those ounces
started early as I found myself a little frustrated and a little "thirsty".
The morning started off rather chilly, but once we got moving over
the Ice Age trail we found that the temp was just about right, especially in
the sun, to make for an all day kind of pace. It helped that I was in
Marmot Baselayer and the Evolution Half-Zip-which kept the wind out but
allowed the sweat to escape.

The plan was to have great support from a whole variety of people
along the way. The Ice Age trail fortunately has a number of areas where it
crosses roads and has pretty easy access to known "check points". Peter's
parents were there to support and his mom even did the first section with
us. Even Chet Cisek rep extraordinaire was in attendance and covered a
section or two with the group.

In the end it was Peter, his friend and new training partner for
Leadville 100 2007-Joel, and myself. Somewhere along section 2 or 3 I
"found" my old knee injury from Leadville 2006. The weather was great and
the trails were phenomenal. The only issue being that most of the leaves
had already fallen and that made for a very obscured trail. I realized this
when I found myself floating into a "unique" dive over the top type
summersault action. From that point on I continued to be on a role with
finding the "potholes" in the trail as well as the loose sections.
It was about two thirds of the way through the 3rd section that I
found one that brought my knee troubles back to life. I ended up walking
back to the end of the section where the next group of people were waiting
in support. It was at this point that I knew that the gameplan would have
to change....