A Workout in the Woods

Recently, a few of our guys did the Presidential Traverse. Here's Sanville's account of the trip:


A few weekends ago, Scott, Alec McGovern, Riley Eusden, and I ran and hiked the Presidential traverse, a 21-mile slog across, up, and over the highest peaks in the East, topping out at 6288 ft above sea level. We started at 6:30 in the morning and ended nine hours later around 3:30. It was fun to meet and spend time with both Riley and Alec, two incoming freshmen, before I disappear until January. Judging by the way they dropped me in the last mile or so, they will both be important additions to our team. Rather than write a long, full, verbose account of our nine hours, instead I have here just a moment that I feel captures the spirit of our hike. Also, I would like to thank any Eusdens reading this piece from the bottom of my heart for their hospitality and delicious grilled chicken - so good after a nine hour OD.

Don’t Race the Train

In Minnesota, you are required to take thirty hours of driver’s ed. before you receive your permit and climb behind the wheel of a car - ten three-hour classes. There are, of course, a variety of driving schools that you can go to, and I went to a particularly sketchy one called Safeway. During our break the kids would go steal things from the gas station convenience store across the street. I’m pretty sure that one kid was drunk at every session, and there were three pregnant 15-year olds in my class. All that aside, there is one universality across all driver’s ed. classes in Minnesota, at least according to my friends who were in less shady programs: Don’t Race the Train Day.

Don’t Race the Train Day is where you come to class, sit down, and the first thing out of the instructor’s mouth is, “Don’t race the train. The train will win, and you will die.” She says it again and then for the next two hours and fifty-eight minutes you watch videos of cars that have tried to beat trains. In every single video the car just gets smoked and the train chugs along like nothing happened. Don’t race the train. The train will win, and you will die.

I don’t know how familiar you are with Mt. Washington, but, and I kind of think this is B.S., there is both an auto-road that winds its way up to the top and a strange contraption called the cog train. I knew about the road, but not the train. So, as we came down Mt. Jefferson I saw it for the first time: the cog-train chugging its way slowly up its 20% grade tracks.

Now, like I said, and I kind of think this stems from being a Nordic skier, I think motorized transportation to the top of mountains is kind of a big stinking pile of B.S. When that deceptively slow moving train came into view, I was struck by sudden inspiration. I could race the train. I could run alongside it, beat it to the top of Mt. Washington, and prove once and for all how awesome I am and how motorized mountain climbing is a load of crap. And, you know, how awesome I am.

These thoughts in mind, I booked it down the little of Jefferson we had left (we were already running), and then started up Mt. Washington in hot pursuit of the train. About 100 ft up Washington, though probably much less, my lungs, heart, and legs all reminded me simultaneously that I was not actually that awesome. Within no more than three minutes taking off in wild pursuit of glory, I was bent over, panting and gasping. Riley, Alec, and Scott swiftly caught up to me and passed me. When my heart moved from my esophagus back to its normal place in my chest (though my spirit had sunk much lower), I looked up, and, as if to tease me, the train had stopped, dead on the tracks, calling to me to sprint after it again. Needless to say, I took off again, visions of victorious awesomeness filling my altitude-dizzied head. Just as I was about to reach, and dare I dream, pass the train, it fired up again, chugged away, and finally left me in the dust.

During those two shorts beelines after the train, I easily discovered a new max heart rate. Consequently, shortly thereafter, I died. I absolutely bonked, though I did my best to hide from my three fellow hikers. It wasn’t until I stumbled into the Mt. Washington observatory, elevated my feet and put peanut butter, tortillas, and the life-giving Nutella into my body that I began to recover. The rest of the hike was a little rough for me, and by the end I slowed way down. Everyone did, but I was certainly falling behind. Though this is definitely due to a combination of factors, most of them probably having something to do with having too much fun at Bowdoin over the summer, I can’t help but feel that my little train race contributed to my absolutely dying by the end of the hike. Lesson learned: don’t race the train. The train will win, and you will die.