Flipping a switch

     Winter came to Durango like Mother Nature's alarm clock didn't work, and when she woke up she flipped the old seasonal switch.  Climbing dry rock in a t-shirt and running in shorts turned overnight to ice climbing and skiing.  It snowed more or less for three days, and now the extended warm, dry fall seems like a dream. 
     Every year the transition to winter seems to get harder for me.  I still enjoy winter and its respective activities, but I just can't keep pace with the apparent enthusiasm of so many others.  There is a disconnect with the natural cycles of the seasons that becomes more obvious with the shorter days.  Work still starts and ends at the same times.  Almost no consideration is given to the shorter duration of daylight, the colder temps, the extra effort to travel.  I want to sleep more, take my time getting going, and generally conserve my energy.  It seems everyone around me is better at the technologically derived ability to ignore natural cycles and get on with life as "usual".  An old friend that I worked with in Steamboat once said that the RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS lyric, "Stuck inside of a parallel universe..." reminded him of me.  Sounds about right. 
     The other night I went to a holiday party at a friends house.  I had not seen the guy in a few months, and it reminded me that I'm very lucky to have the friends that I do. Sometimes I go into hibernation and no one sees me for a while.  That I am fortunate enough that my friends call me up and and carry on as if no time has passed is a gift I am grateful for.  A few of these friends just got shut down in the Hardrock lottery.  I got in.  At least a few people probably deserve to be in the run more than I do.  But, like Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven, "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it."  I joke that my incredible luck with the Hardrock lottery is due to a deal with the Devil.  Which is funny, at least to me, because in no way do I believe in that sort of simplistic battle of good and evil.  Things just happen because of an incredibly complex interwoven series of events.  Or maybe it's the ritual sacrifice to the Pagan God Pan?  I'll let you be the judge.
     Don't forget this Friday the 21st, is the winter Solstice. The real reason for the season. 
Enjoy the gathering light.

E.D.  looking super solid, as usual

Learning?

     This is me at the Pinhoti 100 on November third. It must be fairly early in the race because it is not dark and I'm not walking. I came into the race with a respiratory illness, and less than optimal training. However, I was cocky enough to think that a sub twenty four hour time was in order. I was cruising pretty well through about sixty miles, when things started to fall apart. Well, to be more accurate things first went wrong about mile thirteen when I kicked the crap out of a rock or root or something. No, I did not kick it on purpose, but thanks for asking. I just tripped on it, but kicked it pretty hard. I didn't even hit the ground, which all things considered might have been better, but ran out of it and kept on running. It hurt all the way up my leg, especially my hip, but that sort of thing happens a lot, so I wasn't too worried about it. As I ran the leg just kept getting tighter. At any aid station with crew access I would try to roll it out with a "rolling pin" style massage stick, but I had to admit my leg was pretty jacked up. After about mile sixty the out of whack muscle tension made my knee hurt like hell whenever I tried to go faster than a walk downhill. Uphill? Like a champ! I was praying for more uphill. None of the ups lasted long enough, and my pace slowed.
      Around mile eighty five I came into an aid station, and here is where I thought it  got more interesting. My parents were crewing for me, and here, as they had been all day and now well into the night, they were attentive and accommodating.  I mentioned that I might drop out because of the pain in my knee, but that I would sit for a couple minutes and think on it. What struck me as interesting was why I was thinking of dropping. Part of it was the thought of a longer recovery time if I did more damage to the leg, but honestly, much of it was out of boredom.  I've never really been bored in an ultra. I realize this sounds like a ridiculous statement, but I've never been truly bored. I've always wanted to finish so badly that walking and slogging was just what I had to do to reach my goal. My goal here was sub 24, and that was out the window.
      I absolutely knew I could walk in the last fifteen miles and be way ahead of the time cutoff. I had plenty of energy, it was not a question of being tired. Walking fifteen miles of terrain I could normally run a pretty fast pace on seemed...lame. Many thoughts flashed through my head as I pondered weather to continue. I thought of my grueling finish at Leadville, and the frustratingly slow recovery from that injury. I thought of Hardrock and wondered how I managed to get through a much more brutal course while still running the downs until the very end. I was absolutely willing to hurt myself to finish Hardrock, but Pinhoti?
      As I fought with my decision one of the aid station volunteers came over. He made some crack about only giving me a few more minutes before he kicked me out, and that I couldn't drop so close to the finish. I know he meant well, and he was only trying to encourage me, so I didn't take his head off, which was my first thought response.  I wanted to tell him that I was a Hardrock finisher, among other tough mountain hundreds, and I didn't need to finish his puny little hill race.  He was trying to help though, and I believe in being  absolutely polite and respectful to aid station volunteers. So what I told him was that the last time my knee felt like this I had trouble walking for almost a month. This had the desired effect and he left me alone.
      I sat a bit longer, and then decided to keep going. Why I kept going, I'm not totally sure. Probably pride. I've always been slow, I can handle that. I just don't like quitting when there really isn't anything stopping me. I would only hurt myself, and likely the damage was already done. Walking another few miles won't make it that much worse, and I know I'll feel better about the experience later.
   Much of the last section was much as I imagined; frustrating and boring.  There were some highlights though. I ran with a guy from Australia who worked on a boat. As we chatted, it hit me. "Wait a minute, you work on a boat?" I asked. "How the fuck do you train?!"  He explained that he ran wherever the boat was in port, and on a treadmill in the gym on the boat. "It can be difficult!" he said, laughing.  Then there was the sunrise. Just a pretty Autumn sunrise. Rays of light breaking through the trees, a bit of fog coming off the water. The type of scenery I sometimes miss about Alabama. The trail finally gave way to pavement, which went on for way too long, and then finally the Sylacauga high school track and the finish in 25 hours and 42 minutes. Thirty ninth out of 108 finishers .
     The most anticlimactic finish in my life. There was a total of three or four people there. I'm pretty sure one could have heard the crickets in the football field. Every ultra I've attended or even heard about there are other runners and crews and families hanging out at the finish to cheer people on. Here there were a few volunteers recording times and handing out the belt buckles.  At Leadville I missed the time cutoff by about seven minutes. I wasn't even an official finisher, yet there were hundreds of people cheering at the finish. Here, it was silence. It was a strange finish to what otherwise was a very well organized event. No tents with food, no post race socializing. Apparently everyone just finishes and goes to the hotel for a shower? Maybe it's a southern thing, because in the Rockies we hang out and cheer on all the finishers. I thought about hanging out and cheering, but there was no food there. The awards were another four hours away, and I needed breakfast!  So my mom drove us to the Cracker Barrel where I thoroughly enjoyed my pancakes and eggs. I skipped out on the awards. I was looking forward to just getting back to my parents house and spending time with family.
     A month has passed since the race. I'm still not running. I want to make sure I heal up right, and my IT band is nagging at me. I've done a lot of thinking as to why this race felt so different to my other hundreds. Part of it is that just finishing is not enough. I now know that I can do that, and some of the challenge and fear is gone. I'll continue to run ultras, but there just aren't that many courses I find attractive now. I suppose Hardrock ruined me. I put my name in the hat for 2013, and Hardrock is an event I see myself going back to again and again as either a runner, or a volunteer. Just covering 100 miles? Well, it just isn't a big deal anymore. Yeah, it's hard, but it is no longer intimidating.
     So now I'm looking to some self supported routes in my home mountains. Multiple summits linked in big days. Ultra light backpack trips. Long spans of time moving through the wilderness.  I don't know, maybe I can't focus on anything for more than a couple years before I have to move on.
    In the end, I feel that the most important thing for me is to try and learn as much as possible about myself and how I relate to the world.  In that regard Pinhoti was a success. I received further introspection into how goal oriented I am, no matter that these goals are often rather contrived.  I once again marveled at my tendency towards arrogance and having to be repeatedly humbled.
     Most of all I enjoyed the time with my parents and witnessing from somewhat outside myself what a bizarre mix of  their two personalities makes up my own.  Thanks Mom and Dad!
    So what next? Well, I have heard about this thing in Italy called the Tor De Geants. About 200 miles and around 70,000 feet of vertical gain.  Hmmm...that sounds hard...   

Reminder

    This morning was a great reminder of why I trail run.  I met my friend Leah for a quick loop on Animas Mountain, one of my favorite trails near town.  As usual we talked much of the time about races, training methods, injuries, and all the normal ultra-geek stuff we usually talk about.
     As we were descending to the west I see a cute, furry brown thing ambling up the trail towards us.  We stopped, got quiet, I pulled out my camera, and we walked slowly towards it.  It caught wind of us pretty quick, so I didn't get the great photo, framed with the LaPlata Mountains in the background, that I had hoped for. We did, however, get to enjoy watching the little furball moving away from us. Good bear, humans are scary.  I know that here in Durango one is more  likely to see a bear rummaging through your trash can than anywhere else, but I still enjoy seeing them any time I get the chance.  There is something about animals that are as big or bigger than humans, with the capability to inflict harm, that puts the awe and respect of nature in me.  I knew the bear was just going to walk away. After all, it has better things to do, like eat and eat and eat some more before hibernating.  I just like knowing it could mess me up if I got out of line. As it was, we went our separate ways, trying to get what we needed from the landscape.  I hope the bear got what it needed. I did.
    After that I came home and took the dogs out for another run near the house.  We've been up that trail countless times, but the dogs never seem to tire of it. Neither do I.  It just feels like surveying our territory.  The dogs check out the smells, and I look at the footprints.  We check out the squirrels and birds rustling the leaves.  There is something comforting to me about watching the same piece of land go through subtle changes day after day, year after year. 
    I dropped the dogs off at the house, and went to the end of our road and back for another forty-five minutes of running. I was mainly trying to get some turnover going on tired legs, which is good training for my race in two weeks, but I was also trying to make the most of a beautiful day before I had to go to the dentist and get a tooth pulled.  I knew I'd spend the evening sitting around reading and surfing the net while I cursed my sore jaw.  Which is exactly what I'm doing right now as write this.  I'm hungry as hell, and I can't eat much of anything until tomorrow.  But if I start to feel too sorry for myself, I just think of that bear, and how hungry it must be trying to find anything good to eat after such a long, dry summer.  Imagine trying to go to bed hungry... for a few months.  Hopefully next season will be full of ripe berries.
Sleep well, little one.   

Chasing Rays

   I have a love/hate relationship with fall. I love the colors, the temperatures, the crisp chill in the morning air. What I struggle with is the shortening of the daylight hours, and the knowledge that winter will be here very soon. I really like long days, and although I own many headlamps to deal with the deficiency of light, I find myself trying to squeeze every bit of daylight out of the dwindling hours. Views are prettier when one can actually see them.
    So while many experience "Spring Fever" I get "Fall Fever". Not the way hardcore skiers do, by itching for snow, but rather chasing every last bit of summer fun in the high country. I do enjoy the cycles of the seasons, and I would get bored with nothing but summer. So I try to fully embrace the conditions at hand. Working in the outdoor industry I am always surprised how many people are constantly looking for a change of conditions to do a different activity. "I can't wait for snow, those first turns are gonna be SICK!" "I can't wait for spring so I can ride some sweet singletrack!" So many of us live for the future. It will be great when...you name it...happens. I'm as guilty as anyone.
    However, as I get older, I find another problem. The pain of watching the present roll by faster than I can grasp.' Be present' is an oft stated goal of yogis and meditators. A noble pursuit, but one I am finding can have a darker side. The anxiety of trying to do so much before it slips away. As I write this the sun has come out from what started as very gray, rainy morning.   I was grateful for a rainy morning to be lazy and lounge around the house. Now, as I watch the muted colors of the dying oak leaves start to illuminate, I try to remind myself it is just part of the cycle. Oh good, here comes the next wave of the storm.

I saw Satan on the beach, trying to catch a ray.
He wasn't quite the speed of light
And the squirming coil...it got away

-Phish

  

Ups and downs

    September was...well, up and down. On September fourth I ran into Chicago Basin in the Weminuche Wilderness and summited the four fourteen thousand foot peaks there, and ran out in fourteen hours and twenty three minutes. Well, only three are "official"  fourteeners, but I don't really care about that. I just like the views and seeing as much terrain as possible.
    I'd been wanting to do this for a while, and I finally got off my ass and did it. Chicago Basin is very popular, and is frequently written up in places like Backpacker Magazine. The standard way to do it is take a train that belches coal smoke from Durango through gorgeous wilderness along the Animas River, get dropped off with a HUGE backpack, suffer up the six miles of hiking to Chicago Basin and camp. Then one gets up the next day, hikes a peak (or more if ambitious) , camps again, then hikes back to the antique train to come back to Durango and then comes to visit me at my place of business to ask if we have little pins that commemorate hiking fourteeners. There are fifty four official fourteeners in Colorado, and a little pin for... well, all of them I guess, but I don't really know because no, we don't carry those.
     Now, right about here in the story you may be thinking, "hey jerk, just because you live at altitude and this place is close to you, doesn't give you the right to put others down for thinking it a big trip." Yeah, I might be a jerk, but not for the reasons you think.  You see, I occasionally enjoy a short burst of recreating in places with tourist, because for all the folks who just marvel at what I'm doing, I hope to open someone's eyes to their own capabilities. I just might inspire someone. Yeah, they probably won't tack on an extra nine miles each way to avoid the train ( Yeah, I have a problem with the train, but that is for another time.) They will also still camp instead of doing it in one day. Maybe, just maybe however, they will figure out that they don't need so much crap!  They may figure out it's o.k. to leave the ropes and  helmets at home, because there is no terrain steep enough to warrant them. Shin guards for scree, sure, that would be novel, and perhaps not a bad idea, but a helmet? Rocks do not leap off the ground to then fall upon one's head. A rope? That is just going to dislodge rocks that will then roll into your poor partners unprotected shins!
     Most importantly I hope to inspire any of them to have fun. Most of the people I saw that day looked miserable. They were suffering under heavy loads with insufficient oxygen. Most only gave me an incredulous glare when I greeted them. One mentioned that I should carry her pack. "You're running this?!" she exclaimed, as if I did it for the sole purpose of making her feel inferior. Yeah lady, I train multiple hours every week just to make you look slow. I'll bet I saw in the neighborhood of forty people on the trails that day, and I would say I saw five smiles. Come on! This could be the trip of a lifetime. You don't have to be out here. For me it was just a fantastic day in my local mountains.
      Perhaps that is the difference right there. Expectations. Some of those poor flatlanders saw a stunning picture in a magazine, bought a bunch of stuff at R.E.I., took some vacation time, visited me to buy a map and fuel for the stove, packed all that crap in a backpack, paid $90 for a train ticket and then... then they realized that hiking uphill with a heavy freakin' pack at eleven thousand feet is hard. Harder than they imagined as they looked at the pretty sunset picture in the magazine. The mornings were colder, the granite was sharper,  the trail steeper than anything they had dreamed of.
    Luckily I am a pessimist. I would say realist, but I'll go with consensus on this point. I thought I just might get a few miles in, realize my knee was completely f'ed, and then hobble back to the car in miserable defeat. Turned out the knee did pretty well. I made the planned trip. The weather was perfect. Best of all was the wildlife. I saw a bunch of mountain goats, ptarmigans, and a golden eagle flying with a  snake in its talons. Perhaps my favorite moment was near the end, hiking through an area know as Purgatory Flats. It was dusk, with no one else around. Far ahead on the trail I saw a bear walking towards me. I could tell it had not picked up my scent yet.  I really like bears, and I'm not afraid of them. (We only have black bears here.) I do however, want bears to be afraid of people, because, well, people are dangerous for bears. So I yelled at the bear, and it ran off towards the creek.  Then I thought, " I should have taken a picture first!" Too bad. The scene is burned in my memory though, and that is good enough for me. You won't see that view if you take the train.

Starting Over

The week  after Hardrock has been a rough one. The first two days I felt great. A little bit spacey, but still riding the high. Then I crashed. I'm still getting out for short daily runs, but I'm tired and a bit depressed. The funny thing is I know full well this will happen after such an intensly great experience. There seems to be no stopping it, so I just let it happen and make sure I think through things before acting so as not to take it out on anyone else. I know it will pass. I know it will happen after my next big adventure.
     I wrote the preceding paragraph weeks ago, intending to elaborate on my "new direction" post Hardrock. Then I ran a local little fourteen mile race and my right knee has not been the same since.  The humor is not lost on me that I came away from one of the toughest hundred milers around just fine, but trying to run fourteen (too) fast got me injured.  Speed kills! So I watched August slip away with no big mountain days, no sick, multi-summit link ups of my dreams.  Just a couple mellow backpack trips with MK and the dogs, and a couple easy thirteener summits.  I'm not trying to say these are bad, just that I have this amazing base of conditioning, and a whole new concept of what's possible in a day, but whenever I try to run downhill, the knee says "not yet".  The peaks of my beloved San Juans are tempting me so much, and summer is so short.  I'm trying to learn from this. My asana practice is re-invigorated, which I believe is accelerating the healing, and I've completed a couple domestic projects that have been waiting for some down time.  I have not posted anything here because...well I didn't have much of anything good to say.  I try to keep it positive here in the blogospere, because me being grouchy doesn't help anyone.
     So where to from here?  I guess I slowly heal up and see if September offers some nice weather for the high country.  Like Jerry used to sing, "You gotta make it somehow, on the dreams you still believe."  One of the few I still believe in is that nature will prevail.  It seems to take strong doses of wildness to counteract the soul numbing hours spent in civilization.  Every time I go out there is a short time where I have to burn off the nasty residue of the modern world before I can see clearly again.   Here are a couple quotes that  say better than I can:
    "Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, as vital to our lives as water and good bread. (hey, this was before the gluten thing!) A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from it's origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself."  - Ed Abbey
     "There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die."
- Hunter S. Thompson
   I know, I said I'd try to keep it positive. How about some photos of cute animals then?

Summit of Bear Mountain, near Silverton

The wolf pack hunting marmots

Yang and Yin

            Also, look for this coming to a theater near you.  That's all for now.

San Juan Mountain Tour 2012

   "Where does this strong will and hardness come from? It derives from recognizing desires and goals and then enduring whatever it takes to fulfill them. A strong will grows from suffering and being rewarded for it. Does a strong will come from years of multihour training runs or do these runs result from a dominating will? There is no right answer because will and action feed one another." - Mark F. Twight

   For the last few days I have been trying to process my experience on the Hardrock course.  I was out for 35 hours and 34 minutes, but the experience was about three years in the making. Never before have I had such a long term goal that came to fruition. Now, I'm sure those with college degrees are laughing at this, but for a gen-x, no future kid from the nineties, having goals is a strange concept for me. Hardrock has come to represent what I want out of life, which is simplicity and a feeling of closeness to nature. There is a healthy dose of escapism in there too. Moving fast and light through the alpine is the best antidote for the button pushing, fossil fuel burning, instant gratification world I try to avoid as much as possible (without becoming a total hermit).
   Sitting here now, five days after finishing, I'm still not sure what to make of it. It was everything I wanted, and then some. I hurt, but I wouldn't say I suffered. I enjoyed all the hardship and I never felt sorry for myself. I got the doubt, the beauty, the joy, and the pain. Most importantly I was humbled.
I ended up about three hours faster than I thought I could go. I received a lot of praise from friends and acquaintances for this. Normally my ego revels in the attention, but I'm finding it a bit uncomfortable. I did nothing for anyone else. It was a personal goal that I dedicated countless hours to. I don't regret a minute of it, but I don't feel particularly special. Big mountains have a way of doing that to a person. For perspective the winner ran over TEN HOURS faster than I did. Now that is impressive. Some took almost 13 hours longer, which is a sufferfest of the highest order. Kirk Apt finished his 18th Hardrock. That, to me, is even more impressive. I could go on and on about the amazing people I witnessed last week.  These people make up an extended family that have changed who I am and what I believe. I will never be the same after Hardrock.
   The strangest thing I encountered during Hardrock was the blankness. Normally I have so many thoughts and doubts bouncing around in my head. I dipped into this blank state during The Bear 100 last year  for some pretty good chunks of time. For Hardrock I dipped into it for hours and hours. Not an unconscious kind of blankness, but just watching it all happen in front of me. Just pure experience without judgment or expectation. This was, by far, the longest I have ever experienced this state of mind, and I think this is what I am most proud of. Yeah, I still care how fast I go. More importantly though, racing seems to bring out a better version of me. Happier and more compassionate. I'd like to think this will carry over to life outside of ultras. Time will tell.
   So what next? No grand plan has emerged from this. For the time being I'll continue spending as much time as possible in the mountains. I want to run Hardrock the other direction if I can get in next year. I could see it being a pilgrimage to make many times. The course is very special, and it might take a while to get sick of it!
    The most important thing I can take away from this experience is how connected to other people we all are. Hardrock is special because it is some of the most beautiful terrain around. However, the people are what really make this event. My crew and pacers were amazing. The aid station folks were helpful, thoughtful and caring. The race director and all the volunteers put in a lot of hours to make sure everything is in place and running smooth.  And the other runners... well, they blow me away. There is something about suffering with someone that creates a bond. I was never bummed out if someone passed me. Maybe I wished I could run faster, but I never wanted them to slow. We are all out there competing against ourselves, and all pushing each other to be our best. I could never complete this course anywhere near as fast on my own.         

Leaving the first aid station. photo: Criss Furman

Near Green Mountain about 89 miles in.  photo: Criss Furman

 More photos here MK's photos  and here Photos by Criss Furman

A big thank you to my parents for sharing this with me, and for teaching me to love the mountains.
Thank you to my all star pacers!  Emily, who humored me by listening to my inane babbling.  Marco, who pushed the pace without being pushy. Most importantly, thanks to MK, who knows what I need before I need it.
   Same place, same time, next year? I hear it's harder in the counter-clockwise direction!

Building Blocks

Last week was the best block of training I have done this year. Maybe ever. Three days in a row of some pretty good vertical in some beautiful high alpine settings. It made me confident and fearful all at the same time. I can hike, and Hardrock is a hiker's course. I'm pretty solid at altitude, and Hardrock has plenty of that. It also has so much vertical in its hundred miles that I wonder if it will destroy my quads. The altitude could screw up my stomach and make it hard to eat. I could end up simultaneously puking and crying at mile seventy while my legs give up from under me. These are some of the things I think about on a long downhill. These are the fears and doubts that attracted me to this endeavor in the first place. I am not sure if I can complete this course, and this is the draw for me. I like the uncertainty, the soul searching that always accompanies a long journey. I want to embrace the mountains and truly understand their scale.
     I have been nervous lately about getting injured or doing something stupid that prevents me from starting. All it would take is a twisted ankle on a training run, crashing my bike on the way to work, one of my chronic injuries to flare up again. Sometimes I feel so fragile. Then I have to remember that I have already received many of the gifts that a big goal provides. I have a purpose, and it drives me to make myself better, stronger, more resilient. Most importantly it has made me feel closer to my surroundings, more in tune with the natural world, and that is the reason I love trail running in the first place.
   This is going to be good.

Island Vacation

The first three of these photos are from a run in the Missionary Ridge area last week. The rest are from yesterdays jaunt up to the pass above Island Lake. I ran the Jemez 50 miler on Saturday, and being able to hike up to nearly 13,000 feet four days later felt pretty good. This was my first day of the year on the Hardrock course, and my appetite for this kind of terrain has not diminished.  I'm looking forward to getting up high as much as possible between now and July 13th. Between the amazing views and lack of oxygen to the brain, it hardly even hurts! Yet.
   Last weekends race was a blast. I got to hang out with some great friends, run a nice tough course, and get humbled by some big climbs. I was reminded that I am not fast. I want to be, and I am working on it, but the slow grind is still my forte. I also got to witness a beautiful first time ultra experience. A good friend jumped right in the deep end and did one of the tougher 50 milers around for his first ultra. Hell, he hadn't even run a marathon. When I saw him at the finish he had the thousand yard stare, and was hobbling with a trekking pole. Now, I don't want to see people hurt themselves, and I'm not a sadist. I just know what it means to me to achieve what I thought I might not be able to do. I'll never know what he thought, and exactly how it changed him. My guess is that it will turn a strong mind into an even more confident mind. The more I run ultras the more I feel there is value in the lessons learned. At first I thought it was just my escapist mentality of literally running away from the real world. Now I'm starting to see the lasting value of these experiences. Watching my friend gut out that finish made me feel just a little more connected, a little less alone in the crazy, modern world. I hope it means even more to him. Quite impressive, dude.