An Open Letter to The Wild Oak Trail

I see you.

Big and hairy and painfully steep and sometimes just a little more technical than I’m completely comfy cruising.

I see you.

Beautiful and at times breathtakingly peaceful, yet at other times incredibly demanding and just plain down raw.

I see you.

When I’m sleeping, you come to me in a whisper, your raspy tone that sounds like a tree groaning through the darkness, and you say, “Are you really sure you have what it takes?”

I see you.

We both know I’ve put in a lot of time out there with you across the past 20-some years and, although I’m not the regular that I was back in the day, I am familiar enough with you to be sure that four loops around your layout is destined to take pretty much everything I have to give.

I see you.

I’ve fallen on you often, thrown up on you, was nearly struck by lightning with you and came pretty close to getting washed down the North River once because I got cocky on you.

I see you.

Your white blazes and reflective trail markers and overgrown vegetation and sometimes slippery surfaces will ask much of me.

I see you.

You are in my head, and on my heart and – starting sometime around daybreak on Friday, Aug. 22 – you will be in my legs. All 32,000 feet of your up and down, provided I’m able to click off the entire 100-and-a-few miles of you.

I see you.

I’ve studied the minutiae and believe that if everything breaks right, I can finish four loops of you in somewhere around 38 hours. If everything breaks right. But just in case, I’ve cordoned off enough time to be able to hike and hike and hike some more to get four loops of you finished whenever it happens.

I see you.

Thanks to you, I’ve been running more hills, have had some monster training weeks, am paying more attention to recovery and am pushing a little harder on the strength work, yoga and core.

I see you.

My respect for you is so massive that I’ve rallied several of my closest running buddies to help me out. Their respect for you is so vast that they jumped at the chance to help me see this dream of mine come to fruition.

“Are you really sure you have what it takes?” you ask.

I think so. But I’m not sure.

That’s what we’re both about to see.