Thanks to the wonders of BlackBerry, we received an email alert upon their arrival at the hospital and another within an hour of Camille's emergence from the womb.

Bienvenue, Camille!

I've written frequently in this blog about my difficulties with gnarly trails, and they were certainly evident yesterday. After Sal and I ran in close proximity for the first two hours, he scampered up a short, steep, rocky slope to the Chuckanut ridge and disappeared. I could only marvel at his nimbleness and take a consoling swig of Gatorade from my bottle.

On the other hand, as I continued on alone for the next six hours, I realized that rugged trails do suit me in at least one important way: they make me listen to my body.

On the roads, I'm usually hell-bent on maintaining a certain goal pace. In pursuing that goal pace, I may ignore my body's warning signs until it's too late, leading to dramatic meltdowns. (Possible examples: 2007 Mad City 100K; 2007 JFK 50 Mile; 2008 Mad City 100K; 2008 World Cup 100K.)

On the trails, without such rigid notions of how fast I should be running, I probably do a better job of listening to my body and avoiding those meltdowns. It may not be a coincidence that my body has never shut down in a trail ultra -- with the exception of the 2007 Western States 100, which was simply too long for me to handle at the time.

My greatest competitive successes have come and will continue to come at road and road-like races. But even for a road guy like me, there's something to be said for heading to the woods and listening to one's body.

Not someone whose main attributes are youthfulness and attractiveness -- although I am younger than she -- but rather someone who can help her win trophies. While neither of us is a national-class runner at sub-ultramarathon distances, we usually place well in local two-person events.

As with the relationship itself, it took her a while to decide that I was a suitable racing partner. Although we met through a running club (Club Northwest), she subsequently entered team races with her friend Sally (for running-only events), Sally's husband Alec (for "Muddy Buddy" ride-and-run events), or MerGeo.com (for adventure racing). It wasn't until 2004 -- six years after we met -- that we joined forces in a competitive context.

Our debut as a running duo came at the Bridle Trails Winter Trail Running Festival. For some reason, the tiny field for the 50K pairs relay was ridiculously competitive that year, and we wound up 4th among the six teams. More recently, though, we won the "Douple Dip" division of the 2008 Resolution Run and were the runner-up mixed-gender team at the same event this year.

Which brings us to the Great Kilted Run tomorrow at Magnuson Park. It wasn't a race that I had planned to do, but there's a team division, and my wife has that gleam in her eye.... So I guess it's time to do a bit of skirt-chasing for the sake of marital harmony.

An astute observer might notice the three fire trucks in and around Phil's bed and wonder whether his transfer to the police department has made him long for his firefighting days.

Then again, one might also notice the two teddy bears and five blankets and conclude simply that the kid is a hoarder.

This past Saturday I had planned to do 25 or so miles over relatively flat terrain. Then Brian Morrison suggested that I join him on a "Twelve Peaks" run at Tiger Mountain. This would cover about 33 miles with about 9,000 feet of elevation gain -- possibly doing enough damage to hamper my performance at the upcoming Endurance Challenge 50.

Despite the physiological risks, I said yes. It had been almost exactly a year since my last run with Brian -- the same one, actually, except that Susannah Beck joined us last time -- and I couldn't resist the chance to traverse an interesting route with a good friend while catching up on the latest ultrarunning gossip. (Sample topic: what does Adam Lint eat before races?)

My quads did not particularly enjoy the run or its aftermath, but my brain sure did.

Reflecting this newfound interest in bad guys, as well as his improving investigative skills, Phil has requested and received a transfer from the Fire Department to the Police Department (see photo by Ed Sloan below).

I expect that the biters of Beacon Hill will soon be brought to justice.

So far, so good.

Every so often, I have a week or two where I'm stressed out by work-related pressures and not in the mood to do speed workouts. Last year, I would have done the workouts anyway, performed poorly, and wound up discouraged and even more stressed out. This year, I've just been skipping the speedwork, and it's been great!

What I haven't been doing is skipping runs. Slow runs between work and home are not a big deal, so I've kept doing them during high-stress periods, sometimes even adding extra ones on easy days (commuting on foot both ways instead of running one way and biking one way). I figure that if I'm not running fast, I might as well get some miles in. (Recent weeks have included a 100-mile week and a 96-mile week, which for me are quite high-volume.)

Avoiding workouts doesn't necessarily feel great while I'm avoiding them. Upon returning to a track-like venue after a week or two of being away, though, I've often been pleasantly surprised by the spring in my stride. Most recently, I ran the Nordstrom Beat the Bridge 8K on May 17th after a 10-day no-serious-speedwork period and wound up 4th in 24:53 -- not far off of my 3rd-place 24:50 from 2006.

Maybe a couple more weeks of track truancy is all I need to ensure a good finish at the Endurance Challenge 50-miler on June 6th.

The festival's theme is, "What do U do at the UW?" Since my job mostly entails malaria-related research, I made a 55-second film about that -- sort of. If you want to watch it, here's the URL:
http://zooppa.com/ads/uw-pocket-media-film-festival/videos/a-shot-at-adulthood

Thanks to my friend Do Peterson and his friend Alex Stemm-Wolf for lending me their music, and thanks to several colleagues for lending me their children.

Below is my answer.

Being on the Williams track and cross-country teams benefited me in at least four ways.

First, I'm generally slow to make friends, so those daily interactions with fellow runners were important to me, especially during my freshman year, when I hadn't yet bonded with others through shared academic interests or other routes.

Second, races served (and still serve) as a useful outlet for my competitive instincts. When I was injured in the spring of '92, I felt myself becoming more of a grade-grubber trying to beat the test scores of my classmates -- a less appropriate expression of this competitiveness.

Third, my development as a runner in college provided a vivid and dramatic lesson in my (and everyone's?) capacity for self-improvement. A similar revelation is summarized beautifully in an essay by Adam Gopnik on the late Kirk Varnedoe, who before becoming a giant of the art world was a jock at Williams: "He [Varnedoe] gave football all the credit. He had discovered himself playing football, first at his prep school, St. Andrew’s in Delaware, as an overweight and, by all reports, unimpressive adolescent, and then at Williams, where, improbably, he became a starting defensive end. The appeal of football wasn’t that it 'built character' -- he knew just how cruddy a character a football player could have. It was that it allowed you to make a self. You were one kind of person with one kind of body and one set of possibilities, and then you worked at it and you were another. This model was so simple and so powerful that you could apply it to anything. It was ordinary magic: You worked harder than the next guy, and you were better than the next guy. It put your fate in your own hands."

Track may be an even better teacher of this lesson than football, since changes in performance are so easy to quantify. When I arrived at Williams, my personal best time for 3000 meters was 9:35; by the time I left, it was 8:43. It's hard to experience this sort of physical transformation and not be changed psychologically -- not become more hopeful or less fatalistic. I was changed.

Fourth, my coaches and teammates helped foster a lasting enjoyment of the sport. We took ourselves seriously and trained hard, yet were often reminded that there was more to running than trying to win races. I give Pete Farwell a lot of credit for promoting and extending the values of his predecessors: respect for tradition, respect for the environment, concern for one's teammates, the simple joys of gliding through the wilderness....

I still run because, fundamentally, I'm still a competitive person. But I still enjoy it as much as I do in part because of Pete.

The protocol is so straightforward, in fact, that my friends and I decided to spice it up a bit this year. Two kinds of black cherry soda were purchased: an expensive microbrew from Virgil's, and another variety of no particular distinction. Runners who met their pre-race goals would get the bottles of Virgil's; those who didn't would get the other stuff.

Goal-wise, Warren and Will endeavored to beat their respective 2008 tallies of 14,940 and 14,240 meters, while I set a goal of 17,768 meters, wanting to be closer to my 2006 distance (18,115) than my 2008 distance (17,420).

We met at the Roosevelt High School track on Saturday, May 2nd. By happy coincidence, local coach Tom Cotner and several of his runners were also in the area and offered cheers of encouragement amidst their own (non-TVR) workouts. Also in attendance was a 40ish female from Vancouver, seemingly bearing a familial resemblance to Will but identifying herself only as a "talent scout" from the 2010 Olympic Games.

With such robust support on hand, the hour passed quickly for the three of us. Warren and Will ran together for the entire race, with Will finally pulling ahead for good (15,003 to 14,980) in the final minute. I totaled 17,920 meters in a steady solo effort. Virgil's sodas were then hoisted and enjoyed by all on the infield of the track while 1:49 half-miler Bruce Jackson whizzed by in lane 1.

In closing, we bid a reluctant farewell to Warren, who will move to Vermont at the end of the month. No resident of Vermont has ever participated in the TVR; will he become the first next year? Time will tell.

(Click here for a larger version.)

The Mountain/Ultra/Trail (MUT) committee named me to the team despite my previously stated desire to skip the trip. I suppose this was a nice gesture, especially if the implicit message is taken to be, "We don't hold your lousy performance in Italy against you." Nevertheless, with the memories of that race still fresh in my mind, it was fairly easy for me to decline my spot.

After a mysterious seven-week period of fatigue sabotaged my preparations for Italy, I decided to do the race anyway. My hope was that, even if unable to achieve the place or time of my 2007 World Cup race, I could still run well enough to help the team. It didn't turn out that way.

I'm still sort of glad -- proud, even -- that I gave it my best shot despite the less-than-ideal circumstances. Having said that, I could do without another round of soul-crushing disappointment. I'd like to return to the World Cup, but I don't want to just show up and roll the dice again. I'll only go back if I can regain enough fitness and consistency to skew the odds in my favor.

For now, I'll simply wish Adam, Howard, Chad, Steve, Mike, Todd, Kami, Devon, Carolyn, Meghan, Connie, and Julie the best of luck.

By participating in egg hunts, of course.

6-3-07: Got dehydrated. Lost ten pounds.

5-10-08: Planned to run two counterclockwise laps. Quads were dead after the first descent from West Tiger peak #3; skipped the second lap. Will go clockwise in the future.

6-21-08: Ran clockwise. Brought directions to stay oriented. Got lost anyway. (Turned left prematurely from TMT onto Hidden Forest rather than waiting 'til One View.) Fell five times in two laps -- a lot, even for me.

7-5-08: Rainy. Legs were lashed repeatedly by wet brush along overgrown trails.

3-7-09: Lots of snow at higher elevations; hard to run fast there. Couldn't quite remember the entire route from last year; made a wrong turn at the One View/W. Tiger Railroad Grade intersection.

4-13-09: Thought the snow would be gone after a couple of 70-degree days earlier in the week. Wrong. Copious snow at higher elevations; copious rain and mud lower down.

A true trail enthusiast might welcome these varied challenges, but I mostly feel as though I'm fighting the mountain in a protracted war. And losing, I might add.