Looking out over Union Glacier - Nov - 2011
Here we are again in December, and I find myself in the all too familiar McMurdo Station, Antarctica. The time has come again for me to reflect on another year gone by....and what a year it's been. Every time I start to gather my thoughts and photos for my end-of-the-year posts, I find that I often think back to a specific moment in 2006; A moment that I remember quite vividly. I was sitting in my cubicle at what had become my stagnant, dilbert-style, IT job, with my life decaying around me. I was lost, alone, and miserable. At that moment, I took out my cell phone and recorded a very short video of myself. The video is only about 5 seconds long and I only say one sentence while looking into the camera, completely emotionless. That sentence was:
"You have to get out of this..."
That day was my pivot day. That was the day that I realized I had nothing left to lose and that I was going to be taking some risks if I truly wanted to seize my day. That day was also the day I told my boss that I would be accepting the grad school offer from Penn State, would be quitting my vested 7-year long job with good benefits, and would be hiking the Appalachian Trail the following month. And as they say.....and so it came to pass.
What a ride it has been since then. In five short years, I've done more living than I had in the previous 15. I have forced myself to never slow down, and to keep pushing myself however I can. I refuse to have "if only" and "I wish I would have" regrets when I'm a dying old man years from now.
Yeah yeah...enough with the existential mumbo jumbo John, let's get to the Year-In-Review. Ok....
2011 was another fun-filled and jam-packed year for me. Again I started, and now end the year, in Antarctica. I ran over a dozen races (7 of which being ultras), set all sorts of new PRs, played in the mountains of Colorado, worked on my research, and became a published author. Let's start from the beginning......WAIS Divide, Antarctica
Celebrating 3000 meters in early January
2011 started just as the previous two years had started. I found myself celebrating the new year at the WAIS Divide field camp in West Antarctica. I again had the privilege of working at the camp as a science tech. Our goal for the season was to hit 3330 meters and finish the main borehole. After working long hours through several major issues and setbacks, we finally hit our goal depth on January 28th: 3331 meters. There was a huge celebration at camp and NSF applauded our heroic efforts in drilling and processing the deepest ice core in United States history. I left the ice under the assumption that I would not be returning to Antarctica the following season. Drilling was done, I played my part, and I would likely be home for the holidays the following year. Well it didn't quite go like that, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Pointing out a high-density crust in a snow-pit wall at WAIS Divide
The title of this post, and again keeping with alliteration tradition, focuses on what I consider to be the highlights of the year:
- Getting some important, and new, PhD research done
- Finally getting published in a scientific journal
- Setting, and resetting, all sorts of personal racing records
- Bagging several Colorado 14ers
- Participating in the Polenet project out of Union Glacier
After spending just a few short days in New Zealand in early February, I quickly headed back to State College. I immediately dove into data processing and manuscript editing. While on the ice, my submitted paper (based on my masters work) had gone through review and was waiting for me to begin the long process of dealing with the edits and comments. It took me over two months of back-and-forth with my advisor and various co-authors and reviews to get it where needed to be. Finally on April 4th, the paper was officially accepted and sent to the publisher. On July 13th, it finally appeared in print in the Journal of Glaciology. What started in 2007 as an interest in glaciology and paleoclimatology, and progressed into a Masters Degree project, was finally realized as a 10-page paper in scientific journal:
During the late-winter and early-spring, I also began to focus heavily on some new data sets. It started to dawn on me that while a Masters project was difficult, a PhD thesis was basically doing three Masters projects at once. I began juggling my time between processing new ice-core gas data, ice-core physical properties data, and WAIS Divide surface observations. I was able to get through a good portion of it and even presented a preliminary poster at the graduate school student colloquium in late March. My goal for the remainder of the year was to simply clean up those data sets and start to pull together an overarching theme that would define my thesis proposal. I knew that sometime within the next 12-18 months, I would have to formally present my thesis proposal to my committee and defend that proposal during my comprehensive examination (aka "Candidacy Part 2").
One new development with regards to my research was my introduction into the world of ice-core gas processing. I had always wanted to incorporate a gas study into my PhD somehow, and had found an opportunity with one of my committee members that studies methane concentrations. As a part of my research, he suggested that I work with total air content data that are obtained through his "spider" apparatus. In a nutshell, this machine takes ice samples, melts them down, extracts the trapped air, and then analyzes that air. In particular, he is interested in the methane, but the overall gas content can also potentially be used as a paleo-barometer, and thereby tell us about the elevation history of the ice sheet. A secondary bonus to all of this, was that it allowed me the opportunity to prepare gas samples from the WAIS Divide ice core at the National Ice Core Lab for two weeks in June.
Cutting a "gas sample" from the WAIS Divide ice core
The ice-core library at the National Ice Core Lab
Working in Colorado for two weeks also gave me the wonderful opportunity to bag some 14,000 foot peaks. Ever since driving up Mt. Evans and hiking past the summit of San Luis Peak on my CT thru-hike, I had been interested in knocking out some of Colorado's fifty-four 14'ers. Certainly there are those out there that bag all 54, and some even try to break the speed record for bagging them all. Me...well I just wanted to climb them, stand on top, and have fun while doing it. And so I did. Here are the highlights from the first Colorado trip (I went back in August and bagged a few more):
View from the summit of Mt. Bierstadt
Running up Mt. Evans during the Mt. Evans Ascent Race
View from the summit of Mt. Sherman
On top of Grays Peak
Summit of Torreys with Grays in background
While all of this was going on, and my school work progressing, I was intently focusing on a rigorous running and training routine. In 2009, I proved to myself that I could physically run several ultras in one year. This year, I wanted to prove to myself that I could run multiple ultras in one year fast. I trained hard. Harder than I had during any other period in my life. I changed my diet, lost nearly 20 pounds and became a lean, mean, running machine. I signed up again for the Vermont and Leadville 100, and even signed up for Finger Lakes as a training run again. I figured my 2009 plan worked pretty well, this time I would just step it up a notch.
I started the year slowly by easing my way into marathon training for a 3rd attempt at the Pocono Marathon. I didn't have high expectations on beating my previous PR of 3:39, but kept an open mind. After finishing the marathon in May with a strong 3:21 finish, I knew I had the strength and fitness to do well throughout the year. I pushed my training up to the next level and started on a roll of setting new PR's one after another. Just as I'd set a PR, I'd beat it a month later with a new PR. As an example, I reset my 50-mile PR three times over the course of the year. Previously, my best 50-mile time was 10 hours 34 minutes. In July, I finished finger lakes 50 in 9 hours 20 minutes. Two months later, I finished the Vermont 50 in 8 hours 42 minutes. Then just a month after that, I reset it again at the Tussey Mountainback 50-miler with a finish of 7 hours 49 minutes. In all, it was an incredibly successful year for my running, and I was not only able to finish every race I started....but finish them all well. Here are some (not all) of the highlights:
May - Pocono Marathon PR 3:21
Jun - Rothrock Trail 30k PR
Jun - Laurel Highlands Ultra 50k PR 5:54
Jun - Slacker Half-Marathon PR 1:30
Jul - Finger Lakes 50m PR 9:20 (finishing lap 2 of 3 above)
Jul - Vermont 100 PR 21:48
Without question, there were two pinnacle performances for me during the year. The first was my nearly 4 hour improvement at the Leadville Trail 100. While I didn't break the coveted 25 hour time, I still managed to finish in the dark; something that was very important to me:
Aug- Coming down Hope Pass (mile 45) Leadville Trail 100
Aug - Finishing Leadville Trail 100 in 25:36
Sep -Vermont 50 PR 8:42
My second pinnacle performance of the year was my running of the Oil Creek 100. I signed up for this race not expecting much. I enjoyed the course after pacing a runner at it back in 2009 and thought why not give it a stab. I ended up not only finishing in under 22 hours (and winning one of the special gold buckles for sub 22), but placed 5th overall. To this day, my best place finish ever. As a side note, while I did miss my 100-mile PR by 3 minutes during this race, the course was actually 100.6 miles...which actually put me at or near a PR for 100 miles (unofficially of course).
Oct - Oil Creek 100 : On my way to a 21:52 and 5th place finish
Oct - Sub 22 hour Oil Creek 100 coveted gold buckle
I ended the season with a big bang by racing strong at the Tussey Mountainback 50-miler. This is my hometown race, and I wanted to make a strong showing. I ran it hard and finished in 7 hours 49 minutes....my fastest 50 miler ever....and one that will probably stand a long time.
Oct - Rolling fast at the Tussey 50 PR 7:49
In August, after my running at Leadville, I also spent a week relaxing in one of my favorite states. While there, with good company, I was able to see many wonderful places and bag a couple more 14ers.
Mt. Elbert Summit (Highest Peak in CO)
Black Canyon of the Gunnison
Summit Lake : Mt. Evans
Climbing Uncompahgre Peak
Uncompahgre Summit
Fun with rented jeeps and crazy 4-wheel drive roads
So last but not least comes the final "P" in the title of this already too long post. Polenet. I could write an entire 2nd post just about the beauty I saw while deployed for Polenet...but my last post covered it pretty well. In September I was asked if I wanted to participate in a 2nd Antarctic deployment (after already hearing that I was wanted back for another year at WAIS). After learning what the project entailed, and where I would be stationed (Union Glacier), I jumped at the chance. In October I went out to Socorro New Mexico and spent two days training at Passcal. It was there that I learned the inner workings of the Polenet seismic stations. When I deployed South for Antarctica on November 3rd, I had no idea how incredible the scenery and the project were going to be. Instead of picking through photos, I'm just going to re-post the youtube video montage I put together. It sums it up pretty damn well.
And so...
Here I sit in McMurdo again. Waiting to deploy to WAIS Divide for what will be my fourth season there. We hope to extend the main borehole about 100 meters deeper, and then begin drilling replicate cores. I anticipate a much slower-paced season than previous years. I will once again spend my Christmas amongst a small field camp group of about 35 people. And on New Years Eve, I will welcome in 2012 from my familiar 2nd home.
There are a few other sub-stories from 2011, like my weekend trip to New York City, my three-day weekend in the Redwood forests of California, a weekend away in Cook Forest State Park....but I think maybe I will leave these memories to myself.
As far as goals for 2012....well I have a few. First and foremost, my primary goal is to pass my PhD Comprehensive Exam. I surmise this exam will probably take place some time in late Spring or Summer. I'm optimistically hoping to finish it up before Summer though. Outside of school, I've again signed up for a number of races. Some are old favorites, and some new ones. As of right now, I have no time goals or race goals except for maybe....just maybe, to break 25 hours at Leadville. BIG maybe though. I've been missing the hiking a lot lately, so maybe a long overdue Long Trail thru-hike will be in order instead. Guess we'll see. I'm leaving 2012 pretty open right now. Sometimes it's more fun to be spontaneous. But there's a chance, I may have a few other devious ideas up my sleeve *smirk*
Anyhoo...
Happy Holidays everyone, and on the 100th anniversary of Amundsen and Scott's epic "race" to the South Pole, I'll leave you with this sobering and powerful quote from early 1912, written by Scott on his return journey from the Pole,
"... but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past. We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of providence, determined still to do our best to the last ... Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for." - Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Last Journal Entry before perishing on his return from the South Pole
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