Barkley Marathon is a very extreme, mysterious, ‘underground’ sort of event, that I had the priveledge of participating in early this year in Tennessee(100 miles).  I’ve been thinking about that event again lately. I maintain the mailing list for the Race Director, and as things are being prepared for next years events, my thoughts go back to that crazy day .  I did write a race report, with photos and videos, but didn’t really let very many people know about it.  In a sport(ultra running) that is already on the fringe of fringe sports, Barkley is over the cliff.  When you decide to enter events that are essentially impossible to finish for almost everyone, (most years there are no finishers), they light a cigarette to start the event, and the race shirt says ‘Endless suffering without a point’, well, let’s just say it doesn’t bolster the argument to friends and family that you are a sane individual.  That seems to get questioned more and more these days.

http://www.daveharper.com/Barkley/index.htm

I was playing an email game with my daughter and some friends, where you think of one word to describe the person you are emailing and what they mean to you.  My daughters one word description of me was WILD.  Not great, not inspiring, not loving, not caring, not honest or strong… WILD.       

I’m a little afraid to ask, but how about it.  Describe me in one word …. just one single word. Send it to me and to me only via email.  I’ll post the results afterwards if they are printable, without your name of course.  I’ll send you an email you can forward to others with the instructions for doing the same.  It’s enlightening to see what folks think about you, as you see can above.

In any case, here is the race report that I wrote from Barkley, it has photos and short video clips of different parts of the course, finding the books, etc.  http://www.daveharper.com/Barkley/index.htm

Today was a fun morning.  I was invited to speak to a 10th grade Life Management class for an hour.   I got to tell them all about my ultra running, and we talked about goal setting  and stuff like that.  It was cool.  For some reason, my wife thought it was rather comical that I was talking to anyone about Life Management, I can’t imagine why.  I mean, our life with 3 kids, 4 horses, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 birds, a hamster and fish is the most calm, peaceful, relaxed, well planned, and organized vacation of a life that a person could ever imagine.  Isn’t it Honey?  NOT!  Yea, I suppose complete chaos is a more accurate description, but hey, only WE know the truth.  SERENITY NOW!!!!!

Today was a trip for me, Emily and William to head to Gatorland.  In case you didn’t know, World Famous Gatorland, established in Orlando in 1949, and in the opening collage of photos in Chevy Chases VACATION movie.

We had a blast.  Photos at  http://daveharperphotos.irun100s.com/GalleryThumbnails.aspx?gallery=44350

On a running note, I’ve got a few nice short runs in.   I’ve only ran one 4 mile run between Badwater and Furnace Creek, and I’ve been surprised now good I feel on some short, fast 3 mile runs.  They’ve been very fun.

Tomorrow I’m going to try to get out and paddle my kayak for a couple hours. 

Weekend before last, The Harper Clan all made a trip over to Tampa for a country music concert.  We went to see Brad Paisley, Rodney Atkins, and I forget the 17 year old girls name that opened for them.  I’m sure Ashley will comment here and tell me.  It was awesome.  Some rain just as we arrived, but turned into a wonderful night.  We were Jammin!  Rodney’s song, “If you’re goin through Hell…” brought back those Badwater Memories.  Every time I hear that song it takes me right back to 2006 Badwater, and William Ansick playing that for me in the van.  Details of that stroll through the desert, and the verse of that song are on my 2006 Badwater race report.  Brad Paisley was great too, it’s always fun to see people live, so much more impressive than hearing them on the radio. 

Click photos for full size.

 Next night Ashley had a friend over for a sleepover, and we did a bonfire and Smores.  Kids ate those things till they were almost sick.  We also ended up baby sitting some friends Golden Retriever for the weekend.  She LOVED swimming in the pool.

Lastly, I got a couple really good bike rides in on Sunday and Monday.  My last of the long rides.   Furnace Creek coming up soon.  I think I’m ready!

My new toy, to replace some that I’ve grown tired of.  I’ve got a couple of very nice motorcycles, the blue ones) that I’ve enjoyed but they are just not as high performance as I really want. 

So, I added a new KTM(orange one) beast of street-legalized dirt bike.   To put it in perspective, the blue dual-sport bike weighs about 350 lbs, and makes about 33-34 horsepower.  The Orange KTM weights 290 lbs with 55-60 hp.  50 lbs less weight with nearing twice the horsepower, QUITE the difference.

It’s a fully capable race machine, having won the DAKAR rally in Africa (3,500 mile offroad race over 17 days, through the Sahara, Morocco, Senegal, etc) multiple times.   Hmmmmmm, interesting.

We just returned from our Summer vacation in North Carolina.  We did a ‘treasure hunting’ vacation up to Franklin.  This is an area known for many Gem mines, where you can mine for Rubies, Sapphires, Emeralds, and variuos other stones, depending on the mine.  We rented a 30 foot Class A Motorhome for the trip up.  First time we have done that, and I must say, we had an AWESOME time of it.  The kids said it was the best vacation we ever had, and they want to keep the motorhome.  I was surprised to find driving the big, wide, long truck to be a pleasure, I loved it. 

It was so cool to be driving down the road, while everyone was comfortable and relaxed in their own space, watching TV or playing games, Tamara’s cooking stuff in the microwave.  It’s the way to travel.  Of course you pay for that at the gas pump!  See photo!

Here is a link to a few of our other photos from the trip
http://daveharperphotos.irun100s.com/GalleryThumbnails.aspx?gallery=32151

We still have to gather our finds at the mines together and get a photo of them to put up.  We mined(we found rubies, but we aren’t exactly rich from it), played in the local rivers, did some hiking, and plenty of shopping.  Around camp we also had a river running by to play in, we fished, and did the campfires and cooking out.   

The best thing about the trip was that EVERYONE really had a good time.  We all wished we could have stayed another week.  On the way home, we were planning when we could do another RV trip.  Maybe something at Christmas time.

Sunday was ‘build the horses paddocks’ day.  We had some issues with Uno(the gray Arabian) last week, and had to keep him off the pasture for extended periods.  Ashley’s Blog (equinechick link on left) has more details.  For a while we’ve been planning to build paddocks off the backs of the horses stalls, so we could keep them contained in the barn,  but they could also walk outside.  I hate keeping a horse locked up in a 12 x 12 stall. 

With Uno needing to be kept in more, today was the day to get it done, and I had help off and on from Emily, William and Ashley. 

By the end of the day, all was complete and all three horses have some extra space.

Welcome to my BLOG!  This first posting, written soon after finding out that some health issues that I’d been having are not a significant issue as I feared came as great news for me, and renewed my enthusiasm for many things in my life.   While I like writing and try to keep a written journal, I think this will be a lot of fun, to share the things that I’m doing with my friends, and also to look back on as time passes.  Welcome, enjoy, subscribe on the left if you want me to let you know when I’m added new things to the website.  AND PLEASE POST COMMENTS OR EMAILS TO LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU’RE UP TO!

As far as the health issues that are now pretty much behind me, over the last year or so, some issues with my heart, and resulting running performance had me concerned.  After a couple of particularly bad episodes of what seemed to be an arrhythmia, or out of control heart rate where your heart is just fluttering and not really beating,  I went to see a cardiologist.  In these situations that lasted a few minutes, I really could not get a pulse, and my Heart Rate Monitor would give crazy reading, 280 bpm and such.  A very odd feeling.  In the last 8 months I had some episodes that seems particularly bad, so I went to see a cardiologist.  The resulting testing first showed an abnormal EKG that had him suspecting an enlarged heart or thickened heart walls.   Very high caffeine consumption and stress were also suspects.   CT Scans and Ultrasound testing was scheduled, and further testing revealed that the heart was in good condition, excepting an Aortic Valve that is not sealing properly, allowing some flowback of oxygenated blood back into the heart, rather than going into my system as it should, and some mild scarring in my lungs from some problem in the past.  At this point, we do not know if this is a condition I’ve had forever, or if it is a new occurrence, followup checks will tell us that.  But it’s fairly minor, and nothing that I can do about it at this point.  We just have to check it in a year, and see if the valve issue is the same or progressing to a worsened condition.  I feel like it’s probably something I’ve always had, but who knows, maybe I’ll have a pig heart transplant or something at some point in the future.  Just to provide me all the best karma possible, I’m swearing off bacon to save my friends the pigs.  But then again, if I eat more bacon, maybe there will be more pig hearts available.  Oh well, FOOD for thought, huh?

THEN the fun begins.

The next issue came with the CT Scans that were done which incidentally revealed two tumors in my liver.  Not a good thing, so additional scans were scheduled to make further determinations of the problem.  Eventually, they were diagnosed as two benign cavernous hemangiomas which are actually fairly common, and of no consequence.  

My original issue was likely caffeine, stress, and maybe the fact that I felt something was wrong, just increased the stress on me.  I was taking in massive amounts of caffeine.  I know I was trying to run and exercise but constantly worried that something may be seriously wrong.  I didn’t realize the toll this was taking, until I got a clean bill of health.  I can promise you a lot of soul searching and thought went on during that time.

In any case, I got some cool measurements and photos of my heart, and confirmation that there is no plaque buildup in my arteries, everything is wide open and good, but for the first quarter of this year, it was quite an unusual situation for me to be worried about possible serious heart problems, or the possibility of having to deal with a cancer diagnosis and what that would mean to me and my family. 

Part of my function as a Financial Planner is explaining to people that as part of a financial plan is the protection provided by insurance.  They NEED life insurance, disability insurance, health insurance, long term care insurance and now we have available products like cancer, serious illness insurance.  So many that I speak with just don’t think it can happen to them, and it’s rather ironic that I’m healthier and more fit than almost all of them, yet here I am, having to review every aspect of what I have in place in my financial life to determine what we do if I am not able to work for 6 months, a year, or longer.  I practice what I preach, and will only make one significant financial change after having gone through this, but it was a wakeup call, and I wish I could make every client have to face these facts for just one day, to open their eyes as to what one medical diagnosis could mean to them and their families financial future.

This whole process took 2 or 3 months, and really derailed my ability to train effectively.  I missed some races that I really wanted to do, the Massennuten 100 miler in Virginia, and the Hardrock 100 in Colorado had to be scratched off the list.  I was hoping to compete in both Hardrock and Badwater, in the same year, 10 days apart.  But with all of this going on, I simply did not feel I had the time to be prepared for these two ultra-difficult events.

I do still intend to compete in my third Badwater 135 Ultra, and will follow that up in October with the Furnace Creek 508 bicycle race.  Completion of both of these events in the same year is pretty exclusive, only 11 people have completed it, none of them from Florida, so that is my goal for 2008.  I’m looking forward to it.