Monday, August 7

The king of the buffet and the king of the mountain

You may wonder just how much weight I lost at the intense and extreme Kenyan Running Camp. Well, I didn't lose or gain any weight at all. At least that's what my scale says after coming back to Springfield. It's pretty much right where it was before I left.

But the thing is, I didn't eat the way I normally do. I ate at Chinese buffets. I ate lots at an opera tailgater. I ate lots more at the Jemez Pueblo feast day.

In fact, one of my fellow campers dubbed me "King of the Buffet." Quite the dubious distinction.

We met another king who is much greater than I. He's Steve Gapuchin, the King of the Mountain. Gapuchin, a Jemez Indian, is the first person to run up Pikes Peak. Also, he won the Pikes Peak marathon six straight times.

That about as amazing as winning Badwater repeatedly.

Here's an excerpt from the article I linked to above about Gapuchin:

The Jemez people see mountains as mystical, and see reaching the summit a spiritual endeavor....

Jemez Pueblo, settled by the Jemez in the late 13th century, is one of 19 pueblos in New Mexico and is located about 55 miles northwest of Albuquerque. The 2000 census lists its population as 1,953. At 7,880 feet, the pueblo's backyard, essentially, is miles of high mountain mesas and canyons. That's where they run, in the hills and baking heat, on the occasionally soft sand that strains calf muscles and lungs.

Running has been passed down, like a relay baton, through generations.

"When runners get old, there are some younger ones," said Gachupin, a retired janitor schooled in running by uncles and grandparents. "We teach them. We've been doing that for many, many years."

He grew up in the mountains. The tallest is 11,254-foot Redondo Peak. He'd run up it, then down.

"I was into mountain running," he said. "I chased animals."

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