Editor’s Note: This article was edited to substitute <blank> in place of the original word used in the article. Readers are invited to use a word of their choosing each time <blank> occurs in this article.
I was standing at the finish line of the South Mountains Half Marathon Trail race, waiting for my wife to finish what I would consider to be a challenging course located outside of Morganton, NC. My legs were battered and bruised from running the 50k the previous day, much of it over the same terrain as the race currently taking place. As folks started cheering, I looked up to see my good friend Heather come flying toward the finish line, capturing the first place Female Masters award for the race. What an amazing accomplishment, as Heather, who is on the closer to 60 side of 50, beat out all female runners but three that day. Wow! What a beast!
We waited together as others came in, including my lovely bride, then we all made our way back to the cars for the ride home. When asked about her prowess on the course, Heather, as usual, downplayed her abilities, and the amount of time she plies to her sport. She then went on to explain that super tricky downhill section around mile 10 just about did her in… until she applied her Five Word method to running the downhills. “Sometimes”, she said, “When things get technical and scary, the only way I can get through it is to say <blank>, <blank>, <blank>, <blank>, <blank>; and then I feel better!” When further quizzed about the need for five of the <blanks>, she was quick to inform me and my wife that indeed, that was the correct number of <blank>s to properly get down a knotty, rocky, hilly trail. “Try it sometime, you’ll see”, she informed me.
Hmmmm. I’ve been hitting the trails for going on 20 plus years now, and I’ve yet to try the five word method. Oh, I’ve tried many other unorthodox ways of getting to the end of a trail… puking, limping, having yellow jackets sting me to the end, stepping on a snake, face-planting… but never have I tried just <blank>ing my way to the finish. So, I figured I’d give it a go during my next race.
The day dawned bright and clear on the Seven Sisters Trail race in Montreat. I lined up with many others, eager to get this thing going, and also, to be done and on to the burritos at the finish. The Seven Sisters is about 14 miles long, but it is a hilly beast, and gave me lots of opportunities to try out my new downhill trail method. About 4 miles in, we hit our first good downhill. I thought I would ease into the new regimen, so I uttered one “<blank>!” at the first opportunity. While this was good all right, it came out pretty quick, and kinda left me wanting more. So, like Heather said, one “<blank>” was not enough. Mile 7 was the next shot at the method, and this time “<blank>, <blank>” was indeed better… but I still felt like something was lacking, and that I could, if I tried hard enough, get a few more of those good “<blank>s” out there. The last couple of miles of the race were severely downhill, and I had the opportunity to try again. This time, I went all in – “<blank>, <blank>, <blank>, <blank>, <blank>”! Oh my god, that was great! I felt loose and relaxed, ready to just kinda coast to the end of the race. I came to another steep section and I thought, “maybe, if five <blank>s is good, six would be better!” Then I realized, that was just silly. Who could possibly do six “<blank>s”?
Riding the wave of my previous five <blank>s, I finished my race in fine fashion. Funny though, I didn’t really want a burrito at the end. I went looking for a cigarette – and I don’t even smoke.
