Come alone. Do not wear your watch. Do not count your reps – it doesn’t matter.
Chapter 17
OLD JOE
“This is where you will work on speed,” Coach Benlehr told them.
Diana, Chuck, and Chris looked out upon the gently sloping lane. Blanca Peak stood high to their right, the Great Sand Dunes, five miles away to their left.
A grass-covered road arced gently downward, a backward capital C around boulders, sagebrush, and gullies.
“I want you to jog up here every week. Come alone. Do not wear your watch. Do not count your reps – it doesn’t matter. Run the grass road down to that wooden fence, then walk up the animal trail and repeat.”
“Let’s go,” Cal said, and the four of them ran down the light green carpet together.
“How far was that?” Madras asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Coach Benlehr replied. “Run down on the grass, walk up this trail. That’s it.”
“How do we know how fast we’ve run?” Chuck persisted. “How many reps should we run? How will we gauge our improvement?”
“You will know all those things without numbers,” Cal answered.
Thus, every week, each runner asked permission to run the Grass Road. Patty would say, “O.K!” and in an hour or so, they would return – thirsty and tired and aglow.
Chuck Madras had endured three months at Portsea Sierra so far and this was his twelfth visit to the Grass Road. Madras meticulously recorded each workout. It bothered him that he couldn’t wear his watch.
On July 7 he wrote: Midday, jogged to Grass Road, 12 strides, each one faster, jogged back to camp.
July 14, Grass Road x 14, smooth and fast, about 45 seconds each, approx. 2 minutes recovery up trail.
July 21, Grass Road x 15 or 16. Felt good.
July 28, Grass Road for about an hour.
August 4, Grass Road, met Old Joe.
“Hi, Madras!” said the old man in faded coveralls and a blue flannel shirt. He leaned against the split-rail fence at the end of the Grass Road.
“That’s right! How’d you know my name, Mister?”
“Oh, I know all your names, Chuck. Diana, Chris, Coach Cal, that pretty gal Patty. I was up here before any of you arrived. You sure picked a pretty place to run.”
“You live near here?” Chuck had never seen him before, had never seen any house up here.
“Yeah, I got a cabin down in the ravine over there. A bit of a hermit, I am. But I sure enjoy seeing you young folks run. Reminds me of my own runnin’ days.”
“Say, maybe you can tell me how this grass road came to be up here – it seems kind of random.”
“Sure, thing. ‘Bout fifty years ago, some Texas developer carved up the mountain side, sold a bunch of property, made a killin’. Plenty of greenhorns fell for it – city folks, lots of them from Denver. They paid their money, brought their campers, gave it a try for a summer or two, then vanished. No water, no power . . . this is no place for dependent people.”
“So how’d this grass road survive, Mr. . . ?”
“Old Joe. Joe Falcone.
“Yeah, you’d think the sagebrush would take it over, but the elk and wild horses keep it trimmed and fertilized. Been like this for years. Coach Cal discovered it right after he and Patty bought their cabin. It was great to see someone put it to good use.”
“Nice talking to you, Mr. Falcone,” Chuck said. “Thanks. Gotta get back to camp before they wonder where I’ve gone.”
“Nice talking with you, too, Chuck. Don’t tell them you saw me, OK? I like to keep to myself. “
“Sure, OK. Take care,” and Madras walked up the trail, dropped over the ridge, and jogged back to Portsea Sierra.
Every week that Chuck Madras ran the Grass Road, Old Joe appeared at the fence at the bottom of the C. “Hi, Chuck.”
“Hello, Joe.”
“You are looking very strong.”
“Thank you, Sir. This place is special.”
Old Joe smiled and nodded, then walked down the side of the ravine toward his cabin.
* * * *
“Hey, Chris, did you run the Grass Road this week?”
Nikolas glanced up from his road atlas, nodded, and asked, “Yeah, why? I run it every other Wednesday afternoon.”
“Ever see anyone up there?”
“Nope!” and went back to planning his trip home for Christmas.
“Diana,” Chuck asked the next week at the Dunes, “When you run the Grass Road, you ever see anyone else up there?”
“No, I see some wild horses occasionally. They give me a wide berth, but they’re pretty interested in my running.” After a pause, she added, “that’s maybe my favorite place to run. Smooth gentle downhill, easy on the legs, really feels like I’m floating down the road.”
“Coach, do you know a Joe Falcone?”
“Not really, but he is a local legend. He used to run from his cabin all the way into Alamosa, so they say. There’s a road race in town, the Joe Falcone Memorial Five-Mile. He ran it every year for thirty years.
“Why?” Calvin asked.
“Where was his cabin, Coach?”
“About a half mile from here, on the side of a ravine. One winter, an avalanche buried everything beneath tons of ice and boulders. There’s hardly a trace.”
Chuck Madras never saw Old Joe Falcone again.