Fitness Is a Shotgun Is a Camera Is a Computer

They're all means to an end, and in the case of fitness, the end I have in mind is simple: avoiding failure.

WARNING: Legs are not as long as they appear

I’m a total goat when I go duck hunting. Not the fastest hunter on foot, but hardy as hell, and determined. With a properly loaded pack, I can carry a lot of heavy gear a long way. And when a wounded duck is trying to evade me, I will chase it through a marsh for a mile if I have to.

I’ll also hike two miles across an arid landscape to kill a few doves away from the rabble, then lie through my teeth to everyone I meet on the way back to suggest it wasn’t worth it. If they want to fight for 20 yards of space along a crowded levee, let ’em.

All of this is why I was intensely mortified last fall on my fourth day of upland hunting with our friend Jim Millensifer.

A good friend of Hank’s, Jim is in many of Hank's gorgeous upland hunting photos in Pheasant, Quail, Cottontail. He’s an excellent cook (despite his atrocious Dollar Store taste in hunting snacks) and makes a mean pheasant salad sandwich. He is smart AF and has a sense of humor so dry it’d make you steal Gatorade from a collapsed marathoner. He hunts relentlessly. He’s known for putting in 18-mile days routinely. I hear he’s made children cry.

I very much wanted his approval.

And Jim, knowing that I’d never killed a wild pheasant or bobwhite before, or a prairie chicken, wanted very much to help me get all three.

I was in Kansas for the Kansas Governor’s Ringneck Classic, which Jim runs, and things did not start out well. On the day of the organized hunt, I was in a big line of hunters and never in the right place at the right time, though I was super thrilled to be there when my friend Rue bagged her first wild pheasant.

The next morning, Rue and I hunted with Jim and his buddies, and the best I could do was knock down a pheasant that we never did find (though I appreciated the “Holy shit!” I got for the distance of the shot, which was unusually long for me).

On the third day, it was just me, Jim and his incredible German wirehaired pointers Mia, Jazz, Jenna and Rae. That’s when I finally got my first wild pheasant and my first bobwhite quail. (The quail followed an incredible three-dog point, with two perfectly honoring the first - had I not been preparing to shoot, I would’ve whipped out my phone for a photo.)

On the fourth day - my last day to hunt - we were determined to put a prairie chicken in my game pouch.

For pheasants, we had hunted draws and the edges of farm fields. For quail we had hunted fence lines. But hunting chickens involved a different type of exertion.

They like low rolling hills, especially the tops of those hills, where they can get a good view of all the potential ground predators before they get too close. The ideal scenario would be a group of them hanging out just over the top of a hill, where they couldn’t see us until we were on top of them. The tactic to achieve this was to walk straight up hills at a good clip, staying close to the dogs, and hope something would flush when we reached the top.

It didn’t seem like it would be a big deal. Kansas is pretty flat, and not terribly challenging for a girl who grew up at the edge of the Sierra Nevada and chases mountain quail at 7,000+ feet.

But Jim is tall. I am too, at 5-foot-8, but I have the legs of a 5-foot-4 woman. Jim’s dogs are incredible athletes. And when I tried to keep up with them after three hard-hunting days, I just unraveled. I found myself staggering like a drunk, which is not ideal when you’re carrying a loaded shotgun. I had to say the words I despise the most.

“Jim, I can’t do this anymore.”

And that was that. We didn’t stop hunting, but we hunted back to his truck and switched to bobwhites, and I was fine.

Physically.

My pride was deeply wounded.

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Not long after that, when I was still editor of California Waterfowl Magazine, our hunter health columnist, Dr. Jeffry Metheny, wrote about exercise, and I told him my story. My failure, he told me, was not one of general fitness, but specific fitness.

While I was healthy and strong and did cardio regularly, my normal routine didn’t include that kind of walking. If I wanted to keep up with Jim Millensifer, he said, I needed a 6- to 8-week workout regimen that emulated THAT kind of walking.

It totally made sense. Hell, I actually ran a marathon during my running days, which lasted about three years, and I know that anyone who can run at all can run a marathon if they follow a very specific course of preparation over 18 weeks. I’m knock-kneed, pigeon-toed and have hips that hang a bit lopsided, so if I can do it, any ambulatory person can.

That brings me to today. In mid-September, Hank and I will be joining Jim on a multi-state “chicken chase” that will involve both high-altitude hunting - which mountain quail scouting will prepare me for - and likely some of that rolling-hill terrain as well.

I’ve been racking my brain for a way to emulate those rolling hills of Kansas without buying a treadmill or driving a long distance just to walk, which has always struck me as absurd. I’ve finally found it: a 0.4-mile uphill stretch of the Johnny Cash Trail in Folsom, which Hank and I walk on weekends.

The Johnny Cash trail goes through my favorite terrain: oak woodland in golden rolling hills

The trail is not far from home, and it’s gorgeous, because it wraps around the pristine grounds of Folsom Prison (yes, the prison where Johnny Cash performed). We usually see turkeys, sometimes see deer and California quail, and periodically have some honkers fly overhead en route to nearby Folsom Lake (above the trail) or Lake Natoma (below it).

For this specialized workout, I walk from Folsom’s historic Sutter Street to the bridge over Robbers Ravine, then head up that 0.4-mile stretch, then down, then repeat as often as I have time for, taking care to keep a very quick pace.

If I do this every week, and add laps to it each week, I’ll be ready for those hills. The only thing that will be dicey is high-elevation walking, because I can train for that only as long as the nearby national forests remain open, which will be until there are too many major fires burning simultaneously in California. At that point, the US Forest Service will lack the capacity to cope with one more emergency, so they’ll tell us all to stay the hell out.

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This is the first time I’ve actually trained for any aspect of hunting, and the first time I’ve trained for anything since the marathon I ran in 2004 (Twin Cities Marathon, 4:31:33). I absolutely loved the endurance and robust heart and lungs that distance running gave me, but both my chiropractor and primary doctor have begged me not to resume running because of what it could do to the various fragile segments of my spine. I hate pain, so I comply. That was my last race. I even tossed the photographic evidence last time we purged photos on our refrigerator, because I’m just not that invested in the glory days of my youth; my life is way better now, even though I looked better then.

When I watch Hank wrestle with the fact that he’s no longer the athlete he once was, it bums me out. I wish I could give him what I have - gratitude for the fitness I’ve been able to maintain, zero fucks given about what I can’t do anymore (running, tae kwon do - though I dearly loved kicking and hitting a punching bag).

Bruised, Battered but Unbeaten

But I started in a very different place than Hank did. I grew up in a family that disdained athleticism, except during the Olympics and the Rose Bowl. When we were driving in our car and we saw people jogging, which is what non-competitive running was called in the 1970s, we remarked how unhappy they looked and congratulated ourselves for our lethargy.

I’m not making this up.

Amazingly, I played tennis for two years in high school after I discovered I really liked the thwack! sound the ball made when it hit the racquet. I was pretty good at it, but I quit when my knees started hurting. It was only when I became a runner 20 years later that I realized it was tight IT bands, not actual injury.

I discovered exercise in my mid-20s, when I could no longer eat anything I wanted and be rail thin. Amazingly, it stuck. I have a pretty good routine, and even when life or illness takes me away from it, I always find my way back. But exercise was then - and remains now - a means to an end.

At first, the end was looking good, because what could be more important than being attractive when you’re in your 20s?

Now, at 56, it’s about staving off pain from sacrum to brain stem, ensuring I don’t lose mobility with age, and being able to hunt how I want. OK, not gonna lie, it’s about looking good, too, but I don’t kid myself - my current goal is, “Not bad for (insert age here)!”

Fitness is a tool that helps me achieve my goals. It’s the same as this computer that helps me write, the camera that helps me take beautiful photos, and the shotgun that helps me kill delicious birds.

And the second I don’t need this training, I’ll stop. It will be hunting season. Time to reap the rewards. And to keep up with Jim Millensifer.

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Trail Pet Peeves

-People who think the “walk left, bike right” rules don’t apply to them
-People who bring bags to collect their dog’s shit, then leave shit-filled bags beside the trail (WTAF, people)
-People who leave behind a wake of perfume that makes my head hurt - I’d rather smell their BO

Trail loves

-People who say hi and smile to everyone they see
-Cyclists who thank me for making room for them when things get crowded (glad they can see I don’t like walking on riprap!)
-Woodpeckers that pack perforated metal signposts with acorns