Chugrad McAndrews Photography – San Francisco Food, Advertising and Catalog Photography

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My father is obsessed. So are his buddies… as well as over a hundred other people who showed up on a frozen morning to the first meeting of the year for the “Incline Club”. This is a group of people with a unified, monolithic obsession – it’s not a religion… or is it? Is it mostly spiritual? Is it mostly physical? However each describes his or her relationship to the process, the end goal is the same – by next summer, late August, most of these folks will compete in a running race to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs – that’s 14,110 ft. above sea level! I’ve driven to the top and walked up there numerous times throughout my life – the oxygen was so thin, just taking ten steps made me start to breathe heavy and get light-headed. When the race weekend rolls around, those truly committed (committable?) do the ascent and run up one day, then the ’round trip, up and down, the next day. The slightly more sane will choose one day or the other.

When my father walks out the front door of his house, he has a perfect view of “The Peak” which stares him down, challenging and enticing him. He has a personal relationship with the mountain and sees it as both a nemesis and a lover – the bittersweet siren song that draws him, almost uncontrollably, to test his human limitations in nature. He has been a nationally competitive distance runner as long as I can remember – it’s his hobby and his passion. I’m sure many others in the Incline Club share this drive.

My father is 70 years old as of a month ago. For a competitive runner, this is an exciting transition because he enters the lower end of a new age category. Theoretically, this puts him at an advantage over competitors since he’s the “youngest”. He is constantly adjusting his training routines to best be able to compete in whichever races he chooses to enter each year. When he’s going to do “The Peak”, which he does most years, his regimen includes multiple trips to the top, as well as these weekly runs with the Incline Club.

Special thanks to the founder of the Incline Club, Matt Carpenter, arguably the best mountain runner in the world – thanks for letting me shoot the opening meeting. You can find more information on the Incline Club here: http://www.inclineclub.com