I started running about 3 months ago. I fought against the urge to run - which was never really a full-fledged 'urge' but more of an 'inkling' or perhaps a 'reluctant happenstance' - for most of my life. I resisted recreational running forever, saving my legs and lungs for more pressing needs like rushes to the bathroom or beating the regulars to the front of the line when they open the doors at the Golden Corral. Nevertheless, one night I found myself aimlessly Googling things and saw an advertisement for a 5k run. It was glitzy with internet bling, flashing lights, music, and a list of sponsors that included various running-type stores and Budweiser. Anything sponsored by the king of beers must be a decent endeavor, so I clicked away, becoming more and more interested with each submenu. I was one click from pressing the "send my money over the internet now" button, when I triple-checked the date and, to my athletically-premature dismay, realized that I had to work that day.
Persistence is almost one of my best qualities. There are times in my life when sometimes I just really, really want something, and I just MIGHT keep trying to get it. Well, this was going to maybe, possibly be one of those times. So before my kindergarten-sized attention span kicked in and overrode any current determination that may or may not have been waning inside me, I Google-ized other races in the area. Many popped up, but the first one was the Route 66 10k in Edwardsville. And it was on a day I was off! Not wanting to thwart my own initiative, I clicked the hell out of the 'Register Now' button, securing my place in the annals of running. I figured I could Google-map how to get to Edwardsville later.
Long story short, I ran that 10k earlier today. Here are the TOP 10 THINGS I LEARNED FROM RUNNING MY FIRST 10k:
#10: As amazing as this seems, "10k" does not stand for the amount of prize money you receive if you win the race. This was easily the biggest disappointment of the day. I mean, I didn't plan on actually winning or anything, but come on - this threw everything I thought about the sport of running through the looking glass. Why bother? A tee shirt or a medal? Actually that little 'k' represents the distance you have to run. And there's a helluva lot more k's in a 10k than a 5k.
#9: Go to the bathroom at home. Don't think that the kindly race organizers will think of everything you'll need on race day. Stop at Bread Co on the way to the race. There's one on every corner, and their bathrooms are pristine. I've experienced nature in many of its forms throughout my many years, and believe me, whatever was 'existing' in the Port-a-Pottie I entered before the race was definitely not natural.
#8: The sport of 10k racing involves lots of technical jargon that you MUST LEARN to ensure your survival throughout the event. For example, before the race, a surly 'race volunteer' (who was probably forced to be there by her probation officer) will ask for your ID and confirmation number (which you sure-as-hell better not have forgotten at home or dropped in the Porta-Pottie). She'll make lots of heiroglyphical markings on her race sheet, then raise her eyebrows at you (assessing the dubiousness of your even crossing the finish line) and hand you your RACING BIB. On this bib will be your RACING NUMBER (mine was written in scientific notation, I think) which you should affix to your RUNNING SHIRT (which should have been pre-purchased and should ideally be made from space-age, NASA-approved running type material that you can't buy anywhere for less than $49.99) using a combination of safety pins and/or duct tape. I learned upon finishing the race that your RACING NUMBER is used by the search and rescue folks to identify your body if you happen die in the local wilderness after veering off the haphazardly marked race path (probably due to some horrible fraternity prank executed by pledges from the local university who- rather than hand out water and Gatoraid - decided to turn the signs with the red arrows pointing in opposite directions.)
#7: Aid Stations are not restaurants. You should take your water and/or Gatoraid and move along. Think of it more as a 'drive through' experience than an actual sit-down dinner. I learned this at the Aid Station #1 when my pancakes never arrived.
#6: There will inevitably be some knucklehead performing what people in the running profession call 'intervals' throughout the race. This is apparently some high-tech training maneuver whereby you subject your body to short distances of all-out exertion through sprinting, then slow it down to a slow jog or crawl to 'recover'. I saw such a person, who blistered past me at record-setting pace yelling "Good Day!" to the rest of us huffers and puffers as he jaunted along carefree and easy. Just as I got done cussing him out beneath my 'controlled breathing,' he'd reappear from somewhere behind me, again yelling "Good Day!" at a pace so fast it swooshed away all the clean air I was trying to breathe. If you should see such a person in your next 10k, knock him down immediately, before he steals all your clean air. People, race time is race time. Save your training techniques for the couch, like I do.
#5: Gatoraid stains your shorts. Unless you spent more than $500 for a pair of gyroscopic shoes, it's PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to drink Gatoraid while you're running a 10k. First, they only fill the little cups half-way. Second, running is a viciously brutal bodily activity, and thus it remains impossible to quench your thirst while running. Rocky drank his eggs BEFORE he went on his runs up all those Philadelphia stairs. And you didn't hear Mick, his trainer, gravelly shouting, "Drink your water, Rock!" while he was doing one-armed push ups. Drinking while running is a bad idea. On my first attempt at drinking, someone behind me took a faceful of the stuff as I missed my mouth; then I got in a small swig, but the rest rolled down my arms and onto my bib (which I promptly wiped off so the rescuers could find me if I got lost in the Edwardsville wilderness) and shorts. The sugary residue stuck to my hands, which attracted all sorts of bees and other assorted stinging insects. At the next Aid Station I went for water, which I promptly threw all over my hand, disgruntling yet another horde of my stinging nemeses.
#4: Along the race route, there will be gaggles of young kids, who should be mowing lawns, whitewashing fences, or completing their summer reading, who will instead be yelling at you, offering to squirt you with their hydraulically supercharged water guns. I don't care if you're running the Death Valley 10k, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LET THOSE LITTLE IMPS SQUIRT YOU. Lord only knows what kind of things they loaded those guns with and were subsequently dripping down my body after that mess.
#3: Eventually you'll pass the 5 mile marker. At this point (if you haven't veered off the race path and been devoured by wolves)you'll either be "digging deep" (as my old football coach used to yell. They didn't have 10k's back then, though, so what the hell did he know) or suffering from some form of acute, race-induced psychosis whereby you're flinging your clothes off piece by piece and handing them to the old ladies in the front yard trying to water their petunias despite all this race hub-bub. By this time, all the actual runners have finished, eaten their celebratory steak dinner, and are running back towards you in their 'cool down run'. They'll all be smiling (hiding their Budweiser cups behind their backs) and saying things like, "You're almost there" or "Just a couple more turns and you're home." THEY'RE LYING! Never believe them. There's always at least a dozen more turns and probably five or six more uphills and no downhills. Runners who have already finished are notorious liars. Google it.
#2: When you finish the race, always remember: Water first, then beer. There will probably be a beer table offering a complimentary beer to all 'finishers' (pity those who veered off the course and are currently being hunted down by hoodlums or forest gnomes). Avoid this table at all costs. Despite the incredible amounts of nutrients, phytonutrients, giga-nutrients, and the myriad other healthful benefits of a grog of ale, don't indulge. What's the purpose of drinking beer: to get drunk. And what do you do when you're getting drunk: sweat a lot, stumble around foolishly, throw up on things, and fling your clothes off at old ladies. YOU JUST RAN 6.2 MILES!!! YOU'RE ALREADY DOING THOSE THINGS!!!! You don't need the beer for that.
#1: It's never encouraging to see the race officials at the finish line calculating your finishing time with a sundial.
'Nuff said.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Thursday, June 16, 2011
My New Best Friends... and enemies.
I'm no stranger to fitness. From the time I was a wee lad, I've always enjoyed running around and getting tired and dirty. A couple years ago, however, I started a slow decline into slothliness that I began to enjoy more and more. My training regimes switched from push-ups on the floor to those frozen ice cream pushups with the cardboard wrapper. I gave up. The menswear guy at JC Penney started drooling when he saw me heading his way, because he knew I was back for the next size up. It's just terrible how other people can bask in your demise.
After a scare with some chest pains (which amounted to nothing more than the constriction from the size-too-small shirt I was wearing pressing against my heart and hurting like hell,)I decided to take my body back from the Ding Dong Demons that had possessed it. One round of P90-X later, and I was down 35 pounds and feeling great. I didn't throw up in my mouth when I walked by the mirror naked; and where once nestled a two-liter of stomach contents now displays something that's about two cans short of a six pack. Not bad for a few months of pain and agony on the living room floor.
But I know myself. It'll never last. I have fitness ADD, and the only thing standing between my current almost-non-embarrassing physique and Homer Simpson's twin is a couple of ill-timed wedding receptions with open bars and a clearance on Nutty Bars and Lays Classic Family Size bags. So I must diversify. Expand the fitness regimen. Keep it interesting, so the army of neurons I have in my body fighting to get to the couch and pop open the Schlafly Heffeweisen are kept in check by the Allied Powers of righteous living. It's a constant battle raging inside my cells. The good guys are winning for now. But the force of the dark side is strong within me...
So I told myself (relax... I only talk in my head) that I need a new challenge. I began subscribing to Men's Health. (And by the way, what a wonderful magazine. It's like an ever-changing hodgepodge of fitness facts interspersed with apparently indispensable tidbits of man knowledge that no one but subscribers are privy to. And the facts seem to change from month to month. So I figure, since raspberries are in this month, I'm eating the hell out of them. Maybe they'll be carcinogous in October, and won't that keep things interesting!) There was an advertisement for trail running shoes. Hmmm. There's a novel idea for me. I'd flirted with the idea of training for a triathlon, but I really don't do that swimming thing. It's probably the water-related PTSD I suffered as an adolescent when I jumped off the cliff at Johnson Shut-ins in my Converse hightops and nearly drowned, as my little cousin Shari sat there eating her Fun Dip on the bank and laughing hysterically at me while my arms flailed like a spent 18 foot giraffe who waded into a 22 foot watering hole.
So there's this trail running ad. Ever mindful of researching a topic thoroughly, I spent a few minutes of downtime at work Googling things like 'trail running' and 'trail running in St. Louis'. I was almost turned to the dark side when the ads for 'trail mix' started popping up with all that peanutty, chocolatey raisiny goodness... but I resisted. I saw an article written by a veteran trail runner, but it was really long. And apparently there's a book on the topic about some African guys that run barefoot, but I'm not really that interested in reading a book on it. So anyway, after diligently skimming the article, the key points I picked up are that you're supposed to get really expensive trail running shoes (hence all the pop-up ads for Adidas Trailman SPQ60's and Nike Air Gazelles and such) and that you're supposed to keep your eyes on the trail because apparently it's a lot different than running on pavement.
Well, the new shoes are out because I totally blew my Father's Day gift on a kick-ass sportcoat that I can wear with absolutely anything (until my fat dark side takes over again, and it doesn't fit over my flab without giving me chest pains and sending me back to the ER for another stupid copay and day of blood draws and bogus tests.) But I've got six-year-old running shoes that are perfect for a trail because I really don't care if I step in horse shit in them or not.
Armed with my library of new information and a heart full of gusto for my new life-fitness-challenge thingie, I headed to the only trail I know about from here to Oregon: the Chubb trail at Lone Elk Park. (I forgot to Google 'running trails' and the only ones they referenced in my thorough skimming of the article were in Oregon. Or maybe it was Wyoming.) Not wanting to waste another day of NOT trail running, which will probably become my new obsession since I'm done with my last obsession of p90X, I slipped into my old trustees, put on some tight undies (cause I figured you weren't supposed to run trails in boxers cause you might give the soldiers concussions), and headed to the trail. Hell, I practically grew up on this trail, as I've been all over that park both on and off the paths. I was in the zone, AND I even remembered to bring a bottle of water for the return trip. I knew enough to not expect a drinking fountain in the middle of mother nature's palace! I'm NOT an idiot, you know.
My first thought when I arrived at the park was, "They've moved the trail." It wasn't where it used to be. Had it been that long? I remembered the gate with the wide path beyond it, crushed white gravel for miles, wide enough for a jogger, a stay-at-home mom with a stroller, and a rich kid on a horse all to pass comfortably. Now I drove further and there was a new sign with "Chubb Trail Parking" this way. I followed it into parts unknown and pulled my ever-versatile Honda between the dirt covered Cherokee and the Toyota Rivertrailmonstereater 4x4. I locker her down and 'whoop whooped' the alarm in case a deer or maybe a bear tried to get at my water bottle.
Three guys were heading my way from the end of the lot, so I assumed that's where the trail was, as I had absolutely no idea otherwise. My first thought of them was 'street toughs', but then I realized I wasn't running a trail in north St. Louis and I relaxed. They all smiled and said 'hey' and I caught a glimpse of them. Wow. Trail runners. In the flesh. Lean. Cut. Dirty. Their shirts were off. They had muddy shoes that looked like they must have cost about $125 dollars a shoe. Their legs were caked with mud and debris. Their asses were sweaty (NOT THAT I WAS LOOKING AT THEM BUT IF A GUY HAS A REALLY SWEATY ASS YOU JUST NOTICE IT. GEEZ.) and covered with trail stuff. They had flecks of mud and blood, yes BLOOD, on their chests and arms. And they were talking up a storm, totally psyched from their run.... no, dare I say, obvious adventure on that trail.
Hell yes. I knew I made the right call. This was it. My heart was already pounding with anticipation. Screw the stretch out. My adrenaline will carry me. I know where the trail head is, or at least what side of the parking lot it's on. I'm going for it.
I headed down the lot and got to the gated white gravel road. Ah, sweet success. Next to the road was a small wooden pole with a sign reading "Chubb Trail" with an arrow pointing towards a narrow path that my fat self couldn't have even squeezed onto. It headed away from the comforting gravel and into the woods, disappearing after only a few yards.
Rethinking my strategy, I decided maybe I should have Googled the actual trail first. I saw headlines from tomorrow's paper: "Idiot Found Dead of Exhaustion in Middle of Woods Apparently Looking for Trail End." Those guys seemed nice enough anyway. Who knows, maybe they'll be my future trail-running buds. So I casually acted like I was from another state and here on vacation (never mind the Missouri plates on the car... geez.) and sauntered athletically back to the three guys.
They were hanging on the bed of their Toyota Rivermonstergatorrunner and laughing and talking. One of them was sucking some sort of nutritional goo out of a pack. The others were chugging NASA-approved recovery drinks and discussing how fast this one guy was at their last half marathon. I tried to act cool.
"Hey, do you guys know how long this trail is?" Now, I figured I had to at least act like I knew WHERE the trail was, but I knew I could work my way into the rest.
"Oh sure!" They all smiled. They were very nice trail guys. My apprehensions waned. "It's 6 miles to the first turnaround or you can go the whole way and it's 7 miles."
"Each way?"
"Yeah," they laughed. They were dripping with sweat and totally high on the smell of horse shit and loamy earth.
"Well, do you know where the halfway point might be?" I figured I didn't mind if they knew I was a newbie, which they probably discerned already from my shoes (which are now probably worth about 45 cents on eBay) and my Supplement Superstore tee shirt which people only wear to Club Fitness when they're trying to impress the chicks away from the meatheads there.
"Oh yeah, the railroad tracks are about halfway. The second set I mean. And it gets a bit marshy toward the middle, from the flood, if you go that far."
"The trail's in great shape!" They all chimed in about how great it was. I smiled and nodded. "Oh, but man the horseflies suck!"
They all grimaced together.
"Do you have any bug spray?" he asked.
"Ummmm, no."
"Oh, man, you're gonna need some." He reached into his duffel bag, which contained extra socks, protein bars, water doodads, and what I believe to have been a small nuclear fitness device of some kind. He handed me some variety of OFF repellent. "Joe here got divebombed by like a dozen of those bastards. We were running as fast as we could at one point. They were bad."
They all agreed they were bad as I sprayed myself down. A few bugs, but the trail's in great shape. This is it! I thanked my future best friends and headed away with a smile of almost jittery enthusiasm plastered across my face. P90x... conquered. The long loop of 2.5 miles on the JB paved trail... conquered. Next up... trail running! I figured I'd do a couple miles, turn around and head back. Nice and easy. Get used to it. I figured the horseflies were probably in the flooded section, and I knew that was a few miles past my target.
I jogged... no, I RAN (slowly) onto the narrow trail. Wow, this really was in great shape. Fine dirt covered the dirt. It was nice and soft. Way better than pavement. Pavement is for pussies, I thought. I ran a few steps in comfort. I looked at nature all around me. Freaking amazing. Huge trees. Fresh air. Birds! Butterflies! This is it!
Then I hit a tree root and turned my ankle.
Jesus H. Christ that hurt. I hobbled on it, remembering something or other I skimmed in that stupid article about paying attention on the trail and visualizing barefoot African guys laughing hysterically with bones coming out of their noses and pointing at the stupid white guy who turned his ankle 20 feet into his first trail run. I hobbled some more and thought, screw it. I kept running and it really felt ok. Thanks plyometrics and p90x!!! Besides, if I was gonna do this thing, I was going to have to learn to run on a few bumps and bruises. But I couldn't help but think that whatever I had on my feet felt like I was running in house slippers about this time.
I headed forth, cautiously and with all four eyes on the trail in front of me. It reminded me of learning to drive a car, and how when you first start driving you stare at the end of the hood until you almost rear end the guy in front of you, so you expand your vision down the road. Well I started staring at the tips of my toes, but fearing to run into the business end of an elk or buffalo, I expanded my vision a few feet in front of me.
The ankle felt okay. The trail was nice. I avoided rocks and roots and even low lying branches. This was again truly awesome!
Then something hit my head. Then my ear. I heard the buzz. Then my arm. More buzzing. Wow. The horsefly arrived sooner than I thought. Then my neck. My ear. My arm. My cheek. Dammit! I swatted. I hit it. It came back. More divebombs. Then it left. Ha. Not so bad. I made the first left turn on the trail.
Jesus H. Christ! Where'd the freakin trail go?!? My next step was straight down on a rock, then more straight down on rocks, gravel, stumps and horse shit. My house slippers strained from all the nature and cried out for the smooth pavement of suburbia. Oh. THIS is trail running. I slowed waaaaaaay down and made it down the hill.
Wow. That was absolutely a rush. Back on the dirt, surrounded by trees.
Bam! Another head shot. Two of them, first one cheek then another. Trying to land on me so they could tear chunks of flesh out of my virginal suburban skin. My arms flailed wildly until they too left me alone.
Peace. And a fork in the trail and no sign. What the hell way do I go? Well, the left fork goes straight up a hill. The right fork takes a nice easy loll through a clearing to the first set of railroad tracks. We'll go right. A few strides and the levee with the tracks is above me. Now what? Do I take my 6 foot body through the 5 foot drainage tunnel under the tracks, which is flooded with 2 inches of water, or do I follow the dirt trail STRAIGHT UP the side of the levee and over the tracks?
After exactly five seconds of logical deduction, I turned around and decided that my ankle probably should get some ice on it. And I could do some more Googling so I didn't end up as another of the countless lost-moron-on-trail-gets-eaten-by-buffalo-even-though-buffalo-are-vegetarians statistics.
My slipper shoes took me back up the hill... the solid rock one... the one that I went straight down... only now it was straight up. I walked, then scoffed at myself and said, "What the hell kind of man are you, punk?" I ran (very slowly) up the hill and as soon as I hit the dirt, the horseflies returned.
My lungs burned with the funky freshness of actual non-polluted air. In shock, my system almost collapsed from all the nature. But I kept running (very slowly) up the hill, swatting horse flies the whole way. They attacked relentlessly, and as I conquered the hill, I found alternate ways of gasping for air. There was no way I was gonna suck down one of those ginormous buzzing bastards. I remembered the recollections of my new best friends on the lot: "We were running as fast as we could."
Jesus H. Christ. I already ran as fast as I could. My 'fast as I could' was at the bottom of that freakin hill of rocks, covered in horse shit. I saw the new headline in tomorrow's paper: "Local Trail-Running Wannabe Dies of Exhaustion Several Hundred Yards from Parking Lot. Water Bottle Scant Yards from Famished Fake Athlete. Flies Devoured Flesh. Victim Identified by Supplement Superstore Shirt."
No. That would not be me. I ran (slowly) onward, windmill arms flailing feverishly at the neverending hordes of lascivious nastiness. Just as I was going to attempt to try breathing through my ears, they were gone. My (slow) run continued until I hit the parking lot. I was hoping that my new best friends left, because I think I was only gone about 10 minutes. They were. If I see them again, I'll be sure to thank them for the (totally useless) bug spray and the (futile) warnings about the horseflies.
One day I'll make it to the six mile mark and celebrate by hurling all over the turnaround. But first I'll Google an actual map of the freaking trail so I know which one to follow. And I'll Google the hell out of 'horseflies' and figure out when they start dying off. I'll hit the trail again then because I SWEAR this trail running thing is going to be my new obsession.
After a scare with some chest pains (which amounted to nothing more than the constriction from the size-too-small shirt I was wearing pressing against my heart and hurting like hell,)I decided to take my body back from the Ding Dong Demons that had possessed it. One round of P90-X later, and I was down 35 pounds and feeling great. I didn't throw up in my mouth when I walked by the mirror naked; and where once nestled a two-liter of stomach contents now displays something that's about two cans short of a six pack. Not bad for a few months of pain and agony on the living room floor.
But I know myself. It'll never last. I have fitness ADD, and the only thing standing between my current almost-non-embarrassing physique and Homer Simpson's twin is a couple of ill-timed wedding receptions with open bars and a clearance on Nutty Bars and Lays Classic Family Size bags. So I must diversify. Expand the fitness regimen. Keep it interesting, so the army of neurons I have in my body fighting to get to the couch and pop open the Schlafly Heffeweisen are kept in check by the Allied Powers of righteous living. It's a constant battle raging inside my cells. The good guys are winning for now. But the force of the dark side is strong within me...
So I told myself (relax... I only talk in my head) that I need a new challenge. I began subscribing to Men's Health. (And by the way, what a wonderful magazine. It's like an ever-changing hodgepodge of fitness facts interspersed with apparently indispensable tidbits of man knowledge that no one but subscribers are privy to. And the facts seem to change from month to month. So I figure, since raspberries are in this month, I'm eating the hell out of them. Maybe they'll be carcinogous in October, and won't that keep things interesting!) There was an advertisement for trail running shoes. Hmmm. There's a novel idea for me. I'd flirted with the idea of training for a triathlon, but I really don't do that swimming thing. It's probably the water-related PTSD I suffered as an adolescent when I jumped off the cliff at Johnson Shut-ins in my Converse hightops and nearly drowned, as my little cousin Shari sat there eating her Fun Dip on the bank and laughing hysterically at me while my arms flailed like a spent 18 foot giraffe who waded into a 22 foot watering hole.
So there's this trail running ad. Ever mindful of researching a topic thoroughly, I spent a few minutes of downtime at work Googling things like 'trail running' and 'trail running in St. Louis'. I was almost turned to the dark side when the ads for 'trail mix' started popping up with all that peanutty, chocolatey raisiny goodness... but I resisted. I saw an article written by a veteran trail runner, but it was really long. And apparently there's a book on the topic about some African guys that run barefoot, but I'm not really that interested in reading a book on it. So anyway, after diligently skimming the article, the key points I picked up are that you're supposed to get really expensive trail running shoes (hence all the pop-up ads for Adidas Trailman SPQ60's and Nike Air Gazelles and such) and that you're supposed to keep your eyes on the trail because apparently it's a lot different than running on pavement.
Well, the new shoes are out because I totally blew my Father's Day gift on a kick-ass sportcoat that I can wear with absolutely anything (until my fat dark side takes over again, and it doesn't fit over my flab without giving me chest pains and sending me back to the ER for another stupid copay and day of blood draws and bogus tests.) But I've got six-year-old running shoes that are perfect for a trail because I really don't care if I step in horse shit in them or not.
Armed with my library of new information and a heart full of gusto for my new life-fitness-challenge thingie, I headed to the only trail I know about from here to Oregon: the Chubb trail at Lone Elk Park. (I forgot to Google 'running trails' and the only ones they referenced in my thorough skimming of the article were in Oregon. Or maybe it was Wyoming.) Not wanting to waste another day of NOT trail running, which will probably become my new obsession since I'm done with my last obsession of p90X, I slipped into my old trustees, put on some tight undies (cause I figured you weren't supposed to run trails in boxers cause you might give the soldiers concussions), and headed to the trail. Hell, I practically grew up on this trail, as I've been all over that park both on and off the paths. I was in the zone, AND I even remembered to bring a bottle of water for the return trip. I knew enough to not expect a drinking fountain in the middle of mother nature's palace! I'm NOT an idiot, you know.
My first thought when I arrived at the park was, "They've moved the trail." It wasn't where it used to be. Had it been that long? I remembered the gate with the wide path beyond it, crushed white gravel for miles, wide enough for a jogger, a stay-at-home mom with a stroller, and a rich kid on a horse all to pass comfortably. Now I drove further and there was a new sign with "Chubb Trail Parking" this way. I followed it into parts unknown and pulled my ever-versatile Honda between the dirt covered Cherokee and the Toyota Rivertrailmonstereater 4x4. I locker her down and 'whoop whooped' the alarm in case a deer or maybe a bear tried to get at my water bottle.
Three guys were heading my way from the end of the lot, so I assumed that's where the trail was, as I had absolutely no idea otherwise. My first thought of them was 'street toughs', but then I realized I wasn't running a trail in north St. Louis and I relaxed. They all smiled and said 'hey' and I caught a glimpse of them. Wow. Trail runners. In the flesh. Lean. Cut. Dirty. Their shirts were off. They had muddy shoes that looked like they must have cost about $125 dollars a shoe. Their legs were caked with mud and debris. Their asses were sweaty (NOT THAT I WAS LOOKING AT THEM BUT IF A GUY HAS A REALLY SWEATY ASS YOU JUST NOTICE IT. GEEZ.) and covered with trail stuff. They had flecks of mud and blood, yes BLOOD, on their chests and arms. And they were talking up a storm, totally psyched from their run.... no, dare I say, obvious adventure on that trail.
Hell yes. I knew I made the right call. This was it. My heart was already pounding with anticipation. Screw the stretch out. My adrenaline will carry me. I know where the trail head is, or at least what side of the parking lot it's on. I'm going for it.
I headed down the lot and got to the gated white gravel road. Ah, sweet success. Next to the road was a small wooden pole with a sign reading "Chubb Trail" with an arrow pointing towards a narrow path that my fat self couldn't have even squeezed onto. It headed away from the comforting gravel and into the woods, disappearing after only a few yards.
Rethinking my strategy, I decided maybe I should have Googled the actual trail first. I saw headlines from tomorrow's paper: "Idiot Found Dead of Exhaustion in Middle of Woods Apparently Looking for Trail End." Those guys seemed nice enough anyway. Who knows, maybe they'll be my future trail-running buds. So I casually acted like I was from another state and here on vacation (never mind the Missouri plates on the car... geez.) and sauntered athletically back to the three guys.
They were hanging on the bed of their Toyota Rivermonstergatorrunner and laughing and talking. One of them was sucking some sort of nutritional goo out of a pack. The others were chugging NASA-approved recovery drinks and discussing how fast this one guy was at their last half marathon. I tried to act cool.
"Hey, do you guys know how long this trail is?" Now, I figured I had to at least act like I knew WHERE the trail was, but I knew I could work my way into the rest.
"Oh sure!" They all smiled. They were very nice trail guys. My apprehensions waned. "It's 6 miles to the first turnaround or you can go the whole way and it's 7 miles."
"Each way?"
"Yeah," they laughed. They were dripping with sweat and totally high on the smell of horse shit and loamy earth.
"Well, do you know where the halfway point might be?" I figured I didn't mind if they knew I was a newbie, which they probably discerned already from my shoes (which are now probably worth about 45 cents on eBay) and my Supplement Superstore tee shirt which people only wear to Club Fitness when they're trying to impress the chicks away from the meatheads there.
"Oh yeah, the railroad tracks are about halfway. The second set I mean. And it gets a bit marshy toward the middle, from the flood, if you go that far."
"The trail's in great shape!" They all chimed in about how great it was. I smiled and nodded. "Oh, but man the horseflies suck!"
They all grimaced together.
"Do you have any bug spray?" he asked.
"Ummmm, no."
"Oh, man, you're gonna need some." He reached into his duffel bag, which contained extra socks, protein bars, water doodads, and what I believe to have been a small nuclear fitness device of some kind. He handed me some variety of OFF repellent. "Joe here got divebombed by like a dozen of those bastards. We were running as fast as we could at one point. They were bad."
They all agreed they were bad as I sprayed myself down. A few bugs, but the trail's in great shape. This is it! I thanked my future best friends and headed away with a smile of almost jittery enthusiasm plastered across my face. P90x... conquered. The long loop of 2.5 miles on the JB paved trail... conquered. Next up... trail running! I figured I'd do a couple miles, turn around and head back. Nice and easy. Get used to it. I figured the horseflies were probably in the flooded section, and I knew that was a few miles past my target.
I jogged... no, I RAN (slowly) onto the narrow trail. Wow, this really was in great shape. Fine dirt covered the dirt. It was nice and soft. Way better than pavement. Pavement is for pussies, I thought. I ran a few steps in comfort. I looked at nature all around me. Freaking amazing. Huge trees. Fresh air. Birds! Butterflies! This is it!
Then I hit a tree root and turned my ankle.
Jesus H. Christ that hurt. I hobbled on it, remembering something or other I skimmed in that stupid article about paying attention on the trail and visualizing barefoot African guys laughing hysterically with bones coming out of their noses and pointing at the stupid white guy who turned his ankle 20 feet into his first trail run. I hobbled some more and thought, screw it. I kept running and it really felt ok. Thanks plyometrics and p90x!!! Besides, if I was gonna do this thing, I was going to have to learn to run on a few bumps and bruises. But I couldn't help but think that whatever I had on my feet felt like I was running in house slippers about this time.
I headed forth, cautiously and with all four eyes on the trail in front of me. It reminded me of learning to drive a car, and how when you first start driving you stare at the end of the hood until you almost rear end the guy in front of you, so you expand your vision down the road. Well I started staring at the tips of my toes, but fearing to run into the business end of an elk or buffalo, I expanded my vision a few feet in front of me.
The ankle felt okay. The trail was nice. I avoided rocks and roots and even low lying branches. This was again truly awesome!
Then something hit my head. Then my ear. I heard the buzz. Then my arm. More buzzing. Wow. The horsefly arrived sooner than I thought. Then my neck. My ear. My arm. My cheek. Dammit! I swatted. I hit it. It came back. More divebombs. Then it left. Ha. Not so bad. I made the first left turn on the trail.
Jesus H. Christ! Where'd the freakin trail go?!? My next step was straight down on a rock, then more straight down on rocks, gravel, stumps and horse shit. My house slippers strained from all the nature and cried out for the smooth pavement of suburbia. Oh. THIS is trail running. I slowed waaaaaaay down and made it down the hill.
Wow. That was absolutely a rush. Back on the dirt, surrounded by trees.
Bam! Another head shot. Two of them, first one cheek then another. Trying to land on me so they could tear chunks of flesh out of my virginal suburban skin. My arms flailed wildly until they too left me alone.
Peace. And a fork in the trail and no sign. What the hell way do I go? Well, the left fork goes straight up a hill. The right fork takes a nice easy loll through a clearing to the first set of railroad tracks. We'll go right. A few strides and the levee with the tracks is above me. Now what? Do I take my 6 foot body through the 5 foot drainage tunnel under the tracks, which is flooded with 2 inches of water, or do I follow the dirt trail STRAIGHT UP the side of the levee and over the tracks?
After exactly five seconds of logical deduction, I turned around and decided that my ankle probably should get some ice on it. And I could do some more Googling so I didn't end up as another of the countless lost-moron-on-trail-gets-eaten-by-buffalo-even-though-buffalo-are-vegetarians statistics.
My slipper shoes took me back up the hill... the solid rock one... the one that I went straight down... only now it was straight up. I walked, then scoffed at myself and said, "What the hell kind of man are you, punk?" I ran (very slowly) up the hill and as soon as I hit the dirt, the horseflies returned.
My lungs burned with the funky freshness of actual non-polluted air. In shock, my system almost collapsed from all the nature. But I kept running (very slowly) up the hill, swatting horse flies the whole way. They attacked relentlessly, and as I conquered the hill, I found alternate ways of gasping for air. There was no way I was gonna suck down one of those ginormous buzzing bastards. I remembered the recollections of my new best friends on the lot: "We were running as fast as we could."
Jesus H. Christ. I already ran as fast as I could. My 'fast as I could' was at the bottom of that freakin hill of rocks, covered in horse shit. I saw the new headline in tomorrow's paper: "Local Trail-Running Wannabe Dies of Exhaustion Several Hundred Yards from Parking Lot. Water Bottle Scant Yards from Famished Fake Athlete. Flies Devoured Flesh. Victim Identified by Supplement Superstore Shirt."
No. That would not be me. I ran (slowly) onward, windmill arms flailing feverishly at the neverending hordes of lascivious nastiness. Just as I was going to attempt to try breathing through my ears, they were gone. My (slow) run continued until I hit the parking lot. I was hoping that my new best friends left, because I think I was only gone about 10 minutes. They were. If I see them again, I'll be sure to thank them for the (totally useless) bug spray and the (futile) warnings about the horseflies.
One day I'll make it to the six mile mark and celebrate by hurling all over the turnaround. But first I'll Google an actual map of the freaking trail so I know which one to follow. And I'll Google the hell out of 'horseflies' and figure out when they start dying off. I'll hit the trail again then because I SWEAR this trail running thing is going to be my new obsession.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
I forgot to study for my stress test.
I was a good student. In fact, through my senior year in high school I was a very good student . I took school seriously. I studied. I did my own homework instead of beating up someone twerpier. I burned both the midnight oil AND the candle at both ends. And it really paid off. As well as a Master's Degree, I have a lifelong diagnosis of Irritable Bowel Syndrome to show for it. I now have a total of thirteen letters after my name, and my wonderful wife insists I'm no smarter than the non-English-speaking Bosnian handyman who lives next door and works out of his van. His driveway is always shovelled before mine after it snows. His garden hosts footlong cucumbers. The weeds were so thick in my 'garden' this past summer I couldn't even find my peppers. And his parrot is bilingual. My dog still eats his poop.
In addition to the hard-earned bowel twisting I received as a reward for all that study-induced anxiety, I was bequeathed a fantastic set of bodily organs primed for an early demise. My mom was hypertensive. I guess the focus of that diagnosis is in the word 'hyper', as in the heart is pounding out blood like a sugar-infected 5 year old boy without a nap who's running amuck in the ball pit of the children's museum. Plastic balls, like my mom's blood cells I suppose, are thrown violently and unrelentlingly against the walls of the pit. People are beaned randomly. Eyes are blackened. And eventually even the underpaid museum workers, unable to contain the ravages of the out-of-control urchin, flee for their own safety. I guess that's how it is with hypertension. Stuff just gets overwhelmed by all the out-of-control multi-colored blood balls bouncing around those thin walls, and when it eventually spills into their territory, they can't handle it and shut 'er down.
My dad had all sorts of heart and vein problems. He had something called angio-plasty done when I was a kid. Now when you're about 12 years old and you hear a word like 'angio-plasty', all sorts of things pop into your mind. Of course I could have asked what it meant, but then I might have actually learned the truth, which is much too irrelevant for a boy of 12 than the other possible alternate realities. And of course at that time, the internet - though widespread already in the bicentennial year of '76 - was not yet available on computer. So looking up a definition, which these days is just a Google away, back then took unbelievable amounts of toilsome energy and focus. The dictionary had to be located, opened, and flipped through. The entire alphabet had to be recited over and over again as you fingered through 'ana' to 'ane' to 'ang' and so forth. And that assumes you could spell the unknown word close enough in the first place. I couldn't find my own underwear in the drawer, much less spell a word that sounded like it originated in the Congo.
So for me, angio-plasty will always be this ultra cool process where the doctors implanted thousands of little microscopic robots into my dad's heart. They basically ruled that place, keeping the blood in line and making sure the heart pumped like it was supposed to and things of that nature. Every once in a while they'd hike down the arteries and back through the veins (I knew that much when I was 12!), scouring the walls with steel wool (my mom showed me that that stuff could clean anything) and toting back any straggling blood cells.
Five years ago, my dad presented me with another ominous foreshadowing of my constitutional shakiness. He had a quintuple bypass, and for those of you not versed in the German language, that means he had 'five' bypasses. Now that I'm older and wiser and - thanks to the internet - have instant access to every piece of knowledge ever known or invented by any scholar or schmuck, I can explain exactly what a quintuple bypass is. It's like when you're already fifteen minutes late for the wedding of your wife's cousin's daughter and you're flying down the interstate with her curling her hair with something plugged into the lighter socket of the car, and you see your exit on the cloverleaf but it's closed for repair. So you drive five miles further, turn around and head to the onramp going the other way. Of course, there's a six-car pileup in front of that one, and you can't get on there either. You try going a different way off the next exit and that one's closed. That's it. You can't there from here.
And so it was with my dad's heart. It couldn't get to the wedding. So, we dropped him off at the fix-it-up shop and about six hours later the surgeon, drenched in sweat (hopefully his own) padded out to the waiting room (with his shoes covered by little blue booties) to tell us that the surgery was a success. And that's just how easy the quintuple bypass was. I'm sure there was a lot more to it behind closed doors, but for me it was pretty pain-free. I did strain my eyes from trying to finish my article on flyfishing in Montana, though.
Needless to say, I lived my life a lot more cautiously and health-oriented after that experience. I lowered my portions of red meat to only two a day (except on BBQ days and SuperBowl Sunday.) I switched from drinking my Pepsi straight from the can to pouring it over ice to dilute the calories. (I read that on Wikipedia, I think.) And I limit myself to no more than two Twinkies (or other acceptable Hostess substitute, including SnoBalls, which should be a national treasure) per sitting. I would beat my own family history through perseverance and determination.
Despite my valiant efforts, I lost. I was trying to buy some life insurance several years ago and the nice insurance company nurse toted her black bag into my living room at about 5 a.m. on a Sunday and drew my blood and made me sign things before I could find my glasses. I don't think my blood was awake yet. After a few days, I received the results of the blood test (for which, I regret, I failed to study.) My triglycerides were much too high. And I think my biglycerides and octoglycerides were pretty lousy too. My good cholesterol was bad and my bad cholesterol was horrible. (I'm looking that up on Wikipedia when I'm done. That don't make no sense no-how.) Overall, despite my outward appearance, which some have said is next to godliness (HEY, I never said it!), internally my stuff must have been breaking down.
So I did what any red-blooded man with almost godly looks would do. I dieted and exercised for three months, dropped weight, fixed my blood, got retested, passed, bought insurance cheaper, then forgot all about the whole damn mess and went back to my regular rations of French Onion dip and twice-fried potatoes. Thank God for short attention spans...
And now, years later, I find myself scratching my head in befuddlement after being released from the heart unit the day before Super Bowl Sunday (which would make it a Saturday)after being admitted for chest pains. How could this have happened? How could I have let my body morph back into my fat jeans again? I thought I threw them away, but NO! There they were in the plastic bag in the basement TAUNTING me, making it impossible for me NOT to wear them. And I have only one person to blame for letting myself return to that state of blissful slothliness: the Golden Crisp bear, because I really couldn't get enough of that Golden Crisp.
Alas, I was stricken with chest pains, suddenly, unannounced and horrifying. Like a blitzkrieg attack on my torso, they struck as I was hopping around the bed trying to put on my sock so I could go to my new, relatively unstressful job. Something grabbed my chest like one of those spring-loaded chest pulling muscle-izers the meatheads use to show off with at the gym. The pain was intense. I of course, tried to blow it off. I got in my car and went to work, figuring it was just gas. The wonderful ladies I work with looked at me and said something to the effect of, "Get your ass to the ER now or I'll never bring you cake at work again!" So I went. I was admitted. And I was given the entire battery of heart-related tests to make sure my ticker wasn't like the octoglycerides I had that were falling apart.
But there's a happy ending to all this! Turns out my heart is in GREAT shape. (I attribute that to my healthy lifestyle.) Turns out it probably WAS gas. And the best part? I made it home in time for SuperBowl Sunday, during which I was able to celebrate passing the stress test (for which I didn't study!) by eating three bowls of chile and about one third of a cheese ball. (OK, the last part of the paragraph was just fantasy. My wonderful wife has decided to stand watch over the fridge with her hair straightener and is allowing me to eat only 'heart healthy' things now.)
But hey, it was a great game!
In addition to the hard-earned bowel twisting I received as a reward for all that study-induced anxiety, I was bequeathed a fantastic set of bodily organs primed for an early demise. My mom was hypertensive. I guess the focus of that diagnosis is in the word 'hyper', as in the heart is pounding out blood like a sugar-infected 5 year old boy without a nap who's running amuck in the ball pit of the children's museum. Plastic balls, like my mom's blood cells I suppose, are thrown violently and unrelentlingly against the walls of the pit. People are beaned randomly. Eyes are blackened. And eventually even the underpaid museum workers, unable to contain the ravages of the out-of-control urchin, flee for their own safety. I guess that's how it is with hypertension. Stuff just gets overwhelmed by all the out-of-control multi-colored blood balls bouncing around those thin walls, and when it eventually spills into their territory, they can't handle it and shut 'er down.
My dad had all sorts of heart and vein problems. He had something called angio-plasty done when I was a kid. Now when you're about 12 years old and you hear a word like 'angio-plasty', all sorts of things pop into your mind. Of course I could have asked what it meant, but then I might have actually learned the truth, which is much too irrelevant for a boy of 12 than the other possible alternate realities. And of course at that time, the internet - though widespread already in the bicentennial year of '76 - was not yet available on computer. So looking up a definition, which these days is just a Google away, back then took unbelievable amounts of toilsome energy and focus. The dictionary had to be located, opened, and flipped through. The entire alphabet had to be recited over and over again as you fingered through 'ana' to 'ane' to 'ang' and so forth. And that assumes you could spell the unknown word close enough in the first place. I couldn't find my own underwear in the drawer, much less spell a word that sounded like it originated in the Congo.
So for me, angio-plasty will always be this ultra cool process where the doctors implanted thousands of little microscopic robots into my dad's heart. They basically ruled that place, keeping the blood in line and making sure the heart pumped like it was supposed to and things of that nature. Every once in a while they'd hike down the arteries and back through the veins (I knew that much when I was 12!), scouring the walls with steel wool (my mom showed me that that stuff could clean anything) and toting back any straggling blood cells.
Five years ago, my dad presented me with another ominous foreshadowing of my constitutional shakiness. He had a quintuple bypass, and for those of you not versed in the German language, that means he had 'five' bypasses. Now that I'm older and wiser and - thanks to the internet - have instant access to every piece of knowledge ever known or invented by any scholar or schmuck, I can explain exactly what a quintuple bypass is. It's like when you're already fifteen minutes late for the wedding of your wife's cousin's daughter and you're flying down the interstate with her curling her hair with something plugged into the lighter socket of the car, and you see your exit on the cloverleaf but it's closed for repair. So you drive five miles further, turn around and head to the onramp going the other way. Of course, there's a six-car pileup in front of that one, and you can't get on there either. You try going a different way off the next exit and that one's closed. That's it. You can't there from here.
And so it was with my dad's heart. It couldn't get to the wedding. So, we dropped him off at the fix-it-up shop and about six hours later the surgeon, drenched in sweat (hopefully his own) padded out to the waiting room (with his shoes covered by little blue booties) to tell us that the surgery was a success. And that's just how easy the quintuple bypass was. I'm sure there was a lot more to it behind closed doors, but for me it was pretty pain-free. I did strain my eyes from trying to finish my article on flyfishing in Montana, though.
Needless to say, I lived my life a lot more cautiously and health-oriented after that experience. I lowered my portions of red meat to only two a day (except on BBQ days and SuperBowl Sunday.) I switched from drinking my Pepsi straight from the can to pouring it over ice to dilute the calories. (I read that on Wikipedia, I think.) And I limit myself to no more than two Twinkies (or other acceptable Hostess substitute, including SnoBalls, which should be a national treasure) per sitting. I would beat my own family history through perseverance and determination.
Despite my valiant efforts, I lost. I was trying to buy some life insurance several years ago and the nice insurance company nurse toted her black bag into my living room at about 5 a.m. on a Sunday and drew my blood and made me sign things before I could find my glasses. I don't think my blood was awake yet. After a few days, I received the results of the blood test (for which, I regret, I failed to study.) My triglycerides were much too high. And I think my biglycerides and octoglycerides were pretty lousy too. My good cholesterol was bad and my bad cholesterol was horrible. (I'm looking that up on Wikipedia when I'm done. That don't make no sense no-how.) Overall, despite my outward appearance, which some have said is next to godliness (HEY, I never said it!), internally my stuff must have been breaking down.
So I did what any red-blooded man with almost godly looks would do. I dieted and exercised for three months, dropped weight, fixed my blood, got retested, passed, bought insurance cheaper, then forgot all about the whole damn mess and went back to my regular rations of French Onion dip and twice-fried potatoes. Thank God for short attention spans...
And now, years later, I find myself scratching my head in befuddlement after being released from the heart unit the day before Super Bowl Sunday (which would make it a Saturday)after being admitted for chest pains. How could this have happened? How could I have let my body morph back into my fat jeans again? I thought I threw them away, but NO! There they were in the plastic bag in the basement TAUNTING me, making it impossible for me NOT to wear them. And I have only one person to blame for letting myself return to that state of blissful slothliness: the Golden Crisp bear, because I really couldn't get enough of that Golden Crisp.
Alas, I was stricken with chest pains, suddenly, unannounced and horrifying. Like a blitzkrieg attack on my torso, they struck as I was hopping around the bed trying to put on my sock so I could go to my new, relatively unstressful job. Something grabbed my chest like one of those spring-loaded chest pulling muscle-izers the meatheads use to show off with at the gym. The pain was intense. I of course, tried to blow it off. I got in my car and went to work, figuring it was just gas. The wonderful ladies I work with looked at me and said something to the effect of, "Get your ass to the ER now or I'll never bring you cake at work again!" So I went. I was admitted. And I was given the entire battery of heart-related tests to make sure my ticker wasn't like the octoglycerides I had that were falling apart.
But there's a happy ending to all this! Turns out my heart is in GREAT shape. (I attribute that to my healthy lifestyle.) Turns out it probably WAS gas. And the best part? I made it home in time for SuperBowl Sunday, during which I was able to celebrate passing the stress test (for which I didn't study!) by eating three bowls of chile and about one third of a cheese ball. (OK, the last part of the paragraph was just fantasy. My wonderful wife has decided to stand watch over the fridge with her hair straightener and is allowing me to eat only 'heart healthy' things now.)
But hey, it was a great game!
Friday, August 6, 2010
F*** Off! I'm trying to breathe!
Nobody strolls anymore.
I think strolling went out about the time pet rocks took over the impulse-buy racks at the supermarkets. Remember Atticus Finch strolling with Jem and Scout past Boo's house and all the wonderful education that happened on that slow walk past the scary tree? There's no time for walking and education anymore. Much like the separation of religion and education, we now have a wonderfully pragmatic canyon between education and walking.
People are becoming genetically predispositioned to not be able to walk without placing little thingies in their ears. Generations ago, 'buds' either referred to the pre-flower part of a plant or the dried flakes you mixed with hot water to magically make mashed potatoes appear. Then, sometime in the late 60's or early 70's, 'buds' referred to something a bit more magical and mystical, something to be grown covertly in your shoe closet- away from your parents and dog - and shared (i.e. sold) to your friends.
Now, somehow, 'buds' have become metallic listening devices that have nothing to do with plants (edible or smokable) and pump music of all varieties into our ears. Without these remarkable little technological miracles, it seems we wouldn't be able to ambulate at all. Like the vestigial coccyx and appendix- remember them? didn't think so!- it seems our sense of putting one foot in front of the other and getting somewhere has disappeared. Because of our technological advanced-ness, we forgot how to walk on our own!
Walking has become a competitive sport. We buy spandex walking suits, eighty dollar walking shoes, designer hydration systems, and of course the imperative mp3 players with earbuds. We can't just walk out the front door and head up the street anymore. People would stare. We've got to drive to the trail so we can maximize our steps, ensuring the best step-to-calory-burning ratio. I believe that in our wisdom it must have been proven somewhere that fat burns off our bodies much more readily when we're pounding new government-paved pavement in an outfit that costs over two hundred bucks. Our fat has obviously mutated into some ultra-finicky beast that resists the old school cotton shirt and Converse with tube socks.
There's no room for conversation in walking. And don't even think about walking for pleasure. If you're not maximizing your stride and pushing twenty minutes into your optimal cardio-zone, you're wasting your time. If you want to socialize, get a phone and text like everyone else is doing. Don't even try to walk like your grandpa used to, clasping both hands behind his back, leaning forward a little, and stopping at every Dogwood to check on the buds (remember- we don't have those anymore) just before they bloomed. The miracles of nature can be clearly documented by well-paid videographers who'll put together a fantastic thirty-minute, slow-motion super high definition montage of flowers blooming that you can watch from the comfort of your Lazy Boy. There's no time for nature on walks. Nature should be put where it belongs - on TV. Walking is for one purpose and one purpose only - showing off expensive walking clothes.
I learned all these lessons, that are apparently blatantly obvious to all others, as I learn most of my life-learnings- the bluntly hard way. Some of us can look around and discern one or two things by observation or at least osmosis. It seems I can't.
Case in point:
Keri and I walk almost nightly. I observe all the above-notated realities of the walking world regularly. I hear the Hyper-bass pounding from earbuds as a set of well-toned legs scoots past me in some sort of slithery choreography. I see the perspiration-wicking ultra fabrics and plyo-plex boingy-bottom Italian walking shoes spring past me as I clamber along the asphalt.
But I persist in my pedantory stubborness, sporting the same washer-eaten tee shirt and beat-down tennis shoes I've walked, run, and mowed the lawn in for years. I wear my clothes like I drive my cars. If they're paid for, run the hell out of them until they send up a white flag and then THINK ABOUT getting something new. So I walk and try to do all the wrong things like look at stuff and have conversations.
Big mistake.
We were 'pushing it' up this ginormous hill we call everything from "the beast" to "that bastard of a hill" to "the widowmaker." I was looking at stuff. Keri was feeling the burn and maximizing her cardio. I was thinking about how cool it would be to pull back a branch from the woods next to us and see Sasquatch taking a dump. Keri was thinking about how freaking hot is was that day. We got to the top of the hill, and I did the absolute wrong thing. I had a thought that I shared out loud.
"Hey, honey. Did I ever tell you about the time I was running this trail, and I saw that guy whipping a frisbee golf frisbee across this whole field?"
I didn't look at her cause my scattered mind was already trying to figure out how far it was to the end of the field. I figured she was right there with me, so I continued.
"Well, this guy is just absolutely hammering these throws. I mean it must be at least a couple hundred yards. How far do you think it...???"
Then she decided to engage in the conversation.
"F*** off! I'm trying to breathe!!!"
Apparently her cardio had been maximized, and she was feeling the burn. She gave me that look that reminded me I had broken all of the cardinal rules of walking. I wasn't focused on my cardio. I was thinking of stuff. Shame on me!
She must have seen the shock on my face, so she punched my lovingly in the arm (with her non-ring finger, which always tells me she's just lovin' on me.) And, being the ridiculously stubborn non-learner type that I am, I took that as my cue to have another conversation with her.
"Ha! You kind of sounded like one of the Commitments there! This could be a scene from some sort of wild 80's hybrid movie of the Commitments starring in Vision Quest or something! You could be this cussaholic cute Irish chick from the slums of Dublin who sings and trains to wrestle against...."
...and so it went. Me, continuing to bask in the ignorance of my non-21st century-walking ways. Keri, forever putting up with my unremovable backward habits and loving me even while she maximized her cardio. That's what love's all about really, isn't it - being stuck in the backwoods of life with the one you love, while the superhighway of life breezes by you scant inches away, and you just look at it and say: "F*** off! I'm trying to breathe here!"
I think strolling went out about the time pet rocks took over the impulse-buy racks at the supermarkets. Remember Atticus Finch strolling with Jem and Scout past Boo's house and all the wonderful education that happened on that slow walk past the scary tree? There's no time for walking and education anymore. Much like the separation of religion and education, we now have a wonderfully pragmatic canyon between education and walking.
People are becoming genetically predispositioned to not be able to walk without placing little thingies in their ears. Generations ago, 'buds' either referred to the pre-flower part of a plant or the dried flakes you mixed with hot water to magically make mashed potatoes appear. Then, sometime in the late 60's or early 70's, 'buds' referred to something a bit more magical and mystical, something to be grown covertly in your shoe closet- away from your parents and dog - and shared (i.e. sold) to your friends.
Now, somehow, 'buds' have become metallic listening devices that have nothing to do with plants (edible or smokable) and pump music of all varieties into our ears. Without these remarkable little technological miracles, it seems we wouldn't be able to ambulate at all. Like the vestigial coccyx and appendix- remember them? didn't think so!- it seems our sense of putting one foot in front of the other and getting somewhere has disappeared. Because of our technological advanced-ness, we forgot how to walk on our own!
Walking has become a competitive sport. We buy spandex walking suits, eighty dollar walking shoes, designer hydration systems, and of course the imperative mp3 players with earbuds. We can't just walk out the front door and head up the street anymore. People would stare. We've got to drive to the trail so we can maximize our steps, ensuring the best step-to-calory-burning ratio. I believe that in our wisdom it must have been proven somewhere that fat burns off our bodies much more readily when we're pounding new government-paved pavement in an outfit that costs over two hundred bucks. Our fat has obviously mutated into some ultra-finicky beast that resists the old school cotton shirt and Converse with tube socks.
There's no room for conversation in walking. And don't even think about walking for pleasure. If you're not maximizing your stride and pushing twenty minutes into your optimal cardio-zone, you're wasting your time. If you want to socialize, get a phone and text like everyone else is doing. Don't even try to walk like your grandpa used to, clasping both hands behind his back, leaning forward a little, and stopping at every Dogwood to check on the buds (remember- we don't have those anymore) just before they bloomed. The miracles of nature can be clearly documented by well-paid videographers who'll put together a fantastic thirty-minute, slow-motion super high definition montage of flowers blooming that you can watch from the comfort of your Lazy Boy. There's no time for nature on walks. Nature should be put where it belongs - on TV. Walking is for one purpose and one purpose only - showing off expensive walking clothes.
I learned all these lessons, that are apparently blatantly obvious to all others, as I learn most of my life-learnings- the bluntly hard way. Some of us can look around and discern one or two things by observation or at least osmosis. It seems I can't.
Case in point:
Keri and I walk almost nightly. I observe all the above-notated realities of the walking world regularly. I hear the Hyper-bass pounding from earbuds as a set of well-toned legs scoots past me in some sort of slithery choreography. I see the perspiration-wicking ultra fabrics and plyo-plex boingy-bottom Italian walking shoes spring past me as I clamber along the asphalt.
But I persist in my pedantory stubborness, sporting the same washer-eaten tee shirt and beat-down tennis shoes I've walked, run, and mowed the lawn in for years. I wear my clothes like I drive my cars. If they're paid for, run the hell out of them until they send up a white flag and then THINK ABOUT getting something new. So I walk and try to do all the wrong things like look at stuff and have conversations.
Big mistake.
We were 'pushing it' up this ginormous hill we call everything from "the beast" to "that bastard of a hill" to "the widowmaker." I was looking at stuff. Keri was feeling the burn and maximizing her cardio. I was thinking about how cool it would be to pull back a branch from the woods next to us and see Sasquatch taking a dump. Keri was thinking about how freaking hot is was that day. We got to the top of the hill, and I did the absolute wrong thing. I had a thought that I shared out loud.
"Hey, honey. Did I ever tell you about the time I was running this trail, and I saw that guy whipping a frisbee golf frisbee across this whole field?"
I didn't look at her cause my scattered mind was already trying to figure out how far it was to the end of the field. I figured she was right there with me, so I continued.
"Well, this guy is just absolutely hammering these throws. I mean it must be at least a couple hundred yards. How far do you think it...???"
Then she decided to engage in the conversation.
"F*** off! I'm trying to breathe!!!"
Apparently her cardio had been maximized, and she was feeling the burn. She gave me that look that reminded me I had broken all of the cardinal rules of walking. I wasn't focused on my cardio. I was thinking of stuff. Shame on me!
She must have seen the shock on my face, so she punched my lovingly in the arm (with her non-ring finger, which always tells me she's just lovin' on me.) And, being the ridiculously stubborn non-learner type that I am, I took that as my cue to have another conversation with her.
"Ha! You kind of sounded like one of the Commitments there! This could be a scene from some sort of wild 80's hybrid movie of the Commitments starring in Vision Quest or something! You could be this cussaholic cute Irish chick from the slums of Dublin who sings and trains to wrestle against...."
...and so it went. Me, continuing to bask in the ignorance of my non-21st century-walking ways. Keri, forever putting up with my unremovable backward habits and loving me even while she maximized her cardio. That's what love's all about really, isn't it - being stuck in the backwoods of life with the one you love, while the superhighway of life breezes by you scant inches away, and you just look at it and say: "F*** off! I'm trying to breathe here!"
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