So, I have been rehabbing an ouchy ankle area (I am a medical expert and that is the technical term for it) and as of late have been just flailing about with my running. Not running every day.. doing some walking, sweating a lot, looking like hell, you know the drill. I've been doing my part to show all non runners why they shouldn't be running.You're welcome, now take you and your chip bag and your 2 liter of diet Pepsi and go to the couch to watch the Hoarders marathon.. it's OK. you don't have to run! You do what you do, I will do what I do! Don't judge me and I won't judge you!
Cut to the chase, yesterday I ran with my buddy Dan and it was the usual, I ran down Woodward to the ex-Compuware building, past all the M1 Rail construction shenanigans.. and wow was it HUMID. I could already tell I was in bad shape but, Dan had brought along Brian who is in great shape. So off we went after I dashed in for some water. With my game face on.
We took the cut to the river and went down to Port Authority, Brian continued on to Belle Isle, he wanted to run longer. So off her went. I was jealous. Dan and I turned back and as we went up the cut I decided to take the cut all the way back and cut down my distance. Dan and parted and off I went to sneak into the almost-completed-new-area of the cut.
Well I made it about 100 yards in before a few guys in construction hats started screaming at me angrily. Oops! I sheepishly turned around and instead went up to Gratiot to hop onto St Aubin.
I had dropped all pretensions of enjoying this run at this point and probably looked like I was in pain. I kinda was. This comes into play in a few minutes.
My plan was to hang a left at Mack. And, I missed the turn.. so by the time I got to Canfield I realized this and I took my left there. It was actually kinda cool to find a new route, part of why I enjoy running outdoors is this weird satisfaction I get from exploring new areas and just, exploring, I like running around my digs and really getting to know the landscape.
As I am heading down Mac I realized that it's humid enough that my tank top had become heavier from the sweat it had absorbed from my torso and, this weight caused it to rub on my poor nipples like sandpaper. What I am getting at is, I had bleeding nipples. D'oh!
The thing about runners bloody nipples (bloody 'ell, guvnah!) is that your shirt makes it look MUCH MUCH worse than it is. The blood mixes in with the sweat and fans out and it looks pretty epic. It's not that epic.
I considered taking my shirt off but, then my headphone cord would be just flapping all around my body distracting me and I was hurtin so, I didn't.
So there I am with what looks like two massive chest wounds running erratically down Mac and I encounter a gang.
I am not saying like, thugs with handguns, or something from West Side Story but, they were a gang. A bunch of black kids in a pack, hanging out as a unit, blocking the sidewalk.
As I ran towards them a few glanced over and their eyes widened slightly and one of them laughed, I imagine he was thinking "what a fool! It's too hot to run and he looks terrible!"
A few started hootin' and they actually cleared the sidewalk for me, as I ran by one of them said "kick it's ass!" and held out his hand, I gave him some skin.My guess is that some of them had run in track or cross country themselves, they all looked in good shape.
Here is the best part, as I continued on an old lady was coming up the walk out of her apartment in front of me and she looked over.
What she saw was this: A white guy, running from a group of black people that were hooting and hollering a little bit and looking my way, a look of pain on my face (the run was kicking my ass). On my chest, there are what appears to be two gunshot wounds.
The look of pure horror on her face was classic! All I could think of to say as I ran past her was something like "I'm OK, runner's wounds!" and I didn't look back.
I hope the cops didn't get a 911 call about a delirious white male gunshot victim stumbling through the streets of Detroit in a bad area! I actually picked up my pace and got back to my gym as fast as I could because I was half expecting to be flagged down by cops and being quite embarrassed!
So, it's true that I forgot to put Vaseline on my money makers and as a result did some bleeding (and don't get me started on how painful the shower was after.. YEEEEEOW! that's no fun, showering with bleeding nipples). However, on the plus side, I had an amusing occurrence.
I will butter them nipples good next time, regardless!
Footnote, my "shortcut" actually made me run about 9.5 instead of 9.3. um, oops.
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Great Lakes Relay (GLR) 2015 : Day 3 (I will never run again!)
And so it was time to get up way-too-damned-early once again for the final day of this epic saga.
The triumph of putting up my own tent the night before was a great one, but was wiped away on this fine morning by the uncoordinated disassembling of said tent in the dark and packing up of the gear in the dark. At least I knew about the flashlight function of my iPhone by this point! As for my "luggage," I can tell you this: If I ever go camping again (and I will) I will get a much better camping bag/backpack/whatever!
I forgot to get any food aside from some tiny bar of something and I forgot to have anything to drink aside from the bottom 6th of someone's Gatorade. Because I am so smart, and, couldn't find anything. At any rate off we went!
We dropped of Michael at leg 1 (C-1) then went to leg 2 (C-2), and there were many skeeters (S-1,000,000,000). We had to park a ways down so when Michael came in Melissa and Rose and Don had walked all the way down to meet him. When Dan took off they had to walk back to the Jeep before we could proceed to the start of leg 3 which was my leg (C-3).
The problem here was that the lightening fast Don was tearing through C-2 and it was a 3 mile leg. And we had to get to C-3 before Don did so he could pass the baton (so to speak) to me.
Well, by the time we got there as I jogged towards the meetup spot, I noticed Don running past me. SHIT! I ran beside Don thinking that was good enough. Nope he was pissed off! Because.. I was supposed to be on the other side of the freeway for a "soft touch" and to get across the freeway you had to radio across and make sure it was OK or something , all I know is, Don was simultaneous pushing me forward while yelling at me and having the radio contacts clear the way across the road for me so, my first run of the day started off being bitched out and pushed around. Hey what is this, High School Cross Country?
It was actually no big deal, we didn't lose more than.. 10 seconds? And Don wasn't actually mad. He just didn't want to lose any time.
So there I was scooting down the sandy trail. Utterly out of energy. Thirsty as hell. Staying off to the side so the sand was firmer. Feeling myself sputtering on empty.. sweat pouring down my face.. and starting to make myself a pretty lucrative offer. If I made it through that trail, I told myself, I will never run again. The idea of not running felt amazing. I was thinking of sitting on my deck at my cottage, just off the beach, maybe doing some ab work, planking.. eating a nice healthy salad while enjoying a cool glass of water.. and not running. It seemed like a dream, the breeze off of Lake Erie was great. There I was sipping water casually with my feet kicked up on my deck table, now my hands folded behind my head as I stare up and watch the Martins fly overhead, is that a Starling? It's really small and there are a lot of them. Oops those are clouds of skeeters and I am in the middle of a death march!
Every time I slowed down the cloud of skeeters started to descent towards me. But I never let any land on me.
I guess it helped to know that if I bailed on the run I would be eaten alive. That's motivation!
Quite a few people passed me, or, some, I was kind of just dragging myself along, I am not sure how I finished. Something about running a few marathons changes you. You gain the ability to .. finish a run no matter what.. You don't freak out, you don't look for a ride.. you know to just push forward to the end because.. it's no fun in the middle and where else are you going to go? Git er don! Just Finish. It was a 5 mile run but felt like 100. I was pretty C-3 PO'd about running at this point and by the last stretch I had actually talked myself into cancelling the upcoming Legend Half and the Crim runs I am scheduled for and taking all of August off and maybe some of the fall too (I had already backed away from my daydream of a total running retirement).
All this drama was in my head but running is a mental game and this run came as close to breaking me as any run ever has. In fact I remain slightly broken.
Cut to the shambling finale'..I finished! And a few people wanted to pull my shoes off my feet, like how in the old west they fought over the boots of fallen gunslingers. Rumors of my demise were exaggerated but rumors of me looking like complete shit were dead on.
From that moment forward until I had a breakfast sandwich and a coffee in my hands in some town I barely remember, I was lusting for breeze and water like I had some sort of sick fetish....changing into dry clothes in public in a car as people walked by. Stumbling down the road asking some women if they knew where coffee was. I eventually found some and the moment I had the first sip of real coffee at a little store I walked to I was on the comeback trail. I could feel sanity coming back to me.
I hung out and recharged as best I could until my final leg.
By the time my second 5 mile run came along I was sorta rarin' to go. At least mentally. I had close to zero running energy. My heels were hollerin my knees were tired and my back was slightly perturbed. But I had my fighting spirit back and a game plan that I told no one because it's not exactly a runner-endorsed game plan. My plan was to run in bursts and walk in stretches. Actually my goal was to run as much as I could before resorting to that plan. I was however sure that I was going to run out of energy completely at some point. And this was my plan to address that issue.
A lot of runners will tell you if they stop running and walk, it's all over. I am glad I am not one of those runners. For my fastest adult 5K I actually stopped and walked for a count of 10. I can do that and then run again. I always hesitate to share this strategy with other runners because sometimes they get pissed off, especially if we ran the same race, I beat them, and then I reveal that I had to stop and walk at some point. They can get a little angry at me.It's kind of an unwritten runner no-no among runners that have sort of code. Code? HA! I laugh in the face of any sort of class or style (apparently).
I had an unexpected ally for this final leg of mine, my teammate Gabe. I somehow talked him into being bike support. Course rules said that I could not have bike support for the first part of my run where I run down the side of some train tracks but after I got back on the roads it was permitted. I had been badgering his wife Aleah for bike support before this, I liked the idea of bike support! I have never enjoyed such a perk as a runner. I wanted to take advantage of this concept. Long story longer they had two bikes between them and she had experienced difficulty with bike supporting her husband on an earlier leg. In fact he had to go back to rescue his bike support spouse. But she had already found a way out of that trail and had gone to help Dan.
I do like the concept of finishing a leg and then going back to rescue the person who was there to rescue you. Gabe earned a few goodSpouse points on that one even though we almost had to leave him behind to get to the next leg. But, who wouldn't go back to rescue their sweet loving spouse? It's epic. I feel that Gabe can bring this up the next time he screws something up and get out of sleeping on the couch. I would use this.. at least 3 times. 3 mulligans minimum.
I digress! The point is Aleah had to go bike support someone else on the mountain bike I think since there was sand? And Gabe was talked into using the road bike to support me.
So I blazed down the train tracks and passed a woman who was struggling and I came up with such a great comment for her that I still wince now recollecting it. As I passed her I said "keep on goin!"
I guess this was what I was thinking in my head, a hold over from earlier in the day? Anyways she said "you are an asshole." No, I am sure she was thinking that but she was kind enough to reply "I will!"
At end that part of the trail I could already feel my engines sputtering. And there was Gabe on the bike. So, off we go, my first run with bike support.. felt kinda kewl. Someone passed me at this point, and Gabe was playing Queen on his phone speaker. In particular, the song was Another One Bites the Dust!
Of all the songs, eh? I realize now on looking at the lyrics that in context it's a positive song but those lyrics out of context as heard by me.. were not cheering me on!. I tried to gasp out to Gabe that maybe another song would do me better, and I forget if the song ended or if he skipped it (it's a good song! I just found it lacking as a choice for my particular situation) and we moved on to Fat Bottom Girls.
Side Note: I had not seen any Fat Bottomed Girls for days.. everyone was in fine fine shape. So I could at least focus on that? Or are fat bottomed girls still girls with cute butts? I mulled this over for about a mile but even now I have not come to a conclusion on this matter. I urge you to contact me if you have the scoop on Fat Bottoms and what they mean in regards to the female of the human species. How fat is a fat bottom and is it "baby got back" fat, or is it the kind of fat you see stuffed inappropriately into a g-string on a 400 pounder ambling down the aisles at Walmart?
Here's a sample of what I did not see at GLR 2015. more can be found at that above link:
At any rate it was time for the contingency plan to swing into action. Shamble into action. I started walking for a bit and running for a bit. Gabe was not on board at first but ultimately he supported the idea and even pointed to a few spots for me to walk at. He wanted to pour water on my head and for some reason I wasn't up for it, but it was a good idea.
We come around the final corner, in agreement that no one at the meetup spot should see me walking so the final turn was a "run zone." I of course immediately almost twisted my ankle on an unexpected road hole.. but didn't! Ankle was OK! And so I finished.
Lore has it that Rob, who was scheduled for the next leg, was off in the woods taking a constitutional, reading a good book (no word on if a tire was involved) when he got the word that I had finished my leg. Regardless of the excat situation, he was indeed unprepared, because I had come in faster than was expected. BOOYA! Oh yea, uh huh, I rocked it, oh yea! I think there was a few minutes delay from my finish to his start. I blame my total awesomeness for this.
So I finished my portion of the race in style at least, and no small thanks to Gabe, who went out of his way to drag his tired carcass onto a bike to help me out! This was only a few days after he was attacked by that ginormous sharp-clawed bear lurking behind some roots on the very first leg of this race! The guy is lucky to be alive, from what he tells me!
And now all we had to do was go to the finish line and wait for Tim to come in. We had run concurrently each day, this day was no exception, so multiple people started running but we were to all meet at the finish line.
The finish line was on a beach, a magnificent beach in Empire Michigan. Hot looking coeds all over the place like it was some sort of fitness spring break. We had procured beer! We planned to all run in together with the mighty Tim, our final runner.
Dandy was at his finest here. Tanked and stumbling about. OK full disclaimer, this dude might not touch a drop of booze during the week, or regularly at all, I don't mean to imply he is a raging alcoholic. But, he had his drink on for GLR! He may need to be reminded that he was at GLR 2015.
So we hung out by the beach to wait for Tim to run his 6. And we drank. And I forgot about all my problems and coasted along on a happy semi drunk plane of existence.. and eventually started to listen in on people discussing how long it had been since Tim had started running.
As talk began of Tim's tragic death, I noticed drunken Dandy about to make a VERY inappropriate comment to someone else and I actually out of reflex stared down Dandy and said "NO!" like he was a small child or perhaps dog. It worked! Sorry Dandy, I didn't intend to do that! I think it was because I have two boys ages 10 and 12 and instinct kicked in. But it worked. Dandy held his tongue.
So, if one of your runner's dies, do you get a handicap? Do you have to drag the body across the finish line to finish the race or can someone touch the corpse where it lay and take over. I guess it didn't help matters that Tim is (SPOILER ALERT! Tim Didn't Die! I should make this part of my blog hidden, where you have to roll your mouse over it to read it.. to keep the drama going) in his 60's and looked quite peaked when he finished his prior leg. In fact Tim and I had joked about his death earlier in the day. If he dies.. that's pretty awkward for me. And it's all about me. Oh, also, Tim would be dead which is not good for him or his wife. I think I had told his wife I would bring him back alive because she was saying it was crazy for him to do this. So, bottom line for me is, I had joked about his demise a few times and it would reflect badly on me if he had kicked it.
But, at least I am not self absorbed.
I started to formulate and talk of a plan for a few of us to go to the start of the leg and run it, and look for bodies, which wasn't perfect because if he had wandered off the trail and kicked it, would we find him? Don went to ask the officiating guy how long until we had to be disqualified. Someone else went to get more beer. a 6 pack.
Then the good news came..the mighty Tim came around the corner in the distance! We all got in place and we finished the race together! Sure we dropped many places in the rankings but we were not contenders and, on a plus side, we can boast that there were no deaths on our team. Which would make a fine commemorative t shirt!
"Off in the Corner No One Died." No?
Tim was a little pissed off that one of the major components of addressing his absence and potential death was the procurement of a 6 pack of beer. I agreed with him and said he was at least worth a 12 pack.
So there you have it. We drank with some people for a while, packed up, and headed south. I did not get to stop at Weenerlicious but I was too tired to care. I didn't get home till.. 12:30am I think?
I am still a little burned out on running, admittedly.. shaky, creaky, slow and timid.. but am starting to get my roadlegs back. I plan to attempt a trail marathon this weekend called The Legend at Sleepy Hollow State Park, I seem to do it each year despite always claiming I am done doing that brutal race! Then later in August the Crim and in the fall I have Dances with Dirt lined up as well as the Freep.
Would I do this again? Absolutely, assuming I return to running, which is something I am struggling with at the moment. However I can't quit, I am of Scottish descent (via Canada) and I paid for those other races so I have to run them! I will let my internal cheapness carry me through this rough patch! Also, if I finish the Legend I get an extra beer glass because I complete the "Serious Series." Hey now this is SERIOUS. You don't f*ck around when a beer glass is on the line. Speaking of beer I will run tonight from a bar in 88 degree heat with other people who would laugh at me if I quit...and try to re-adjust my attitude on this thing..
It was a great time, all great people, great experiences and mostly no truth to the rumors of skeeters big as birds or tick infestations everywhere.
Footnote: Melissa told me how every aspect of this epic weekend made her eager to start long distance outside running as soon as possible.. so watch for her out there, doing 12-20 miles on the roads and trails of metro Detroit!
The triumph of putting up my own tent the night before was a great one, but was wiped away on this fine morning by the uncoordinated disassembling of said tent in the dark and packing up of the gear in the dark. At least I knew about the flashlight function of my iPhone by this point! As for my "luggage," I can tell you this: If I ever go camping again (and I will) I will get a much better camping bag/backpack/whatever!
I forgot to get any food aside from some tiny bar of something and I forgot to have anything to drink aside from the bottom 6th of someone's Gatorade. Because I am so smart, and, couldn't find anything. At any rate off we went!
We dropped of Michael at leg 1 (C-1) then went to leg 2 (C-2), and there were many skeeters (S-1,000,000,000). We had to park a ways down so when Michael came in Melissa and Rose and Don had walked all the way down to meet him. When Dan took off they had to walk back to the Jeep before we could proceed to the start of leg 3 which was my leg (C-3).
The problem here was that the lightening fast Don was tearing through C-2 and it was a 3 mile leg. And we had to get to C-3 before Don did so he could pass the baton (so to speak) to me.
Well, by the time we got there as I jogged towards the meetup spot, I noticed Don running past me. SHIT! I ran beside Don thinking that was good enough. Nope he was pissed off! Because.. I was supposed to be on the other side of the freeway for a "soft touch" and to get across the freeway you had to radio across and make sure it was OK or something , all I know is, Don was simultaneous pushing me forward while yelling at me and having the radio contacts clear the way across the road for me so, my first run of the day started off being bitched out and pushed around. Hey what is this, High School Cross Country?
It was actually no big deal, we didn't lose more than.. 10 seconds? And Don wasn't actually mad. He just didn't want to lose any time.
So there I was scooting down the sandy trail. Utterly out of energy. Thirsty as hell. Staying off to the side so the sand was firmer. Feeling myself sputtering on empty.. sweat pouring down my face.. and starting to make myself a pretty lucrative offer. If I made it through that trail, I told myself, I will never run again. The idea of not running felt amazing. I was thinking of sitting on my deck at my cottage, just off the beach, maybe doing some ab work, planking.. eating a nice healthy salad while enjoying a cool glass of water.. and not running. It seemed like a dream, the breeze off of Lake Erie was great. There I was sipping water casually with my feet kicked up on my deck table, now my hands folded behind my head as I stare up and watch the Martins fly overhead, is that a Starling? It's really small and there are a lot of them. Oops those are clouds of skeeters and I am in the middle of a death march!
Every time I slowed down the cloud of skeeters started to descent towards me. But I never let any land on me.
Focus.
FOCUS.
I guess it helped to know that if I bailed on the run I would be eaten alive. That's motivation!
Quite a few people passed me, or, some, I was kind of just dragging myself along, I am not sure how I finished. Something about running a few marathons changes you. You gain the ability to .. finish a run no matter what.. You don't freak out, you don't look for a ride.. you know to just push forward to the end because.. it's no fun in the middle and where else are you going to go? Git er don! Just Finish. It was a 5 mile run but felt like 100. I was pretty C-3 PO'd about running at this point and by the last stretch I had actually talked myself into cancelling the upcoming Legend Half and the Crim runs I am scheduled for and taking all of August off and maybe some of the fall too (I had already backed away from my daydream of a total running retirement).
All this drama was in my head but running is a mental game and this run came as close to breaking me as any run ever has. In fact I remain slightly broken.
Cut to the shambling finale'..I finished! And a few people wanted to pull my shoes off my feet, like how in the old west they fought over the boots of fallen gunslingers. Rumors of my demise were exaggerated but rumors of me looking like complete shit were dead on.
From that moment forward until I had a breakfast sandwich and a coffee in my hands in some town I barely remember, I was lusting for breeze and water like I had some sort of sick fetish....changing into dry clothes in public in a car as people walked by. Stumbling down the road asking some women if they knew where coffee was. I eventually found some and the moment I had the first sip of real coffee at a little store I walked to I was on the comeback trail. I could feel sanity coming back to me.
I hung out and recharged as best I could until my final leg.
By the time my second 5 mile run came along I was sorta rarin' to go. At least mentally. I had close to zero running energy. My heels were hollerin my knees were tired and my back was slightly perturbed. But I had my fighting spirit back and a game plan that I told no one because it's not exactly a runner-endorsed game plan. My plan was to run in bursts and walk in stretches. Actually my goal was to run as much as I could before resorting to that plan. I was however sure that I was going to run out of energy completely at some point. And this was my plan to address that issue.
A lot of runners will tell you if they stop running and walk, it's all over. I am glad I am not one of those runners. For my fastest adult 5K I actually stopped and walked for a count of 10. I can do that and then run again. I always hesitate to share this strategy with other runners because sometimes they get pissed off, especially if we ran the same race, I beat them, and then I reveal that I had to stop and walk at some point. They can get a little angry at me.It's kind of an unwritten runner no-no among runners that have sort of code. Code? HA! I laugh in the face of any sort of class or style (apparently).
I had an unexpected ally for this final leg of mine, my teammate Gabe. I somehow talked him into being bike support. Course rules said that I could not have bike support for the first part of my run where I run down the side of some train tracks but after I got back on the roads it was permitted. I had been badgering his wife Aleah for bike support before this, I liked the idea of bike support! I have never enjoyed such a perk as a runner. I wanted to take advantage of this concept. Long story longer they had two bikes between them and she had experienced difficulty with bike supporting her husband on an earlier leg. In fact he had to go back to rescue his bike support spouse. But she had already found a way out of that trail and had gone to help Dan.
I do like the concept of finishing a leg and then going back to rescue the person who was there to rescue you. Gabe earned a few goodSpouse points on that one even though we almost had to leave him behind to get to the next leg. But, who wouldn't go back to rescue their sweet loving spouse? It's epic. I feel that Gabe can bring this up the next time he screws something up and get out of sleeping on the couch. I would use this.. at least 3 times. 3 mulligans minimum.
I digress! The point is Aleah had to go bike support someone else on the mountain bike I think since there was sand? And Gabe was talked into using the road bike to support me.
So I blazed down the train tracks and passed a woman who was struggling and I came up with such a great comment for her that I still wince now recollecting it. As I passed her I said "keep on goin!"
I guess this was what I was thinking in my head, a hold over from earlier in the day? Anyways she said "you are an asshole." No, I am sure she was thinking that but she was kind enough to reply "I will!"
At end that part of the trail I could already feel my engines sputtering. And there was Gabe on the bike. So, off we go, my first run with bike support.. felt kinda kewl. Someone passed me at this point, and Gabe was playing Queen on his phone speaker. In particular, the song was Another One Bites the Dust!
Are you happy, are you satisfied
How long can you stand the heat ?
..
Another one bites the dust
There are plenty of ways you can hurt a man
And bring him to the ground
You can beat him ...
Of all the songs, eh? I realize now on looking at the lyrics that in context it's a positive song but those lyrics out of context as heard by me.. were not cheering me on!. I tried to gasp out to Gabe that maybe another song would do me better, and I forget if the song ended or if he skipped it (it's a good song! I just found it lacking as a choice for my particular situation) and we moved on to Fat Bottom Girls.
Side Note: I had not seen any Fat Bottomed Girls for days.. everyone was in fine fine shape. So I could at least focus on that? Or are fat bottomed girls still girls with cute butts? I mulled this over for about a mile but even now I have not come to a conclusion on this matter. I urge you to contact me if you have the scoop on Fat Bottoms and what they mean in regards to the female of the human species. How fat is a fat bottom and is it "baby got back" fat, or is it the kind of fat you see stuffed inappropriately into a g-string on a 400 pounder ambling down the aisles at Walmart?
Here's a sample of what I did not see at GLR 2015. more can be found at that above link:
At any rate it was time for the contingency plan to swing into action. Shamble into action. I started walking for a bit and running for a bit. Gabe was not on board at first but ultimately he supported the idea and even pointed to a few spots for me to walk at. He wanted to pour water on my head and for some reason I wasn't up for it, but it was a good idea.
We come around the final corner, in agreement that no one at the meetup spot should see me walking so the final turn was a "run zone." I of course immediately almost twisted my ankle on an unexpected road hole.. but didn't! Ankle was OK! And so I finished.
Lore has it that Rob, who was scheduled for the next leg, was off in the woods taking a constitutional, reading a good book (no word on if a tire was involved) when he got the word that I had finished my leg. Regardless of the excat situation, he was indeed unprepared, because I had come in faster than was expected. BOOYA! Oh yea, uh huh, I rocked it, oh yea! I think there was a few minutes delay from my finish to his start. I blame my total awesomeness for this.
So I finished my portion of the race in style at least, and no small thanks to Gabe, who went out of his way to drag his tired carcass onto a bike to help me out! This was only a few days after he was attacked by that ginormous sharp-clawed bear lurking behind some roots on the very first leg of this race! The guy is lucky to be alive, from what he tells me!
And now all we had to do was go to the finish line and wait for Tim to come in. We had run concurrently each day, this day was no exception, so multiple people started running but we were to all meet at the finish line.
The finish line was on a beach, a magnificent beach in Empire Michigan. Hot looking coeds all over the place like it was some sort of fitness spring break. We had procured beer! We planned to all run in together with the mighty Tim, our final runner.
Dandy was at his finest here. Tanked and stumbling about. OK full disclaimer, this dude might not touch a drop of booze during the week, or regularly at all, I don't mean to imply he is a raging alcoholic. But, he had his drink on for GLR! He may need to be reminded that he was at GLR 2015.
So we hung out by the beach to wait for Tim to run his 6. And we drank. And I forgot about all my problems and coasted along on a happy semi drunk plane of existence.. and eventually started to listen in on people discussing how long it had been since Tim had started running.
Ruh roh.
As talk began of Tim's tragic death, I noticed drunken Dandy about to make a VERY inappropriate comment to someone else and I actually out of reflex stared down Dandy and said "NO!" like he was a small child or perhaps dog. It worked! Sorry Dandy, I didn't intend to do that! I think it was because I have two boys ages 10 and 12 and instinct kicked in. But it worked. Dandy held his tongue.
So, if one of your runner's dies, do you get a handicap? Do you have to drag the body across the finish line to finish the race or can someone touch the corpse where it lay and take over. I guess it didn't help matters that Tim is (SPOILER ALERT! Tim Didn't Die! I should make this part of my blog hidden, where you have to roll your mouse over it to read it.. to keep the drama going) in his 60's and looked quite peaked when he finished his prior leg. In fact Tim and I had joked about his death earlier in the day. If he dies.. that's pretty awkward for me. And it's all about me. Oh, also, Tim would be dead which is not good for him or his wife. I think I had told his wife I would bring him back alive because she was saying it was crazy for him to do this. So, bottom line for me is, I had joked about his demise a few times and it would reflect badly on me if he had kicked it.
But, at least I am not self absorbed.
I started to formulate and talk of a plan for a few of us to go to the start of the leg and run it, and look for bodies, which wasn't perfect because if he had wandered off the trail and kicked it, would we find him? Don went to ask the officiating guy how long until we had to be disqualified. Someone else went to get more beer. a 6 pack.
Then the good news came..the mighty Tim came around the corner in the distance! We all got in place and we finished the race together! Sure we dropped many places in the rankings but we were not contenders and, on a plus side, we can boast that there were no deaths on our team. Which would make a fine commemorative t shirt!
"Off in the Corner No One Died." No?
Tim was a little pissed off that one of the major components of addressing his absence and potential death was the procurement of a 6 pack of beer. I agreed with him and said he was at least worth a 12 pack.
So there you have it. We drank with some people for a while, packed up, and headed south. I did not get to stop at Weenerlicious but I was too tired to care. I didn't get home till.. 12:30am I think?
I am still a little burned out on running, admittedly.. shaky, creaky, slow and timid.. but am starting to get my roadlegs back. I plan to attempt a trail marathon this weekend called The Legend at Sleepy Hollow State Park, I seem to do it each year despite always claiming I am done doing that brutal race! Then later in August the Crim and in the fall I have Dances with Dirt lined up as well as the Freep.
Would I do this again? Absolutely, assuming I return to running, which is something I am struggling with at the moment. However I can't quit, I am of Scottish descent (via Canada) and I paid for those other races so I have to run them! I will let my internal cheapness carry me through this rough patch! Also, if I finish the Legend I get an extra beer glass because I complete the "Serious Series." Hey now this is SERIOUS. You don't f*ck around when a beer glass is on the line. Speaking of beer I will run tonight from a bar in 88 degree heat with other people who would laugh at me if I quit...and try to re-adjust my attitude on this thing..
It was a great time, all great people, great experiences and mostly no truth to the rumors of skeeters big as birds or tick infestations everywhere.
Over and out from myself and Off In the Corner!
Footnote: Melissa told me how every aspect of this epic weekend made her eager to start long distance outside running as soon as possible.. so watch for her out there, doing 12-20 miles on the roads and trails of metro Detroit!
Monday, July 27, 2015
Great Lakes Relay (GLR) 2015 : Day 2 (I am an aeroplane!)
Day two would prove to be the most frustrating yet funnest day for me. The sun came up and then I awoke, actually that's not true. I lay on top of my sleeping bag in my tent listening to people fumble around in the dark as early as 5:30am, appreciating the fact that I got to wait until it was light out.
Things got packed up eventually and then I was off, in Don's car, which had a number and a colour and a car type but at this point I couldn't tell you what any of those things were. For the second day in a row I had instant coffee made from boiled water and realized my love of good coffee. This coffee was OK! Don't get me wrong. Just not what I wanted.
So off I went in the car and what sticks out to me is the memory of Don looking over at me and and saying "you know, the reason we changed around all the car numbers and colors and so on was so you wouldn't be riding with me right now."
And there I was, a man without a country. The car screeched to a halt and I was tossed into the woods, never to be seen again. Rumor has it I was raised by ticks and can be seen burrowing into camper legs on the upper trails.
Put another way, Don the schemer pulled out sheets and pens and phones and so on and so forth and at some point I changed cars back to the jeep for a while after hanging out at a gas station (and pooping! read further below to appreciate my genius), which makes sense because the all knowing Melissa had said in the morning that I should be riding with her and Don had not listened to her.
My first leg was to be 2.8 miles but I managed to do 4ish. It was due to a technique that was becoming popular that day known as "getting your ass completely lost." it goes like this. You start your leg and trot off into the woods with directions in your hands that are not exactly correct. You then miss some turns and some trails and wander around like a homeless person until you glom onto someone who happens to be be going the right way.
This is my story. Off I went on my merry way and got through the first few lines of directions just fine until I met the lady in the lake who threw me the sword. I was now king. Actually it was an overweight woman settled in a chair sitting by a large pond. She looked at me as I went by and laughed and cackled about the turn being 20 feet back and that everyone was missing it. So back I went and took.. a path. This was a nice path, clearly formed and easy to run. I know right? No way was it the right path. Duh. As I ran it, starting to slow down as I realized my error I encountered a woman from the aptly named "Buns A'Blazin" team who was coming back along the path towards me. We started to palaver about directions and two other people popped out of the brush. All four of us chatted and Bunsy seemed to be convinced that my encounter with the pond lady was key to advancement of our quest. The other two claimed that they had turned on a path back there and it looped them around to where they were now. They headed off in what Bunsy and I knew was the wrong direction. Bunsy made the call that we head back towards pond lady. So we did. Next to the path I took was, in the leaves, a tiny little wooden square on a stick. Bunsy triumphantly declared "it's here!" And off we went, based purely on her belief. I was quite skeptical. It was totally overgrown. But she seemed confident!
As we ran, her choice seemed to make more and more sense until.. 3 turns that were not documented at all. But she pushed on and I followed along until.. she was blazing (Buns-A'Blazin') along and went right past these two trees so close together that you almost felt like you should turn sideways to get between them.. I checked them out and between the two trees I spotted a blue dot off in the distance on a tree!
Blue dots were used to sometimes mark the routes. They were cunningly used just enough to get you to rely on them, then abandoned until you forgot all about them, then used sparingly again.
I called Bunsy back and she agreed, I had found the one true path. Off we went. We then passed a guy and a girl who were so pissed off they were just walking and bitching. I thought about telling them they were on the right path.. but.. I thought of the joy of advancing.. at least 4 places up in ranks and.. I said nothing. If they died out there.. my bad.
At this point I should mention our team name. Our team was called "Off in the Corner." The name is purely pun-based so that if some team is faster than us we can say they "Beat Off in the Corner." I can't nor won't take credit for this name. But I gotta admit it got some laughs. For example, I told our name to Buns A Blazin' and she loved it.
As we are winding our way along the worst marked trail of all time Bunsy hears a horn and says "well we must be at least within a mile of the end of this leg" and we both laughed. It was a 2.8 mile race!At all times we were probably within a mile of the end, it's a winding weaving trail race! So no help there but, we kept getting closer and closer to the horn noise which was a good sign.. Finally we saw the horn blower. It was Don! He was blowing it to help me out!
I then got the golden opportunity to say "well I know your buns are a blazing but I really can't let you beat off in the corner" and off I sped to beat off in the.. no wait,to finish (the race! don't be a perv). So I got our team to advance 5 places. Don was great , there were some hills at the end and he ran up and down them with me because he could tell I was flagging. I waited for Bunsy after I finished and we hugged.
Later I looked and did not see a team called Buns A Blazin' on the list! WTF. I am not sure what to make of this. To be honest, we were moving pretty slow, her buns were at the most simmering. Smoldering?
Between legs while hanging out, I talked to Aimee about her earlier leg. All sand, and she said a 93% incline! She pointed out that she had told Don "no sand legs!" before she signed up for this thing. Oh oh! Of course all legs at this point had sand in them. Still, when she killed Don later in the day and threw his body in the dumpster we all understood. 93% incline!
During the driving around, in one of the cars I rode in, Tom (or Aimee, whoever was driving) also gave a lift to a guy he knew that I will refer to as Dandy. Dandy was one dilly of a debacle, yessirree. He was alternately jabbering and comatose in the vehicle, and it made sense once I realized he was completely in the bag.
He did not know where his team was and had some drunken claims of abandonment with some mild ire but nothing that caused me any alarm. He wandered off, wandered back, and at one point came running down the middle of the dirt road with his arms outstretched yelling out " I AM AN AEROPLANE!!"
The thing was, I was watching... and he wasn't actually an aeroplane. I don't want to put the kibosh on the dude's claims but he was clearly a guy running drunkenly down the road with his arms outstretched. No jet engines, no propellers. Besides, planes don't talk in real life! I wasn't born yesterday. He may have fooled some people but not me.
My next leg was just as challenging as my earlier leg but this time I was ready. As Rob said later, you had to be like a native american guide. He was way better at it than me but I was doing the same things he was.. looking at how many footprints, what direction they were going in? Listening. I got a little lost but not much. What got me on this leg was my own legs. I tripped on.. myself? At some point and took a shoulder to the sandy trail so fast I don't even remember anything other than my F bomb and being back on my feet. I finished the run without any further mishaps.
Dandy was at the beginning or the end of this leg, cavorting around drunkenly, not sure where his team was. At one point he produced a beer bottle that didn't have the twist off cap and talked one of his teammates who showed up into popping the cap off with his teeth. Then Dandy walked over and gave the beer to a girl and the guy who has just risked his teeth looked over and said "Motherfucker!"
I found Dandy's exploits amusing because he reminded me a lot of the antics I saw on another relay race, the infamous "Dances with Dirt" race. That one is just a one day event and a lot of the participants seem to be drunken fools, while this race had mostly sober fools during the day then drinking later :) (nothing against Dandy but he kind of stood out among all the sober non hyper runners).
At the end of this day we got to park next to some people who had a keginator right in their car with their own brands of beer and mixed drinks.I cop to pretty much manipulating the people with me into hanging out there and getting some free beer and mixed beverages. I mean how could I pass that up? A relay race with fellow runners who brought kegs full of their own beer to share? How often does that happen? Not often enough, that's for damned sure. Melissa was a great sport about it though and didn't abandon me. I even got to tip beers with a chick I saw on day one who had a kids cartoon running tech shirt and odd stickers up and down her arms. Makes sense that she was on this team actually. I forget if a hasher was on this team or not, but I met some pseudo hashers the next day.
Anyways after this we hit a bar for some food, if I recollect these details (it's all a jumble I am still sorting out) I will put them in later. And then another school with an even better shower, I forgot to mention that, and I put up my tent by myself! WTF. Epic win for team me.. then sleep, but knowing I was getting up at 4am the next morning! Ug. My resources were pretty much depleted.. I could tell Sunday was going to be rough on me.
Next up.. the final day of GLR 2015! (unless you choose to scroll down)
The following picture is unrelated to GLR. It is used as a buffer between non-poop discussion and poop discussion. After asking yourself "why would anyone have the following picture taken?" (it's a question I feel has no legitimate answer), if you choose, scroll past it to read all about runners/pooping/woodland pooping. Not super gross, just.. inappropriate for those who don't really want to proceed. Otherwise feel free to take this opportunity to bail on this blog and proceed directly to the blog about day 3. - Mgmt
I "learned a lot" about pooping on this fabled day. Specifically the fecal sub genre of deep woods pooping. Although admittedly I did not poop in the woods myself (see above for my clever gas station pooping stratagem), I was told by a few people exactly how woods pooping is done. And if I ever have to, I am now armed with this secret knowledge. It involves knowing how to sit with your back against a tree. "Have TP will travel" is the slogan for you, BTW.. .I heard a few horror stories about guys who had wiped with poison ivy leaves..anyways all "good info" to know but I was in no hurry to learn to poop in the woods in upper lower Michigan! Aside from poison-ivy-bum syndrome or just soiled running shorts, I would imagine that's a bad area of the body to have the infamous Michigan Tick infiltrate!
However I feel I must share the cautionary tale of the poop trap just in case you are in the mood for a forest deposit..
As I stood waiting around for runners I overheard the following conversation:
Guy 1: "Yea don't go back there man.. There's a tire and... I dunno man.."
Guy 2: "A poop trap!"
At this point I couldn't help myself, I had to know more.
Me: "Did you just say a "poop trap?" WTF is a "poop trap?""
Well apparently, any trail runner worth a dump knows that pooping in a tire is the way to go in the woods if you are lucky enough to find a tire. Keep in mind though that you take your ass in your own hands if you do so because it could be a "poop trap." I was laughing hard enough to miss the exact details but I am pretty sure the fear is that a ferocious genital-and-buttocks chomping nasty could be lurking in the tire, perhaps pacing impatiently.. absolutely ready to leap up and .. YEOOOOW!.. *or*.. maybe you end up sitting in someone else's poop? I don't know much in the poop trade but (butt?) I do know this, I will never defecate in a tire. Amen. So it is shitten. I mean written.
Side note for you scientists and thinkers out there, why in the hell are there tires in the woods? Accidental Happenstance or Poop Trap Conspiracy (PTC)?. Every time I see a tire in the woods I am going to wonder.. is that a "poop trap"? Are we in PT country?
I should have asked those guys if they had heard of any poop trappers in the area, and/or to tell me what they knew about the poop trapping trade. Instead, I said nothing.
My question to you, the reader (bathroom reader?) is.. the next time you see a tire in the woods.. will you rush over and take a poop in it? It's your call! Of nature. When Nature calls.. don't get poop trapped.
What a shitty way to end this blog entry. Badump DUMP.
Things got packed up eventually and then I was off, in Don's car, which had a number and a colour and a car type but at this point I couldn't tell you what any of those things were. For the second day in a row I had instant coffee made from boiled water and realized my love of good coffee. This coffee was OK! Don't get me wrong. Just not what I wanted.
So off I went in the car and what sticks out to me is the memory of Don looking over at me and and saying "you know, the reason we changed around all the car numbers and colors and so on was so you wouldn't be riding with me right now."
And there I was, a man without a country. The car screeched to a halt and I was tossed into the woods, never to be seen again. Rumor has it I was raised by ticks and can be seen burrowing into camper legs on the upper trails.
Put another way, Don the schemer pulled out sheets and pens and phones and so on and so forth and at some point I changed cars back to the jeep for a while after hanging out at a gas station (and pooping! read further below to appreciate my genius), which makes sense because the all knowing Melissa had said in the morning that I should be riding with her and Don had not listened to her.
My first leg was to be 2.8 miles but I managed to do 4ish. It was due to a technique that was becoming popular that day known as "getting your ass completely lost." it goes like this. You start your leg and trot off into the woods with directions in your hands that are not exactly correct. You then miss some turns and some trails and wander around like a homeless person until you glom onto someone who happens to be be going the right way.
This is my story. Off I went on my merry way and got through the first few lines of directions just fine until I met the lady in the lake who threw me the sword. I was now king. Actually it was an overweight woman settled in a chair sitting by a large pond. She looked at me as I went by and laughed and cackled about the turn being 20 feet back and that everyone was missing it. So back I went and took.. a path. This was a nice path, clearly formed and easy to run. I know right? No way was it the right path. Duh. As I ran it, starting to slow down as I realized my error I encountered a woman from the aptly named "Buns A'Blazin" team who was coming back along the path towards me. We started to palaver about directions and two other people popped out of the brush. All four of us chatted and Bunsy seemed to be convinced that my encounter with the pond lady was key to advancement of our quest. The other two claimed that they had turned on a path back there and it looped them around to where they were now. They headed off in what Bunsy and I knew was the wrong direction. Bunsy made the call that we head back towards pond lady. So we did. Next to the path I took was, in the leaves, a tiny little wooden square on a stick. Bunsy triumphantly declared "it's here!" And off we went, based purely on her belief. I was quite skeptical. It was totally overgrown. But she seemed confident!
As we ran, her choice seemed to make more and more sense until.. 3 turns that were not documented at all. But she pushed on and I followed along until.. she was blazing (Buns-A'Blazin') along and went right past these two trees so close together that you almost felt like you should turn sideways to get between them.. I checked them out and between the two trees I spotted a blue dot off in the distance on a tree!
Blue dots were used to sometimes mark the routes. They were cunningly used just enough to get you to rely on them, then abandoned until you forgot all about them, then used sparingly again.
I called Bunsy back and she agreed, I had found the one true path. Off we went. We then passed a guy and a girl who were so pissed off they were just walking and bitching. I thought about telling them they were on the right path.. but.. I thought of the joy of advancing.. at least 4 places up in ranks and.. I said nothing. If they died out there.. my bad.
At this point I should mention our team name. Our team was called "Off in the Corner." The name is purely pun-based so that if some team is faster than us we can say they "Beat Off in the Corner." I can't nor won't take credit for this name. But I gotta admit it got some laughs. For example, I told our name to Buns A Blazin' and she loved it.
As we are winding our way along the worst marked trail of all time Bunsy hears a horn and says "well we must be at least within a mile of the end of this leg" and we both laughed. It was a 2.8 mile race!At all times we were probably within a mile of the end, it's a winding weaving trail race! So no help there but, we kept getting closer and closer to the horn noise which was a good sign.. Finally we saw the horn blower. It was Don! He was blowing it to help me out!
I then got the golden opportunity to say "well I know your buns are a blazing but I really can't let you beat off in the corner" and off I sped to beat off in the.. no wait,to finish (the race! don't be a perv). So I got our team to advance 5 places. Don was great , there were some hills at the end and he ran up and down them with me because he could tell I was flagging. I waited for Bunsy after I finished and we hugged.
Later I looked and did not see a team called Buns A Blazin' on the list! WTF. I am not sure what to make of this. To be honest, we were moving pretty slow, her buns were at the most simmering. Smoldering?
Between legs while hanging out, I talked to Aimee about her earlier leg. All sand, and she said a 93% incline! She pointed out that she had told Don "no sand legs!" before she signed up for this thing. Oh oh! Of course all legs at this point had sand in them. Still, when she killed Don later in the day and threw his body in the dumpster we all understood. 93% incline!
During the driving around, in one of the cars I rode in, Tom (or Aimee, whoever was driving) also gave a lift to a guy he knew that I will refer to as Dandy. Dandy was one dilly of a debacle, yessirree. He was alternately jabbering and comatose in the vehicle, and it made sense once I realized he was completely in the bag.
He did not know where his team was and had some drunken claims of abandonment with some mild ire but nothing that caused me any alarm. He wandered off, wandered back, and at one point came running down the middle of the dirt road with his arms outstretched yelling out " I AM AN AEROPLANE!!"
The thing was, I was watching... and he wasn't actually an aeroplane. I don't want to put the kibosh on the dude's claims but he was clearly a guy running drunkenly down the road with his arms outstretched. No jet engines, no propellers. Besides, planes don't talk in real life! I wasn't born yesterday. He may have fooled some people but not me.
My next leg was just as challenging as my earlier leg but this time I was ready. As Rob said later, you had to be like a native american guide. He was way better at it than me but I was doing the same things he was.. looking at how many footprints, what direction they were going in? Listening. I got a little lost but not much. What got me on this leg was my own legs. I tripped on.. myself? At some point and took a shoulder to the sandy trail so fast I don't even remember anything other than my F bomb and being back on my feet. I finished the run without any further mishaps.
Dandy was at the beginning or the end of this leg, cavorting around drunkenly, not sure where his team was. At one point he produced a beer bottle that didn't have the twist off cap and talked one of his teammates who showed up into popping the cap off with his teeth. Then Dandy walked over and gave the beer to a girl and the guy who has just risked his teeth looked over and said "Motherfucker!"
I found Dandy's exploits amusing because he reminded me a lot of the antics I saw on another relay race, the infamous "Dances with Dirt" race. That one is just a one day event and a lot of the participants seem to be drunken fools, while this race had mostly sober fools during the day then drinking later :) (nothing against Dandy but he kind of stood out among all the sober non hyper runners).
At the end of this day we got to park next to some people who had a keginator right in their car with their own brands of beer and mixed drinks.I cop to pretty much manipulating the people with me into hanging out there and getting some free beer and mixed beverages. I mean how could I pass that up? A relay race with fellow runners who brought kegs full of their own beer to share? How often does that happen? Not often enough, that's for damned sure. Melissa was a great sport about it though and didn't abandon me. I even got to tip beers with a chick I saw on day one who had a kids cartoon running tech shirt and odd stickers up and down her arms. Makes sense that she was on this team actually. I forget if a hasher was on this team or not, but I met some pseudo hashers the next day.
Anyways after this we hit a bar for some food, if I recollect these details (it's all a jumble I am still sorting out) I will put them in later. And then another school with an even better shower, I forgot to mention that, and I put up my tent by myself! WTF. Epic win for team me.. then sleep, but knowing I was getting up at 4am the next morning! Ug. My resources were pretty much depleted.. I could tell Sunday was going to be rough on me.
Next up.. the final day of GLR 2015! (unless you choose to scroll down)
Warning:
The rest of this blog is about Pooping In The Woods.
Read at your own risk!
The following picture is unrelated to GLR. It is used as a buffer between non-poop discussion and poop discussion. After asking yourself "why would anyone have the following picture taken?" (it's a question I feel has no legitimate answer), if you choose, scroll past it to read all about runners/pooping/woodland pooping. Not super gross, just.. inappropriate for those who don't really want to proceed. Otherwise feel free to take this opportunity to bail on this blog and proceed directly to the blog about day 3. - Mgmt
I "learned a lot" about pooping on this fabled day. Specifically the fecal sub genre of deep woods pooping. Although admittedly I did not poop in the woods myself (see above for my clever gas station pooping stratagem), I was told by a few people exactly how woods pooping is done. And if I ever have to, I am now armed with this secret knowledge. It involves knowing how to sit with your back against a tree. "Have TP will travel" is the slogan for you, BTW.. .I heard a few horror stories about guys who had wiped with poison ivy leaves..anyways all "good info" to know but I was in no hurry to learn to poop in the woods in upper lower Michigan! Aside from poison-ivy-bum syndrome or just soiled running shorts, I would imagine that's a bad area of the body to have the infamous Michigan Tick infiltrate!
However I feel I must share the cautionary tale of the poop trap just in case you are in the mood for a forest deposit..
As I stood waiting around for runners I overheard the following conversation:
Guy 1: "Yea don't go back there man.. There's a tire and... I dunno man.."
Guy 2: "A poop trap!"
At this point I couldn't help myself, I had to know more.
Me: "Did you just say a "poop trap?" WTF is a "poop trap?""
Well apparently, any trail runner worth a dump knows that pooping in a tire is the way to go in the woods if you are lucky enough to find a tire. Keep in mind though that you take your ass in your own hands if you do so because it could be a "poop trap." I was laughing hard enough to miss the exact details but I am pretty sure the fear is that a ferocious genital-and-buttocks chomping nasty could be lurking in the tire, perhaps pacing impatiently.. absolutely ready to leap up and .. YEOOOOW!.. *or*.. maybe you end up sitting in someone else's poop? I don't know much in the poop trade but (butt?) I do know this, I will never defecate in a tire. Amen. So it is shitten. I mean written.
Side note for you scientists and thinkers out there, why in the hell are there tires in the woods? Accidental Happenstance or Poop Trap Conspiracy (PTC)?. Every time I see a tire in the woods I am going to wonder.. is that a "poop trap"? Are we in PT country?
I should have asked those guys if they had heard of any poop trappers in the area, and/or to tell me what they knew about the poop trapping trade. Instead, I said nothing.
My question to you, the reader (bathroom reader?) is.. the next time you see a tire in the woods.. will you rush over and take a poop in it? It's your call! Of nature. When Nature calls.. don't get poop trapped.
What a shitty way to end this blog entry. Badump DUMP.
Next up.. the final day of GLR 2015!
Great Lakes Relay (GLR) 2015 : Day 1 (the debut)
The day started early. Really Damned Early. Melissa was supposed to come shake my tent (not a euphemism!) but, she had her own world to deal with. As I was to find out, when she had agreed to be a GLR groupie she really had no idea what she was getting into. So, shaking the tent of some rookie Canadian Camper was not on her mind. She was probably folding hot pink sheets from the air mattress. More on that later.
So the first thing I noticed when I struggled out of my tent in the darkness to go hit the loo was the skeeterfest. They may have been happy to see and taste me the night before but in the morning they were positively overjoyed! It was uberSkeeterfest. Dismantling my tent in the darkness was one thing but also going through my overstuffed crappy bag to get clothes on and all that was.. superb. Once again I was working in 15 second bursts, hitting the button on my iPhone for light. Later on it would be pointed out to me that the iPhone has a built in flashlight feature. D'OH! Sadly, Ranger CutiePieDanger was forever gone from my life. Not even a morning driveby to warn me with a sexy smile that if we didn't clean our site we would be shot in cold blood. Oh well. #OppertuneLost.
One thing about camping struck me that I will pass on. It deals with the impossibility of physics. Any camper will shrug and say "yep," but for those who don't know.. putting the camping item (sleeping bag, tent) back into the casing it came out of.. is nigh impossible. Even in broad daylight!
I don't even know how I finally got my sleeping bag into its case but, sorry planet Earth for the pure rage that flowed out of me during that process. I didn't really mean to curse the ground I was rolling around on nor nature itself. I was just in need of vision and coffee. And the case was mocking me. The tent part I did the best I could with but it was overflowing and had items sticking out. Oh well it worked..
On we went! The night before I had eaten a huge pile of spaghetti and there was water so I was good to go.
My first run was about 6 miles. Absolutely Beautiful Scenery. And the course was OK too! Hey-o! I will just mention it once but this event had more beautiful women (and men, I am sure) than any event I have ever been at. I think I got better looking briefly just from being in such close proximity to all of these people. Anyway the leg I ran was fantastic. The only problem was I was in no shape for it. I had been nursing sore Achilles tendons and possibly some PF and this was a freshly cut route. Thus, the ground was of varying consistency for the entire route which meant each footfall either sank in or met hard ground and there was no rhyme nor reason. So my feet were killing me! I was hobbling. A gal and two guys passed me on this course. Sorry team :|.
During the day I got to know Melissa better. She was a true trooper. She had brought oodles of food and water and was the driver of the vehicle I was in that day.Which was vehicle 1. According to one sheet of paper.
Did I mention that the vehicle Melissa drove was Vehicle 3 on that day? Because it was. According to another sheet of paper.
Wait, just to be clear, let me back up.. the vehicles were colour coded. This was listed in every booklet. I believe the vehicle I was in was.. Tope'? Aqua? Mauve? It was a base color but Don had one of those fancy schmancy color names for it. Apparently Roy G Biv was not good enough for our leader. Berkley guys.. all stuck up and stuff!
Let me just say, looking back and hindsight is 20/20.. the vehicle I was in was NOT vehicle #2. I am sure of this. Or.. hmm.
Melissa Drove the Jeep and I rode in the Jeep.
You see, our team Captain, Don, I am convinced, was out to break us. He had maps. He had lines on these maps. Lines of different colours. Runners paths, different vehicle paths and I believe the path a northern gull with medium wingspan would take if the wind was coming from the north during the solstice. I admittedly was over my head on this trip but every time I looked at what Don was doing, with the lines and the colours and the explanations of what car was what, I lost a little more of my understanding of both numbers and colours. He was like General Patton, furiously planning and plotting. He would say he was plotting the next steps, I would say he was possibly plotting on how to make sure everyone was equally confused. Oh, he had explanations on why the car number was different in one place than another and for the colour code of both the vehicles and the lines... and those explanations made sense to me for.. a good 3-4 minutes before they leaked out of my ears and I was once again utterly confused.The only thing I was convinced of was that Don knew what things meant, and that Melissa could figure it all out. The other drivers.. I supposed if they drove our team off of cliffs and into lakes we would just find a good place to drink sleep eat and shower and move on with our lives! That was my game plan anyways.
Another diabolical factor in this was the course description pages in the booklets. At the bottom of each leg's page they had directions to get to the next one. They didn't stand out or anything. Which proved to be my downfall.
I was copilot of car #1/#3/MuaveTopeQaJeep and as copilot I was.. lucky to not be thrown out of the vehicle.It went a lot like this:
Melissa: OK we are going to A4.
John: Got it. Turn left in .7 miles onto yet another one of these roads with no actual name just a fricking number.
Melissa: You mean right
John: Oh sorry! Right! Yes, not left
Melissa: By the way you are looking at the bottom of A4 which is the directions to A5. You need to look at the bottom of A3 for the directions for A4.
John: Oops! A3 for A4, not A4 for A4. Because A4 is A5. Got it. Sorry! um, take a right in ..4 miles
Melissa: You're the worst navigator ever!
John: I'm working on it! Hey how come when I look at me I am suddenly in car 1.. didn't you say you are car 3?
Melissa: I thought the cars were colour coded. Wait I would say 'color' not 'colour.' I need some good coffee! Did I mention that?
So I got my left and right mixed up only once but I repeatedly made the mistake of looking at the bottom of the page of the leg to get to it, instead of the bottom of the page of the previous leg. Luckily for me, Melissa would look over after I spoke and point out my idiocy and correct it and I would be apologetic and grateful that she didn't ask me to leave the Jeep and hitch. On the plus side I entertained her and got to know her and her story. She brought too much food, she said, because that's how she rolls for camping. She demanded an air mattress and a pillow and brought along a lot of hot pink items to make her statement. I was on board with that, if my girlfriend was coming along to drive a bunch of sweaty weirdos she had never met around the UP and Upper Lower all day for 3 days I would pretty much give her anything she wanted! And Michael did.. we were all quite grateful for Melissa. Also I feel we made a good navigational team, the chick who didn't need a navigator and the guy who couldn't navigate worth a damn! But I could hold the maps? Bottom line is, she didn't kill me and dump the body in the woods because if she did, who woulda known? I reveal this now, and am glad she didn't know this until now.
Another fun thing about Melissa was her dog Rose. Rose sat right in her lap and was so calm that.. you could completely forget that Melissa was driving through rough UP roads with a frickin dog in her lap. The only time that dog was concerned in any way was when one of us blew an air horn. Sorry Rose! In my defense I never blew an air horn!
So my second and last leg of the day was 4 miles.I felt I had something to prove on this one. It was 4 miles down a sandy path and I seem to remember no breeze. It was an optical illusion of a run where there were trees on both sides and I swear it felt like I wasn't even moving.. but I did pretty well on this leg actually. Near the end this cute young girl ran up beside me and demanded we finish the race together. I told her she was probably faster, to run ahead, but she actually insisted! So we both picked up our speed and we rocked the final .. quarter mile? And I was done for the day! That was actually a touching moment for me, two runners sharing the running spirit in the heat of the moment (oh shut up, I have something in my eye! I'm rock solid man) and I will always remember that. Especially since there is a photo of us blazing the final stretch! How cool is that eh?
Aimee had done the leg right before me on the same path, it was broken into two so we compared notes on how monotonous it was and just .. tough. Still, at least I didn't feel like every step might sink down 6 inches on me! So I finished the day on a very satisfied note.
My leg was the final leg and we had started running concurrently so once we were all done and met where I was at... we went to a magical place called "school grounds" where they had one of the most delightful inventions of mankind. A "shower." This was a damn good thing to have. I realized then that I only had one pair of shorts and.. about 6 shirts. I am such a good packer. So I washed my shorts as well as took a shower. And we all returned to our human forms and went off to dinner after I proved to myself that I cannot put up a tent in daylight either. Michael was kind enough to spare the .01 seconds it took him to do it, while blindfolded, handcuffed and submersed in a tank of water Houdini-style.Or, I think he could have. After I spend 15 minutes flailing around. I actually felt I was closer this time to the ever sought after secret-of-camping, and felt hope that someday I could put up a tent, maybe for my grandchildren (my kids are 10 and 12 so I have time to work on this).
Speaking of camping and travelling.. here's a handy tip. A fun thing to do while heading out to dinner is to open up beers in the vehicle as the driver figures out where to go. And, if you are driving a carload of people with open intoxicants to a restaurant after a long day of running you might want to pull into a parking lot quick to look at your map and figure out where to go. Well, I recommend that you do *not* pick the POLICE STATION parking lot to pull into for this task! I think all of Dons maps and colours and numbers were hypnotizing him but luckily we pointed out just where we were parked .. Don got wide eyed for a moment and then we exited that parking lot VERY CAREFULLY but without lingering.
So off we went to the Mackinaw Grille and Waterfront Pub in downtown St Ignace. I got to try a beer called a U.P.A. What's a U.P.A? It's an I.P.A made in the U.P, eh? I feel like I have a total license to say that, being Canadian and all. You're welcome.
Stay away from U.P.A, eh, it's not worth it. Two Hearted Ale is much better.
I will close on the story of the over-eager waiter dude. This guy was oozing eagerness for tips and I swear he kept offering us all either Giraffe or Craft waters and when he would say it his eyes would light up, and I suspected he was mocking the concept of Craft Beer with Craft Water, or else was going to bring us glass Giraffe creations full of water.. must be a U.P. thing? I didn't know they were indigenous! Or, he just didn't know how to say carafe of water because that is what he brought us. Gallons of water showed up at the table.
He was very consistent in screwing up my order with Bill's order, he stuck to his guns and got everything about us wrong with 100% accuracy. From beer to food to the bill. I gotta admire a guy who sticks to his guns. All water Giraffes aside though, my food was delicious. I had a hamburger with macaroni infused into it somehow.
After dinner we headed back to "school grounds." I was overjoyed to know that I did not have to get up the next morning at 4am this time around!
So the first thing I noticed when I struggled out of my tent in the darkness to go hit the loo was the skeeterfest. They may have been happy to see and taste me the night before but in the morning they were positively overjoyed! It was uberSkeeterfest. Dismantling my tent in the darkness was one thing but also going through my overstuffed crappy bag to get clothes on and all that was.. superb. Once again I was working in 15 second bursts, hitting the button on my iPhone for light. Later on it would be pointed out to me that the iPhone has a built in flashlight feature. D'OH! Sadly, Ranger CutiePieDanger was forever gone from my life. Not even a morning driveby to warn me with a sexy smile that if we didn't clean our site we would be shot in cold blood. Oh well. #OppertuneLost.
One thing about camping struck me that I will pass on. It deals with the impossibility of physics. Any camper will shrug and say "yep," but for those who don't know.. putting the camping item (sleeping bag, tent) back into the casing it came out of.. is nigh impossible. Even in broad daylight!
I don't even know how I finally got my sleeping bag into its case but, sorry planet Earth for the pure rage that flowed out of me during that process. I didn't really mean to curse the ground I was rolling around on nor nature itself. I was just in need of vision and coffee. And the case was mocking me. The tent part I did the best I could with but it was overflowing and had items sticking out. Oh well it worked..
On we went! The night before I had eaten a huge pile of spaghetti and there was water so I was good to go.
My first run was about 6 miles. Absolutely Beautiful Scenery. And the course was OK too! Hey-o! I will just mention it once but this event had more beautiful women (and men, I am sure) than any event I have ever been at. I think I got better looking briefly just from being in such close proximity to all of these people. Anyway the leg I ran was fantastic. The only problem was I was in no shape for it. I had been nursing sore Achilles tendons and possibly some PF and this was a freshly cut route. Thus, the ground was of varying consistency for the entire route which meant each footfall either sank in or met hard ground and there was no rhyme nor reason. So my feet were killing me! I was hobbling. A gal and two guys passed me on this course. Sorry team :|.
During the day I got to know Melissa better. She was a true trooper. She had brought oodles of food and water and was the driver of the vehicle I was in that day.Which was vehicle 1. According to one sheet of paper.
Did I mention that the vehicle Melissa drove was Vehicle 3 on that day? Because it was. According to another sheet of paper.
Wait, just to be clear, let me back up.. the vehicles were colour coded. This was listed in every booklet. I believe the vehicle I was in was.. Tope'? Aqua? Mauve? It was a base color but Don had one of those fancy schmancy color names for it. Apparently Roy G Biv was not good enough for our leader. Berkley guys.. all stuck up and stuff!
Let me just say, looking back and hindsight is 20/20.. the vehicle I was in was NOT vehicle #2. I am sure of this. Or.. hmm.
Melissa Drove the Jeep and I rode in the Jeep.
You see, our team Captain, Don, I am convinced, was out to break us. He had maps. He had lines on these maps. Lines of different colours. Runners paths, different vehicle paths and I believe the path a northern gull with medium wingspan would take if the wind was coming from the north during the solstice. I admittedly was over my head on this trip but every time I looked at what Don was doing, with the lines and the colours and the explanations of what car was what, I lost a little more of my understanding of both numbers and colours. He was like General Patton, furiously planning and plotting. He would say he was plotting the next steps, I would say he was possibly plotting on how to make sure everyone was equally confused. Oh, he had explanations on why the car number was different in one place than another and for the colour code of both the vehicles and the lines... and those explanations made sense to me for.. a good 3-4 minutes before they leaked out of my ears and I was once again utterly confused.The only thing I was convinced of was that Don knew what things meant, and that Melissa could figure it all out. The other drivers.. I supposed if they drove our team off of cliffs and into lakes we would just find a good place to drink sleep eat and shower and move on with our lives! That was my game plan anyways.
Another diabolical factor in this was the course description pages in the booklets. At the bottom of each leg's page they had directions to get to the next one. They didn't stand out or anything. Which proved to be my downfall.
I was copilot of car #1/#3/MuaveTopeQaJeep and as copilot I was.. lucky to not be thrown out of the vehicle.It went a lot like this:
Melissa: OK we are going to A4.
John: Got it. Turn left in .7 miles onto yet another one of these roads with no actual name just a fricking number.
Melissa: You mean right
John: Oh sorry! Right! Yes, not left
Melissa: By the way you are looking at the bottom of A4 which is the directions to A5. You need to look at the bottom of A3 for the directions for A4.
John: Oops! A3 for A4, not A4 for A4. Because A4 is A5. Got it. Sorry! um, take a right in ..4 miles
Melissa: You're the worst navigator ever!
John: I'm working on it! Hey how come when I look at me I am suddenly in car 1.. didn't you say you are car 3?
Melissa: I thought the cars were colour coded. Wait I would say 'color' not 'colour.' I need some good coffee! Did I mention that?
So I got my left and right mixed up only once but I repeatedly made the mistake of looking at the bottom of the page of the leg to get to it, instead of the bottom of the page of the previous leg. Luckily for me, Melissa would look over after I spoke and point out my idiocy and correct it and I would be apologetic and grateful that she didn't ask me to leave the Jeep and hitch. On the plus side I entertained her and got to know her and her story. She brought too much food, she said, because that's how she rolls for camping. She demanded an air mattress and a pillow and brought along a lot of hot pink items to make her statement. I was on board with that, if my girlfriend was coming along to drive a bunch of sweaty weirdos she had never met around the UP and Upper Lower all day for 3 days I would pretty much give her anything she wanted! And Michael did.. we were all quite grateful for Melissa. Also I feel we made a good navigational team, the chick who didn't need a navigator and the guy who couldn't navigate worth a damn! But I could hold the maps? Bottom line is, she didn't kill me and dump the body in the woods because if she did, who woulda known? I reveal this now, and am glad she didn't know this until now.
Another fun thing about Melissa was her dog Rose. Rose sat right in her lap and was so calm that.. you could completely forget that Melissa was driving through rough UP roads with a frickin dog in her lap. The only time that dog was concerned in any way was when one of us blew an air horn. Sorry Rose! In my defense I never blew an air horn!
So my second and last leg of the day was 4 miles.I felt I had something to prove on this one. It was 4 miles down a sandy path and I seem to remember no breeze. It was an optical illusion of a run where there were trees on both sides and I swear it felt like I wasn't even moving.. but I did pretty well on this leg actually. Near the end this cute young girl ran up beside me and demanded we finish the race together. I told her she was probably faster, to run ahead, but she actually insisted! So we both picked up our speed and we rocked the final .. quarter mile? And I was done for the day! That was actually a touching moment for me, two runners sharing the running spirit in the heat of the moment (oh shut up, I have something in my eye! I'm rock solid man) and I will always remember that. Especially since there is a photo of us blazing the final stretch! How cool is that eh?
Aimee had done the leg right before me on the same path, it was broken into two so we compared notes on how monotonous it was and just .. tough. Still, at least I didn't feel like every step might sink down 6 inches on me! So I finished the day on a very satisfied note.
My leg was the final leg and we had started running concurrently so once we were all done and met where I was at... we went to a magical place called "school grounds" where they had one of the most delightful inventions of mankind. A "shower." This was a damn good thing to have. I realized then that I only had one pair of shorts and.. about 6 shirts. I am such a good packer. So I washed my shorts as well as took a shower. And we all returned to our human forms and went off to dinner after I proved to myself that I cannot put up a tent in daylight either. Michael was kind enough to spare the .01 seconds it took him to do it, while blindfolded, handcuffed and submersed in a tank of water Houdini-style.Or, I think he could have. After I spend 15 minutes flailing around. I actually felt I was closer this time to the ever sought after secret-of-camping, and felt hope that someday I could put up a tent, maybe for my grandchildren (my kids are 10 and 12 so I have time to work on this).
Speaking of camping and travelling.. here's a handy tip. A fun thing to do while heading out to dinner is to open up beers in the vehicle as the driver figures out where to go. And, if you are driving a carload of people with open intoxicants to a restaurant after a long day of running you might want to pull into a parking lot quick to look at your map and figure out where to go. Well, I recommend that you do *not* pick the POLICE STATION parking lot to pull into for this task! I think all of Dons maps and colours and numbers were hypnotizing him but luckily we pointed out just where we were parked .. Don got wide eyed for a moment and then we exited that parking lot VERY CAREFULLY but without lingering.
So off we went to the Mackinaw Grille and Waterfront Pub in downtown St Ignace. I got to try a beer called a U.P.A. What's a U.P.A? It's an I.P.A made in the U.P, eh? I feel like I have a total license to say that, being Canadian and all. You're welcome.
Stay away from U.P.A, eh, it's not worth it. Two Hearted Ale is much better.
I will close on the story of the over-eager waiter dude. This guy was oozing eagerness for tips and I swear he kept offering us all either Giraffe or Craft waters and when he would say it his eyes would light up, and I suspected he was mocking the concept of Craft Beer with Craft Water, or else was going to bring us glass Giraffe creations full of water.. must be a U.P. thing? I didn't know they were indigenous! Or, he just didn't know how to say carafe of water because that is what he brought us. Gallons of water showed up at the table.
He was very consistent in screwing up my order with Bill's order, he stuck to his guns and got everything about us wrong with 100% accuracy. From beer to food to the bill. I gotta admire a guy who sticks to his guns. All water Giraffes aside though, my food was delicious. I had a hamburger with macaroni infused into it somehow.
After dinner we headed back to "school grounds." I was overjoyed to know that I did not have to get up the next morning at 4am this time around!
Coming soon to this blog: Day 2!
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Great Lakes Relay (GLR) 2015 : Day 0 (the prequel)
Yes, I participated in the legendary fabled oft mentioned epic Great Lakes Relay. For runners in Michigan this is quite the event.
For those who don't know or want to know more, go to www.greatlakesrelay.com.
I shall chronicle here my epic journey in my own ranty semi-coherent fashion. It's in an "as-remembered through my own particularly-distorted slight-liberties-may-be-taken" style of communication. Blogs will be updated as fuzzy facts are corrected.
This chapter is the PreAmble Ramble, the day before we actually participated in the relay race.
Thursday morning I took off of work and headed out to Berkley Michigan to begin my epic saga.
I got to Don's first and we started assembling the gear as people showed up.
The players:
The assembling of the gear reminded me a lot of doing a one billion piece crossword puzzle as a child. I marveled as things were brought out and laid out and then moved into piles. Piles were assimilated into heaps. Heaps were distributed back to piles. The sun got hot. I realized, and this would hit me over and over again throughout the trip, just how much planning had gone into this and just how little I had even thought about this event! I guess it's good that they didn't assign any tasks to the guy with the life crises going on! I thought me packing up and finding Don's house was a huge accomplishment on my end. That's where my head was going into this thing.
I realized I had 2 bags, a pillow, 2 cases of beer, and a sleeping bag. After seeing the piles I realized further that I best just have one bag, a pillow, 2 cases of beer, and a sleeping bag. We barely jammed everything into place and it started to dawn on me that my bag was a terrible camping bag. Stuff was just literally jammed into a bloated overstuffed satchel. Later on I would realize how bad of a camping idea this is.
Gabe decided he had to have bizarre misshaped hair for this adventure so as we packed, Aleah took out the shears and.. made a mess of his head. From surfer hair to.. I don't know what! He was going to get it cut shorter and normal before he went back to work so this was a weekend hair experiment to make our team even goofier? it worked!
We had 3 cars. Let's cut to the chase. Someone had Patron. Someone else had Whiskey. I had Rum. I think the beer tally was 4 cases of beer. I had Molson and Labatts (I like to represent both parts of Canada, eh) and Tim had Lite. He told me "I figured if people don't like it they can get their own!" Truth be told, people didn't like Lite and drank my stuff first! Poor Lite! It gets no respect. Full Disclaimer: I HATE LITE! So I had a secret feeling of beer victory when all my beer went first. SuBEERiority complex. Actually I have nothing against any beer, I just know that I personally cannot stand Lite. However I drink Pabst, RWB, Bud Light, etc, I have no mandatory beer genre demands. Drink what you Lite. I mean, Like! Anyways! With those important details settled, we left for our epic journey.
We drove. Along the way we passed a place I wished we would have stopped at. "Weinerlicious." A small hot dog stand with a ginormous hot dog out in front that seemed to dwarf the size of the actual hot dog shack itself. Weinerlicious! Come on! Really? Yes. I am half glad we didn't stop though because.. could any actual hot dog measure up to the grandiose promise made by that epic hot dog out front? That's a tough check to cash.
See?
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/06/82/f1/94/you-can-see-this-place.jpg
I mean. Wow.
We got to the campsite and first off we ran into an epic ranger woman whom I dub Ranger CutiePieDanger. I only bring this up because her vocal demeanor did not match her cute hot little ranger outfit nor her cute-as- a-button nose and twinkly eyes.. in fact the discord was jarring. She informed us and me particularly (!) multiple times that we were to have TWO cars per campsite and no more! And she would be checking! As her cute sparkly face stared me down as she said this I was sort of baffled, I felt like she was flirting with me a bit, based on body language and facial expression and chemistry but her tone of voice was completely the opposite! Oh women.. you are such mysteries.Was this all in my head? I admit this is possible.
To further my confusion, a car of young cuties pulled up and I noticed in the background as Don completed our registration that they talked with CutiePieDanger and then pulled off to the side. Thought nothing of it until CutiePieDanger came over to us and asked us if they were with us. "Nope," I replied, to which she said they didn't have their park permit. And that without a park permit they couldn't camp and SHE WOULD BE CHECKING! She said this, looking at me again with bedroom eyes and with "you will be destroyed" tone of voice. She mentioned they seemed pretty distraught as if this would make us admit "OK OK they are with us! you got us! You busted our ring of campsite babe smuggling wide open!" However they were not with us.. so said scenario was not reality. So sad. I would have loved to have been a part of a campsite babe smuggling operation. I would have used all Canadian women. Infiltration is the key.
Don was puzzled enough with CutiePieDanger's activities to double-check with her that OUR sticker was OK, but Ranger CutiePieDanger didn't even look at the back of our car! We were all set she said.
WTF?
We drove on and unpacked. Ranger CutiePieDanger was true to her word, she patrolled religiously, I saw her go by in her Truck .. I wanna say 5 times that evening. I do not know what happened to the car of distraught babes. We did not see them parked there in the morning. I mean all they had to do was cough up 11 bucks or so for the frickin permit.
Back to the setup. As we unpacked we were greeted by a surprising number of fans and well wishers. And by that I mean skeeters. Holy crap dudes. Out comes the bug spray. We had many flavours and we all settled on the popular "it may give us cancer but we wont itch tonight" blend.
I had no tent! The guy who was bringing the tent for me to borrow (Michael) was not there yet, he and his lady were out boating. So I pulled out my stuff and made a pile and did what any Canadian would do in such a situation. Drank beer and goofed around. Eh. Should I ease up on my Canadian references? It's my blog I can do what I want to. Sorry.
At some point we went out and ate a lot of spaghetti at a charity function and the rest of our team showed up there to meet us. Avengers Assembled!
We came back, it got pitch black then Michael and Melissa dug me out a tent to use.
Since I had never camped before ever, and had brought no flashlight. assembling my tent in the pitch black of night with skeeters nipping at all parts of my body was fantastic. The bonus of the darkness was no one saw me flailing around like a turrets patient suffering random gran mal seizures as I made what can be artistically portrayed as some form of attempt to put up a tent. It went about as expected, eventually I asked Michael for help. And he walked over and assembled it while talking about other things in about 45 seconds.Thanks!
And so we finished up some drinking because some of us (me included) had to get up at 4am.. and we settled into our tents. I discovered the best bet for me was to wear jeans, a long sleeved shirt, my running jacket and my cap and lay on top of my sleeping bag so to have enough padding. It was so uncomfortable that I sipped from my rum for a while, while listening to a podcast, until lethargy literally forced all the weird other elements out of my brain and I popped off the headphones and slept like a baby under the 345 trillion buzzings of hungry skeeters hovering over my skeeter proof refuge.
Disclaimer: I am sure there was a better way to go to sleep but keep in mind.. first night camping EVER for me.. and pitch fucking black. I just winged it. winged it. wings. millions of wings... buzzzzzzzzzzzz. buzzzzzzzzzzz. buzzzzzzzz. zzzzz
Next up: Day One of the Relay!
For those who don't know or want to know more, go to www.greatlakesrelay.com.
I shall chronicle here my epic journey in my own ranty semi-coherent fashion. It's in an "as-remembered through my own particularly-distorted slight-liberties-may-be-taken" style of communication. Blogs will be updated as fuzzy facts are corrected.
This chapter is the PreAmble Ramble, the day before we actually participated in the relay race.
Thursday morning I took off of work and headed out to Berkley Michigan to begin my epic saga.
I got to Don's first and we started assembling the gear as people showed up.
The players:
- Don: Organizer, lightening fast runner, epic personality
- Me: Canadian (link is to a much needed glimpse into what I stand for)
- Dan: Avid reader, IT guy, lanky, sharp wit, analytical mind
- Bill: Older gentleman, great sense of humor and fun but also prone to boil over a bit
- Tim: Our elder statesman, long windblown gray hair, fun loving and self depreciating. Wants to kick my ass for my labeling of him as self-depreciating so let me also add, a go-getter with a strong sense of self and a force to be reckoned with!
- Miguel: Just moved to Florida, goes by Michael, master camper, quick runner
- Melissa: groupie! Michael's Babe, best organizer I've ever met in my life, patience & tolerance of a saint
- Rose: Melissa's dog. Small but not hyper. Nothing except an air horn rattles this dog
- Gabe: cool young cat, lean mean running machine with wacked hair and a dollop of moxie
- Aleah: groupie! Gabe's Babe, likes biking. Has Yoga Matt Will Travel. Subtle wit.
- Rob: A bit of mystery, cool-hand-luke style wicked fast fella. With hat can pass for Australian.
- Aimee: Cute, fast, great sense of humor, can blend in or stand out depending.
- Tom: Aimee's boyfriend.. bodybuilder who is now running as well, looks like he could run through a brick wall. Wicked smart. Talked into this thing by Aimee.
The assembling of the gear reminded me a lot of doing a one billion piece crossword puzzle as a child. I marveled as things were brought out and laid out and then moved into piles. Piles were assimilated into heaps. Heaps were distributed back to piles. The sun got hot. I realized, and this would hit me over and over again throughout the trip, just how much planning had gone into this and just how little I had even thought about this event! I guess it's good that they didn't assign any tasks to the guy with the life crises going on! I thought me packing up and finding Don's house was a huge accomplishment on my end. That's where my head was going into this thing.
I realized I had 2 bags, a pillow, 2 cases of beer, and a sleeping bag. After seeing the piles I realized further that I best just have one bag, a pillow, 2 cases of beer, and a sleeping bag. We barely jammed everything into place and it started to dawn on me that my bag was a terrible camping bag. Stuff was just literally jammed into a bloated overstuffed satchel. Later on I would realize how bad of a camping idea this is.
Gabe decided he had to have bizarre misshaped hair for this adventure so as we packed, Aleah took out the shears and.. made a mess of his head. From surfer hair to.. I don't know what! He was going to get it cut shorter and normal before he went back to work so this was a weekend hair experiment to make our team even goofier? it worked!
We had 3 cars. Let's cut to the chase. Someone had Patron. Someone else had Whiskey. I had Rum. I think the beer tally was 4 cases of beer. I had Molson and Labatts (I like to represent both parts of Canada, eh) and Tim had Lite. He told me "I figured if people don't like it they can get their own!" Truth be told, people didn't like Lite and drank my stuff first! Poor Lite! It gets no respect. Full Disclaimer: I HATE LITE! So I had a secret feeling of beer victory when all my beer went first. SuBEERiority complex. Actually I have nothing against any beer, I just know that I personally cannot stand Lite. However I drink Pabst, RWB, Bud Light, etc, I have no mandatory beer genre demands. Drink what you Lite. I mean, Like! Anyways! With those important details settled, we left for our epic journey.
We drove. Along the way we passed a place I wished we would have stopped at. "Weinerlicious." A small hot dog stand with a ginormous hot dog out in front that seemed to dwarf the size of the actual hot dog shack itself. Weinerlicious! Come on! Really? Yes. I am half glad we didn't stop though because.. could any actual hot dog measure up to the grandiose promise made by that epic hot dog out front? That's a tough check to cash.
See?
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/06/82/f1/94/you-can-see-this-place.jpg
I mean. Wow.
We got to the campsite and first off we ran into an epic ranger woman whom I dub Ranger CutiePieDanger. I only bring this up because her vocal demeanor did not match her cute hot little ranger outfit nor her cute-as- a-button nose and twinkly eyes.. in fact the discord was jarring. She informed us and me particularly (!) multiple times that we were to have TWO cars per campsite and no more! And she would be checking! As her cute sparkly face stared me down as she said this I was sort of baffled, I felt like she was flirting with me a bit, based on body language and facial expression and chemistry but her tone of voice was completely the opposite! Oh women.. you are such mysteries.Was this all in my head? I admit this is possible.
To further my confusion, a car of young cuties pulled up and I noticed in the background as Don completed our registration that they talked with CutiePieDanger and then pulled off to the side. Thought nothing of it until CutiePieDanger came over to us and asked us if they were with us. "Nope," I replied, to which she said they didn't have their park permit. And that without a park permit they couldn't camp and SHE WOULD BE CHECKING! She said this, looking at me again with bedroom eyes and with "you will be destroyed" tone of voice. She mentioned they seemed pretty distraught as if this would make us admit "OK OK they are with us! you got us! You busted our ring of campsite babe smuggling wide open!" However they were not with us.. so said scenario was not reality. So sad. I would have loved to have been a part of a campsite babe smuggling operation. I would have used all Canadian women. Infiltration is the key.
Don was puzzled enough with CutiePieDanger's activities to double-check with her that OUR sticker was OK, but Ranger CutiePieDanger didn't even look at the back of our car! We were all set she said.
WTF?
We drove on and unpacked. Ranger CutiePieDanger was true to her word, she patrolled religiously, I saw her go by in her Truck .. I wanna say 5 times that evening. I do not know what happened to the car of distraught babes. We did not see them parked there in the morning. I mean all they had to do was cough up 11 bucks or so for the frickin permit.
Back to the setup. As we unpacked we were greeted by a surprising number of fans and well wishers. And by that I mean skeeters. Holy crap dudes. Out comes the bug spray. We had many flavours and we all settled on the popular "it may give us cancer but we wont itch tonight" blend.
I had no tent! The guy who was bringing the tent for me to borrow (Michael) was not there yet, he and his lady were out boating. So I pulled out my stuff and made a pile and did what any Canadian would do in such a situation. Drank beer and goofed around. Eh. Should I ease up on my Canadian references? It's my blog I can do what I want to. Sorry.
At some point we went out and ate a lot of spaghetti at a charity function and the rest of our team showed up there to meet us. Avengers Assembled!
We came back, it got pitch black then Michael and Melissa dug me out a tent to use.
Since I had never camped before ever, and had brought no flashlight. assembling my tent in the pitch black of night with skeeters nipping at all parts of my body was fantastic. The bonus of the darkness was no one saw me flailing around like a turrets patient suffering random gran mal seizures as I made what can be artistically portrayed as some form of attempt to put up a tent. It went about as expected, eventually I asked Michael for help. And he walked over and assembled it while talking about other things in about 45 seconds.Thanks!
And so we finished up some drinking because some of us (me included) had to get up at 4am.. and we settled into our tents. I discovered the best bet for me was to wear jeans, a long sleeved shirt, my running jacket and my cap and lay on top of my sleeping bag so to have enough padding. It was so uncomfortable that I sipped from my rum for a while, while listening to a podcast, until lethargy literally forced all the weird other elements out of my brain and I popped off the headphones and slept like a baby under the 345 trillion buzzings of hungry skeeters hovering over my skeeter proof refuge.
Disclaimer: I am sure there was a better way to go to sleep but keep in mind.. first night camping EVER for me.. and pitch fucking black. I just winged it. winged it. wings. millions of wings... buzzzzzzzzzzzz. buzzzzzzzzzzz. buzzzzzzzz. zzzzz
Next up: Day One of the Relay!
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