Hood To Coast 2013 - Packing for HTC with Matt

As promised, I present to you my personal packing list for Hood To Coast 2013. First and most important is team Slow Dip Ahead. This year's roster goes something like this:

1-Jason 

2-Amy

3-Morgan

4-Marc

5-Dan

6-Naomi

7-Adidas

8-Burke

9-Shawn

10-Matt

11-Lisa

12-Rachel

New additions include Jason and Adidas. Rachel (sister) knows Jason from high school and Adidas is a friend of Burke's from work. And Burke is Mike Burke who came on board in 2011 on a dare from team captain, Rachel (sister). I'm not even sure anyone else calls him Burke. It's entirely possible that Van 2 decided he was Burke and so he was. Amy and Dan (brother) are friends from Cal Poly SLO, which neither of them are. Morgan is my niece. Marc is my brother-in-law, recently married to Naomi (sister). That leaves only Shawn (brother) and Lisa (sister-in-law). So you see, family, friends and strangers. For 24-29 hours they will be a team. They will move, motivate, warm up, warm down and water with and for each other. They will sleep on the ground and will make way too many meals of PBJ and Gatorade. In short, it will be epic.

So for that time you will need some things. You'll need food, water, wet wipes, sure but you'll need a lot more to reduce the potential misery that an experience like this can present. Here's what I'm bringin':

This year I'm getting a little greedy with the van space and I'm bringing a sleeping pad along with my sleeping bag. My XPed camping pad is small, comfortable and can be pumped up by hand (not mouth) just by pushing on it in the right spot.

Basic Essentials:

2 Reflective vests. 2 is the minimum for a team but it should be the absolute minimum for a van unless you want to be doing a vest hand off as well as a baton hand off for all of the night legs. Also, the more vests you have the more time they have to dry in between runners. You are also required to have a headlamp and an LED flasher on your night legs. I have a light hat but the LED is pretty weak sauce and doesn't do much. My new headlamp is made by Black Diamond and has a red LED flasher in the back so it's a two-in-one. I'm also bringing along a couple of really bright, easy-to-carry flashlights. If you are responsible for your own lights and vest, you'll be less likely to be covered in someone else's sweat.

Electronics:

I'm bringing my iPod Shuffle and my Nano. The new Nano is terrible for running. The buttons get pressed too easily and it is too easy to press the wrong button and become very frustrated. I'll be using my Shuffle as a default but if I have to have some specific album, I'll run with the Nano. Maybe I can sweat it death. I've done it before. I'm bringing my running headphones. I shouldn't. I should leave them at home. They are against the rules. I'm bringing them anyway. I'm also bringing my mini-speaker for my mobile hydration belt sound system. I'm bringing my Kindle, as well. Maybe that isn't thought through. Reading would make me car sick. Okay, maybe the Kindle and the headphones stay home.

Running Stuff, Comfort Stuff and/or Placebos:

Hydration belt, electrolytes and carbs concoctions, candy, crappy disposable/lose-able sunglasses, KT Tape, Ben Gay, a toothbrush; whatever you need to run reliably and feel good. Bring it. Bring safety pins. You will need lots of safety pins and will be stoked to have some. I'm bringing my Stick and My TheraCane. A little self-massage goes a long way. Some non-disposable water bottles that are identifiable as yours are awesome. And a backpack. 

Of course I'm bringing the team shirts, a hot pink tutu and something else...

I bought an over the closet door shoe rack at Target. I cut it in half and strung some shoelaces to the tops of the halves. I figure I can hang them over the back of the passenger seat in the mini-van and each runner will have two pockets for various items that are often lost.

And one more thing...

I am determined to keep from throwing up. Ginger root save me!

Hood To Coast 2013 - Slow Dip Ahead - Preparing for Battle

Team Slow Dip Ahead is gearing up for yet another Hood To Coast. This will be the 4th HTC as Slow Dip Ahead. Technically it's our 3rd as we were Team Under Domination one year (Underwhelm, Under Impress, Under Dominate). It's 36 days until the race and the team roster is set as of today. As with every HTC, we have strangers on board. Poor, poor, hapless strangers.

We are in the competitive category I would call "Proof Of Life". We run not to relive past glories (okay maybe a little) or to put in personal bests or roadkill other runners. We run to have fun. We run to support each other. We run, most of all, to prove to ourselves we can.

Slow Dip Ahead is, roughly, a family team. I have 4 siblings that run long distances. This is our 4th Hood To Coast as a family team. We've run 2007, 2009 and 2011 (some of us have run more but none have run less). So, the odd years. Which is fitting as we are an odd team. We fill out our team with significant others, friends, co-workers and poor bastards recruited through acquaintances. Through the years, a lot of those people have stuck around.

I really want people to experience Hood To Coast, I do. It's just that I feel I can't recruit someone into the sheer awesomeness of it without revealing the horror as well. We had a teammate one year who hated it and hated us from the beginning. It wasn't fun. She complained about us openly on her cell phone, had us remove everything from the van so she wouldn't have to sleep on the ground and then fell in a ditch and wrecked her ankle (right before the marathon she was training for so that sucks). We never saw her again. It was mutual. Maybe that's not the best example but it shows that the race is only fun if you make an effort to make it fun and truly join a team.

Every year we try to break up planning duties but, inevitably, our Portland contingent ends up with an unfair amount of the work. So our captain managed our entry, the beach housing and the vans and recruiting. No small tasks. Houses and vans get rented even before acceptances are sent out. Pro Tip: Pick up your rental as soon as you are able to avoid getting a lemon. Car rental agencies bring in tons of vans from wherever they can for Hood To Coast and some have... problems.

This year I took on the task of team running shirts. It was my year. This is a tough task because you are going to have to eat just about every penny of the costs. But I don't mind because I have at least 3 other team shirts that I doubt were ever recompensed.

With that, I present team Slow Dip Ahead's 2013 Hood To Coast race shirts:

I am also trying to keep excitement going and to motivate training. In the past we've tried google spreadsheets, Nike+ and emails. This year half of us are on Garmin watches and so we're using Garmin Connect for training. I'm a data geek so it is totally awesome for me to go through the data from my teammates' runs. You can see where people stopped at stoplights, ran up a brutally steep hill, flew like some kind of fast flying thing in circles around a track. Way cool. Wearing a brick strapped to my wrist is less cool but I would do it forever to never have to see the Nike+ website again.

Part of my personal plan to motivate myself is what my stylist calls The Donaldson. If you aren't an A's fan, I pity you and your foolish life choices. If you are an A's fan you know Josh Donaldson, 3rd baseman. I can't grow facial hair so an epic mountain man beard is out. I can grow head hair like a friggin' expert, however, so I will soon be rocking this:

Holy crap! That's my stylist! I'm in good hands, I guess.

Rock. I've been wanting a real mohawk for a while. Being a 36 year old man with a professional career, a mohawk is allowed but it's not really welcomed by the groaning machine churning through dead and dying souls 24 hours a day. So Hood To Coast is the perfect excuse for some impudence.

I had also planned on another secret motivational weapon of some kind. Maybe a speedo. Maybe a skirt. Possibly pool floaties. But then a discussion on Facebook about The Tour De France, no less, devolved remembrances of HTC costumes we'd seen in the past and before I knew it I was buying a hot pink tutu on Amazon. It's arriving today.

I ordered some Nuun too. I'm interested in trying it. As I've gotten old, I've gotten crampy. Unlike most running blogs that mention Nuun, I do not work for nor am I compensated by Nuun. Have you seen the number of stealth Nuun blogs out there? It's kind of sick. I understand wanting a social media presence but the fake blog is the most insidious and stupid form of online advertising. It just makes me hate the product. Still, runners like it and so I will try it.

I am certain that other tutus have been ordered, as well as fuzzy leg warmers and probably some sort of candy raver LED vest but I won't know for sure until race day.

Team Slow Dip Ahead: We may cry. We may barf. But, dammit, we'll do it in the best damned race in the world and in hot pink tutus.

Next Time: Matt's Hood To Coast Packing List (sneak peek: No Body Glide!)

Hood To Coast Sound System: Part 2

In the last installment, I rambled on about road racing safety and audio setups for music loving runners. In this installment I will share with you my Hood To Coast 2013 solution. This solution has not been road tested because, well, I think it would annoy the crap out of the other people on the trails and the folks in the neighborhoods.

First, the sub-structure: I'd needed a new hydration belt because the belt I was using sucked. I guess I wasn't even really using it. The couple of races I'd busted out on had been hellish as I'd tried to keep the thing cinched around my waist, with the water inside of the bottle and not all over my ass and without getting a rash. Failed on all goals. I doubted any hydration belts were worth a damn and had no hope that the one I'd ordered on Amazon would do anything but suck. I was wrong.

Meet the Nathan Speed 2R Hydration Belt:
http://www.amazon.com/Nathan-Auto-Cant-Hydration--Medium--Nathan/dp/B00CEW81FS/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1373048063&sr=8-5&keywords=nathan+speed+2r

This belt is comfortable, easy to adjust and it stays put. I've taken it out on many jostling trail runs and it just stays in place. No cinching it around my ribcage, no adjusting it as it makes an orbit around my body every mile. Strap it on (a little low in the hips) with the stretchy but comfortable velcro strap and you're good to go. It has a funny metal disc in it that looks like it would hurt but you won't feel it. That's the magic. That makes it so everything can move in a way that keeps this thing from driving you nuts. At least that is how I like to imagine it.

Add the AYL Mini Speaker:
http://www.amazon.com/AYL-Portable-Speaker-Rechargeable-Battery/dp/B007OY5V68/ref=sr_1_10?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1373048526&sr=1-10&keywords=mini+mp3+speakers+AYL

I didn't but this strictly for Hood To Coast. In fact, I didn't buy it at all, I put it on my Elfster wish list and got it for Secret Macabee. (Yes, my life is culturally diverse.) My friend had recommended it to me for camping trips. Just charge it up in the car with the USB and it pumps out big sound (you'll be amazed of what it can do). I use it outside regularly while I wash the car, rake leaves, dance around my pagan altar, whatever. It's awesome.

Plus the MP3 player of your choice and you've got a soundsystem booming from below. I should note that the way I have it linked above, it costs more that the Road Noise Vest which my brother has purchased and is happy with. I, personally, did not pay as much as the price Amazon lists above for these items (well, the speaker was $20 but the belt was only $30). So there are good options out there. The true test will come on race day. Hopefully I'll be in the same van as my brother so we can compare and contrast.

Hood To Coast Sound System: Part 1

Hood To Coast started off small. In 1982, a bunch of dudes decided to split into 8 teams and relay race from the top of Mt. Hood to the water's edges in Pacific City, Oregon. It finishes in Seaside now but for decades the race has pretty much remained the same.

This year will be the 32nd annual running of this incredible endurance event. It will host 12,600 Hood To Coast runners and 18,000 total participants. This does not even count the thousands of volunteers and race officials that make it all run as smoothly as possible.

A few years back, Nike took over the administration of the race. With new management came new rules which, in this case, meant no more headphones or sound producing devices of any kind worn above the shoulders. This is a commonly adopted race rule, especially for races that do not have closed courses. I'm not going to argue that this rule is stupid or unfair. I don't really think it is. I think it's the right thing to do when you manage an event that will see thousands of people running down the side of a dark highway in the middle of the night.

So what's a guy/gal to do? I'm not some Bowerman Running Club superman. I'm a regular guy in his 30s, glory days long faded. I'm happy to plug along at 9 minute miles for as long as it takes but while I'm at it, I like some music to keep me company and bounce me along. Any competitive advantage I might gain is erased by my aching back and car sickness.

2011 was my team's first exposure to the new rule and team members tried a variety of solutions. In the case of at least one other runner and myself, it meant directly flouting the rules.

So, what's available? What works? What would I recommend? 

Safe Sound Sports: Safe Sound Personal Speakers (SSPS-1)

http://www.safesoundsports.com/

These swept across my team in 2011 and the verdict was disappointment across the board. The sound was tinny and too weak, the cords oddly over-long and tough to stow and the plastic clips weren't the most comfortable thing to have bouncing against skin for miles. I ditched mine before I even started the first leg and opted instead to wear my headphones around my neck turned up all the way (and to wear them on my ears when no one was looking or on a closed trail section). I do not know where my set of these are now and I do not care to know.

Road Noise: Sound Running Vest

http://www.roadnoise.com/vests/sound-running-vest-black-medium




My brother sent me this link as a suggestion for this year (we didn't make it in to the race in 2012). It looks like a fantastic system. It's especially good for Hood To Coast where you are obliged to wear a reflective vest and flashers for a good deal of the race. For $55 they had better have some damn fine sounding speakers.

This looks like a good solution but I just can't be bothered to spring for that much money for such a purpose built object. Especially when I have another running problem that needs a solution: the bouncing hydration belt issue.

Next time: I reveal my incredible genius so that you may bask in its radiance... or maybe I just show you how I bought a new hydration belt and stuffed a kick-ass speaker in it.

To be continued...

Hello Blog, My Old Friend

I haven't updated this blog for a long time. That's not to say there haven't been any updates; it's just that most of the updates haven't been things I've felt like sharing.

Updates:

I'm not engaged anymore. That's kind of a bummer but not nearly as bad as it sounds. I guess we never expected the pressures that being engaged would put on our relationship and we kind of decided to take a step back and really look at things before making the leap into marriage.

I'm in the process of being promoted at work. The paperwork has been filed and not it's all just going through the necessary bureaucratic procedures. I was offered a kind of default promotion three months ago on the basis that they were hiring new people into the level above me who had no experience doing the job. I turned it down because I wanted to know I'd earned it. I know, I know. It matters to me.

After taking a break from running after the last Hood To Coast, I began trying to change my style of running again to a more POSE style. I've been running in Nike Free Runs as the Vibram five fingers just felt like they had too little padding and protection for what I wanted. I just felt uncomfortable and fragile in them. I know it's a matter of perception but perception is important as a lot of running is mental preparedness and toughness. In short, the switch has been awesome. I've become much less competitive as I delve deeper into my thirties so starting slowly and carefully into the new style was much easier. I'd tried once before and had seriously injured myself by being over zealous.

I also switched to running almost all of my runs on dirt. Trail running every weekend in Tilden Park has been amazing. It's beautiful, full of hills (which I love), and the dirt has a greatly reduced impact on my body. When I'd been running on cement I'd found that I was plagued by calf cramps after just a couple of miles. These went away entirely when running on the trails. Sure, I've taken a couple of nasty spills that have sidelined me for a couple of weeks at a time but I honestly feel like that is part of the allure. If you lose concentration or if you lose control, you could eat it and eat it hard. If you are injured, you are on your own to get back to where you started. That makes it sound more hardcore than it is, especially in Tilden where you're never more than a mile or two from your car. Also, the worst injuries I've suffered to date have been a couple of severely stubbed big toes and some scraped up skin.

When running on the trails, the scenery, the obstacles and the occasional claustrophobic corridors of trails keep the mind occupied, taking away the monotony that would let my mine wander to the tightness of my breathing or the strain of my muscles. It's a challenge. It's a game. It's the first thing to get me interested in racing again for years. Sure, I've raced within the last couple of years but this makes me really want to race; makes me desire challenging myself against terrain, other racers, and my own will.

I don't know how frequently I will update or maintain this blog in the future. If I put a schedule or a timetable to it, I will be less motivated to stick with it. I guess that's just the way I am. I've never liked being told what to do, even by myself.

#SOPA #PIPA #ACTA #DMCA #MPAA #RIAA #WTF

Recently hundreds of websites went dark, limiting user access, and/or altered their main page appearance to try to bring awareness to their users of some pieces of legislation before the houses of the US congress. The response from their users was tremendous and pushed many legislators who had previously supported these bills to withdraw that support. I've been on a bit of a rant about it myself recently in my Twitter feed and in the flow of words coming out of my mouth to friends and colleagues. Surprisingly, although many internet users got the message that these laws might hurt the internet most don't understand how or why they should be upset beyond reddit told them to be. This stuff seems complicated, I'll grant that, but they really aren't all that tough to understand. I'll lay them out here as best as I can.

Let's talk a little history. Hollywood. Why is it in Hollywood? When motion pictures were invented they were an incredibly innovative technology; an innovative technology that could make people a lot of money; an innovative technology to which Edison owned the patents. People didn't want to pay Edison money to make movies so they moved their movie making endeavors to California where the patent laws of the time did not apply. They were stealing. They were patent pirates. They found a way to steal so they could profit from further innovating on an innovation.

Hollywood and the entertainment industries that have sprung up around it, including the music industry, are extremely profitable for the captains of these industries. The captains of these industries have sought, rightfully so, to defend their rights to continue making money from them. Unfortunately, they have a history of trying to crush or stifle other innovations in defense of their originally ill-gotten gain. The VCR, cassette tapes, DVD burners, CD burners, DVRs, and a plethora of digital formats throughout the development of  the personal computer and the internet have each and every one been vehemently attacked by the entertainment industries before eventually being adopted, at least in part, by them. They are the distributors of entertainment and they want to maintain that control. They don't want you to be able to distribute their entertainment, rightfully so, but they also don't want you to be able to distribute your own creations without them getting a slice of the earnings.

In this sense, the internet is a massive threat to them. The internet allows the content creator to cut out the distributing and managing middle man. It also allows people to take their products and distribute them for free but that's only part of their problem. What happens to their business model when musical acts like Radiohead or Girl Talk and performers like Louis CK take their products directly to market? What happens to their business model when these same acts say 'pay whatever you want or nothing' or 'take a look or a listen and if you like it, then pay me'? What happens when new, undiscovered acts or performers take their creative content to Soundcloud or to YouTube and give it away in exchange for exposure? Their business model falls to pieces and they have to restructure it. They hate that. They do not want to do that. They've set up a giant pyramid of people who all get money from the content others have created. These are executives and administrators. They are not artists or performers. They are not content creators. If the pyramid falls, they are boned.

Isn't this way over-simplified? YES. WAY. But I'm not going for tl;dr here. There are tons of people who may or may not be working behind the scenes to create content: producers, writers, sound/recording engineers, etc. When Radiohead or Louis CK work, those people work too.

Lobbying and lobbyists aren't inherently bad things. In fact they were originally and still can be a pretty good thing. You want your business needs to be seen and considered by your elected legislators. That's great. But lobbying in many cases has grown into something else, something more than a consideration of needs; a quid pro quo agreement. I scratch your back with massive campaign donations and support and you write laws that benefit me, even if it's to the detriment of your other constituents. Enter the MPAA and the RIAA.

The MPAA and RIAA are not the entertainment industry. They do not pay content creators and are not hired by content creators. They are lobbyists hired by the captains of the entertainment industry to protect the interests and profits of themselves and their shareholders. Whether this has any affect on the profits enjoyed by the actual content creators is arguable. I'm not going to argue it. I just want to point out the straw man argument that is often used in the media to defend the actions of these groups. These people are far separate from the actual content creators.

The MPAA and the RIAA versus the internet. Right now, right this very second, there are laws in place that allow the US Justice Department to take domestic internet sites offline permanently for violation of copyright laws. Yes. It's true. This is not a new thing. Also, thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), entertainment companies have the right to directly remove copyright violating files from domestic websites (a right they severely abuse but, again, I'm not going into that).

So what's the deal with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)? Why do the MPAA and RIAA want these laws so badly and why would they hurt the internet? The laws currently in place only apply to domestic websites; websites with a .org, .net or .com domain name in the Domain Names System (DNS). The DNS allows websites to use a URL (uniform resource locator) or 'website name' instead of their IP address (a string of numbers). When the Justice Department takes down a website, they remove it from the DNS. It's still there, you just have to use the IP address to get to it. You can't take a website down unless you go physically cut the cord. But for most web users the website is effectively gone if it is no longer listed in the DNS.

These laws expand the takedown power of the US Justice Department to websites with any URL suffix. Think bit.ly or redd.it. It greatly expands their takedown powers. Yes, the companies whose copyrights have been violated still have to get a court order to have entire websites taken down. But wait, there's more. What these laws also do, and what is a great threat to the internet as we know it today, is to require Internet Service Providers and all websites to police their own customer and users. That means that if you decide to share a copyrighted work on YouTube, your ISP and YouTube have both committed a crime.

If I make a video of myself dancing to a Lady Gaga song and I place it on YouTube, YouTube has to recognize that I've done so, decide if I've committed a copyright violation against Universal Media Group and take down my video. If they do not, YouTube has committed a copyright violation and could be taken offline. You see, it's too much of a pain in the ass for UMG or the RIAA to sue me individually for copyright infringement. It's much easier to threaten the company I've used to commit that infringement (if that example would count as infringement at all which a court would have to decide and it costs money to take me to court so...).

What if I record a song on SoundCloud and call it "Poker Face"? It's a completely new creative work that does not have any semblance at all to Lady Gaga's song of the same title. Soundcloud can't take the time to listen to every song users upload and they can't take the risk of being shutdown so they delete my song and maybe my account. My ISP sees the upload of PokerFace.mp3 and cancels my internet account and I can't even go online anymore. I've just been completely censored and the courts, UMG and the RIAA didn't even have to get their hands dirty. Friggin' nefarious, no?

How does that affect the internet as we know it? Why would any website or ISP allow you to share any file whether you created it, own it, or not, if the threat of allowing you to do so is going out of business? What is the internet if not a way to share content you've created: websites, bits of open-sourced code, photos of your vacation.

Is pirating of copyrighted works a problem? Yes. It has been since people have had the ability to make a copy. Is destroying the greatest innovation since the printing press the answer? No. No, it is not.

What can you or I or anyone else do about it? Not a lot, realistically, except make your voice heard as often as possible. Your congressperson is getting buckets and buckets of lobbyist money to support their re-election campaigns and keeping their jobs is a pretty big interest for these folks. Keeping your job as a congressperson takes TONS of money (that's a rant for another day). You can't even begin to fight money with money in this case. You've already lost that battle by a huge margin. What your congressperson can't ignore is millions of constituent voices. They want to but they'd look super corrupt. They are, after all, supposed to representing you and what you believe. Right? Right.

My Newly Unchanged Life

People like to ask you questions about things. Different people often ask the same question about the same subject. They are genuinely interested in your interests. They want details. This is why people always ask about tattoos "Did it hurt?" They know it hurt. That's not what they want to know. But that is a gateway to talking about the experience as a whole.

I didn't expect to feel different after getting engaged but I did. I still do. I feel awesome. Feeling awesome for nearly an entire week is, in my opinion, a pretty good indicator I'm doing something right. But the question people have asked me most consistently is, what's changed? What's different? Anything? The other question everyone asks is "When's the wedding?" and the answer to that is "We don't know and did not realize you'd be asking that question, I guess, because we are completely unprepared with an answer."

But the conceit of this blog post is that my life has or has not changed due to getting engaged and/or turning 35 and, hey, maybe I could say what's different and what's not and maybe it'll be entertaining. Maybe. So, without further ado, a window into my life as a newly engaged man...

Work is pretty much the same. I'm a software application designer which sounds pretty cut and dry but it entails so much more than you might expect. When I come in to the office each day I check two things, bridge and rocketship. This week, both remained more or less static.

There IS a rocketship in this picture.

This week was Oracle Open World. The software I design for is an Oracle proprietary product so not only were some of my department-mates presenting at Open World but we got a bunch of passes. For a few hours, I was a woman named Teresa. I got a great new grocery bag, a water bottle and a USB thumb drive. I also got to see some of the cutting edge technology on display.

Is it a mistake or an ad for the iPhone 54S?

PG&E is actively involved in the community. Which community? All of them! This week saw the kick-off of our charitable giving campaign and the IT department hosted a silent auction. It may surprise some to find out that I am a connoisseur of the arts. I was delighted to come away from the silent auction being the sole bidder and eventual overall winner of this wonderful addition to my collection of prints of animals wearing hats. Seriously. I can only assume that my bid was so powerful it scared off all other potential bids.

"Wha?" He seemed to say.

 But then, you wouldn't really expect my work life to change much based on an engagement or a birthday. How are things around the house? What's my home life like? Have I had to, you know, grow up? Tone things down. Yes, a little. But I'm still young, alive, kicking it old school and what not.

Just the other night I found I had the house to myself so I busted out my axe and raged on some wild jams until the sonic assault was too much and the cat's asked if I might keep it d-meow-n.

My fingers were starting to hurt from busting crazy hot licks anyway so I decided to head to the shooting range for some target practice. Now, this kind of activity might seem frivolous and not befitting of someone of advanced age and responsibility but I assure you it's for a purpose. In fact, before I got engaged I never shot anything at anything. Practically never. But with the prospect of having a wife and a family having become imminent, I set about preparing myself to defend my brood if/when the time comes.

That's a tight cluster!

What if the cats become zombies?

What if Cat Stevens becomes a zombie?!

Later in the week some friends, Rachel, and I got together for a night of pizza, drinking and birthday celebrating. Here's where things actually seem to be a little different.

Instead of making a dent in this...

We finished this.

 Also, I wasn't the designated driver. That meant that instead of having one glass of wine, I could have two glasses and a shot or two of whiskey (and mean hangover and a touch of regret and a feeling of creeping mortality).

So yeah, I may not be able to hold my drink anymore but I'm still rocking hard and shooting straight and living the high tech bay area dream. Maybe things will change when we tie the knot and settle down for real but maybe not. And that is awesome.

The Best Day Of My Life (So Far)

I'm almost always up in the morning before Rachel. I muddle around trying to be quiet and trying to predict when Rachel will get up so I can have coffee hot and ready to go. It's a small ritual but it's important to me. It's part of our history. Before we lived together, Rachel would stay over on the weekends (she lived in San Mateo and I lived in Berkeley) and I'd get up and lumber out for a short walk in the mornings, returning with a couple of low fat lattes and some kind of delicious pastry or fruit or both. When we first moved in to our new place, our neighbors' orange tree was in full bloom and in our yard. The oranges were hard and dry and didn't have a lot of juice so I'd go out and pick as many as I could and then try to juice as many as I could before Rachel would wake. Getting up first and doing small things for her is one of the main ways I feel like I am able to do something special for my sweetheart.

Sunday, I was up first. I thought about making some coffee and scrambling some eggs and seeing if I couldn't 'salad' the odd assortment of fruit on top of the (eye-melting, DNA-unraveling, atomic-polarity-reversing) microwave. Too sleepy. Our extremely modest alcohol intake the night before had left my no-longer-young body feeling extra no longer young. "Sigh." I thought. I decided that the only reasonable solution would be to walk over to Fellini to get a couple of LOLs (that's what they write on the cup for a low fat latte) and some pastries. But then I thought another thought "I bet I could do this on my bike."

This was, ultimately, a misguided thought. I had assumed, perhaps unreasonably, that gravity on the surface of the Earth, as we perceive it, is basically constant. I did not realize there was caveat to this law, 'except in the interior of a bicycle basket'. I rode over to Fellini's and ordered two coffees and three pastries, a cinnamon breakfast bun, a chocolate croissant, and an apple turnover. I placed the two coffees into laterally opposite corners of the bike basket and bolstered their upright integrity with the placement of the pastries surrounding them. I then walked the bike out of the rough parking lot the street, mounted it, and began to pedal. I learned a lot about the physics of objects inside of a zero-G bike basket during those first few pedal strokes.

One coffee, after ushering up a small geyser of latte foam, flopped over onto its back and began burbling it's coffee contents all over the pastries. I continued riding and reached into the basket to grab this coffee so I could ride with it in my hand. "Problem solved", thought I, and it was for almost the entire ride home. Upon reaching the slight downhill to get to my house, the second coffee, I kid you not, leaped into the air, did a complete end-over-end revolution, landed, flopped over and started to pour coffee onto the bike wheel which in turn sprayed it all over the place. "Sigh." I thought again.

I got the coffee safely home, the pastry cut into easily shared slices and laid out on a cutting board, I began the wait for Rachel to get up game. I knew the day was special. I knew why. She didn't know. This made time seem to move very, very slowly. I watched some news. KRON 4 Weekend News is the funniest thing on television, I'm convinced. I ate most of the pastries and drank all of my coffee. Rachel's was getting cold so I risked revealing the specialness of the day by doing something I had never done before, breakfast in bed. I opened the door tentatively to find Rachel fully awake and jabbing away contentedly at her iPhone. She was surprised but my hand had not been tipped. She decided the idea of flaky pastries in bed was not so great and came downstairs.

I expected I'd get more and more anxious as the day went on. After all, I kind of have, you know, anxiety issues. But I didn't. I wasn't. At all. I expected to be freaking out all day and to have trouble sleeping the night before. Nope and nope. Whenever I thought about what I was going to be doing in just a couple of hours, calm and peace and ethereal joy flowed through my self. I was loving letting the day just unfold all on its own.

Cool as a penguin

As the morning warmed and the clouds burned off, it looked like it was going to be an absolutely perfect day... in Berkeley. But what would it be like in SF? Foggy? Raining? No. Also perfect. The only moment of panic came as I drove out towards the city and Rachel checked the traffic. Traffic all around the park was starting to be yellow and red and that's when I remembered that Hardly Strictly Bluegrass would be going for its final day. I panicked a little and started making back up plans in my head in case we could not get anywhere near the Academy of Sciences. Twin Peaks! I'd never been to Twin Peaks but it's a thing. A bay area thing. Battery Spencer! Couldn't ask for a better view than the view from Battery Spencer! As we got closer it became obvious that it was just normal traffic and as soon as we hit the park we were fine and cruised right into the garage.

We arrived right at 11am, when the Academy opens to the general public. We got in line and reminisced about our second date, commenting on how much the prices have gone up in two short years. We laughed at how they try to take a picture of you in front of a green screen and how awkward that was for us on our second date there. This time I knew we'd be stopping and posing and I knew I'd be buying the cheesy picture.

We rushed over to the planetarium to get passes to a show but they were seating a show right then so we just rushed into the theater and grabbed a seat. The new show with Jodie Foster is a lot less motion-sickness-inducing than the old one with Whoopi Goldberg and I love that they update the shows frequently to try to keep up with the epic pace of discovery in this new age of telescope badassness.

The planetarium show exits on the third floor and walks you right by the stairway to go up to the living roof, where I was planning on proposing. It was kind of a joke that I was going to propose up there. I'd been super excited to see it on my first visit and when we got up there, well, there wasn't much to see. Obviously, I guess, it was just a lot of low plants on an oddly shaped roof. The living roof, on my initial visit, had been kind of a let down. This would not be true of our second visit. Now, I'd planned to do it later in our day, after lunch, right before we were going to leave. But we were right there. Too crowded. I didn't want to do it when it was so crowded. No problem, Rachel had to wait in the line for the ladies restroom. In the time that took, pretty much everyone had cleared off of the third floor except women still in the restroom line. "Hey" I said, "Want to check out the living roof real quick? We're right here, after all."

We walked up the stairs and this time didn't focus on the roof but on the incredible view. The day was breezy and cool and the sky was bright blue. Fog still scoured the hilly sections of the Richmond district near the beaches. We leaned against the railing looking out over the DeYoung and smiling at each other. "Hey" I said, "Want to hear a poem I wrote?". "Uhhh, okay." "Well, I guess I don't have to read it." "That's okay, I want to hear it." (Quotes may not be direct but they are pretty close.)

"It's called, A Modest Proposal but it's not about eating babies.

A Modest Proposal

I propose this to you now, my love
That I should have your hand
That you and I should marry
That I should be your man

As a man I kneel before you (here's where I got down on one knee, the left one)
As a man I give my heart
As a man I offer you forever
Or maybe just the start...

For we can not know forever
Can not fathom eternity
I need not ask that much from you
A lifetime's enough for me

So stand by me for a lifetime
And I promise this much is true
I'll show you for a lifetime
That my heart belongs to you

And let me stand by your side
For I could not bear to know
That I had felt a love like yours
And I had let it go

Rachel Louise Gold, will you marry me?"

"Yes!" She was crying a bit by this point but she definitely said yes and I'm pretty sure I said thank you. "I have something to go along with this" I said and pulled the ring box from my bag, took the ring from the box and put it on her finger; a perfect fit. The rooftop wasn't crowded. There were maybe 15 other people up there. I looked around to see reactions and no one was. No one had paid us any attention at all. I'd gotten down on one knee in public, read a poem and proposed to my future wife and no one batted an eye. Ahhhh the Bay Area, where studied ignorance of the unusual is part of the social contract. We hugged and kissed and declared our love for each other but then Rachel had to get down to the business of informing best friends and all of Facebook. It was tough. Thanks to Hardly Strictly, we were experiencing massive cell network lag.

Warming in the sun of the Indian Summer, listening to the squeals and congratulations coming through Rachel's phone, I felt good. I felt amazing. I felt different. The only anxiety or panic I'd felt had been right at the moment before I asked if she wanted to hear my poem. After that, it was all crystal clear and calm. It was so easy because it was so right. I knew exactly what I wanted and all I'd had to do was ask. We locked hands together and started back downstairs to see the aquarium exhibits. Walking down the stairs, I knew what was different. We were a unit now. Sure, we still have to get married to make it official official but we'd promised each other a preliminary vow of one lifetime and we were allied, bonded, complicit. It wasn't us against the world exactly. It was us and the rest of the world.

A lot of other stuff happened that day. We ate lunch. We saw a great play, Phaedra by the Shotgun Players at the Ashby Playhouse (side note: A great play everyone should see but maybe not the best play to see on the day of your engagement, wedding, etc...). We made soup and watched Boardwalk Empire. Rachel made more calls and received more congratulations. I decided to make my calls the next day, my Mom was probably already asleep anyway. Writing it now, it seems like an anti-climactic end to a climactic day. It didn't feel that way, though. It just felt right.

Update: I'm told and now recall that the conversation before the proposal was more along the lines of this:
"Hey, want to hear a poem I wrote?"
"Sure!"
"Uhhh... you do?!"
"Yeah, why not? You don't have to read it."
"Oh no, I want to read it... okay, here goes..."
So, for the sake of correcting history and my admittedly poor memory making skills, Rachel was actually enthusiastic to hear my poem. 

The Beginning of the Beginning

Two years ago I decided to give myself a birthday present: a date with a beautiful woman. That date was the day before my birthday and it was incredible. About a week later we'd have our second date, a trip to the California Academy of Sciences. It would turn out to be the beginning of the most incredible relationship of my life. Two years later I decided to give myself an even more audacious birthday present. I'd ask this amazing woman to marry me.

The ring came in the mail on Thursday. No tracking number. No insurance. No signature at the door. Just a small brown box jammed under the doormat. Rachel, when she got home, actually noticed the doormat was a little bent like something had been jammed underneath it. I told her that the UPS guy had tried to cover a large box of knives she'd ordered with it. People say that I am not good at lying or keeping secrets. Maybe that's true and maybe it isn't - I don't want to tip my hand - but what people fail to take into consideration, I think, is that Rachel is extremely perceptive. I don't think I've ever been 100% successful at keeping something from her long enough for it to be a genuine surprise.

I rushed the package up to my room and opened it. It was the first time I'd seen the ring in person. I'd found it on a website for a store in Portland, ME that specializes in jewelry made by local artisans and in a few pieces of vintage and antique jewelry. It was the first ring I had bookmarked in my search. It was the first ring I'd shown Rachel as an example of the kinds of things I was looking at. It ended up being The Ring. The pictures had not done it justice. It was gorgeous. It was vintage. It matched the wedding band that Rachel's great grandmother had worn as well as I could have hoped. I checked all of the criteria off in my head. I was excited but calm, not at all nervous or anxious. I put the ring on. I took some pictures to send to my brothers and sisters who had been advising me in my ring hunt and proposal planning.

It wasn't until Friday evening that it really hit me. I had taken the ring to work to show some close friends. I told people my plan. I revised the short poem I'd written. I texted Rachel to get her mother's phone number - not at all suspicious - and when I got home from work I called her and had a really nice, slightly frenetic, conversation. Honestly, I hadn't planned out much to say beyond "I'm planning to ask Rachel to marry me this Sunday." The news was well-received, though, and I felt good. Almost there. All I needed to do now was talk to her father and hope the weather held out for Sunday. It looked like rain.

But Friday was the first time it really hit me: I wasn't going to be single much longer. Sure, I hadn't been single single for almost two years but I'd never been engaged before either and that seemed like a big big deal. It seemed even less single. It seemed like the least single I would ever be in my life before getting married. I decided to document how I spent my last hours un-fianced.

Rachel got home from the gym around 5 and we set about unpacking a big box of very sharp knives. Her old coworkers had purchased her a Crate & Barrel gift card as a going away present and she decided it was time to have more than one good knife. We spent a good amount of time cutting object of various densities and sizes into segments of fractionally smaller size. Sharp knives are a little scary. I kept thinking to myself "9 out of ten fingers agree, sharp knives are great!" No blood was spilled. I was still buzzing from my day of ring sharing and mother calling (attempted father calling) and was looking forward to spending a night with my love that only I knew was marginally special. Alas, she'd been invited to do some crafting for our friends' wedding in two weeks. We whipped up some burritos in the microwave (scary radiation box of cell death) and she left me to an evening of Real Time with Bill Maher and falling asleep on the couch. When she got back she told me that a lot of my male friends were over at the crafting party and I could have gone too. Shoot! Maybe next time.

Saturday started off like usual, Rachel getting up for work woke me up and I went downstairs to make coffee and breakfast. Rachel didn't want a big breakfast so I French pressed out a couple of coffees and made myself some eggs over easy and wheat toast and split a Kiwi with her. It was a really good Kiwi. Rachel left for work and I chuckled at the ineptitude of the local newscast for a bit before putting on some grubby clothes and riding my bike over to the Westbrae Nursery. We'd been super busy and every weekend for months had been filled with activities which subtly equated to yard neglect. I'd had enough of the weeds choking out the plants and enough of the promises of my landlord that he'd have a gardener out. I picked up a pair of clippers, a pair of loppers, a metal spade and a pruning saw (accuracy of tool terminology not guaranteed). I loaded them into my bike basket and headed home. I was ready to do work.

I threw myself into my work and two and a half hours later had trimmed, weeded, hedged and beheaded enough plant life to fill the driveway. I'd done enough destruction to fill my yard waste barrel four times over. By the time I was done I could barely hold my water bottle and my arms were so shaky I splashed it all over myself anyway. I began to worry I'd be so broken that, when I tried to put the ring on her finger, my shaking would fling it down some kind of grating that leads to a bottomless pit. I mean, realistically. We were planning to celebrate my birthday that night with a dinner at La Lime's so I didn't want to eat too much for lunch but was also starving. A pb&j sandwich and half a box of Annie's Bunny Grahams (assorted) hit the spot. I tried calling Rachel's father again but he didn't answer so I jumped in the shower.


I'd gotten myself cleaned up when the phone rang, Rachel's father returning my call. Now, I knew he'd had his reservations about me but I felt like, after two years of slightly awkward interactions, we'd really hit our stride and had come to like each other. A recent day and evening in Napa for Rachel's birthday had been exceedingly pleasant and had left me feeling like everything had worked itself out. This was not quite the case. I had expected, at the very least, a begrudging congratulations tempered with a wait and see attitude. Sadly, this also was not quite the case. However, I remained undaunted (or at least only very mildly daunted).

I was physically exhausted from the work I'd done that morning so I watched How To Train Your Dragon (really pretty good) and Sixteen Candles (When I started watching I saw that it had 2 stars and I thought "2 stars?! This movie is a brat pack classic!" Yeah, 2 stars is about right.) Around 4 I started to get bored and knew Rachel would be home soon. I texted her to see if she'd want to walk to Mr. Mopps with me to see if they have Nerf guns. I'd decided I needed a Nerf gun. Cat training tool, this was the official explanation, although really I just wanted to spend some time shooting foam darts at things. She wasn't up for it and had napping on her schedule instead.

I walked up to Mr. Mopps, listening to the new Panda Bear album and daydreaming in world as I walked. Mr. Mopps had a very poor selection of faux weaponry. Thanks a lot, progressive Berkeley. I couldn't leave empty-handed, though. Mr. Mopps is one of those places that I love for the fact that it exists. I want it to exist. I want it to succeed. It's an institution and it's awesome and cute and if I have kids I want to take them there so I had to buy something. By this time I was being helped by an employee so I asked if they had any books on origami, picked up a Klutz book on the subject and was on my way, walking in the sunshine.

Rachel was napping when I got home so I folded an origami cat (actually a bunny that I thought looked very cat like) and tried to make it look like Charlie. Then I joined Rachel for some light napping. Dear David and Jessica, thanks for stopping by and leaving goodies! Sorry we did not come to the door but we were napping and thought you were either one of the constant string of solicitors for non-profits that we get or our next door neighbors asking if they can clip the dahlias. If we had known it was you, we'd have come downstairs and said hello.

We got ourselves all fancied up and headed out for my fancy birthday dinner. Friends, this dinner was amazing. From the drinks to the food to the service, La Lime's did not miss a beat. I kicked things off with a Sazerac and Rachel with a glass of Pinot Grigio (I think). We started off with the best olives I've ever had, some super fresh mozzarella and a mixed greens salad. We continued with a fresh and light shrimp and peas pasta dish for Rachel and a burger with pork belly on it for me. We also ordered some beets to share and my burger came with little whole fried potatoes that we also shared. I had a glass of a Syrah blend that melted away any remaining thoughts and stress of the day and of the day ahead. It was a meal in the moment and it was amazing. For dessert we shared a Peach Tatin ala mode and a glass of Moscato. We made our way back home and dozed off watching Eureka on demand. Happy birthday to me.

The next day I would propose to Rachel. I had a plan. I had a poem. I had a ring. I was ready.

Hood To Coast 2011 Race Report - Race Errata

Since blogging about my most recent experience with the Hood To Coast team relay in Oregon, I've gotten a lot of great feedback. Some if it was along the lines of "Hey, great blog!" which is awesome to hear and "I like Oregon!" which is also awesome to hear. Mostly the feedback I got was long the lines of "I don't get it. What did you do exactly and why?". Hmmmm. Right. It's my blog and I wrote about my experience from my perspective but from my perspective, I already know a lot about Hood To Coast.

What is Hood To Coast / What is a team relay race?
Hood To Coast calls itself "The Mother of All Relays". I have no idea if that's true. I know it is not the only long distance team relay race out there but they very well may have started the model. There's on very near where I live in California called The Relay that runs from Calistoga to Santa Cruz and we've talked about doing it. We haven't mostly because we consider Hood To Coast our event.

The way it works is you are a runner on a team of 12 runners. You will each run 3 legs of a 36 leg relay race that covers about 200 miles. You run in a rotating order so if you run Leg 1, you also run legs 13 and 25. In order to "pass the baton" to the next runner, you ride ahead in a van. Instead of everyone riding in one van, you split your team between two vans. As a runner is on the road, a van drives ahead to the next baton exchange to drop off the next runner in the lineup order. The other van drives ahead and rests and prepares. You cycle runners and vans like until you reach the finish line.

Is there more too it than that?
Yeah, but not too much more. While your runner is on the road you might, if you are able, drive part way ahead and pull over to offer them water and cheer them on and check on their well-being. This is really important. Even if the runner doesn't need water or cheering or help, necessarily, as a part of a team this support is vital to morale. In many cases, it's vital to runner health as well. Many times I've seen runners say "don't stop for me" (including myself) just to find that they needed something half way through and were very glad that you did stop.

And this is supposed to be fun?
It is supposed to be fun! And it has been every time. Not only that but every time we do it we have teammates we've either all never met before or who only one or two of us has met. Not only do they have fun but at the end of the event we have new friends. After spending 29 hours in a cramped van with sweaty, cramped, exhausted people, sleeping on the ground, eating weird foods, trying to stay hydrated, sane, alive, you bond.

To me, that is the joy, the beauty, the irresistible allure of this event: teamwork. It starts before the race, decorating the vans to celebrate your teammates and your team and the event. One of our teammates this year brought a ton of sparkly temp tattoos (unicorns, hearts, rainbows, dolphins, oh my!) and we spent the waiting time plastering them all over our bodies and laughing. Everyone is in it together. Everyone is going to have their own needs and times when they aren't so happy. Being able to rely on a team makes it that much easier to get back out on the road. This is absent of every other race of the non-relay variety. When you start your 3rd 10k leg in 24 hours with no sleep and, about a mile or two in, a van load of cheering, delirious lunatics drives by with the windows down, screaming their heads off, it makes a difference to how you feel.

I've seen some amazing feats of team support. The first year I ran it, my entire van jumped out to run with our exhausted runner in to the finish line; running extra miles on top of our own to lend any bit of energy, strength, spirit we had left to our anchor runner. The second year a twisted ankle left a teammate running an extra leg. The third year it was me being unable to keep food and water down that had a teammate running one of my legs and then, later, another twisted ankle had me picking up a leg despite my own problems. I've documented the feats of team spirit in my most recent race experience in my race reports. It's an amazing thing when people who have already pushed themselves to their physical and mental limits find that they have even more to give, if it means helping a teammate and the team reach the finish line.

I love this race because it shows me that I can accomplish amazing things (even if I'm hurting and begging to quit) and that I can help others accomplish amazing things. I love this race because it shows me what amazing, strong, resilient, superhuman people my family and friends are. Every year we say "never again" but that's just for a day or two. Even now we are talking about splitting duties for 2012's event... if we make it through the lottery...

Hood To Coast 2011 Race Report - Wherein Our Heroes Are Victorious

I rolled sorely out of bed, likely muttering curses, and shuffled across the hall for a short shower. Thanks to the Pepto dosing the day before, I was feeling okay enough to force down some oatmeal and another swig of Pepto. The familiar milky minty fluid was a pathetic replacement for coffee. Other sleepers started to rise and I roused the remainders. Others crankily lamented the lack of coffee and we did a quick van clean up, packed the cooler with drinks and ice and hit the road in the pre-dawn dark.

As we drove up Highway 30 we saw something we'd never ever seen in past years, the end of the race. Exchanges were being broken down and we didn't see any runners on the road for a long time. Finally we came up on the last runner on the course, being followed by one of the security motorcycles with its flashers on. Man, a few of us commented for foreshadowing, glad that's not one of us. As we got further up the road and closer to the major exchange we saw more runners and knew that, despite still being at the back of the race, we were still pretty well surrounded with other teams.

We met Van 1 at the exchange and found they'd had a tough night after their hot weather runs the day before. Still, everyone was on track and even a little ahead of schedule. Even Naomi who, as she came in to the exchange to make the hand off, looked like she was really hurting and had not been able to receive van support for her leg. But, in the breaking morning light, they were excited to be two legs down and to be headed to sleepy time out in a field somewhere.

Naomi comes in to the exchange at the Colombia County Fairgrounds 

Van 1 drifts off to sleep in a field

There's something kind of amazing about sleeping during Hood To Coast. I've noticed a similar phenomena with The Game. There's only so much being awake, physically and mentally exerting, that your body can take. Some can take more. I can take less. But your body and brain can be tricked. Sleep for an hour or two, get focused on the task at hand and adrenaline (and blind stubborn will) take over. Unless you can sleep sitting up in a cramped and sweaty van, you only really have 2 chances to sleep for 2 hours and usually that's on the ground in the middle of a busy race.

Once we were back to running it was like it was the most natural thing to be doing at that moment. We ran through some farmland and into the beginning hills of the coastal range. This saw Burke running 6 miles in a never-ending set of dirt road switchbacks, passing off to me for a gentle downhill 5 miler. Even so, I was feeling the miles from the day before and needed a bit of walk therapy. I'd never run the leg in the daylight before and I chuckled as I came across the landmarks I'd seen on the map but never with my eyes. Hey, Barn! Blue gate! There IS a creek here!

I still came in on time so I must have been going faster than I'd felt. Something odd had happened on my leg, though. I saw quite a few vans at the exchange and saw a few teams make the hand off. When I was on the road I saw at least 6 or 7 vans pass me. What I never saw on that leg was another racer. Weird. I was just in a dead spot, I guessed because after we dropped Shawn he ended up with a pretty good group to run with and even had a rivalry with a runner we'd mistakenly cheered thinking he was Shawn. He came over to us after the leg to shake Shawn's hand and was surprised to see Shawn was with the van that had been following him, cheering.

It gets a little dirty out there 

The team returns to the van after Burke handed off to me

The day was starting to heat up again and we felt bad for Van 1 that they'd be spending their third legs as they'd spent their first, in the heat. Luckily it didn't get as hot on the second day, though it still got up over 80 at the peak. Shawn, Lisa and Morgan all had strong second legs. While waiting to put Morgan on the road we came across one of the Granges where in past years we'd seen signs advertising hot food. I'd just run out of gas on my leg and I was hungry. Hungry enough to grab some cash and head inside. I should have been deterred by the pushy guy trying to guilt sell me 4 pastries for a dollar. I should have been deterred by the white dreaded burner (he talked about burning man the whole time) making very unfunny jokes and penis shaped pancakes. I should have been deterred by being charged $6.50 for two inedible pancakes, two eggs that did not go 'over easy' and a slab of fossilized ham. Harsh? Maybe. I get it, Hood To Coast is a boon and a curse for those small towns. Once a year tens of thousands of people roll through town with no real interest in the town itself. Once a year they have the chance to fund raise above and beyond what their small community might otherwise manage. All I'm saying is, repeat business is not a guarantee. Besides, common H2C knowledge is that the best food is from "the garage" at Exchange 30. Next time, garage burgers fo sho! Still, I dropped a couple of extra bucks in the pushy pastry guy's jar. It was for a good cause.

Calories are calories, I guess - Matt and Burke

Morgan hands off to Rachel

Morgan after her hand off to Rachel

After Morgan's hand off to Rachel, we decided to drive ahead to major exchange 30 for some shut eye of our own, if we could manage it. As we drove ahead to Exchange 30, we caught the race. Suddenly we were back in the thick of things. Suddenly we were in traffic. We hit it about a mile or so outside of 30. At that time we had not heard about the traffic problems others had experienced. This was the first van back up we'd seen the entire race. Unfortunately, I had to go. And I mean, GO! NOW! A LOT! Shawn piped up that he was in a similar pee-dicament and that a Honey Bucket would be a welcome sight. Instead, traffic crawled along, runners and timers popped out of the vans and trotted down the road to the next exchange, attempting to beat their runners to the mark. We crawled along with our van door open, ready to run to the first appropriate waste receptacle we saw. 

Surprisingly, Exchange 30 was busy but not packed. We found Honey Buckets (with lines!) and we found paradise. Many of our teammates had piled out of the van where it was parked, rolled out their sleeping bags in the thin shade and slept. In our quest for HBs, Shawn and I had discovered a wide open, tree lined area next to a gently burbling drainage pond. It was huge. It was empty. It was cool enough in the shade to curl up in your sleeping bag. That's what we did. The blue sky, the breeze through the trees, the cool shade and cool grass... Heaven. There, with my shoe pillow, in my sleeping bag, I was totally at peace. Oddly enough, I found myself right next to Jessica's cousin Nicole again. A great spot is a great spot. But there was more running to be had and Van 1 was upon us.

Van 1 is stoked to be done

Dan and Marc share a pretty hilarious rivalry (Back of Marc's shirt reads "Dan's Man" back of Dan reads "I <3 Marc!") 

Naomi finishes her last leg and Van 1's journey

Good morning... afternoon? Uhh... where are we?

As we headed back to our van to complete our final set of legs, we noticed a marked difference. For one, our van was the ONLY van in a huge field. All of the facilities were being taken down around us. What happened? No time to think about it, we've got a runner on the road! This is where the race got weird. While doing van support for Jess, we noticed a marked drop in the number of teams around us. We were still a little ahead of schedule so we weren't worried. At Burke's exchange, the volunteers had stopped managing the exchange, or parking, or anything. They either sat in the shade or worked to take down and pack up the exchange. We called out team numbers for the few teams around us. Burke took off on his last leg and while we waited at the next exchange for my last leg, there were very few teams around us.

The exchange was again being torn down, the volunteers were eagerly heading home. Teams, it seems, were being asked to leap frog (drive ahead and drop off all of their runners to run simultaneously) to make sure they made it to the finish before it closed. No one asked us. Many teams openly discussed, and many seemed to decide on, dropping out at that point. Somehow, despite being on our predicted pace and H2C's predicted pace for our team, we were at the very end of the race pack.

I was hurting at that point but confident that I could complete 7.73 miles of gently rolling road in mid 70 temps. I might have to walk a little but I'd get there and we'd probably still be on pace. I bolstered myself with some placebos, Advil and KT Tape. I set off at a good casual pace and held it strong for 3 miles. I kept looking over my shoulder to see which teams might catch up and pass. No way was I going to let myself get killed on my last leg if I could help it. I had a funny feeling. One of the radio communication trucks kept passing me and asking how I was doing. "Oh, I'm good, just taking a drink" and "Feelin' fine, just needed a walk break". Finally he came by and asked my team number "683!" I shouted. Errr... "682!" He drove up the road out of view. Suddenly up ahead I saw something; something black and weasel shaped. Marmot? Weasel? Some weird Nutria cross breed? Whatever it was, it was hustling on the same route in the opposite direction and no way was I going to get in the way of that. I pretty much ran to the other side of the street for a couple hundred yards.

Up ahead my van had pulled off the road. I was more than 4 miles in and I was hurting. I ate a Gu and drank some watered down Gatorade. I lied to my team about how I was feeling. I kept going. As I ran away someone yelled "You're the last runner on the course". Really?! There were teams behind us at the exchange. Had they all dropped out? The certainly hadn't dropped runners if there was no one behind me. With no one in sight in front of me and no chance of someone being behind me, I was alone. I'd stopped seeing team vans a mile or two back but hadn't thought about it. I was running on a country road, in the middle of nowhere, ostensibly in one of the biggest road races in the world. With more than 20,000 participants, I was the last one in the train and I was alone. Psychologically, I was gutted. All motivation left me and my body turned to lead. Painful lead. The radio truck came by again and I said I was fine again. I wasn't. As soon as he was out of sight I stopped and I threw a fit. I tore off my KT tape and threw it in the bushes (Sorry! Littering makes me feel terrible!) I considered throwing my empty Gu pack into the bushes too (Screw you, weasels!) but that was too blasphemous for me. Before the race, Rachel had joked 'Who is going to puke and who is going to cry?' "Oh my god" I thought, "Am I going to cry?". No. No I was not.

I ran as much as I could and walked when I had to, usually for just 10 or 20 yards. I ran past a H2C photographer and told him "You just snapped a photo of dead 'effing last place". (I know that with staggered start times we were far from last place but it sure felt like it at the time.) I decided that when the radio truck came by again I would quit. I'd get a ride to the next exchange and tell my team I was sorry but I was defeated. I came around a corner and saw my team van instead. I think I tried to quit to them and was instead flanked by Jessica and Burke and led back onto the road. We're going to run together, they said. I started to protest but kept going anyway. I didn't want to quit. That was the last thing I wanted. They chatted with me as we ran and walked. I felt a million times better just to be with people, to not be alone, to be part of a team, to be part of a race. We joked and Jessica rapped some of the filthier songs on the most recent Girl Talk album to motivate me. They'd told me I had just a mile and half to go but I'd immediately checked my Nike+ and knew I had two and some change. They were amazing and they got me to the finish line, amazingly, on time. I learned later I had David to thank, at least in part, for that support. We've known each other for a long time and when they'd told me I was the last guy, he saw the light go out in me. I'd lied but he didn't buy it.

After I handed off to Shawn we were approached by a race official. They'd need us to leap frog our last runners. We asked if there was any way to avoid that. At that point we were about 20 minutes behind our estimated finish but we didn't see much difference in finishing at 9:20pm instead of the 8:50pm they'd predicted for us. They knew our paces. They knew our start time. They'd planned for us to be out here now. Why were we being asked to get out of the way, essentially? No answer, just brusqueness. The official demanded to see our timing sheet. We showed her the app we were using. She demanded to see Van 1's timing sheet. Uh... they're at the beach. She harangued and harassed us like we were a-holes for being where they'd planned for us to be when they'd planned for us to be there. We were flustered but we agreed to do as they said. We dropped Jessica off at Shawn's finish to explain to him where we were, dropped Lisa off at the same exchange to start a grueling and unsupported (because we'd be racing around dropping off and picking up) 8 miler. We dropped Morgan off and told her we wouldn't make it to the Finish line at the beach to cross as a team. Sorry.

We passed back by Lisa on our way to get Shawn, she was also alone but seemed to be doing fine. We picked up Shawn and headed back by Lisa. Now she was being closely trailed along the side of the road by the radio truck with its caution lights on. She was feeling humiliated and her pace was suffering from being followed by a car (try it, it sucks). She wanted to finish her miles. We're a stubborn team. We'd paid to take the ride and, dammit, we were taking the whole thing. We drove ahead to a safe pull out and Shawn jumped out. He'd run the last 1.6 miles with his wife to the next exchange.

Shawn and Lisa before our 3rd set of legs

 Shawn at the pullout waiting to run with Lisa

Shawn and Lisa run along a logging road into an abandoned Exchange 35

We talked to the race officials at Exchange 35 and tried to explain our situation to them. Apparently we were the first ones to attempt an explanation and they had some trouble understanding. They had trouble understanding why we wanted to be out there at all. Didn't we know the race was over? Didn't we know they were closing up the exchange? They couldn't understand wanting to finish the race. We were an oddity. A curiosity. They just didn't get it.

We drove to the Finish Line with a sense of quiet pride. Mostly I think we bitched about how we'd been treated for the last 3 or 4 hours but we were proud to be done. We were proud to be on such a supportive team. We were proud of our accomplishment. But with the experiences of the last legs in my mind, I'd forgotten about the fun of the beginning of the race. I wrote angry emails in my head.

We met Van 1 and Morgan at the beach party and rushed over to the photo stands. Van 1 had asked the photographers to please stay for just one more team. We heard the last announced team cross the line. It wasn't us. It should have been us. We got our team photo and our medals, turned in our timing sheet and headed for the vans to drive to a condo in Cannon Beach where pizza and beer waited. As we turned to leave, fireworks started to explode overhead. We stopped and watched for a bit but ultimately we were too tired, too beat down to stay. Personally, I felt like a badass as we turned and walked away with 200 miles in our legs, medals around our necks, team pride swelling our hearts, explosions booming and crackling overhead.