Race Report

How do you like my badass baby blue bandana?
(Heather made it out of an old button-up oxford shirt for extra nerd points)

Before the start.

6:00am: We left the house, and drove through steady rain to Manitou. I was thinking that it would have been nicer to stay in bed than to run in cold rain for 4 hours. As the sun rose, Pikes Peak was wrapped in clouds, and it looked very intimidating.

7:00am: There was no rain as the race started.

9:20am: Two other runners and I were at timberline, with three hard, steep, oxygen-deprived miles to go, and the following exchange took place:

Runner 1 - The winner is finishing right about now.
Runner 2 - So, we don't have a chance then.
Runner 3 - Yeah, it's a tight race for second.

10:10am: There was a little girl standing by herself, cheering all of the runners on with about a mile to go. The guy in front of me told her, randomly, that she had the bluest eyes he'd ever seen. A couple of minutes later, he turned back to me and said "she did though, didn't she?" I asked him to consider the possibility that he was hallucinating.

I couldn't summon
up a brief running spurt
for the photographer.

10:15am: With a little more than half a mile to go, there was a man sitting by the trail with a plateful of Nilla wafers, saying "Have a vanilla thin, it'll get you to the finish. Guaranteed to take several minutes off your time." I grabbed one.

10:24am: Ty Shesky* finished.

Nearing the finish

10:30am: I finished.

Overall, it was a dream race. I was aiming for 3:45, and I got 3:30. Can't complain about that. My main impression this year was that I was surrounded by hardass runners all day, not like last year, when there seemed to be lots of twangy lowlanders around.

I'll put together some graphs and charts tomorrow, because I'm a little bit OCD about graphs and charts and spreadsheets, and I'll post them because Robyn demanded it.

*Ty Shesky, if you're reading this, I don't have anything against you. In fact, you're one of the good weathermen. But I wanted to beat you. One should never refuse the opportunity to beat a celebrity at something if one has the chance.

My Second Ascent

Tomorrow I'm running up Pikes Peak again.

The forecast tomorrow is for

And that means

On top of

So, I may have some good stories to tell. Like how it feels to be hit by

I'm sure I'll have lots of good charts and graphs, just like last year.

I just hope I beat Ty Shesky.

A Question to Tell You #10

Actually, 3 questions to tell you:

1. Last week, Pete called me at work to tell me that if your clothes catch on fire, you're supposed to drop to the ground.

2. Today, he called me and told me that he deescovered that if you mix yellow and red, you get orange!

3. When I was walking to catch the bus this afternoon, I was informed by a young man in a low-slung car that I had a nice tie on and "where'd ya get it, Gays R Us?"

I like this tie.

Uncovery #6

Politics aside, this is pretty clever work. Now someone needs to do it with the donkey.


(link)
(via Neatorama)

Saskatchewan

Heather's reading a Scooby-Doo book to Pete across the room, and where there was a bigfoot character, she called it a Saskatchewan instead of a Sasquatch. She also says "gigantuan" to describe something very large, and believes it's a word (and I must concede that the urban dictionary agrees.)

And I married her 5 years ago today. I'm proud of my judgement and impressed by her grace.

A little break

Sorry for the lack of posting this week, but I'm in Abilene, Texas, the "Friendly Frontier."

Texas is like another country, which is an image that some Texans are probably happy to cultivate. The roads work differently. The streetlights hang sideways. And tonight, upon exiting Chili's Grill and Bar, I heard a pretty girl say into her cell phone, "I'm thinking Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles for dinner tomorrow night, what do y'all think?"

This Happened Today

A Question to Tell You #9

Pete: Can you play with me?
Heather: Not right now, bud, I need to clean up this room.
Pete: Mom, you don't have to just clean every second.

Uncovery #5

I could use some of this action. This weekend, I weighed myself at Drivers License minus 15 pounds.

via Boing Boing

Udaman!

I have absolutely no interest in being "the man."

That guy at the bus station with the long jet-black permed hair, wearing a muscle shirt (cropped above the belly button) over genuine unnaturally large muscles, with jeans that are tight on top, baggy around the knees and tight again at the ankles: He was the man sometime around 1984.

The runner, with his grey mane of hair flowing behind him, who is wearing only running shorts (the old, tiny kind that show an abundance of side thigh) and shoes: He was the man in 1978.

The thick neck who's sitting one booth over with his hat on backwards, talking about his fantasy football draft to his wife, who's looking at her menu: he was the man a few years ago.

As soon as you say "I'm the man," time clamps down, and you're instantly not the man anymore. Forever.

So, if I'm ever acting like the man, grab my forearm or chin, and tell me forcefully "You don't want this."