The Feet and The Fury

And I'm watching all the laughing pass me by. If I could just turn the clock back.  All this time's left me feeling jaded. I nearly lost my mind let me stay here one more moment buried. (Avail, "August")

I had to run today. I despise running. Which is why I suck at training. Which is why I'll fail my half marathon.  I knew all of this when I signed up, which is why I question my sanity.

Still, today I had to run. And, as I was in exceptionally bad head space, I was (almost) looking forward to get outside to pound some of the "grrrr" out of me. Mentally I knew I was totally fucked, so I spent a few hours after work listening to music and making an epic playlist that would help get me through my run (I was intending to run 7 miles).  I whittled down my "amped" music to 141 songs, or 7.4 hours of music (which I expect is only slightly longer than the amount of time it'll take me to run my half marathon next week, so it should work out perfectly). I dubbed my playlist The Feet and The Fury.

I donned my trusty Vibrams all the running gear that I've slowly compiled over the summer in a (futile) effort to up my interest in running:

Isis Henna Sports Bra
Norrøna Bitihorn Technical Shirt
Stoic Merino Boy Boxer and
CamelBak Stamina II Performance Bottle







 I was feeling pretty good, all things considered; until suddenly one mile in. ONE. My calves started cramping. What the hell?! I figured I just needed to stretch, since I hadn't taken the time to warm up properly, so I stopped and stretched them.  But no dice; they were just as bad post stretch.  So I told them to fuck themselves and kept running.  They returned the sentiment, and turned to rocks within a few hundred yards of my first stretch.  I should have listened to them, but didn't.  Halfway through my intended run, I realized I was going to be Custer in this battle with my calves, and I'd better get to the white flag (the Camry) before it was too late.

I am so bitter: only 3+ miles out of the 7 I was planning on doing (and could have done, if it wasn't for my stupid calves).  No reason at all.  No difference in my routine, or my pace.  Just the simple fact that running hates me, as much as I hate it, and it goes out of its way to kick my ass (or my calves) inexplicably every single time I do it.  I think I'll stick to cycling.

"I think I'm getting the Black Lung, Pop"

To breathe near Paul was an act of strength, and an act of technique....When you would breathe in near him your body would quit. Your lungs would rebel. Your olfactory senses would go into shutdown.  You'd inhale, you'd get half a breath in, and your whole body would go "No." It was like trying to inhale a Buick. (Henry Rollins, "Donate Your Bodies to Science You Fools")

As anyone who lives in Utah knows, during the summer the air seems harmless enough--but it goes caustic quickly once winter and the associated inversions arrive.  Suddenly you can see the "air" (but no longer the mountains) and, on many days, can almost chew it, or at the very least feel like a pack-a-day smoker within minutes of going outside.

Thankfully, people are now consciously making a concerted effort to improve the air quality in Utah, which has three of the top 25 worst cities for short-term particle pollution according to the State of the Lung Report released by the American Lung Associationin 2010 (SLC-Ogden-Clearfield came in at #7, Provo-Orem at #13, and Logan at #18).   

As someone who likes to exercise outdoors, I'd like to not have my activities end up as the equivalent to the time I spent sitting in bars before they banned smoking.  This year, since I was no longer living in the city, and so had lost my habits of riding my bike everywhere I went, I realized I had to make an effort to be one of the people who was conscious of the amount they drive, and try my best to limit it.  Conveniently the Clear the Air Challenge provided a way to keep track of how much I was driving/saving on driving.

During the month of July, there was an actual competition and challenge with a goal to:

• eliminate 300,000 trips
• save 2 million miles, and 
• reduce 3.4 million pounds of emissions. 

Sadly, the goals were not reached--but the results were still far better than nothing.  The final results were:

July turned out to be a hard month for me to not drive, so my efforts were a sad contribution to the overall total.  But the challenge helped me (hopefully permanently) change the way I look at driving and running errands; so in spite of the pitiful numbers, I expect them to improve significantly by next years challenge.

My Results

Though the competition is over for the year, you can still keep track of your miles saved by signing up here if you're interested. 

A Much Needed Rayya Sunshine

We all walk our separate ways I don't know why. I hope we meet again, somewhere some day (Bouncing Souls "The Something Special") 

Rayya (unintentionally and unknowingly) cleansed the demons that had been brought into the lives of  Michael and me by Bat Shit Crazy Becky.  As another online friend, Ray managed to remind us that she and all the other friends we've met online are fun, funny and a pleasure to spend time with.  Oh, and they're all also decidedly drama free.

We spent the entirety of the week from July 23 to August 1 with her, and had a stellar time! Friday night they met me at Cheers after my Swingin' Utters show.

Ray in my Swingin Utters Shirt

Saturday, I had the most brutal hangover I have ever ever suffered in all my years of drinking.  So I whined about it, starting the second my eyes opened, and kept at it through our drive to lunch (we ate at Blue Plate Diner), and all of our wait for a table/coffee/water. I finally stopped when I couldn't whine anymore because I was continually drinking water and coffee.  I was a joy to be with (sarcasm!), which is probably why Ray & Mike look like they want to strangle me in the photo below (which I took to try to distract me from feeling shitty--it didn't work in case you were wondering).

Ray & Mike @ Blue Plate

Fortunately, after ingesting a carafe of water and coffee each, along with a delectable Black Bean Vegetarian Burrito, I finally felt human again and we went and bought fireworks to play with to celebrate Pioneer Day. (The pioneers lit fireworks and drank when they got to Salt Lake Valley, right? So it was more than appropriate we follow in that tradition. Right? Sorry Mormon family/friends--I'm just teasing!)  While lighting our fireworks, Ray accidentally threw one of the spinners into the gutter of the parking lot we were using for our pyrotechnics. Said gutter was hosting a pine needle gathering, which instantly ignited.  I was laughing too hard to do anything at all (except document it, of course), but fortunately Mike acted (relatively) quickly and put it out for us.

Documentation

Most of the fireworks we bought were kinda lame, but the Zombie one was awesome.  As was Rayya's Zombie impersonation that lasted the whole time she held, lit, and watched the firework in action.  We also went to an open lot on 1st Ave that affords a beautiful, unimpeded view of the valley to watch the real fireworks.

Zombie Rayya

Watching fireworks from 1st Ave

Shortly after settling down to watch, the sprinklers turned on, forcing a hasty departure by those of us caught in the line of fire. We finished off the night with Uno Attack which Rayya won every single round of, the wench.

Sunday, we went to the Zoo where we saw adorable baby elephant Zuri try desperately to eat some chunks of ice that the zookeepers had put in there for her and her mother.  She would get sooooo close, and then she'd drop it right before she got it in her mouth.  This went on for over ten minutes. A large crowd gathered to watch and cheer her on and, finally, she succeeded! I photographed the entire ordeal, but all the photos were severely overexposed, so I cannot share with you just how cute it was.

We also witnessed one of the funnier things I've ever seen an animal do in person.  We happened upon a pair of monkeys at grooming time.  The groomer was convinced that the left nipple of the groomee was a foreign object, in need of removal. So the groomer just kept pulling and pulling at it, trying to get it off of the groomee until the groomee had enough, turned over and put his arm protectively over his (presumably torn) nipple. Hahaha.

We also went to the bird show, which I've never done, and ended up sitting in the wrong (or maybe the right?) spot.  Every single bird flew within a millimeter of Rayya's, Mike's or my head.  It was crazy.  Obviously they weren't going to fly into us, but, without fail, we ducked like idiots every single time.

As we wandered around, a lot of the animals were asleep or hiding in the shade because it was so hot, but fortunately one of the tiger cubs (who admittedly doesn't look much like a cub anymore) was having fun playing in the water.

Pretty kitty

We then went to eat and play games with the fam (which was really fun) before returning to Mike's to play Elixir.  We called it early (read 2am) since we were going on a hike in the morning.

Monday morning, we gathered all our gear and drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon to hike to Dog Lake.  It was a stunningly beautiful day, and a lovely hike which ended in a really anticlimatic destination.

Me & Ray Pre Hike

Also, we almost killed Mike, who had to stop every few yards to rest and who single handedly drank 90% of the water in the two Camelbaks we had.

Mike Resting in the Shade

At one point Mike even said "Oh, good! I've finally stopped sweating!" As if it was a good thing, and not a sign of heat stroke....After this comment, Rayya and I looked at each other as if to say "How are we supposed to get him off the mountain if he collapses, and how the hell do we get LifeFlight here when we don't have reception to call for help?"  To try to prevent a disaster, we made him sit in the shade for an extended period, and drink what was left of the water we had.  It worked, thank god, and Mike again began to sweat. Profusely. 

Mike Sweating

Finally we got to Dog Lake, which, at worst, is an oversized, muddy, swimming pool and, at best, is a pond. Lake my ass.

A nice older couple took this photo for us

A celebratory(ish) hug

However, we hiked up a little hill and found this view, which made it a little more worth it.

We then went down the canyon a bit and found a picnic site that had a firepit to make our hobo dinners that Mike had been so excited to make, along with a nice little stream that Rayya and I used to rinse off our dusty, dusty feet and legs.  We hung out, drank a couple beers, made smores (with Reece's Peanut Butter Cups. Tasters!) and listened to Dane Cook while we waited for our hobo dinners to cook.

Washing my feet never felt so good

Smores

Mike making his Hobo Dinner

Dinners didn't go so well as Rayya's turned out mostly charred, and mine was only slightly less charred than Ray's. Mike's seemed to be cooked to perfection, though, so at least we weren't 0 for 3. We hurried and ate what we could of our "dinner" since it was just starting to rain, cleaned up "camp" and made it out before it started raining hard. Yay for stellar timing.  Once back to Mike's we showered, then played Elixir and Uno Attack again (which Rayya won. Again. Yes, that is bitterness you're sensing).

Tuesday we were all a little tired of the gogogo routine we'd been doing, so we decided to take it easy by going to the Pie for pizza and beer, followed by games (again, Elixir and Uno Attack. Surprised?)

Cheers, Rayya!

By Wednesday we were recovered enough from Monday's excursion to brave another hike.  So after I got off work, we hiked (if you can call it that) to Donut Falls.  Walking there was cakewalk, which is probably why the trail was an anthill of people (primarily composed of groups of obnoxious teenagers), and also why we ended up waiting in an over-15-minute-queue to get to the waterfall itself.

Even though getting there was easy, the climb up to/down from the cave was a little sketchy. Rayya even helped a couple of little girls get down safely. My hero!

Rayya the Rescuer

It was well worth the sketch factor to see the falls, though; and it turned out to be a perfect counterpart to our Monday hike (easy hike, but beautiful--and cold!--destination).

Looking through the donut (photo courtesy of Mike)

As we were playing Elixir Tuesday night, I was complaining that none of the cards were "fun." Rayya said we should check out a game called Quelf--which was the same idea (making people do bizarre, funny things) but way more fun than Elixir.  So on the way to Donut Falls we stopped and picked it up.  When we got back to Mike's we set up the game and proceeded to laugh our asses off at all the random stuff we had to do (which I don't really want to expand on since I don't want to give away cards, just in case you play the game)

 
Thursday, we went to see the Movie Under the Stars at the State Capitol, which happened to be one of the most awesome 80's movies ever--Goonies.  We walked there from Mikey's, and Mique met us there.  We didn't really watch much of the movie, since Mique was late thanks to construction, and we left early so we could skip the traffic and play some Quelf.

Walking to the movie (Subtitle: What the boobs?!!!)

Mike & Ray waiting for the Movie to start

Mique & Ray at the movie

Quelf

Rayya comforting Mique during a Quelf induced laugh attack

A very bitter Rayya after losing a challenge to Mique

Friday night, Heather and Zeb came over and introduced us to a really fun game called Bootleggers where you play mobsters who are producing and selling whiskey to speakeasies during prohibition.  It was really really fun--but I don't recommend it while drinking, since it does take a fair bit of concentration.  We then moved on to Quelf, which, while awesome, was slightly less so because we started playing really late, and Heather & Zeb aren't the night owls me, Ray & Mike are.

Saturday was Ray's last day in town, so we went back to Blue Plate for breakfast, then to my parent's to play an epic seven-person game of Quelf. It was really fun--but took a bit too long to get through turns, so we weren't able to actually finish with that many people. We finished off the day with some pizza, and took Rayya to the airport.

It was an amazingly fun week, and a great reminder of how happy I am to have met so many stellar people in real life thanks to online games. And I do hope I meet all of them again, some where some day. (Well all but youknowwho) God, I'm a geek :)