Slop

Slop, slop, slop. That's the noise that my feet made as I ran up the trail that had been rained on all morning. It was that slippery, clay-ey stuff that turns into a slip-n-slide when it gets wet. And now it was wet enough that my foot prints were about an inch deep and smeared.

If I were a better photographer you could see that
the mud was sticking out the side of my shoe.

The bottom of my shoe

I had just been listening to a section in the audiobook Running with the Kenyans where he describes how it's the weight of our shoes that messes us up, and now here I am with my shoes so heavy with stuck mud that I could actually feel the gravity of my shoe laces as my shoes tried to fall off my feet with each step. There was mud stuck to mud stuck to mud on my shoes so thick that there was mud sticking out an inch in all directions from the sole and you couldn't see any of the treads on the bottom. The mud would stick to my shoes, but my shoes couldn't get purchase in the mud. My legs had better look so buff after this! Every few steps I shook my feet and huge clods of mud came up and smacked me in the ass and the back of the head.

But I made it up that 1300 foot hill. I made it up, and then I ran back down it, and not once did I slip and fall on my ass, and THAT is a victory I can be proud of!

The last time I climbed this hill, I hiked it with my girlfriend. One thing you should know about me is that I am a very slow walker. Normally, she is very patient with me and my little legs, but that day I had sat on my ass shopping online while she did the dishes (my job). So when we went hiking, we hiked at HER pace. Me hiking at her pace meant every 10th of a mile or so I had to break into a run to catch up.

Even with an extra pound of mud on each foot, even climbing the hill the opposite way in the steeper direction, running it was still easier than hiking it. When I hiked it, my ass was sore. And that, my friends, is ALMOST as much of a victory as not falling on your ass in mud that looks like a 1300ft mountain of shit. I'm pretty sure that there's a million-dollar idea for a Nike or Gatorade commercial in here somewhere. Talk to my agent...