Claire goes country

Look at this happy lady running with her happy
dog. I too am happy when I run with my dog.

This story begins almost a year ago at the expo for the California International Marathon. I stopped by a booth selling pet stuff and asked if they had a directory of races in California that allowed dogs to run. "We don't have that, but have you talked to the Running with the Bears people? They have a booth here somewhere..."

I immediately snatched my bag of dog cookies, turned on my heels and elbowed my way across the expo until I found the Running with the Bears booth in the opposite corner. Some guy was looking disinterestedly at a flyer and I stepped around him to the perky young lady with a clipboard. "Do you allow dogs to run? Is that a registration form? Hand it over. I'll let you finish with this gentleman while I'm filling it out." 

Once she had graciously let the man wander off, the perky young lady turned her attention to me. "We're sold out for regular registration, but we still have a few slots for charity runners. The good news is that the fund raising minimum is only $500." 

"Sure, that's no problem. Whatever..." I said as I filled in my credit card number. I had planned to have Oscar raise the money with his facebook followers, but when the time came I wound up just shelling out the money myself.

"You also get a jacket," she said. "What size are you?"

"Oh, I don't need a jacket. As long as my dog can run..." She insisted on giving me a jacket. I tucked it under my arm as I signed the fundraising commitment form and triumphantly handed over my registration form. "Great! So where's Greenville? Is it next to Oakland or something?"

"Oh. Um. It's pretty far up there. It's about 4 hours from here..." We were in Sacramento, which is about 2 hours from where I live. 

"So... like... is it near Chico?" 

"Uh... sort of. It's about 2 hours northeast of Chico..."

Chico was the practically one of those islands north of Canada that they don't even bother to include on maps, as far as I was concerned. I didn't know that there was anything north or east of Chico. Idaho maybe?

Roughly 9 months later I made that 6 hour drive north to Greenville. Traffic was really bad all the way through Sacramento, so I thought that maybe when I my GPS sent me on narrow country roads still over 3 hours from my destination that this was almost certainly a short detour and I would definitely be back on a freeway in a few miles. In fact, Greenville is so remote, that you turn off the freeway before you even hit Chico and never see another 2-lane road again until you're back on your way home. Quickly the road left the farms and turned up into some buttes (did you know that California had buttes? I didn't...) before hooking up with the Feather River and following its course for hours through the mountains up to the Indian Valley, where Greenville is. This road was indescribably beautiful. It was one of those roads where cars look dwarfed because of the size of the mountains they're running through. The Feather River runs year round (something that I didn't think happened in California anymore) and is blue as a calendar photo. There are forests and glacial rock outcroppings, and quaint bridges, and less quaint PG&E hydroelectric plants, and even a freight choo-choo train that runs through the gorge just like the pictures on the boxes you see in hobby shops. (Question: miniature train sets: what's that all about?!) At one town line sign, there were 2 lines under "Population." It said "Weekdays 30, Weekends 31." Seriously! This was not on one of those Chamber of Commerce, "Welcome to Podunkville, where girl scouts can skin squirrels for dinner and home of the best mulberry pies in Washbasin county. We also have an Elks Loge and a Knights of Columbus." No, this was on the green sign provided by the state. Since the whole town was the size of a suburban 3rd grade class room, it is significant that that one guy spends his weekdays elsewhere; he is over 3% of the population, after all.  Even though I had to pee badly enough to require medical attention, I still didn't want the drive to end and knew that I had to come back here as often as I could for the rest of my life. 

So when some guy standing at the end of the pasta table at the race-registration-slash-pasta-dinner haltingly asked, "Hey, do you want to... hear about our bike ride?" I said, "Yes, yes I do. Tell me all about your bike ride and give me every piece of paper you have." As soon as I could find the link to the ride, I reached out to all of my cycling friends with a link and just said, "You guys! We must!"

Only one of my friends wasn't scared off by the 6 hour drive, or the need to take a Friday off to get there, or just sidelined by some schedule conflict or another. Let's call my friend Lori (because her name is Carolyn). 

The problem with the Indian Valley is that it is so remote that there really aren't many places to stay. When I had come up for the run, I had stayed in summer camp "cabins." The cabins weren't Abe Lincoln log cabins with antlers on the wall and hand woven rugs on the floor like I had expected. Instead picture Camp Anawanna: 8 bunk beds, some mosquito screens, and a roof. That was where I planned to stay again, until Lori (even though her name is Joanne) invited me to stay in her tent with her at the start. I doubted for a moment, but then I decided that wonderful things had happened to me so far by impulsively saying "yes," and took her up on the offer. 

When I pulled in to the camp ground after another breathtaking and life-affirming drive up, Lori (or is her name Trish) already had the tent sent up. "Do you need a snack? Are you thirsty?" my friend asked, pulling out some chips, my favorite flavor of Trader Joe's hummus (the spicy one), some wine and a six pack of La Croix. Before I could even pop the tab on a bubbly water she started in on the camping equipment. "I have an extra sleeping pad. You can use it. And I have another sleeping bag. How low is your sleeping bag rated? It's going to be cold tonight..." 

It was indeed going to be cold that night. When I had packed a couple days earlier, the overnight low was only supposed to be about 39º (still very cold for anyone that just a couple of weeks ago was melting in 85-degree temperatures at 4am). But ever since I'd left the house, the projected low had been plummeting and I was kind of screwed. It would wind up getting so cold overnight that the temperature would go below freezing and both of our cell phones would decide that their batteries were dead and quit. This might also be a good time to mention that I am an... "inexperienced"... camper. I never went camping as a kid, and the majority of my camping experience was on public picnic grounds on the AIDS LifeCycle. 

But luckily I had Lori (or is it Marjorie) there. She was not only an experienced camper, but she had literally brought two of everything, and she saved my ass 100 times over the weekend. Without her second sleeping bag, down jacket, extra pair of full fingered gloves, extra pair of leg warmers or ability to build a fire I would have frozen to death, or at least had to leave early. 

When we got up in the morning, accounts differed based on what gadget you used to check, but the air temperature was somewhere between 24 and 30º. The worst part of having to get up when it's so cold is that you have to get dressed, which means that at some point you have to take off your clothes. I had a terrible time working out what order things had to go on, and I kept getting stuck wanting to do something like put my sweatpants on, but realizing that I had to take the extra few seconds to take my shoes back off to do it... After I'd just nearly frozen to death taking the extra seconds to put the shoes on in the first place. Finally, with all the right layers on in the right order, we were ready to ride. Twenty minutes late (all my fault). 

This was the first year that they were holding this ride, so they hadn't managed to reach much of an audience yet (please come ride with me next year!). Their forty-something registered riders were also spread over some 6 or 7 different route options, some paved and some gravel. On the paved century route there were only 3 registered riders: me, Lori (whose real name is Natalie), and one other guy that we never met. So there was nobody on the road but us. 

The route started with a roughly 10 mile ride through the valley past farms and cow pastures. I hate the cold, but it is beautiful when everything has hoarfrost on it and the early morning sun makes everything sparkle. It looked like a Currier and Ives painting (or am I thinking of Thomas Kinkaid? You know: the one your grandmother was into). I couldn't feel my hands and my feet were aching from the cold, so it's really saying something about my mood that I was still noticing beauty rather than my discomfort. I used to be good at cold. I once rode 60+ miles on a fixed gear bike in a blizzard. I used to ride my bike to work at 3:00 in the morning in Boston in February. I used to be made of really tough stuff. But then I came to California and that gritty part of me that ran a jumped in the Atlantic Ocean on Cape Cod New Years Day while there was snow on the ground went soft. Now I really, really suffer in temperatures outside of 55-65º. The temperatures may be laughable, but the suffering is real. Stop judging me.

We came to the end of the valley and I saw a sign that said "End county road. No snow removal beyond this point." It's such a mundane thing, but when I saw that I got a real rush like freedom. Where I live in Silicon Valley, everything is crowded all the time. You constantly have to be aware of everyone around you, whether it's driving on the roads that weren't built to handle the huge influx of population to the area over the past decade; or in the supermarket where you will never, ever get to the can of beans you need without first yielding to another passing shopper, and then waiting for a second to get out of your way; or going to extreme lengths to make sure that your dog's barking isn't bothering anybody even though it's 4:45 in the morning and what the hell are all these people doing on an unlit bike path at this time of night anyway? And now here I was in a place where the local infrastructure was basically saying, "this place is so remote that nobody needs to be up here, so we're just not going to bother." Freedom!

As I climbed the mountain, Lori (or maybe her name is Joan) fell away behind me, and I was on my own to enjoy the rock slides, frost heaves, and gorgeous views. How exotic! Weather damaged roads! Each frost heave that I rolled over like a kick in the crotch gave me a tiny thrill of the exotic, kind of like that feeling I get when I see palm trees (still after a decade of living in California) and I feel like I'm on vacation. Something was obviously wrong with me. I've had moments of ecstasy a few times while riding a perfect road on a perfect day, but I've never been in such a transcendent good mood in the face of frozen and aching hands and feet, crappy road conditions, and (come to think of it) a growling stomach.

Given the small turn-out of this ride, I expected it to be only a one- or two- rest stop event. So imagine my surprise when half way up the mountain I found myself at a rest stop with 3 cheerful ladies discussing how many generations each one's family had been in town (is it possible that white people were already living in the Sierras 13 generations ago? Apparently the average breeding age in Indian Valley is 13 years old). While they chatted on about, "My husband is one of the Johnson's Dairy Johnsons, he must have gone to high school with your brother-in-law..." I picked up an apple turnover. Then I ate a cherry one. Then I thought about stopping, but it would be nice to wait for Lori (whose real name is Anne)... and anyway, was that a bear claw? By the time Lori (actually Josie) rolled into the rest stop, I had eaten 3 pastries and was starting to shiver so I thanked the Taylorsville Heritage Society and rolled on up the road. 

At the top of the mountain we rode a loop around Antelope Lake. Or something with an A anyway... I can never remember the names of things. I was riding along, blissed out on the gorgeous scenery and thinking happy thoughts about pastries when I heard a rustling in the brush at the side of the road. Then a squirrel the size of a Volkswagon streaked out of the bushes and launched itself directly at my front wheel screaming "Bonzaiiiiiii!". The damned thing looked like it was hell bent on attacking me. I screamed and held my line. You never know where a squirrel is going to dart next, but you can count on it not being where it's headed right now... and since the squirrel was headed right at me, then my current path was the one place that the squirrel wouldn't be in another half second. (See that, kids? That's logic!) Only inches from my spokes the kamikaze squirrel executed about 7 quick changes of direction in the space of a second, and then darted off into the woods. A few minutes later, it happened again. I wondered what effect a 12-pound squirrel hitting my wheel at 15mph would have, and whether it would knock me over or just freak me out a little bit. I was never any good at physics...

Suddenly I came over a ridge and much to my surprise, there was Lori (okay, her real name is Andrew) coming toward me in the other direction. "Where the heck did you come from?" I asked.

"My GPS maps have me going the opposite way around the lake from the route arrows. I'm just going with it," she said. 

"Have you seen any of those kamikaze squirrels?" I asked. "They're like this..." I held my hands apart like I was holding a large sourdough loaf. Then I thought again. "... this big!" I said, spreading my hands wide enough to hold an extra long baguette longways. 

"Nope. No squirrels. Well... I'm going to take a lot of pictures, so maybe I'll see you at the bottom of the mountain," she said.

"Look out for squirrels!" I shouted after her as I rode on around the lake. 

At the next rest stop, around mile 22 I ate my fourth pastry. It turns out that there is an upper limit to the number of pastries one should eat while freezing their ass off on top of a mountain. It's 3.5. My bellyache didn't serve to dampen my mood, but it did mean that when I rolled up to the Taylorsville Herritage Committee's table on my way back down the mountain (around mile 35), all I took was water. I didn't know it yet, but this would be the last rest stop I would see for the rest of the day. 

"Waaaaaaaoooooooohhhhhhhhwwww!" I said in slack-jawed awe as I rolled up to the picnic table. "Do you have any spare rooms at your house I could rent?" 

"I have a ton. All my kids are grown and have moved out..." my welcome committee said. This must mean that her children were over 14 years old, I assumed.
"Great! I need to work Monday and Tuesday, but I should be ready to move in on Wednesday!" Of course I was kidding, but living in the toughest rental market in the country, even the idea of people having extra space, and anyone besides the most wealthy feeling like they had options on where to live was even refreshing. If I lived up here, I wouldn't live in fear of pissing off my landlord and having to move somewhere where rent is double what I'm paying now! Freedom!

As I rode back through the valley I was excited for the lunch that I was pretty sure was waiting for me back at the camp ground/starting area. After eating half a pastry too many, eating something savory (possibly even with a vegetable in it!) sounded fantastic. I pulled in to the camp ground, and had trouble getting the attention of the race volunteers lounging in camp chairs around the fire pit. Finally I got someone's attention. "Ummm, I think you asked me to check in before lunch..." I suggested.
"Oh yeah. What's your number?" 

"I'm number one."

"Lori? Or is it Wanda?" she asked.

"No, I'm Claire, but I came here with Lori (pronounced Luanne). I must have grabbed her number."

I thought I'd kill time waiting for Lori (okay, her real name is Lori... or is it?!) to come down the mountain. So while I shed my fleece jacket and full fingered gloves, I started asking questions. "So where's lunch? And where's this short and steep hill you were talking about this morning? What mile is it at?"

"Lunch is right in downtown," she pointed down the road, away from the mountain. "The climb? Let me see... It's about 10 miles from here to town..." What I did not realize was that when she told me lunch was "downtown," she meant downtown Taylorsville (population 140), which was about a quarter mile away. But when she said "in town" she was talking about Greenville (population 1,129). So I got on my bike, and I followed the arrows right on through downtown Taylorsville, 10 miles down the road to Greenville, where I was sure that my lunch was waiting for me around mile 65 -- not 55 as I'd originally thought. But it was cool. I was still cheerful and looking forward to seeing Lori (okay, her real name is Laurie) and riding the rest of the way with her.

I rode down Main Street in Greenville and looked around for where someone might have set up a taco bar. I saw one man setting up about 50 assorted empty glass beer bottles on a picnic table in a closed gas station parking lot, but after close observation I decided that the chances of me having an awkward conversation with an mentally unwell homeless man were much higher than the chances of me walking away with a taco, so I kept riding. Then an arrow turned me off of Main Street and in a direction that was definitely out of town. In a town with only 1,129 people, it's pretty obvious when you've left downtown. So I turned around and rode back down Main Street. No tacos. I had forgotten my cue sheet, so I pulled out my phone and checked the Ride with GPS turn-by-turn directions, but they did not include rest stops, obviously. I didn't seem to be off course, I just must have missed the tacos somewhere. I shrugged, pulled some more Starburst out of my pockets and kept riding.

As I continued to ride out of town and my mileage passed 70, the road conspicuously did not go up any mountains and I began to suspect that I'd also missed the monster hill. I was disappointed. Based on my friend's description at the camp ground, it was only a 2-mile out-and-back, but the road would climb 2,000 ft in those 2 miles. I don't remember much high school math, but I could remember that if Denver was at about 5500 ft elevation and it was the Mile High City, then a mile must be a little over 5000 ft. If slope is "rise over run," then 2000 ft over 5500 ft had to be... what? Like 30%? That can't be right! Must be 20%. I could picture what it was like to ride a 20% grade, although I couldn't conceive of what that would be like for 2 solid miles. I was a little relieved, but a lot disappointed that I'd missed the climb altogether. It sounded like torture, but it also sounded like bragging rights for life. My friend at the campground had said that when she rides it, she just rides that one road twice and calls it a day. TWICE! People up here sure are tough!

I kept waiting for the anchor to drop behind my bike like it always does in the last quarter of a long ride, but the anchor never came and the road just rolled out behind me. These days I break my rides up into climbs, so with about 50 miles of flat valley to blow through, the miles went quickly and yet I wondered if I was getting anywhere. Hadn't I passed this dairy farm before? Or this bend in the road with that tree there? With only 2 towns in the valley, all signs pointed to either Greenville or Taylorsville so I always felt I was just outside of each, but never reached them (no second chance for tacos). 

Finally, with about 15 miles to go, I finally broke out my secret weapon against boredom and fatigue. I turned my GPS to a meaningless data screen and started singing 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. Depending on interruptions, it takes over an hour to get through the whole song, but breaks it down in a way where you feel like you're getting somewhere - especially when you have to remember to drink after every 10 bottles of beer. 

Somewhere around my 73rd bottle of beer on the wall I saw a line of arrows come across the road, cross in front of me, and point down a road to my right. From what I could tell, a cyclist following the arrows would have to pop out from behind a rock at the other side of the road to have that path make any sort of sense. I looked at my side of the road. No arrows going either in the direction I was going or in any other direction. Was I lost? How did this happen? I rode around in a circle a couple of times looking for clarification. Then I pulled out my phone to try to figure out where I was supposed to go. Just then another rider came along, riding up the road that the arrows pointed down.

"Do you know what the hell all this means?" I said, waving my arm at the mess of arrows that were, as well as the arrows that weren't. Luckily, my companion was more familiar with the valley than I was, and explained to me that the route went up a several mile out-and-back to an old gold-rush-era mine. Then we would turn back and go the way the arrows pointed.

I slowed down a little so that I could ride up to the mine with my new friend. Even though he had been vacationing just around the corner (about an hour and a half away) his whole life, he lived in the Bay Area. Even all the way up here, the center of gravity that held everything together was the Bay Area, and the Bay Area was where everyone returned to... or wound up if they hadn't started there. Those who were left behind by the brain drain and the economic drain, also seemed left behind by time. Later that afternoon I would speak to a local pastor who just couldn't understand why the government would use the same funds that they use for sports equipment and school books to hand out a hundred cell phones to poor children "so they can play games all day." 

"Yeah, but you need a cell phone these days. You can't participate in a lot of things without it."
"They've MADE you need it!" he said indignantly. I didn't even know how to continue the conversation with a man who thought that giving a kid a cell phone was just like giving a kid a Barbie and requiring them to buy her all the outfits yourself. Maybe that is what getting a cell phone is to the child of a dairy farmer in the mountains. Who am I to judge? 

Eavesdropping on more locals talking in the town bar that night, the Bay Area was also sucking away everyone's children. The Johnsons may have lived in the valley for 13 generations, but the next generation was settling in Berkeley, San Jose, San Francisco or Fremont.

When I rolled up to the camp ground at the end of my ride, my odometer read just short of 97 miles. I still felt fresh and felt like I could have ridden all day. I thought of riding back out to the giant hill, but... nah!

I checked in at the finish and asked how far behind me Lori (whose real name is Brigitte) was. 

"She wasn't feeling well, so her husband came and picked her up," said the nice race lady.
"Ummmm... I think you have the wrong person," I said. "Lori (pronounced Lourdes) is pretty gay..."

"Oh, well her partner. She didn't specify. I guess I just assumed..."

"Nope, she doesn't have one of those either..." I said. "I haven't seen her since the top of the mountain, but she seemed to be doing pretty great then..."

"Isn't she the one from Sacramento?" 

"No, she lives in Oakland..."

"Oh..." the woman looked at the clipboard confused. "Then who went home?"

"You know what, don't worry about it," I said, and went to take a shower. 

 

Lori (who is really named Fozzy) did wind up riding the killer hill, so she had decided that she had earned a shortcut through the valley and came back while I was in the shower. I then went to get a hot drink and a sandwich at the market - the one business other than the bar that managed to stay open in town. Everywhere I went, the people were relaxed and friendly, so I left enormous tips with every transaction to make up the difference between the asking price and a fair Bay Area price.  

Lori (just Lori, seriously) and I sat at a table eating our dinners (provided by the race), and the race organizer came up and joined us. She told us all about the town, what it was like to get the Running with the Bears marathon off the ground, and what it would take to get this ride off the ground as well. She told us about the foster care charity that she worked for, and all about the local cycling personalities. Then she called them over, because of course they were in the bar too. Everyone in town was at the bar. Talking to the guy who had set all the routes (and who had also ridden 90 miles on gravel that day), I told him how crushed I was that I had missed the monster hill. "It must be 20% the whole way up!" I said. 

"Aw, it's not that steep..." He flapped his hand at me.

"But Shelly" (I have no idea if her name was really Shelly. It started with an S, that's all I remember) "...Shelly here says that it climbs over 2000 feet in 2 miles. That's got to be well over 20%. Have you ever climbed Sierra Rd in San Jose? That's the only thing that I know that's even similar to that kind of sustained grade. The last time I climbed that, I tasted blood at the top."

"It's not 2000 feet," he said, less 'aw shucks' now and paying closer attention. "Maybe 500-800, but not 2000."

"No! It's 2100 feet! I looked at Strava!" Shelly (or Shawna, or Sally) insisted, pulling out her phone to show him. 

He leaned over to take a closer look. "That's because you climbed it twice," he pointed out. 

I was relieved. A 2 mile sustained 20+% grade would be a road that was not to be missed, even if you regretted it while you were on it. But 2 miles at about 15%? That I could miss... until next time.

Disney Repris

Here's another nod to Disney's business acumen and ability to sniff out an opportunity: Rather than running all their race distances concurrently, they run them on different days, starting with the shortest distance and building in a crescendo to the half marathon (Disneyland) or marathon (Disney World). It makes race logistics easier on each day, draws the single race people to the parks on different days, and gives the medal whores an opportunity to really clean up and take home n + 1 medals (n = the number of finish lines you actually crossed). Or even n + 2 medals if they fall for the marketing trap in multiple states (as I have).

Note to self: Use your iPhone at night...

I am not motivated by the obscene number of medals that I accrue after one of these weekends, but I love the additional challenge of putting the races back-to-back. It spreads out the race excitement, and you can ride the high from one race right into the next. It also means I get to run through the parks more than once, which (I don't know if you picked this up from my earlier post) I enjoy very much indeed.

I had blown most of my Disney magic on the first race, however, and the pink cloud of perfection had started to dissipate by the second day. I had loud neighbors in the hotel room next door. When I first checked in on Friday they were playing some game involving children screeching, loud adult laughter, and a whistle. I bought ear plugs on Friday afternoon, and felt like a jerk when they were quiet as church mice after 9:00 that night. But on Saturday night I used the shit out of those ear plugs. The loud chatting and laughter coming from the next room was still going strong when I left my room at 4:15am. I find taking care of excited children exhausting on a full night's sleep. Whoever my neighbors were deserved some sort of medal for fatigue resistance of their own... I imagine it would have Peter Pan on it, for refusing to grow up. Peter Pan, but with the donkey ears and tail that Pinocchio got for drinking on the island of naughty boys. Because what kind of adult parties until 5am with their kids sleeping on a pull-out in the next room? But since I had the ear plugs, I found their stamina astonishing rather than annoying.

...cuz GoPro takes really crummy pictures in the dark

This morning it was almost 10º hotter than the day before, with the actual temperature at 81º, the "feels like" temperature up at 84. On top of that, the humidity was 64%. If you're from Florida or east Texas or something, that humidity may not sound like much. Sometimes I feel humidity out here in California, check the Weather app and find it's 10 or 15%. That is what passes for oppressive humidity out here. We also get the fog, which I guess is pretty high humidity, but that never happens when the temperature is above about 65º or so, so it's much more bearable. To me, humidity in the 60's felt like trying to work out in a steam room. I not only had a sheen of sweat from the mile walk to the start, I was actually dripping as I crammed in with the tens of thousands of other runners. Walking through Downtown Disney, I saw a handful of medics and shift supervisors huddled around a cast member lying on a bench. It wasn't even 5 in the morning and already people were passing out from the heat. With that, I admitted to myself that there would be no racing today and to get ready for a half marathon that would take way more than 2 hours. I have run a 1:41 half marathon in my life, so even though my performance has been on a precipitous decline over the past 3 years, a half marathon finish between 2:15 and 2:30 was going to require a LOT of humility.

For reasons never to be revealed (security? safety? weather?) the start was delayed by more than 5 minutes. After they played the national anthem and thanked our troops, the MCs inexplicably walked offstage for a couple of minutes, and the jumbotron just showed a sort of desktop background. The silence went on and on. The woman next to me said, "If I don't get back in time for Magic Hour, then I'm in big trouble with the family."

"What's Magic Hour?" I asked.

"If you're staying in the Disneyland Hotel, then they let you into the park an hour before everyone else can get in. I've got to run faster than 2 hours to make it." Since this woman was in my corral, I knew that she was probably around a 1:50 half marathon finisher on a good day. I hoped she was from Florida or somewhere where this heat and humidity wouldn't be a biocatastrophy. Without running a step, I knew that 2 hours would have been a pipe dream for me.

Without a word of explanation, the MC's reappeared at 7 minutes past the hour, and started setting off the corrals. I deliberately started slow, and managed to temper my enthusiasm to keep my pace close to a 10-minute mile. It kind of frightened me that this pace didn't feel uncomfortably slow. 

As we ran through the parks, I stopped to take pictures with my GoPro even though my videos from the day before had been junk in the dark. The photo stops were as much a reason to force myself to slow down as to save the memories for posterity. Somewhere between the second and third mile while running through the Magic Kingdom I found myself running behind a pair of women with well stocked fanny packs and singlets that said Race Monitor (or something like that). They came up to a guy who was walking and asked if he was doing okay. That seemed a bit excessive: they had been urging everyone to take extra walking breaks all weekend, and here was this guy doing just that and these roving medics pounced on him. Maybe this would be necessary in a few miles, but after only about 25 minutes it seemed a bit much.

"What, are you guys the tired police?" I joked.

"Something like that," said one of the Tired Police officers. "We'll drag you to the finish by your ponytail if you want..." 

"Sure!" I said, flipping my hair. It didn't seem that aggressive at the time, but now that I look back on it that was kind of a bitchy thing to say. Fuck the tired po-lice.

I know that they're unionized and only have to be out for like 20 min at a time, but I sure felt bad for all the characters in the head-to-toe costumes. If runners were melting in clothing that simulated nakedness, and employees in shorts and button-up short sleeved shirts were passing out before sunrise, Sully (Mosters, Inc), Sad (Inside Out) and Russell (Up) must have been dying in their costumes as sweaty runners packed in close. Not for the first time, I thought that being a Disney cast member with a hangover must be the closest one can come to hell on this earth. But from what I saw (I didn't stop to stand in line for a picture with any of them), the characters in head-to-toe costumes never broke character and expressed nothing but joy and excitement in their effusive gestures. Well... except Sad. Let's take a moment to appreciate the inclusiveness of Disney that a kid in a wheelchair, a woman in a hijab, a Japanese teenager, a midwestern spinster and a gay couple will all get the same enthusiastic and loving reaction from Goofy when they line up for pictures. If only the whole world were like that...

After even fewer miles than it had taken to get through the parks the day before, we were spit out onto the streets of Anaheim. We ran right past my hotel, and it must have still felt stifling then because I can remember the thought crossing my mind that I wished I could run in and take a cold shower. We had only run 4 or 5 miles at this point, and even though I hadn't even bothered with a shirt, everything was soaked -- including my shirt (which was tucked into the waistband of my shorts). Every minute or two, I would reach back and squeeze the sweat out of it to try to keep my shorts, socks and shoes dry from the overflow. It was futile. By mile 5 my shoes were already soaked and my shorts had been long pasted to my legs and were making the slow crawl up into my crotch. 

Aaaah, sunrise over the car dealerships of Anaheim!

As the sun started to rise, it brought with it a bit of a breeze and although the temperature held steady, the heat felt a little less oppressive. It felt like I was sitting on a beach in a warm day in Hawaii rather than just sitting inside someone's mouth. In real life our surroundings were far less inspiring than a Hawaiian beach: we were running through mile after mile of lumber yards, construction supply warehouses and furniture showrooms. Every once in awhile there would be a gas station, fast food joint, or office building to break up the monotony. 

The course this year was definitely different from last year's (I remember a mile or two along a bike path in one of those canal spillway things that they had drag races in in Grease II), and despite far fewer spectators the miles seemed to be passing more quickly. Maybe there's something about a lack of changing scenery that actually makes you lose all sense of time and go into a hypnotic state. If there are 10 interesting things to look at in a mile, maybe you imprint more memories and the mile feels more epic? Or maybe I had just boiled my brain and lost all orientation in space and time. I don't know... All I know is that last year there were thousands of classic cars spread over more than 3 miles. This year there were fewer than 100. Last year we ran under an underpass in the last miles, this year we didn't. There were the mariachi and hula dancers I remembered from the year before, but there would be no drum corps to carry me through.

By the time we ran through Angels Stadium around mile 10 I had completely given up any hope of finishing this thing with dignity. I was trying to run about 6 minutes on and 1 minute off, but it was no use. After a couple of minutes my head would get woozy, my heart rate would soar, my joints would turn to water, and my lungs would just quit. I had dutifully stopped at every water stop along the way and drunk at least a few ounces of water. By mile 5, I was drinking one cup of electrolyte drink and a water chaser at every aid station. I never drink sports drink, and I'm pretty sure that this one was meant to be windshield wiper fluid flavor because that's the color blue it was. It was disgusting, but since I almost never take on calories or drinks during a half marathon, I probably couldn't blame a bonk or possibly even greater than usual levels of dehydration for my miserable state. I just suck now.

I would like to blame the heat, but it's how most of my runs go lately. It occurred to me that I hadn't enjoyed running in a very long time, and it was probably time to take a break... even though I was committed to 2 big runs in January and April... I resolved to take a week off and then not sign up for any more running events for 2018. 

After running baselines in Angels stadium, we headed back over the freeway toward the Disney compound again. Suddenly, a woman in front of me tripped on one of the turtles that mark the lane lines in the road and hit the pavement hard. She managed to hit everything on the way down: knees, elbows, hands and head were all bleeding. She picked herself up and bravely kept running. I tried to stay with her to make sure that she was okay, but could not keep her pace over the freeway overpass and had to let her go. This is how pathetic I was: I was trying to keep up with a post-menopausal woman with a concussion, and I was still losing. Every time I tried to dig into myself for a little toughness, all I found in there was a swoon. Luckily, most everyone else (other than concussion lady) was doing as badly as I was. I was grateful to pass one guy retching at the side of the road, at least I was in better shape than him.

With about a mile to go I was in the midst of my 30th or 40th walking break when a guy in full Beast costume passed me. He was wearing 3/4 length pants, a full long sleeved jacket complete with shoulder pads (although ripped in vertical pleats for ventilation), and one of those furry hoods with ear flaps that hang down into a scarf. As he plodded past I said out loud, "Well fuck me!" Although I would catch up to him again, I never did pass him. 

Coming through the final half mile through the parking lot and into the park, I started to feel droplets fall on me. At first I thought that it was just spray from a sprinkler, but it was actually raining a little bit. You simply do not get summer sprinkles in LA. It didn't do much to cool down the temperature, but at least it meant that the humidity was finally beginning to break and the weather system beginning to pass. Fat lot of good it would do me...

I stumbled into the finish with no real sense of shame or accomplishment. This is just how I run now. I had passed through the panic phase of my body failing me. I'd tried rest, permanently cutting down my volume, cleaning up my diet, and drinking massive amounts of water, but nothing could bring back my former fitness. It had been fun for awhile to just be out there and participating in stuff, but now the unpleasantness of overcoming my body was starting to distract from the pleasure of being in the race. I walked away from Disneyland convinced that I need a drastic change in my training... and not knowing where to find it. 

In case you have trouble visualizing written descriptions like me, here are some stolen pictures from the weekend:

From the 10K, I look absolutely possessed in this picture. Like this photo was taken at the exact instant I was bayonetted from behind. Also, where is the other half of my right leg? 

Also taken during the 10k, I wish I could see the look in my eyes behind the watermark. I might look even more possessed than the picture above! Like I'll huff, and I'll puff, and then I'll eat your babies raw!

'Nuff said

Other than looking like I just got caught stealing a pie from the back door of the bakery, this is possibly the BEST picture taken on 10K day...

...and here I look like I took the first bite of the pie only to find that it was... PECAN PIE! Bleh! Life can be so cruel! 

This picture is the story of my life. Lumbering away behind a fresh-looking runner with perfect skin, I'm in a half-blink, tongue hanging out, fat jiggling on both my stomach and thunder thighs, and knees tracking in a direction that is most certainly not forward. We all have a picture of ourselves that is like the "profile picture" of our self esteem. This is mine. 

I am apparently just one of those people who looks better when photographed in the dark with a watermark over my face. 

 Finally! After 20 years of running I have a couple of pictures that look like how I feel in my head when I'm running well. If you look behind me, you can see why. There is a woman pushing a little girl in a wheelchair. These moments always make my heart soar. Apparently it shows before...

...I go back to running like a water buffalo with low self esteem. #Moo.

Disney Freak

I've got to admit something: I freaking love RunDisney events. I agree with you, adults who are Disney nuts are kind of creepy. There's just something weird about a grown adult who wants to spend a weekend dressed up as a wholesome cartoon character aimed at children. Disney is scrubbed so squeaky clean that it contains no grown-up themes, and I can't help but suspect that someone who is too obsessed with Disney somehow got their maturity stuck before puberty. This is why it especially makes my skin crawl to see people who get engaged, or married, or spend their honeymoon at Disney. I'm not saying that marriage is all about sex, but there is something very creepy about someone making the most adult choice of your life, and celebrating it at a children's fantasy land. I mean, how are you going to live in a world where things like porn, drug addiction, predatory lenders and type 2 diabetes exist if you take the most significant and adult decision of your life in a place where the workers never even have a button undone. I just question those people's ability to deal with real life, and fitness to enter into something as serious as marriage. Look what happened to Britney Spears after she left the Mouseketeers and had to face the ugliness in the real world. Life is boring, and dangerous, and stressful, and messy, and stinky, and often ugly, and nothing like a Disney movie at all. And did you know that Fantasia 2000 was supposed to have a procession of all the Disney couples and their offspring, but the producers decided that they should never create anything that implies that their characters have sex. So if you get married at Disneyland, then I am forced to conclude that you are a sexless baby-person or you're into some really twisted and kinky shit. Or both. So let's agree that those Disneyfreaks are creepy. 

But here's why I love Disney as an events company so much: There is absolutely no organization on this earth better than Disney at managing the brand and the experience. Every time I've been to a Disney park as an adult, I've spent the entire time wandering around, mouth agape at their seamless logistics and attention to detail. The illusion of a perfect alternate reality is so flawless, that the crackpots mentioned above flee to the parks to escape a world that includes rape, wars, and skid marks on your underwear. In the nasty butt crack of southeast LA county (arguably the skid mark of California's underwear), Disney has created a small oasis where everyone is smiling, and a day of standing in long lines surrounded by stressed out families and overstimulated kids is an enjoyable experience. That ability is why I am in awe of Disney, and that's why theirs are among the best races I've ever done. 

Compare Disney races to the Rock & Roll series (the worst of the national junk race franchises). Both attract a slower, fleshier, less "serious" crowd who are mostly there for the bling and the t-shirt. R&R delivers on the bling and the t-shirt, but designs the most ugly and boring courses I have ever run. I imagine the discussion with the local permitting office goes like this: "Hey, we've got 10,000 assholes who want to run 13 miles... any 13 miles really... to earn a shitty 5lb medal that they'll never figure out what to do with, so they'll hang on a door knob for the next decade. What combination of streets would be easiest for you to close? The one that goes past all the porn shops and pawn brokers... sure! We'll just put our giant blow-up guy with a guitar there to make it a little more cheerful... Oh yeah, and we promise to make them pick up their numbers the day before, so they have to stay in your shitty city overnight. Sure... we can make it on a Saturday so they have to take the day off of work. No problem. We don't give a shit about these people, they think San Jose/St Louis/Philadelphia/San Antonio is fucking Mecca. Obviously they're a bunch of morons." 

R&R's signature "perk," the terrible bands that are set up every mile or so, are ignored by most of the runners who run the entire course with headphones in their ears anyway. If you ever took your headphones out (and seriously, why would you?), the band would sound like atonal wall of sound for the first 100m as you approached, then you would get about 4s of a really bad Journey cover, before it dissolved back into a fading wall of noise as you ran away. When I started running I carried walkman because portable CD players never did really master playing without skipping. Since I used the same 3 mix tapes on almost all my runs, I got into the habit of racing without headphones, since I was sick of my music anyway. Instead I would soak up the course around me and engage with other runners and spectators. But ever since everyone got an iPhone, no one will engage with me because they all have their damned headphones in their stupid ears. R&R caters to exactly this demographic. They do not enjoy the act of running, they are dissociating from the experience until it is over. They are out there for one reason and one reason only: To hang that dumb medal around their neck wearing that t-shirt (which they probably ran in), and then post the pictures on Facebook. They wouldn't care if they had to run through nothing but construction sites and the city dump to do it, because they never look up from their countless apps giving them feedback every 45 seconds on their 12-min per mile walk-run pace. I'm not saying that there is any shame in walking, or running slow, or being a data hound. But we have devices that store all that data so your can dissect it later in your living room. Put your phone in your sports bra, or that douchy fanny pack thing that you bought at the expo for $37, look up, and enjoy the fucking experience. This is not supposed to be torture, and we are not "crazy." This is supposed to be fun. 

...At least I'm having fun...

Disney on the other hand takes their attention to detail and excellence at managing the experience, and puts on the best damned races that you can run without qualifying or entering a lottery system. Sure, there are other great race production companies: Boston Athletic Association, World Triathlon Corporation (Ironman - as much as I hate to say it), and whoever run CIM come to mind. I'm sure that the New York Road Runners, and whoever run the Chicago and London marathons are equally excellent. But those are companies with long histories of catering to serious athletes who are focused on performance and the experience, not the medal collectors and shameless "like" hounds. RunDisney is the only race series aimed at "woggers" that I will willingly and gleefully participate in. The courses are so exciting that I am constantly having to manage my enthusiasm so I don't run so fast that I puke before the end. And the spectators are Disney employees with all of the Disney friendliness and enthusiasm. Even the bands are polished (take that, R&R)! More on this later...

All this is to say, even though I am in terrible running shape right now and couldn't find anyone to come to Disneyland with me, I still wasn't going to miss this weekend of running. I did have a friend that was supposed to come with me, but she is newly arrived in California, and when her moving truck was delayed by a couple of days, she had to stay back in the Bay Area to meet them. I decided that one did not have to go on rollercoasters to enjoy the Disney experience. My preferred way of enjoying any place is by running or biking through it, and I could still enjoy the shit out of my favorite Disney things (there are bathrooms everywhere, and yet you never see them unless you're looking for them!) just by running the races. Fuck it! This was going to be fun, dammit.

The Disney races all start at 5am. No one would choose to start a race that early, but this is Disneyland and as long as you can peel yourself out of bed, a mouse-shaped cloud will carry you effortlessly and blissfully through the rest of your morning until you wake up and realize that you're already in the middle of having fun. Walking from my hotel to the starting line at a brisk pace at 4am was enough to get me sweating. The sun hadn't even risen yet, and it was already 75º with an un-desert-like humidity. It felt like a fat, sweaty, hairy man with the build of Sully from Monster's Inc (whose name I learned this morning) were giving me a bear hug. And yet despite the heat, there were people in full costume. I walked into Corral B with a man wearing a full, fuzzy abominable snowman suit from some movie I did not recognize... complete with a tray of snow cones that "really smelled like lemons" (according to the volunteer that took the time to exuberantly sniff them).

Obviously it was full dark at this time of the morning, and I was curious to see what was going on up ahead where a Disney events person was walking with a baton of LED lights held high above her head. As I got closer, I saw that she was escorting a blind runner and his dog. No matter how jaded you are about Disney, you must respect their treatment of people with disabilities. Most races think to provide blind and deaf runners with a vest, but Disney thinks to have someone there to stand as a beacon in a crowd so that that athlete doesn't get overrun in a crowd. Disney has a lot of experience with people with disabilities. Just look at all that they've done with the Make a Wish Foundation. Back before the Americans with Disabilities Act was a thing, Disney made all of their parks accessible to kids in wheelchairs, and built separate ride entrances so that kids with disabilities could enter the ride with whatever special considerations they needed away from the prying stares of the crowds... many of whom were children their own age. In fact, my obsession with Disney logistics began when a friend whose brother has cerebral palsy took me to the Orlando parks. He knew ever bit of Disney trivia from a lifetime of family vacations to Disney World twice a year. Why? Because it was the only place where they could go and his brother could be included in the vacation. I don't care how hard your heart is, or how much you disagree with the North-Korea-like rigidity of Disney. You've got to at least respect them for their decades of treating kids with disabilities with dignity. 

Disney is also the only race where I have ever seen an ASL interpreter for the pre-race chatter. Most ASL interpreters I've seen alternate between expressions of poised dignity and looking like they're choking on an avocado pit. This Disney interpreter had brought the Disney sparkle to her signs. I don't understand ASL, but I could tell that this chick was signing with all the enthusiasm and wholesomeness that the MCs were using. You could practically see Tinkerbell sparkles coming out of her fingertips. Last year (yes, I did this race 2 years in a row), the ASL interpreter was wearing costumes that matched theme of the other characters on stage (old west for the Country Bears Jamboree and fez and hammer pants for Aladdin). This morning's theme was Monsters Inc, so I guess it was okay to be in all black.

That's the other thing about Disney; they are fanatical about protecting their brand. You will never see a character outside of their environment. If you order a birthday cake at the Disneyland hotel (and I know this because I have), then you can only choose from a handful of "traditional" Disney characters: Goofy, Micky, Pluto, Minnie, Donald. If you want Elsa, Ariel or Buzz Lightyear to present you with the cake, then you have to pay hundreds of extra dollars to have the whole room done up in that character's theme. Because Elsa would never be seen in a conference room that wasn't made out of ice and decorated in a traditional Scandinavian style, and so they can't have you posting pictures on Facebook of her in the Cinderella ballroom. Duh! When you run along the course, you'll notice that the characters are always in the appropriate setting, or traveling in a moving diorama, so your pictures of Sleeping Beauty is in Fantasyland, and Jack Sparrow is in Frontierland... NEVER on Route 66 next to Lightning McQueen. (Take note: R&R, where I once ran through 2 sets of high school cheerleaders each doing different cheers from opposite sides of the road... at the same time. R&R's motto must be closer to, "Eh, fuck it.)

Disney's fanaticism about pictures is another thing that I find fascinating. It is someone's job to sensor all of those pictures that they take of you on the rides. If there is something objectionable in your race photo as you're running through Cinderella's castle (say you flip off the camera), or from the "oh shit" moment at the top of Splash Mountain, then they won't sell you or even show you the photo. I know this because last year our Tower of Terror photo wound up in some Disney censor's recycle bin. We managed to grab a screenshot of it off the app and scoured it for what could possibly be objectionable about our tearful and screaming faces. It took several minutes for us to find the girl in the first row who somehow had managed to get herself into a ballet pose with her leg perfectly vertical against her head. A "cool" pose for sure, but Disney cannot have pictures out there of people doing dangerous things. Or else it might catch on. And then someone could get hurt. And that could besmirch their image. People simply can't get hurt on Disney rides, you see. So the ballerina picture had to go, even though there were 3 crying 30-somethings in the back row that were willing to pay any amount of money for that picture, but most certainly were NOT willing to go on the ride again to get a new one. 

Disney really is like a G-rated Soviet Union (I would love to tell you about my deep dive into the Disney gulag, but I will save that for another time...). And yet, most people's perception of the place ranges from neutrally quaint to fanatic, rabid life-long fan-dom. Disney does not stand for my closest-held American value of freedom of expression, and yet if the director of the parks arm of Disney ran for president, they would have my enthusiastic vote. Well, week-old defrosted TV dinner would have my vote over the guy we have in there right now, but that's beside the point. Disney takes away your freedom of choice, and gives you back a spick-and-span version of America that is far superior to the one we have today. 

But I didn't just come down here to geek out on my idolization of Disney as a business, a production company and a brand. I also came to run. Or I had committed to run anyway, even though I found the idea unappealing at that moment. I'll skip telling you about how the national anthem singer was talented enough to give me goosebumps and get to the running part. The race starts running around backstage for about half a mile before you turn into the Cars set. I found this heart stopping last year when I came in through the gate and found myself running through the southwest, lit better than God Himself usually lights the real thing. Then you run through the Bugs and around the midway with all the lit water jets in the lagoon and with the rollercoaster as the background. It really is fucking magical.

Here's the problem that I have with Disney races (of which I am only slightly ashamed to admit that I've done 5... and will have done 5 more by January): I get so excited running through the parks, that I almost always wind up spending the morning battling puke. But here's the thing: Disney even does puke well! Last year when I finished the 5K and yacked my guts up, there was someone there before the puke passed my lips with a little doggie poo bag held in a sort of embroidery ring that was the perfect size to fit around my nose and mouth. She handed me my puke hoop and gently guided me to a quiet corner where I wouldn't be in anyone's way, or attract gawkers with my retching. She discretely never asked me if I was okay (a problem when every time I try to speak I wind up loudly spewing instead), just let me puke it out until I was done. As someone who pukes often I appreciated both the privacy away from curious eyes, and the discrete place to deposit my stomach contents (which on this and many other mornings, included beet juice). This year I had skipped the beet juice, and I did not want to find out if the custodial staff cheering us along the course also stocked the puke hoops in their satchels.

The parks really aren't that big, so you have to spend large chunks of the race running "backstage" to fill out the 10K. Since these are areas where only cast members may enter (oh yeah, and it's also 5:30 in the morning on a Saturday), that means that Disney also has to provide the spectators. Last year this was really impressive, with members of the third custodial shift as well as other graveyard shift workers bringing their Disneyness and cheering like each runner were a member their own family. This year I don't know if there was a different shift manager, or maybe if they wanted to keep the number of people around down because of budget or terrorism or something, but there were many fewer cast members back there this year. Everyone backstage seemed to have a job other than cheering. Like flashlight waving, or water handing out, or empty cup raking. That's probably for the best, though, because if I'd had more people cheering for me, I most certainly would have puked from running and excitement. 

I do have to give a shoutout to the 2 spots where they did have live music along the course (are you paying attention, R&R??). Throughout the parks, they had a mash-up of several feel-good songs, set to fade into the next every 10s or so. I'm sure that Disney had a reason for this: either so that the songs would never compete as you moved from one speaker zone to another, or so that the music was never the same from one diorama to the next. Aside from that, in one spot backstage and another in the parking lot right before the finish line, they had live music. They had chosen styles of music that sound good from both near and far, so it didn't sound like just a wall of sound as you ran by. In the parking lot there was a swing band playing "Sing, Sing, Sing." And backstage under the monorail (in a spot that we passed twice), there was a drum corps. Man, I fucking love drum corps. If I had any idea where to find drum corps music, I'd run to it all the time, and gladly puke every morning from the excitement of it. As I came around the corner, my face must have lit up because I locked eyes with one of the female drummers and she flashed a brilliant Disney smile at me and pattered her drum with even more feeling. I decided that being in the drum corps could make up for even the most severe basketball ponytail, and that being in a drum corps was sexy as hell. Drum corps girl, if you're out there, call me!

By the time I got into the Magic Kingdom side of the park, somewhere around the third or 4th mile, there was no amount of excitement about running through Tomorrowland or Cinderella's castle that could make me run too hard. My shirt was so soaked that when I pulled it away from my skin at the photo points, it would make a loud slurping noise as it sucked away from my skin. I kept getting side stitches -- something that hasn't happened to me since I was a kid. What was weirder, they kept switching from left to right. My muscles felt awful, and even though muscle cramps aren't a thing I suffer from either, I felt like I was flirting with some massive ones in both sets of hamstrings and calves. I tried running slow, but there was nothing but walking breaks that were going to get me to the end of this thing. 

I promised myself that once I entered the Magic Kingdom I would run all the way to the end no matter what it took. I am not one of those people who can't run 6 continuous miles! And yet, somewhere around that terrifying whale that ate Pinocchio, I had to walk. Then, only a few minutes later, despite my sincere desire to plug through the last mile, I had to walk out the park exit as well. Now we were in the territory where real spectators could cheer us on, and one girl who saw me walking shouted, "Come on! You can make it! Just keep it up!" And her cheering did make me wish I had run a little further... just so I could have a full stomach of oatmeal to projectile vomit in her face to prove my point. Not even one final pass of the drum corps could bring my body back in line.

I used to be someone who ran in the heat of the afternoon. I used to ride my bike to work at 3:30 in the morning in Boston in February. I once rode 70 miles on a fixed gear in a blizzard. I once ran 20 miles with bronchitis. But after 7 years in the Bay Area, and 3 years of only running before sunrise, I have lost all resilience to all kinds of weather. Depending on where you're from, temperatures below 40º and above 65º are normal, but for my body anything outside that narrow band signals a catastrophic disaster and my systems start to shut down. I did eventually make it to the finish line, deliberately not looking at my time. 

As I walked through the finish area, I could feel the sweat sloshing and squelching in my shoes. The first chance I got to unburden myself of my phone and finish line water bottle, I took off my shirt and wrung it out. Look at the video: at least 8oz of water must have come out of that tank top alone, let alone what was in my hair, socks, shoes, pasting my shorts to my legs, and what I had dripped onto the ground along the way. As I type this, it is 104º, and the hourly forecast says that it will be equally warm for tomorrow's half marathon. 

Now I am choosing to see it as a small blessing that I am spending my day in my air conditioned room drinking lots of water, rather than endless loops on Splash Mountain to keep myself cool. Oh... and I took advantage of the cheaper used bikes in LA to buy myself a new commuter. But that is a topic for another time.