Mountain Man Olympic Triathlon Race Report

In the hellhole otherwise known as Phoenix, by the time August has come around, life has lost its meaning and existence takes too much effort. I signed up for this Flagstaff triathlon race to get out of Phoenix and to break up the unbearableness of summer. I needed a reason to get off my ass and train in ninety degree heat. The distraction would keep me from thinking dark thoughts about what life would be like without air conditioning in humid, hundred plus degree temperature.

I had done this race eight times, so I knew the suffering that was involved. At 7,000 feet, the body lacked oxygen. More effort was required to move; and the movement was slower. The hills that would have been merely rolling at sea level became the Swiss Alps at altitude. It’s still arid and just being outside sucks the moisture out of my body. But the pine trees, lake, sunflowers and mountains were nice scenery and a change from rocks, dust and cacti.

I chose the Olympic length because the half iron distance was unfathomable. Nobody but the crazy, fast people or clueless did it. Running the half marathon run alone along the road while seeing everyone drive by, who had already finished, would suck. Running up and down a steep hill, then running another seven miles would be torture. Also, who the hell would want to swim another five hundred yards in the brown sludge of Lake Mary? And bike 56 miles? The Olympic was enough pain for one day.

I drove up to Flagstaff, turning onto Lake Mary Road. Near the race site, I  passed by a bunch of people looking at deer or elk. This amused me because I was sure the animals had no clue why they were being gawked at. They probably thought why are all these weird humans looking at me?

Just as I got the packet pickup location, a large black cloud appeared. Then it started pouring and lightning flashed. It was wiser to stay in the car until the prospect of electrocution and getting drenched was over with.

I like Flagstaff, but it is a pain to drive in with the hordes of tourists. I got dinner, then walked around and sat at Heritage Square for a while. There weren’t musicians playing yet, but people were hanging around and games were set up for children. I like the vibe of this town, like an Arizona hippie version of San Francisco in the sixties. Even the homeless are laid back. One dude tried to sell me a beach cruiser. He had just cleaned the bike and seemed relatively mentally stable. As if I had room in my Corolla for two bikes.

I got back to the hotel and did race prep. I hated stressing about a race. I had to get up at 3:30, so I was worried about getting everything ready. Plus I was concerned about my emotionally needy cat being alone. She expected to be waited on and no one was there. She was probably crying piteously. I realized I had forgotten to bring my race belt, which is something I had never forgot before. This was disturbing. What was wrong with my mind?

I went to bed, but kept waking up every hour. A distant train blew its horn. The A.C. made weird noises. The room was warm even with it on. Sleep does not come easily and altitude makes it worse. I must need actual oxygen.

At zero dark thirty, I got ready and stepped outside. The car didn’t have dew on it, which was a good sign, because I wasn’t sure how to get rid of it.  Dew is an alien substance in the desert. I packed everything up and drove to the race site. When I got near the lake, the road had foggy patches. Some of them were quite dense, which made the road hard to see. It made me nervous. Go away fog, I don’t need you. I had to look for a parking spot in the dark and mist. I found the one I was looking for even though it was  half a mile away. I couldn’t deal with the whole dark and not seeing and parking thing.

 The sky lightened, revealing that Lake Mary had dense fog on it. I really didn’t want to swim in it, wandering aimlessly, with no idea where to go. I have visions of the Lake Tahoe swim, where the buoys were obscured by fog in the 32 degree air.

They made us go down to the dock at the scheduled time, then wait forty-five minutes. This was a first for me–a fog delay for an Arizona race. The long line of mist parallel to the shore slowly retreated. Hurry up, already!

I was supposed to start at 6:35, but didn’t begin until 7:20. At least by then we could see the buoys. I walked down the ramp and stepped through the muck to get to deeper water. The horn sounded and I swam cautiously. The possibility of a panic attack is always present, so I never rush when I start. Hyperventilating in the middle of a high altitude lake is best avoided because it is particularly unpleasant. I staved off breathlessness, but felt uncomfortable at times and stopped to rest occasionally.

Once in a while the smell of diesel gasoline and sewage was in the brown water. I tried to keep a steady pace. The water was fairly smooth but the surface in the last fifty yards was choppy. What a relief it was to get out. The swim took me 43:50. This was a little better time than two years ago. At least the swimming time didn’t change much over the years unlike the bike and run, which had gone to crap.

I had failed to take into account the location of the toilets when I set up my bike, so I had to run a little farther to use one. I really had to pee, unlike everyone else who had already urinated in the lake. The toilets were always inconveniently located outside of transition, which wasted more time.

On the ride start, I was extra hungry, since the to wait to swim was so long. The weather felt cool until the hill climbs. With the sun out, it was hot. The bike was hard work just to go slow. It always seems like it should be easier than it really is, leading to a feeling of inadequacy. Why can’t I go faster? The hills didn’t look all that steep until they were ridden. Once in a while a chickadee or goldfinches would call out. I liked to answer them. I didn’t know if they answered back, but it kept my mind off the pain. The scenery was pretty with the pine trees, blue sky and puffy white clouds, mountains and lakes. Not as many wildflowers were blooming, though, due to lack of rain. 

On my last eight miles, I saw the first and second place male go by for the half iron. That was rather humbling, since it is twice the distance that I was doing. I passed three people, so at least I wasn’t dead last. This ride was painful by now and I wanted it to be over with so I could do an even more painful run. Bike time was 1:42.

By the time of the run, when everyone else was done, it was heating up and I was tired and thirsty. My water was lukewarm, and I craved ice to cool it down. The first 1.5 mile always appear to be downhill, but it never feels that way. My legs were tired after the bike. I stopped to walk. 

The bottom of the hill was usually the low point of the run, physically and mentally. A whole mile of terrible awaits. Could I really do this? I had this thought, though I had done this race eight times before. Despair is not logical. I told myself I was out of shape and fat, but forged ahead slowly without further walking. Better to get it over with. The hill was evil. 

I took a salt tablet and a gel because sometimes it made me feel less like the walking dead. 

After a mile plus of the steep grade, I got to the top. Just before a dirt track, usually was an aid station, but not today. My water was running low, and I worried about running out. It was located at the turn around. Lovely ice, the magic elixir! 

I felt much better and moved faster down the hill. The road that I just had ran up and the lake were far below. At the bottom and more level ground, I didn’t worry about how slow my time was because, in the past, beating myself up just made me unhappy. Running was enough self-flagellation. I sped up. The finish line was a welcome sight. Total time was 80 minutes.

I felt like I had just raced a four hour sprint. I went as hard as I could, but slowly, like moving through molasses. Output didn’t translate to speed. The wonders of high altitude exertion. I didn’t place in my age group, but didn’t care. Total time was 3:58, so at least I broke four hours.

I could bemoan that I was almost last in a difficult race like this one, and I usually do, but I would have quit this sport long ago if I worried about how much I sucked. I decided it was pointless to feel bad about it. It was fun to be physically challenged and persist despite discomfort and the annoying voice in my head that tells me that I am not good enough, am too slow, can’t breath, should give up, should swim back to shore and walk the hill. It just needs to shut the hell up.

Besides, suffering in cool Flagstaff was preferable to frying in Phoenix.

SUMMER IS A SOUL SUCKING SCOURGE

In honor of one of Phoenix's hottest days of the year:

                                       
I want to go out. But I don’t want to
leave my air-conditioned cave.
I am bored, but don’t want to move
into suffocating white light
that emerges too early from insufficient night.
It burns. BURNS!

White blinding sun. Acid light.
Heat withers my soul and every living form
that struggles to exist. Plants shrivel.
Errands can wait because existence is meaningless.
I feel weak and listless.

My mood sinks lower and lower
into deep wells of despair. Energy dripping out;
paralyzing inertia.
I take a nap.

 Sleepless night. A.C. anxiety.
Will it fail? The thin veneer of
civilization dissolving into sweat laden misery?
Tentacles of dread.

Fatigue permeates my pores.
Furnace blast air.
Heat beats resistence. Strength melts.

I drag myself out reluctantly. It can’t win.
I have to go run.

Probably reading a little low.

Cactus Man Sprint Race Report

I signed up for the Cactus Man Sprint thinking it would be fun after doing the California half ironman. Sprints are short and fast--go hard as possible, then collapse. Then I got injured in training and as a result ruined the half iron. Who the hell gets injured on a bike ride without crashing? The goal became to just hold off collapsing until AFTER finishing.

After the California race, even a three mile run was questionable, because it hurt. A lot, as in being barely able to hobble. How fast I had gone from fit to pathetic. Having a low opinion of people who merely walk for exercise, I was a now a failure at even that. Was I getting weak and old? Just doing a aquabike might be an option, but it seemed pointless for a sprint. An Olympic aquabike would cost more at this late date, so I just settled on risking a run with the regular sprint.

The Tuesday before the race, I managed to run three miles at a blazing 14:38 per mile pace. Two miles had been my maximum all month. My hips, groin and gluts hurt constantly, but the pain was manageable. It was do or die, so I did it. The worse time it could be in the race was a forty-five minute run or an hour walk. I would finish eventually, somehow.

The night before the race, I couldn’t sleep well, because the moon was full and rudely shined too much light in my bedroom. My brain would make any excuse to keep me up, talking incessantly about things that might happen. Shut up, already!

At the race site outside Tempe Center for the Arts in the pre-dawn hour, my mood was cranky. I was tired, nervous and irritable and all the people made it worse. They were everywhere, along with their dogs. I was stuck in a long porta-potty line behind a man, his son and a hyper dog.  If a dog can’t act properly in public, why bring it? Dogs are like children. They are cute to look at, but the frenetic behavior is irritating--dashing all over the place, sniffing butts, barking and being generally obnoxious. Please just go away.

To get into the lake, we were supposed to hurry down a ramp and jump in. I wasn’t having any of that.  The ramp ended in shallow water with hidden rocks and any step in the murky water was treacherous until the ramp was cleared. It was hazardous to toes and other body parts. I got in slowly without incident.

Since a sprint swim is only 750 meters, I assumed that the swim would be “easy.” Usually I am in the last wave and everyone is ahead of me. The first half was fine. My full wetsuit was a little too warm, but wearing it beat drowning. Swimmers clogged the lake, zigzagged and occasionally one would get in my way, but for the most part, it was nonviolent.

It's a jungle out there

I tooled steadily along, not enjoying myself and wished to be anywhere else, but I was still calm. In the last half of the swim, though, large groups of swimmers stormed through like a herd of elephants. The earlier Olympic waves ran into the sprint waves and they didn’t care who was in the way. A triathlon swim was an excuse to be rude. I got hit a few times, pushed under and kicked. There was nowhere to swim in peace and no escape. The battling hordes made the water choppy. This was not my usual lonely swim and being this physical did not improve my mood. I cussed a lot.

Getting out of the water was a relief. Surviving the swim was always a sense of accomplishment for me. I had 23:39 on my Garmin, which was about my usual time. Transition was empty of bikes, which was typical for me, but I didn’t care. Hopefully, the swim warriors were already well through the bike course and wouldn’t bother me.   

How my body would react to riding my bike hard was an unknown. I wanted to go fast on the bike, but was cautious. The whole point of a sprint is being able to bike with abandon, but I didn’t want to aggravate my injury. My rear end and upper hamstrings were still hurt, so I didn’t push as much as normal. I felt good and it wasn’t too hot yet, which spared my body from cooking.  

The bike course was flattish, with a million u-turns that went through the streets of Tempe in similar versions of every other Tempe race. It wasn’t too bad for the first and only lap for the sprint, but the two laps of the Olympic would have been boring.

Overall, it went smoothly. No crashes, no people riding side by side blocking the way, no flat tires. The Curry hill climb didn’t feel as bad as I thought it would, a mere bump compared to the Oceanside monstrosities, which could eat Tempe hills for breakfast. It was fine by me.

I finished the bike and wondered what world of pain I was about to enter. I soon found out. Every step of the run was a stabbing pain in my rear end, but I was doing it. Running was much better than the hobbling walk I was doing a few weeks ago. I didn’t think about it or how far the run was. I just took it moment by moment and kept moving. Twelve minute miles was much slower than normal, but was better than anticipated. I was grateful just to be able to do it, even though my time sucked. I didn’t podium or anything, but at least broke two hours with 1:59.

Finally, a race I didn’t screw up. No getting lost, no tripping and ER visits, no stitches, no new injuries, no DNF’s; unlike the races of the last nine months. I had actually finished the damn thing. Maybe the black cloud of bodily misfortunes had lifted. If only the knives would stop stabbing my posterior and running wasn’t a argument between muscles and joints. 

Oceanside 70.3 or Things Didn't Go According to Plan Part II

In training for a hilly half ironman, if the race has bike climbing of 2400 feet, then surely riding 3500 feet must be good self-abuse training? My plan was to at least officially finish under eight and a half hours, not end up feeling like I had hot pokers in my butt. The hills bit back.

Two weeks before the Oceanside 70.3 race, I rode my usual route, but added a section on Bartlett Dam Road. Bartlett Dam road is evil. Trucks hauling boats to the lake with not so sober drivers threaten to blow a rider off the road. The pavement is rough and parts have steep, winding grade. But boring, it’s not. I wanted to explore Horseshoe Dam Road, since I had not been on it. 

The first sign of trouble was an aching knee. Then my right foot hurt. My legs were tired. The hills felt steeper than usual and the way back to the car was pathetically slow. 

The next day, walking hurt. This was a bad sign. I hoped the pain wouldn’t linger, but it settled in to stay in the following days. Running was almost impossible with a stabbing sensation every step I took. By the end of the week, it was better, but then I stupidly did another long bike ride. Healing up then became a bigger priority than training.

With a week to go, I debated not doing the race at all. It’s a giant hassle with all the beach traffic and it’s difficult to park. Transition was a mile from the finish line. Chances were very good that I couldn’t finish the run, since I could still barely walk. Still, the swim and the bike would be worth doing. The bike in Camp Pendleton was scenic and challenging and one of the best rides around. Plus it was amusing to see the marines were standing around with machine guns to keep the spandex clad invaders in line. Soldiers were always blowing up things. I had done this race three times, so I wanted to try the bike, even if the rest wasn’t finished. Ideally, to do the entire thing would be great, but it just didn’t seem possible. Maybe a miraculous recovery would save me.

The drive to California was the usual ordeal on a hideously boring, ugly road. At some point, all the monotony always drove me crazy. Endless desolate desert punctuated by half dead shrubs and bare mountains. It cried to be put out of its misery of existence. Even the Palm Springs windmills weren’t doing it for me.

 From the hotel parking lot. I don't know what the large mound of dirt was for.

Due to my lack of planning, I ended up in the same cheap motel as my last trip. Weird noises emanated from the room at night. Somewhere nearby, a loud woman who didn’t appear to sleep, talked loudly or argued with her boyfriend every night. This place was real classy. Maybe for revenge I could make loud noises in the day to wake her up. At least I got a free breakfast .

Race morning, I got up at the ungodly hour of 3:15. Was the stress and lack of sleep really worth it? I got ready to leave, trying to remember the thousand things I had to bring. The car had dew all over it, which was a mystery that I never know what to do about. It was just not an issue in the desert. The defrost and A.C. didn’t do much and the windows were still fogged over. In desperation, I wiped off the windows with kleenix.

I missed seeing my designated parking garage and had to turn around. They are always invisible in my half bleary early morning state, plus driving in the dark sucks. On the shuttle bus, the driver lady was cheery. I felt like I was going to my doom and tried not to dwell on it. The thought of the swim was terrifying–a cold, un-welcoming ocean with strange creatures swimming around in it. Hypothermia, sharks or drowning awaited.

The air temperature wasn’t warm out, but it was better than I had feared. One year I got hypothermia from the forty degree air and cold water during the swim and had to go into the med tent afterwards. Thawing out had been a slow process. That had to be avoided at all costs.

The swim start was a self-seeded rolling start at 6:50 a.m. This was part of my undoing because I erroneously assumed it wouldn’t take more than twenty minutes to get every one in the water and I was at the back of the line. It took forty minutes. The chute was narrow and people were squished together while trying to move forward. It was way too much humanity, though they blocked the wind. I stuck in the back, trying to avoid bodily contact, but ultimately wished I pushed towards the front. This did not give me a lot of leeway with a slow swim and transition since everyone had to be on the bike course by 8:50. 

Bird party on the beach.

Wading in, the calm water was a shock, but it felt better after a while.  It was much easier to swim in than 2016, when the chop and swells tossed everyone around. The water temperature was 62 degrees, which was bearable. On Thursday they said it was 59, which is hypothermia territory for me. It was hard work to swim the 1.2 mile and all the while I worried that it wasn’t fast enough to beat the cut off. The bright idea of a beach start had been proposed after everyone had signed up for the race, but abandoned for this race by the organizers. This would have been a deal-breaker for me because swimming in the harbor was difficult enough without fighting the surf. Hopefully, that stupid idea will die a painful death. Anyone who was disappointed can go screw themselves.

The only advantage to the self-seeded start was less bodies to deal with. Kayakers got in my way and the occasional swimmer. The way back was difficult to see, facing the sun with the blinding glare. I just went where the other people were going, siting off a tall building.

In a  post swim daze, I got out and hobbled to transition. I had forgotten to start my Garmin. Maybe the swim was about an hour. It turned out to be 59:03, which was better than expected.

Transition was a real struggle. The wetsuit stuck on my hands and feet and I lacked strength to pull it off quickly. Getting my bike gear and peeing took way too long, which ate up time to finish the bike before the cut off.

Torture device.

The first ten miles of the bike were good. The weather was sunny perfection with a gentle breeze and cool enough for a jacket. Then the pain set in and stayed. My seat was uncomfortable–like sitting on rocks and the two pronged Adamo seat padding had broken down. The pressure was right where the sit bones felt the worse. Standing up in the pedals was the only way relieve the discomfort. This wasn’t an option to help climb the hills, though, because it caused too much pain. 

I encountered surfers on the No Pass zone at the Trestles,. One guy was riding a mountain bike, carrying a surf board and weaving all over the pathway. This was an unexpected obstacle, but I managed to get by without being taken out. Where the hell did all these people come from, anyway? Californians are weird.

 In the hills, Meadowlarks sang in a melodious flute-like call. A brown hawk flew by. The wildflowers were in bloom. The beauty took my mind off the misery. Then loud booms penetrated the air from explosives or gun fire. Camp Pendleton contradictions. 

The injury affected my speed, bleeding the output of a fairly hard effort.  San Mateo, otherwise know as “Hell Hill” tempted me to walk like everyone else, but that would have been a capitulation to weakness. It was aptly named. I could barely keep the pedals turning over with the pain in my legs. This was the worst climb, as the other two weren’t as agonizing. I wasn’t going fast enough, though.

About mile forty-six, I realized  the cut off would be missed, but stressing about it was useless and too much effort. My mental resignation reminded me of past races, in which the despair hit that the time had slipped away too fast and the race was over. The run probably wasn’t possible anyway, but it would have been nice to finish on my terms. Then the twenty-five mph headwinds started and the course got uglier. This was not fun. Other riders were blissfully unaware of their doom and that they wouldn’t be able to continue. Maybe there was a cut off at this point, but no one stopped me. Racers standing around at an aid station  looked like they had given up.

Back in transition, as expected, an official was waiting to pull our chips. I wasn’t upset, but surely others were. I felt for them. It was an ignominious end to the race and rather depressing, but I accepted the inevitability of it. Total bike time was 4:20, my worst ever in this event. Even if I had started earlier, with my long transition I still wouldn’t have made the 5:30 swim/bike cut off.

I think I was about five minutes over, but officials wiped out all my split times, even the ones legitimately finished, so I wasn’t sure. How rude. They take my money, but they don’t care enough publish the damn time splits. My complaint about it to them has so far gone unheeded.

Not finishing felt unsatisfactory and like undone business. It was depressing, with no credit for the attempt. That water was cold and those hills were brutal, even for a partial race. The pain from the injury was constant. It was the risk of showing up, though.  Better to definitely know the outcome, then to wonder what might have happened. Things Definitely Did Not Go According to Plan.

2018 Messier Marathon or Things Didn't Go According to Plan

My yearly ritual is the Messier marathon. I join my fellow astronomy club members at a remote site to try to view 110 Messier objects in one night. I seriously debated not going, though because the predicted weather was awful. The cloudiness was supposed to last most of the night and it would be windy and cold. This was the desert’s WIND season, which usually occurs when I have some outside activity that requires no wind to be optimal. The eternal debate was to go even with predicted bad weather and hope it gets better, or to stay home and wonder what fun I missed.

Bleak.

Rural Arizona desert is un-welcoming. It’s beautiful in its own bleak way, but it doesn’t want humans to stay. It shows no mercy for the hapless. Cattle eat the ground vegetation, so what’s left is scrub and dust. The site  is 120 miles from home, west on I-10, off an exit off the freeway, that immediately turns into a dirt road that goes to the middle of nowhere. The place elicits a sense of unease.  

Since it is so far, the car has to be loaded up with a tent, sleeping bags, the telescope equipment, a chair, a table, food and generally, the kitchen sink. It is not an easy trek. If the weather is cloudy, I go anyway, since the diehards will still show up. In that case, people stand around and talk or go to sleep. The clouds rarely last all night.

At the site, no signs were on the road to indicate direction. I knew the way, but it would have been reassuring to see some signs of civilization. People were set up, but no one that I knew. The diehards weren’t so much and had stayed home. I parked near the porta potty because it’s hard as hell to find in the dark. 

Clouds weren’t totally covering the sky, but the breeze was a persistent, relentless slap. Wind will usually die down at sunset. However, the tent had to be set up before it got dark. It can be calm, but pull out a tent, and the wind starts howling. Every time. I hate camping, but sleeping in the car is even more uncomfortable.

Since  the wind was unruly, my strategy was to weight down the tent corners, then stake it. The system was a dome tent with bendable rods that attached to the corners and erected the tent. Normally, I put up the tent, then try to stake it before the wind blows it away. Secure one corner and the other lifts up. Before I know it, the whole thing has shifted and I am cussing up a storm. Staking it down first made it crooked. It was an hour struggle to make it work and a stake bent in the hard ground. My “shelter” was sad looking, misshapen and rattling in the breeze.

Pathetic.

My mood was dark. The sky was cloudy and the telescope couldn’t be collimated. This was the worst Marathon ever! The strong wind chilled me. I retreated to my car to brood.

A car left and I was envious. Briefly, I wondered if I could leave without ending up in a ditch. Leaving a star site required not using headlights, otherwise raving astronomers will yell at the hapless driver for blinding their night vision. The dirt road edges are not easy to see and it would  have been easy to veer off and get stuck in soft sand.  From experience, driving in the dark from star parties years ago resulted in getting lost, which was terrifying because it’s disorienting.  I just stayed. I didn't drive 120 miles into the godforsaken desert to quit now.

Finally, a few stars popped out. The viewfinder and the Sky Commander computer thingy that tells where to point the telescope could be set up. The targets briefly appeared through the clouds, before they got instantly obscured. It was an exercise in futility, but I outwitted the weather occasionally. Maybe the situation wasn’t totally hopeless.

After a few hours, the Sky Commander decided it was lost. Re-aligning by siting on two stars was too much effort, so the hunt was manual. This took forever because the method was inexact. Look at a map, figure the object is maybe, kind of, between certain stars and hope that it’s there when looked at. Star hopping is tedious. Exhaustion set in.

It was colder by now, the temperature into the forties. I had on long underwear, jeans, a long sleeved t-shirt, a cashmere sweater, ski bibs, long socks, a bike jacket and a long wool coat. It wasn’t enough in the biting wind. Standing outside was a test of determination and endurance.

Someone came by and chatted. She was trying to find the porta potty in the dark. We discussed the dismal state of affairs. A gust of wind blew my list away. I ran after it, barely seeing it in the ambient light, and tried to catch it before the wind blew it farther. I finally caught it with my foot after a sprint through the desert. Could this night get any worse?

She left, and I worked for a few more hours. The sky had mostly cleared by now, but the wind still blew hair into my mouth. The Milky Way was out and the sky was filled with sparkling stars. Conditions weren’t crystal clear, but still beautiful. At 2:30 a.m., I decided to sleep a little, because driving 120 miles home in the morning required at least some level of alertness.

I went into the tent to sleep, but the wind still rattled it loudly. Would it blow down on top of me? Sleep was impossible. I got out and scrunched into the back seat of the car. Setting up the tent had been a total waste of time. The wind whistled around the car and the sleeping bags barely fended off the cold. I slept until 4:30 a.m.

When I awoke, it was difficult to  get up and step outside into the cold. The wind had at least died down. I wandered to find the porta potty, but got disoriented in the dark twice. I saw vehicles, but had no idea where my car was, nor the porta potty. I stumbled over bushes and found my car again by following the camper that was near it. I briefly considered just peeing by my car, but decided against it.

I now had a bunch of galaxies to search, and not long to find them, so I sucked it up and re-aligned my Sky Commander. The Leo and Virgo constellations has many galaxies and the fuzzy balls look similar. To try to distinguish one from another was a descent into madness. The Sky Commander still had problems, but at least located the objects. Time was limited as sunrise would be soon.

I found 68 objects total by the time the sky lightened. The “marathon” was not so much finding them, but defying the weather and not quitting. It was an emotional roller coaster of misery, despair and fun.

With more light, the porta potties came into view. How the hell did I miss it when it was that close? Of course, if it had had its usual red light instead of nothing, it would have been found easier to find.

The elusive Porta Potties.

Was it worth it to go through all this? The whole affair was a clusterfuck with the clouds, the wind, the cold, the misaligned Sky Commander, the list blowing away, the woebegone tent.
The theme of my life this year is Things are Not Going According to Plan and this certainly fit that category. A difficult experience was better than no experience. I could have stayed home and slept in my warm bed, but what would have been the fun in that?

Keys Matter

I lost my key.
Dropped out of my pocket on a trail.
Thunk!
Gone forever.

Lost my spouse.
He didn’t want to be around.
Gone forever.

I looked for the key.
Up the trail; down the trail.
Six times.
Where did it go?
Swallowed by the earth.
Barely controlled panic.

I didn’t look for him.
No need.
I was calm.

My phone in the car.
A spare key as well.
A kind stranger helped.
Locked out–not the first time.

No spare spouse.
No replacement.
Alone–not the first time.

Valentine’s---get lost!
Be gone forever.
Take your red hearts
and sap.
Stab yourself with an arrow.

I lost my key.

I didn’t lose my mind.