Running, Jumping, Climbing Trees
First off I want to say that I just published something at work that contains a very sly and clever Thomas Pynchon reference (if I do say so myself) and that's all I can say about it, though if I am allowed to I want to put it on my friggin' résumé in years to come, I'm so pleased with myself. Somehow the boss didn't notice despite being a lit nerd, or if he noticed, he silently let it pass so I could have my fun.
Two Sundays ago, I went on a caving adventure. National Geographic apparently lists it as one of their 500 Trips of a Lifetime/To Do Before You Die/That Are Worth Spending Money On/Whatever. A group of my friends and I got on the tour bus from San Juan at 5:45 AM. Soon we were ziplining across a canyon and then rappelling 250 feet down a cliff/over open air down into one of the largest sinkholes in the world. Then we descended into an enormous cave system and underground river, and spent the day hiking/spelunking deep underground: slogging through knee-deep mud, bouldering, clambering over many a precarious crag and hill (mostly composed of ancient fossilized coral reefs), swimming the underground river, jumping off a crag and falling a couple stories to plunge into the underground river, eating lunch by candlelight in a gigantic cavern, admiring stalagmites that all looked like Cthulhu, and examining bats, gigantic spiders, and crabs from close up. After we made our way back and emerged into the sunlight, we had to hike back out of the sinkhole we'd rappelled into earlier. I came out completely soaked and waterlogged, covered in mud, and decorated with numerous cuts and bruises including a giant black bruise on my butt from falling down. The clothes I wore have been through the wash twice, including a vinegar wash, and still they may never be the same.
It was, in short, even more completely fucking awesome than you think it was after reading the above. I am kicking myself that I didn't know about this trip (which is led by two highly qualified spelunkers and trained cave rescuers who have also got their comedy routine/patter down cold) when thewronghands was here, as she'd dig it the most. But it's just as well since the trips are on Sundays and that was the day thewronghands (and Macki) were flying out and we wouldn't have been back in time, I don't think. Plus Sunday was when Natasha had her accident, so either we would've missed the trip and forfeited a large sum of money or we'd have left the house at 5:00 in the morning without figuring out what had happened and Natasha would maybe be dead now.
Natasha is all better now, by the way. She has adapted well to life at my parents' and my sister is taking great care of her. When I get paid on Friday I'm booking a trip to SF for the first weekend in June (notate bene, dudes) and I'm not sure whether or not I'll want to bring her back with me at that time, she's doing so well. Boris is doing well, too: cabin-feverish like whoa, but his checkup last week went well and the vet made an appointment for late April, at which time it looks like the pins will start being removed from his leg. He's still got a long way to go on his road to recovery, but he's doing great considering.
ANYway, two days ago, a week after the cave adventure, I completed my first 10K race after training for just over seven weeks. When registering, I estimated my time at 1:10. I ended up beating that time by a good two and a half minutes. It was insane -- there were nearly eight thousand people participating, from a superelite group of the best runners in the world (read: Kenyans; the female winner finished a few seconds over 31:00) to a ginormous rear guard of walkers. The starting line equaled threading 8,000 people through the toll gate of a bridge. Yeah. In fact my finish time is more than seven minutes more than my net time because 7+ minutes is how long it took just to get to the actual starting line from how far back I was in the crowd as we all slowly shuffled forward through the bottleneck of the bridge entrance. Though the crowd was in a great mood, it seemed relatively subdued: I hear that in prior years there've been people on stilts participating, wacky costumes, spectators handing you beers as you run by, etc., and this year save for a few wacky costumes there wasn't too much of the Bay to Breakers feel about it or anything. I still had fun though, and as a participant I have a ridiculously blingy medal to show for it which now lives at my desk at work along with my bib.
67.5 minutes is not stellar, but I think I did pretty darn well for having done this as a couch-to-10K. I hadn't gone running at all in Puerto Rico prior to mid-January. (The key is going at dusk so the heat doesn't kill me. Actually I guess the key is waiting until the absolute dead of winter since dusk in August is still intolerable.) I owe it to (a) following a novice 10K training schedule and (b) spending several hours before the race assembling a playlist by BPM, selecting songs with 9:30 to 10:00 mile times. (I walked twice during the 10K, which threw off those times.)
I am keeping up with exercising, since I've been feeling great and have more self-esteem too. I jogged 4 miles tonight and helloooo Jell-O legs. Hopefully I really will keep up with this; as motivation, I figure I'll register for another 10K coming up in May. (The one that's less than three weeks away is maybe a little *too* soon.)
At any rate, I'm proud to say that my blazingly fast 10:51 average mile time is my fastest average mile of any of the races I've done to date, namely a 4-miler in 2007 and two 5Ks, one each in 2007 and 2008. 10:51 beats my previous best, which I achieved in the 2007 5K -- and I'm currently 10 pounds heavier than I was then, and I ran twice as far!
So, yeah, woohoo for slow-ass joggers with love handles. I showed up in hand-me-down gym shorts and an oversized plain cotton tank top, both poached from my sisters, carrying a water bottle that's seen better days and keeping the excess length of my Shuffle's earbud cord from swinging in my face the whole time by stuffing it down my sports bra. Needless to say, I viewed all the runners in their designer shoes, shoe-to-iPod transmitter thingies, high-tech, form-fitting clothing, and complicated water pouches with scorn. Because, dude, it's just a 10K. What, like it's hard?
Two Sundays ago, I went on a caving adventure. National Geographic apparently lists it as one of their 500 Trips of a Lifetime/To Do Before You Die/That Are Worth Spending Money On/Whatever. A group of my friends and I got on the tour bus from San Juan at 5:45 AM. Soon we were ziplining across a canyon and then rappelling 250 feet down a cliff/over open air down into one of the largest sinkholes in the world. Then we descended into an enormous cave system and underground river, and spent the day hiking/spelunking deep underground: slogging through knee-deep mud, bouldering, clambering over many a precarious crag and hill (mostly composed of ancient fossilized coral reefs), swimming the underground river, jumping off a crag and falling a couple stories to plunge into the underground river, eating lunch by candlelight in a gigantic cavern, admiring stalagmites that all looked like Cthulhu, and examining bats, gigantic spiders, and crabs from close up. After we made our way back and emerged into the sunlight, we had to hike back out of the sinkhole we'd rappelled into earlier. I came out completely soaked and waterlogged, covered in mud, and decorated with numerous cuts and bruises including a giant black bruise on my butt from falling down. The clothes I wore have been through the wash twice, including a vinegar wash, and still they may never be the same.
It was, in short, even more completely fucking awesome than you think it was after reading the above. I am kicking myself that I didn't know about this trip (which is led by two highly qualified spelunkers and trained cave rescuers who have also got their comedy routine/patter down cold) when thewronghands was here, as she'd dig it the most. But it's just as well since the trips are on Sundays and that was the day thewronghands (and Macki) were flying out and we wouldn't have been back in time, I don't think. Plus Sunday was when Natasha had her accident, so either we would've missed the trip and forfeited a large sum of money or we'd have left the house at 5:00 in the morning without figuring out what had happened and Natasha would maybe be dead now.
Natasha is all better now, by the way. She has adapted well to life at my parents' and my sister is taking great care of her. When I get paid on Friday I'm booking a trip to SF for the first weekend in June (notate bene, dudes) and I'm not sure whether or not I'll want to bring her back with me at that time, she's doing so well. Boris is doing well, too: cabin-feverish like whoa, but his checkup last week went well and the vet made an appointment for late April, at which time it looks like the pins will start being removed from his leg. He's still got a long way to go on his road to recovery, but he's doing great considering.
ANYway, two days ago, a week after the cave adventure, I completed my first 10K race after training for just over seven weeks. When registering, I estimated my time at 1:10. I ended up beating that time by a good two and a half minutes. It was insane -- there were nearly eight thousand people participating, from a superelite group of the best runners in the world (read: Kenyans; the female winner finished a few seconds over 31:00) to a ginormous rear guard of walkers. The starting line equaled threading 8,000 people through the toll gate of a bridge. Yeah. In fact my finish time is more than seven minutes more than my net time because 7+ minutes is how long it took just to get to the actual starting line from how far back I was in the crowd as we all slowly shuffled forward through the bottleneck of the bridge entrance. Though the crowd was in a great mood, it seemed relatively subdued: I hear that in prior years there've been people on stilts participating, wacky costumes, spectators handing you beers as you run by, etc., and this year save for a few wacky costumes there wasn't too much of the Bay to Breakers feel about it or anything. I still had fun though, and as a participant I have a ridiculously blingy medal to show for it which now lives at my desk at work along with my bib.
67.5 minutes is not stellar, but I think I did pretty darn well for having done this as a couch-to-10K. I hadn't gone running at all in Puerto Rico prior to mid-January. (The key is going at dusk so the heat doesn't kill me. Actually I guess the key is waiting until the absolute dead of winter since dusk in August is still intolerable.) I owe it to (a) following a novice 10K training schedule and (b) spending several hours before the race assembling a playlist by BPM, selecting songs with 9:30 to 10:00 mile times. (I walked twice during the 10K, which threw off those times.)
I am keeping up with exercising, since I've been feeling great and have more self-esteem too. I jogged 4 miles tonight and helloooo Jell-O legs. Hopefully I really will keep up with this; as motivation, I figure I'll register for another 10K coming up in May. (The one that's less than three weeks away is maybe a little *too* soon.)
At any rate, I'm proud to say that my blazingly fast 10:51 average mile time is my fastest average mile of any of the races I've done to date, namely a 4-miler in 2007 and two 5Ks, one each in 2007 and 2008. 10:51 beats my previous best, which I achieved in the 2007 5K -- and I'm currently 10 pounds heavier than I was then, and I ran twice as far!
So, yeah, woohoo for slow-ass joggers with love handles. I showed up in hand-me-down gym shorts and an oversized plain cotton tank top, both poached from my sisters, carrying a water bottle that's seen better days and keeping the excess length of my Shuffle's earbud cord from swinging in my face the whole time by stuffing it down my sports bra. Needless to say, I viewed all the runners in their designer shoes, shoe-to-iPod transmitter thingies, high-tech, form-fitting clothing, and complicated water pouches with scorn. Because, dude, it's just a 10K. What, like it's hard?