Western Wobble
It was a full day of silliness from morning until night…
At 6:20 a.m. Boy Wonder kicked me from my contented snuggle with the comforter to tell me we had overslept. The Montrail Fun Run was slated to begin at 6:45 clear on the other side of town. This run, held in conjunction with the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show, is always a hoot.
Montrail, an adventure and trail running shoe company, provides title sponsorship; Jet Boil brews up some fine post-race gourmet coffee on their innovative rapid boil camp stoves and supplies the necessary powdered donuts to go with the brew; Nathan, a pack company for people who run far enough to carry things, gives out some fine schwag; and the sports drink companies make sure you’re peeing clear. It’s all in the name of marketing, but that doesn’t diminish any of the fun.
This year’s theme was “Western”. Costumes were encouraged, but we barely had time to shimmy into singlet shorts. We cornered our buggy on two wheels as we drove across town, skidded to a halt, slammed the doors, and rapidly strided the last 20 paces to the starting line just as an old codger wearing a red union suit and chaps fired the starting gun. We’d completely missed the warm up. Out of the box, we tried to catch up to our friend Bill, who’d obviously given us up for dead. We could see him running a blistering pace near the front of the pack, but our bodies refused to match it, much as we spurred them on. Ooomph. What a kick in the face! By the first dusty uphill, I felt like someone had taken a branding iron to my lungs.
Luckily, as a posse of us mounted the rise, I spied the first of the three challenge stations where we’d be required to stop and play some sort of game (take a breather, more like). What would this year’s challenges be? A hand-written poster propped against the closer of two silver buckets gave me my answer: Manure Toss. Now, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t real manure…but it looked pretty real as I peered into the first bucket and grabbed a handful. The second bucket suddenly looked quite far away. It took me four tries to land a lump in the bucket. After doing so, I sped away, over foothills that I know like the back of my hand, leaving Boy Wonder to shoot the shit a bit longer. He eventually succeeded on his ninth try.
When I pulled up to the second challenge, I was forced to wait in a line six deep for my chance to fire a bb gun at a tin pie plate. Meanwhile, Boy Wonder dropped back into line behind me. My limited experience with winter biathlon has taught me that you take your time aiming, and you always hit the target on your first shot.
The gun was placed in my hands, I cocked the spring load, buried the stock in my shoulder, took aim, and after a dramatic pause, pulled the trigger. The sharp twang of aluminum signaled victory. I earned a cheer from the crowd. Above all else, I heard some cowboy holler, “I LUUUURVE A WOMAN WHO KIN SHOOOOT!” That made me smile.
I tore up the hillside, away to the roost, where I ran smack into the robbers… Our friend Bill, hot on the tail of some fast filly, had already rounded the far turnaround (where lay the third task) and was bustin’ back toward the finish line. Unbelievable for him to be so far ahead, considering he’s no faster than I am on most days... “HEY, DID YOU SKIP THE SHOOTIN’?” I admonished. Turns out he and many of the other unsportsmanlike leaders had. Spoilsports. Or at least, they were taking it all way too seriously...
Finally warmed up, I made good time across the hardened flats to reach the bean spitting challenge, the easiest yet. I flubbed it completely. Despite the fact you were allowed to stand right over the spittoon, my uncoordinated lips couldn’t spit worth a peephole in the barn. It took me two tries.
I ran back to the ranch next to some drunkard fresh out of the saloon, who proceeded to ask me how old I was and to tell me he liked running behind women with nice bums. Hey now… What kind of a race were we running here? The cowboys were gettin’ fresh and mine was too far back to fight for my honor. Time to take the canter to a gallop! (Turns out the rogue works for the Chicago Press and was covering the Trade Show. Sheesh. And my cowboy was only a a pie plate shot back, truth be told, but he missed the exchange completely.)
I kicked my heels high as I passed over the line and then turned in my hard-earned raffle tickets from the three challenges. When I found out the fast filly Bill had been chasing had won the overall women’s race, some silly niggle in the back of my head rationalized that if I had I skipped the challenges like her… Nah! Cheatin’s fer outlaws! So I was mildly amused when they handed over the grand prize: a bag of pure steer manure. Our Marshall in the chaps and union suit claimed that “they wanted to let their winners know that they gave a shit!”
Hee hee.
We gobbled some grub and traveled back home to prepare for the next event of the day, Apollo’s Big Swim in the Convention Center Pool. More on that when I check out the pics and feel like writin’ about it.