How Did I Get Here?

Quote of the Day: “Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better.”

I Squaked today.

That means I ran up and down Squak Mountain.

Well, OK, I hiked up it and ran down it, if you want to split hairs.

It took me 1 hour and 11 minutes to hike up it but take into account that I had to stop many times to clear branches from the path. There has been a lot of wind here lately and I suspect I might be one of the few people who have wandered up Squak Mountain for awhile.

Either that or those other lazy bastards didn’t bother to move the fallen branches. 10% of the people doing 90% of the work holds up in the civilian sector too, I guess.

You know, two things always happen whenever I start this hike/run.

1. I feel some odd confidence that I am going to hike up with no effort and not feel like the mass of my lungs have collapsed and fallen down to my ass.

2. It feels like the mass of my lungs have collapsed and fallen down to my ass.

There is one particular spot that is really steep and I lunge toward it as some kind of twisted tradition. This particular tree is about as thick as my arm and splits at the base, creating a “V.” I stop there, place both hands on either branch as I heave air in and out, look downhill into the thick foliage below, and say “Hi, V.”

Every time.

I also look for it on the way back when I’m shredding my quads trying to keep from falling down the steep downhill and trying to keep my footing.

“HEYVEE….” as I shoot by.

Again, I don’t know why this is. It just is.

There were not very many people around, as I stated, but I did run into a lady, her kid, and a dog on the way up and then two ladies toward the halfway point. I always announce my presence as far away as I can so I don’t frighten people by running up on them in the middle of nowhere. Especially women. A big, lunging, heavy-breathing man with his collapsed lungs in his ass cannot be too comfortable to be surprised by (that is the most passive-voiced, effed-up sentence I’ve written in awhile.)

After I rested a bit at the top (re-inflated my lungs, ate another GU, reset my iPhone and watch, reveled in the thought of running downhill for 40 minutes), I headed down and expected to see the two hikers coming the way I had just ran by on the way up.

I didn’t see them. They must have taken a side path. But what I did see was not pretty.

On the way down, I have to keep my head down a little to watch the path. I am running downhill so I have to watch where my feet go and am usually concentrating about 10 feet in front of me to pick a path that won’t twist my ankle. I am literally thinking about 5 steps ahead.

So when I first glanced at this hiker in the distance, I took in the general situation.. backpack, hiking poles, high-tech hiking clothes, not the same person I saw coming up. And then it was head back down to watch my path and I didn’t look up again until I was right up on her, ready to give a quick “good morning” as I ran by.

When my head came up, I got a glance at an elderly woman pulling up her hiking trousers over old-lady underwear and an embarrassed, old, grizzled face looking at me.

Luckily I ran by quickly before I could take in too much of this unfortunate scene and before the embarrassing moment could linger.

But what has been seen cannot be unseen, people.

As much as you would like it to be, the fact remains.

Luckily running down a mountain requires constantly shifting attention and I did not linger on what I had just seen, making it down to the bottom of the mountain in about 40 minutes.

Me, of all people, know that there are certain biological necessities out on the trails. Hell, I piss in the woods all the time and yes, there have been a greater need on occasion (tip: always bring TP with you if you don’t want to end up running back with only one sock (tip within a tip))… but at least go off-trail to take care of the business. Even when shitting on snakes.

Especially if the business includes dropping trou and you are like 100 years old. I mean, you have the entire woods! Walk out 5 feet and you are covered so was it really necessary to subject me to visions not even the strongest mental floss can erase and make me feel like some kind of AARPervert?

I’ve seen the future and I repeat, what has been seen cannot be unseen.

I’m going to go finish my 100th set of dry heaves now…

Free Advice for Today: “Buy an inexpensive Polaroid camera. Sometimes you don’t want to wait even an hour to see the pictures.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.