Picture of the Month Part 5

Here is my racing jersey from Living History Farm:

Please note the stain on the lower right side of the image created by a rusted safety pin. Let me zoom in:

I really think this is in need of a caption!!

Catastrophy at Creek Crossing

Thanks to D, I got a few images of my run. She was actually able to see me this year and was able to get pics before the race:

Coach Schwartz taught me this trick...use old (clean) socks as mittens so that if you don't want them any more, you can just pitch 'em. I actually cut off the toes so they could be used as disposable arm warmers too. Quite handy as you will see later in the race...after the "fall" I no longer have them with me!

got florescence?

During the race around mile 5...before the fall:

after the fall at another creek crossing:

Note any similarities?

at the finish:

Great facial expressions!

after the race:

Too bad you can't tell that I'm soaked to the bone in this pic but at least we've documented how dorky I look when my hat rides up onto the top of my head.

Here is the bruise/welt I got from the creek crossing. Not as impressive...lose some of the color and gore when translated to film...but you get the idea.

I am so lucky to have such a supportive partner.

Aus.

Log roll through a creek crossing

I survived my second trip to "Living History Farms XC race." I did take a dive, literally, into one of the final creek crossings around mile 5. Not only did I trip over a competitor but I did it face first into a creek with thousands of spectators applauding my "entry". Now, this was no little stumble, this was a full out, legs out from under me, smack my shin (the good one) on a jagged moss covered rock, barrel roll...twice, head under water...fall. When I actually got my head above water again, I gasped...not because I needed the oxygen, but because the water was freezing. I then picked myself up and proceeded to claw (for real, I dug my fingers into the bosom of the earth) up two mud banks all the while thinking, "I might actually freeze, mid-stride, into an ice sculpture." Needless to say, I finished and limped straight for warm/dry cloths. After some quality time with a heating pad and a shower, I checked my body over for signs of the fall. I have a monster bruise/welt on my shin just below my knee, a baby bruise on mid shin, and two bruises on my back. Awesome. Despite the log roll, this years race was a lot more fun. I did start at the "front" of the race and didn't have to spend much time walking at all...which allowed me to better my time from last year.
I finished the 7+ mile race in
55:18
With that time I placed:
390th out of the 6670 total finishers
29th out of the 3180 female finishers
6th out of the 434 women in the 30-34 age group.

I will post pics as soon as I can.
Aus!

This month on animal spot light

We have here the story of Lucky (the dog) and Misty (the cat). Too damn cute not to get my attention!!

Living History Farm attempt number 2

Tomorrow I am going to do the living history farms xc race. This is the same race I did two years ago that set into motion my re-entry into running. I'm excited about trying to better my time this year. That should be somewhat easy as the last time I ran it, if you recall, I started the race with the Bloody Mary drinkers and ended up walking for the first mile of the "race." This year I intend to plant my ass at the head of the pack so as to not get sucked into the one mile penguin march that happened last time. D, Odin and I will leave tonight and head to Des Moines for the race. We plan to stay there until Tuesday as a "mini" vacation away from IC. I'm looking forward to that as time to plunge into my dissertation data. All in all, I think the upcoming Thanksgiving break will be a productive and much needed reprieve from all my other responsibilities.
That's all I got,
Aus.

I'm in procrasta

Not only is it a nation, but it is a way of life. I have been up sense 5:30 and have nothing to show for it. I need to write...but I find myself distracted...by anything.
Mostly by memories. Memories of high school.
It's funny that while I was in HS, adults told me that HS would be the time of my life, that I would look back on it with fondness. I usually gave those adults the bird (when they weren't looking). And now I find myself reminiscing. Yeah, I know it wasn't all roses, but hell, it was a time of freedom, I mean...with the exception of curfews and chores (love you mom) and there was also that utter confusion about my sexual orientation and the continual fight for popularity (a battle I lost miserably). How is it, that at the time I was consumed in darkness and sadness but can still look back on those four years and miss it. Miss the people, the familiarity of the BHS halls, the routine, the streets, the tiny sphere of existence that we roamed as our own realm. Perhaps it is that I miss, the feeling of having some sort of dominion, a space that "we" owned. And we did, we owned it. We might not have agreed, we ran our own ways, we fought, loved, and hated but we did it together. Perhaps that is it. The feeling of belonging, even though throughout high school I always felt like and outsider, I guess that was my role in the whole. So when I look back on it all, I see if for the bigger picture...and I miss it, I miss the whole. I miss all of you.

I gotta work
Aus

some kind of not swine sickness

I feel as though today is the first day of "normal" I've had in about a week. I've been somewhat under-the-weather for the last 7 days with a veritable cornucopia of symptoms. Nausea-no vomiting, splitting head ache, 96 degree temperature (?!), more nausea no vomiting and then finally, Saturday night, I blew chunks for miles. It was horrible. It was that puke that you wait for because you're so nauseous that you actually contemplate taking something to knock you out but resist the urge because that might result in something either very messy or very deadly (e.g., Jimi Hendrix). So I waited. Finally after hours of dry heaves, the vomit fairy showed up. I managed to make it to the toilet and proceeded to toss my cookies. This actually lasted long enough that I thought I might suffocate because I couldn't stop long enough to get a breath in. Beautiful. I finally finished, and rested my head. You know your sick when it's perfectly alright to lay your face on the same surface that's played home to bare naked ass. Fantastic. I vaguely remember addressing D in the darkness of the bathroom (as she literally held my hair out of the line of fire) with the ever so pleasant,
"I got some in my eye."
So, I got that going for me, which is nice.
Aus.