four year old cliff bar and one ugly girl

saturday was one of those days when nothing quite worked out. i really wanted to go for a unicycle/backpack test hike [after all, my trip is less than one week away, and i am still not used to carrying such a heavy pack]. it was about 8am when i woke up and by the time 9 rolled around i was still thinking about things. the clouds started building up and the sky was getting a bit dark. i decided to bail on the unicycle plan because my back pack wasn't filled. i still had my tent unrolled and hanging in the garage, and my sleeping bag unrolled in the living room. not that i really needed these to go on a hike, but i wanted the real load to be in my pack so i could get used to it. besides, my unicycle was just washed and it needed to be lubed real bad. so no unicycling for me today.

next on the list of options was mountain biking. unfortunately the chain on my mountain bike was full of dirt and almost frozen in its last position. i really can't ride it until someone [me] cleans it. also, i wasn't going to mention this, but my camelbak really needed to be cleaned, and i didn't feel like doing it that morning.

in case you haven't noticed, it seems that my god given talent to procrastinate, is playing another roll in my day, where nothing "works" out. i suppose it would be a much more shocking and interesting story if something did work out despite the lack of preparation and unfinished tasks.

last on my list of options was trail running. the only real piece of equipment i need for this, is running shoes and running shorts. i managed to find a pair of shoes, and barely found a pair of clean shorts, but it all "worked" out and i was almost ready to go. i needed some food because i didn't eat any breakfast yet, and i was pretty hungry. i rifled through some of the cabinets and found a cliff bar. i was a little surprised to find the flavor that i had in my hand, because it was a flavor that i used to like a while back, but i finally got sick of it. but i was in a hurry, and this was food and i was hungry. i decided that i would just make it work!

i put everything into my car and drove off to the trail head. i opened my mysterious cliffbar, and took a big bite out of it. first of all it was really difficult to bite into, i should have noticed that, but i kept going. i actually tore off a chunk and started chewing it. it tasted really bad, but i also remembered that i got tired of the taste a long time ago, that's why i stopped buying them. for the last five years or so i have been buying cliff bars every chance i got. i eat them so much, i don't even consider them food anymore. they are just something i put into my stomach so my stomach will have something to do while i am exercising. i get no enjoyment out of these things anymore. so when i was eating this one this morning, i knew i didn't like the taste anyway, so it wasn't really a big enough red-flag that this one cliff bar i pulled out the back of the cabinet tasted horrible. i actually took a few more bites and almost finished half of the bar, before i became suspicious. i looked at the wrapper and noticed that the bar will expire on april second.... hmmm, i wonder what year. wait a minute! that's not april second, it april 2002! yuk! i spit out what i was chewing and hid the rest of the bar from my sight, and tried to drink a ton of water to wash it all down. i read somewhere that water actually helps flush out any bacteria that was consumed from expired food....ok, i'm lying, i just made that up so i wouldn't feel so icky.

i made it to the trail head, and wasn't feeling any side effects from the four year old cliff, but it was raining. it wasn't just a little rain, it was quite a bit, and it even had a little hail mixed in. i love running in the rain. it is on of my favorite things to do, however running in hail is a whole different matter. hail really hurts! i've been caught in a hail a few times and it was not a pleasant experience. the worst part about hail, is that you don't know if it is going to get bigger, or how long it's going to last.

back to my story:
it looked like the hail was going to stop so i started to get ready. by the time i was done, the hail had stopped and only a light rain was coming down. this was good enough for me, so i went for it. this trail had a lot of long uphill sections and the middle miles are pretty technical. i was moving along at a pretty good pace by the time i got to those middle miles. i was running up the technical part, when two mountain bikes were heading down. i let one bike have the right-of-away, even though i know runners/hikers [people on foot] have the right-of-way. the first biker went ahead, and the second biker stayed at the top, and motioned me to go ahead. he also said [at least this is what i think i heard him say],"go ahead girl". heh..... picture this: i have a really bad 5 o'clock shadow, i have a sole patch to go with the shadow, i have really hairy legs, and i am not built like a girl! i don't think i am fat enough to have man-breast yet, which may confuse someone, with bad eyesight. i can't even imagine how ugly i would look as a girl. this threw me off for a few miles, i just couldn't fathom someone confusing me for a girl. this is probably this first time since i was an infant. even then it looked pretty clear to me.

it was actually a really good run, seven and one half miles, lots of climbing, a little bit of rain, and one really bad stomach ache. by the time i got home i had forgotten about the bad food, and the whole girl thing was so wrong it wasn't even worth telling anyone. i don't know why i am writing about it [?].


i'd better hurry and finish this post, tonight's temperature is going to be in the thirties, and i want to sleep outside one more time before my trip.

later