Costumes, continued: Long vs. Short Pants

Of course, long pants protect us more but are by and large boring and hot. The main advantage to short pants is the art work on your legs at the end of your time. Scratches, gashes, blood, bumps, mud and extraneous bike grease patterns bring Jackson Pollack to mind. A private sweetness for me is the dowsing of the tenderized flesh with good old isopropyl. As I squeal with seizing waves, the exquisite blooms paint the inside of my skull. Maybe it's adrenaline, I do not know, but is is not for the faint of heart.
However, my top short pants dilemma came not as a racer but as a volunteer for Stephanie Ross's Sheltowee Extreme '09 36-hour traverse of at least nine southern states. Stephanie was very conscientious with the volunteers, trying to keep us moving to different venues with sleep time, tents and the like. Partner Bob and I had several jobs and settings, but one was beechside for a semi-manned checkpoint. Even in the middle of the night, I took my job seriously and wanted to be on hand in case someone's arms and legs were falling off or they had a harpoon puncture. Turns out my personal naked legs were harpooned by M.F.ing seed ticks, approximately 4000 times. They apparently crawled up my relatively motionless legs and had a feast fit for royalty. Seed ticks, nearly microscopic, kept me itching with a wire brush for a week or more, way beyond the drawing of blood, to the point of visiting a clinic for a distemper shot laced with sleepwishes. I was forced to not work for fear of hammering my own hands or someone else's window panes. I took pink pills. I used 25 year old athletes foot cream which, in retrospect, may have been a mistake. My skin actually did reach flashpoint and burned off what little clothing I could wear. I then chose more conventional salves and cold showers. Katy's description of my lower half (waist to toes) did involve the use of the word "hideous" which, somehow, did not get me all sexed up.
A few weeks later, having caught up on sleep, to some degree, I did a TOPO adventure race at East Fork Lake in southwestern Ohio, where a nurse happened to be womanning one of the checkpoints. After a few questions I felt fairly reassured that I did not have Lyme disease, but over 6 months later, I still had enough bite scars to be able to identify all of the constellations in the Southern Hemisphere.
My conclusion about volunteering is that one needs to keep moving. This year I will help Stephanie during her 48 hour Sheltowee Extreme wearing four hazmat suits individually duct-taped at ankles, wrists and face, and when not actually doing something important I will run in place. I have already started my endurance training so that I can stay in constant motion for at least 48 hours.
To conclude, I would like to say, "Watch your panties!"

Yours,

The One Who Strives for Mediocrity

Sheltowee Extreme South 2010

Okay Racers,
We made it through Stephanie Ross's Sheltowee South. How crazy was that? When we entered the Beaver's Creek they immediately began a quiet gnawing of our medula oblongatas and whatever cranial lobe they thought interesting. Those Beavers created hallucinations, shape shifting trails and disappearing feeder creeks. The pinnacle CP (14, I believe) was findable but was a classic up-hill battle. Joe, of Team Race-COAR, and I traded leads, thrashing our way through. We bled, we grunted, I whined, we finally saw big stone and hoped it was a pinnacle. We skirted around and CP 14 was found. We did not die or leave limbs behind in the rhodo tangle. I felt fine. When we found an easier way back down we found ourselves somewhere in the Ozarks. Most of our group of six took a bus back to the trail while Kathy Jo and I swam our way back through stunningly beautiful rock formations and cool water. I felt sublime. We were all glad to reconnect with the trail of Babel. I would like to say more and more about our Beaver Creek experiences but it is all very blurry. Basically, for my partner Rob and me, it consisted of wandering about in a cloud trying to keep the comforting tender mumbling of the Beave close to our hearts, getting testy with one another, listening to the birdies establishing themselves, trying to decipher the lumps and bumps in the trailway/waterway and eventually experiencing the release of the Beave's tenacious choppers as dawn surrounded us with its loving arms.
Let us regress as the Beaver progressed to the South Fork of the Cumberland River. A more picturesque waterway I have not paddled. Rock formations, worlds beyond any human sculpture, rapids to make me squeal and laugh and yell, and a Duck Rock that gave us the most fun of the day. Getting dumped was just plain fun and funny. Rob and I giggled as we emptied our boat and collected ourselves. I would love to say more about the paddling but I can only say that it is inside me and feeds my heart, as do all the hardships and hard shit that we encountered throughout the race.
Speaking of hard! This sonofabitch was hard! Made even more so by the fact that the Beave was supposed to be a daytime trek but was dramatically altered when some Pin-Headed Bureaucrat, who had had the race plans in his possession for several months waited till the eleventh f-ing hour to tell Stephanie "you can't go in there." Thus a total redo of the 24 hour and a completely new 6 hour. Stephanie did not go on about it too awful much because, I suspect, that, as an attorney, she knew she would be an accomplice to murder or at least a sound thrashing if she let slip the Pin-Head's identity. In any event, it worked out well for Rob and me as we didn't feel burdened by all those extra checkpoints. It was gift enough just to wander and wonder about them. Plus we got a chance to deal with and laugh about our testy behaviors.
Okay, let us not fail to mention CP 10 (CP 7 in the 6 hour). We had it plotted somewhere out by the end of the Earth. Before one reaches the END, one must apparently need to go through one Hellacious Gauntlet. We were all clubbed, kicked, stabbed, whipped, burned and treated to other forms of meanness I cannot describe. What we needed was either a collection of mice or parakeets who could move about at will, report back to us and teleport our corporeal selves to the punch and back. Stephanie said that after setting this CP she had a relatively easy walk out to the road. She either levitates, or is a pathological liar. Since Rob and I had already crapped up CP 8, it wasn't too difficult to let go of 10 after 20 minutes or so of flagrant foul treatment. Four days later, I continue to laugh about it.
The 2010 Sheltowee South was my first 24 hour. Halfway through, in the quiet of twilight, I was convinced it would be may last. Now I am not so sure. It truly was one Hellacious good race, one Hellacious good experience. A bunch of very impressive humans really put themselves out there. This is good.

Yours,

Bill Donnelly
The One Who Strives for Mediocrity

Costumes

Racers,

I feel the need to address the concept of costume. Many, including my own, at times, border on being nondescript. In the colder weather, although necessary, long pants lack. Black lacks. Tan lacks. For one race, I did manage a splash of panty color with a multi-hued speedo over my aging black tights, to hold them up. The speedo also kept up my spirits over the course of the 12 hours on the steeps of southeastern Ohio. The NSF boys beat me up on the course, but did not offer a costume award. (My partner, Rob, did win a door prize, and his jacket was at least a sort of gold/orange.)

For a multi-faceted adventure race, the costume is extremely important because of the various situations: wheels, water, woods, boats, rocks, foliage. At times, the proper costume can bring the environment right out of the crapper (e.g. gray road, gray day . . . floral costume, Voila!) Remember, it is not uncommon to lose a drably hued partner due to invisibility. When going solo, it is even more important to punch up your outfit or you run the risk of losing yourself during the race -- getting confused about your existence. Once, during an 18 hour Mission race put on by DINO in Indiana, I lost two hours, thoroughly believing I was a maple tree, waiting in stillness to be tapped for my sap. Someone actually did tap me and I almost crapped in my trunk, but I did get the message. Still, I had a hell of a time pulling myself free from my roots and then heading on to the next C.P.

A secondary issue is the practicality of costume. Irritating seams go on the outside. Bicycle padding should be minimal. I've made several mistakes in the padding department. At one point, my favorite pair of shorts was falling apart. The pad was coming loose and grinding its way toward tenders and bones, so I did a practice run in a finely tuned red pair. Alas, the run was not a long enough test. During the race I was rubbing raw what little I possess in the privacy department. That night after the race, a cold hose shower with what must have been muriatic acid instead of soap brought me to gasps and shrieks and fits of insane laughter. I slept little for days upon days.

My worst occurred during a triathlon turned duathlon. The great Ohio River was too polluted to swim. (It's actually been scientifically proven that after Cincinnati's yearly Paddlefest the paddle blades are 6% smaller and have ragged edges.) I had been inspired by a past duathlon where the winner was wearing a slick bib short, finishing the race as I was starting the second run less than a week behind him. So, for the du, I wore this low end bib that had a pad designed for pole sitting or bronco riding or attempting to fool the world as to one's personal endowment. I truly noticed irritation early in the second run. By the finish I had lost 12% body mass due to erosion, however, my tears turned to joy when I realized I had taken 2nd in my age group. I was fairly certain there were only two of us 55-59 years old, but, by gum, I earned it. I felt good enough to ignore the custom of costume change after performance. That night was very bad. I whimpered as I showered. I knew not what to do. I walked as if I had ridden the Fiery Horse From Hell for One Thousand Miles. The next night, after more symptoms had set in, my partner, Katy, and I went into crying fits of laughter as my tiny weenis had morphed into an Amanita Muscaria, a fairly poisonous but supposedly hallucinogenic mushroom. Folklore says that ancient tribesmen (being men of course) would force their women to eat the panic button-like Amanita Muscaria, whereupon they would get sick as dogs. Then the men would drink the women's urine to attain a high beyond the mountains and skies. I aligned with the women who got the very short straw in this deal, but for a week or two, Katy and I did have nightly fits of merriment over my mutant member and his feisty little brothers. Remember your essence.

The One Who Strives for Mediocrity