They say you're only as old as you feel. Today, my face says 32, but my ass says pushing 70. A classmate suckered me into running in a long-distance relay across Westchester County to raise money, as one of the organizers put it, "for domestic violence issues." (I couldn't resist seizing the opportunity to be snarky, and yelled over the crowd of hundreds: "Wait... We're against it, right?")
My leg of the race was 8.5 miles on a mountain trail riddled with roots, boulders and, I shit you not, a pile of bear shit. (At least that's the story I'm telling people . . . bear shit has more dramatic effect than deer droppings). I got lost at one point because someone had flipped a directional arrow - in the vein of a 1980s summer camp movie where the camp of rich kids ultimately loses the battle-of-the-camps raft race to the poor kids camp (a ragtag bunch of loveable misfits) who ultimately prevail through their dogged ingenuity and good ol' fashioned luck.
A born-again city boy through and through, the outdoors are as foreign to me as the Sargasso Sea. My leg muscles, carved by pounding hard but predictably smooth pavement, not navigating steep climbs and naturally occurring obstacles, were thoroughly shocked by the dodging, weaving, bounding, pouncing and climbing that was required to survive running the steep slopes of Upper Appalachia. (And I had to keep up speed for fear of looking like a baby).
In the end, I burst out of the woods on to a bridge spanning a waterfall on the Hudson. If I had any breath left in me at that point, the view would have taken it.
At the bottom of the hill, I handed off the chip to Julie, a friend and soon-to-be-minted lawyer whose ass could drive men crazy enough to start a war, who bounded off on her route with a storm of eyeballs bouncing in her wake.
The car on the way back smelled like what we Georgians call "taint." Cracked windows helped, but could not dissipate that taint.
Today, I awoke with a burn in my legs . . . a sign that I busted ass. A sign that I'm getting old. On Wednesday, I turn 32. With an ass that will feel 70.
My leg of the race was 8.5 miles on a mountain trail riddled with roots, boulders and, I shit you not, a pile of bear shit. (At least that's the story I'm telling people . . . bear shit has more dramatic effect than deer droppings). I got lost at one point because someone had flipped a directional arrow - in the vein of a 1980s summer camp movie where the camp of rich kids ultimately loses the battle-of-the-camps raft race to the poor kids camp (a ragtag bunch of loveable misfits) who ultimately prevail through their dogged ingenuity and good ol' fashioned luck.
A born-again city boy through and through, the outdoors are as foreign to me as the Sargasso Sea. My leg muscles, carved by pounding hard but predictably smooth pavement, not navigating steep climbs and naturally occurring obstacles, were thoroughly shocked by the dodging, weaving, bounding, pouncing and climbing that was required to survive running the steep slopes of Upper Appalachia. (And I had to keep up speed for fear of looking like a baby).
In the end, I burst out of the woods on to a bridge spanning a waterfall on the Hudson. If I had any breath left in me at that point, the view would have taken it.
At the bottom of the hill, I handed off the chip to Julie, a friend and soon-to-be-minted lawyer whose ass could drive men crazy enough to start a war, who bounded off on her route with a storm of eyeballs bouncing in her wake.
The car on the way back smelled like what we Georgians call "taint." Cracked windows helped, but could not dissipate that taint.
Today, I awoke with a burn in my legs . . . a sign that I busted ass. A sign that I'm getting old. On Wednesday, I turn 32. With an ass that will feel 70.
happy birthday baby