I am three full days removed from the absurdity of running 16.3 miles at various points around the clock and my legs are slowly beginning to forgive me. It was tough love—and even though it hurt like hell during the process, our relationship is stronger now. Since Saturday, I’ve had the opportunity on several occasions to describe the relay experience to friends and family and each time I’ve fallen short. It’s like one of those you-had-to-there moments that isn’t funny or entertaining in the retelling, unless you are speaking to someone who was there. So even though I can tell anyone who will listen about how I nearly died trying to keep up with Speedy Smurf, only my comrades of Van 2 will really understand the uphill (literally and figuratively) battle I was fighting.
It got me thinking…why is nearly everyone on Team Beer Run already planning on doing this crazy exercise again next year? The answer, I believe, is answered in a question posed by George Eliot that I keep on my desk at work: What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? Sure we don’t need to do it, but 183 miles is something tangible yet impossible to do nonstop without the help of a couple vanloads of friends. And as much as it sucked, the shared feeling of accomplishment outweighed anything potentially negative. I could have been attacked by a pack of hungry raccoons and probably still thought it was one of the best, craziest, most entertaining weekends of my life. Of course I’d have to get some shots for distemper, but a day or two later I’d be laughing about the experience…and showing off the bite marks.
So, with that in mind, I’m offering up ten of my favorite, errr…most memorable, moments on the trail—in no particular order—with minimal description. The members of Team Beer Run, and especially Van 2, will understand. To anyone else reading this…sorry, you kinda had to be there.
1. Man at the Avis Counter: “Are you all coworkers?” Chach: “Ssuuuuurrre.”
2. Checking my Blackberry every two minutes during the USC-Oregon State game, thinking there had to be something wrong with it. (Go Beavers!)
3. Getting my ass handed to me by one of those Ultra runners.
4. My heels not touching the pavement for a quarter mile while trying to defend against nipple chafing.
5. Ryan: “Hey Blake, want some blueberry crepes this morning?” Blake: “Bluauauaha!! You shut your whore mouth!”
6. Getting my ass handed to me by a 12-year-old boy dressed like Marilyn Monroe.
7. Driving to the last exchange point and having the manager of Dixie Liquor hand me her business card and tell me that, “We do kegs!”
8. Mutant Mountain Gnats.
9. Getting my ass handed to me by Usain Bolt posing as a white dude on an opposing team.
10. Beating the Smurfs.
Run On, Beer Run…Run On.
RJK
