Detroit Muddy Buddy 2010

This race was my first and, due to over a month of extreme weather and longer work shifts, I was grossly unprepared in my training. I was, however, very excited. My cousins, Scott and Don, had raced together in Elgin's Muddy Buddy the previous two years and Scott had raced in Detroit's once before with his local Buddy, Mike. Scott and Mike, this year, raced together as the Grubby Hubbies while Don and I teamed up as Team Ripley. My two goals were to finish and to be coherent – having seen how wiped out Scott and Don were after their first Muddy Buddy, this was an important goal!
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Muddy Buddy: there's you and then your Buddy with a bike between you. One person bikes most of the way, the other runs most of the way; you switch who has the bike at each obstacle. You start about a minute and a half apart, the bikers before the runners, and you have to finish together. Right before the finish line is a mud pit, about twenty feet long, through which you have to crawl on your belly. There are several locations of this race throughout the country, each one hosting the race once a year and it is possible to take a road trip to compete at each location in one year.
Detroit's Muddy Buddy course was roughly six miles long in a hilly park. Don and I had agreed that I would be the biker, he the runner. I was set to bike the first, third, and final legs; this meant that I would run the two longest and roughest legs. Wonderful. Having eaten an apple and a Cliff bar, I felt ready without feeling weighed down or hungry.
The men's pairs went first, then co-eds, then women's, and the Beast group – pairs with combined weights of 400+ pounds – last. Waiting to begin with Scott's bike, which had tried to maim me when I tested it out the night before, and beginning the slow and crowded trek, I was very nervous. Scott had said that a racer can lose the excitement after getting away from the cheering fans, but I actually found it to be a relief. Nobody could see me take another dive now! Quickly, all the bikers in my group split into the really hard-core racers and those of us who were trying to pace ourselves. You can guess into which I went. Most of this leg was paved road and flat grassy areas, a good way to start off.
The first obstacle was an 8ft tall rock climbing wall with a rope ladder down the other side. The wall was remarkably easy, but rather difficult for the big guy in front of me. I tried to go down the rope ladder facing out, not wanting to turn around on top of the wall, but attendants were yelling at us not to; later, I found out a guy had jumped the wall earlier and tangled up, painfully, in the ladder. Ouch!
After each obstacle were cups of water and these were much appreciated. When we had checked in at some Michigan sporting supply store the day before, we invested in Jelly Belly's Sports Beans. These jelly beans have some magical energy juice in them and nomming one with a cup of cool water at every obstacle greatly helped!
Then was my first running leg, the longest leg of the whole race. This was terrible. Had I eaten more, I would have upchucked all over. I found out just how unprepared I was and struggled to pace myself. Passing by other racers and going through changes in terrain kept me going. Finally, I reached the balance beam obstacle: easy but time-consuming.
Getting back on the bike was refreshing and I flew by! I managed to keep a good pace for the first half of this leg, then struggled to maintain it. By the time I finally made it to the third obstacle, I was dying and Don was waiting. Sorry, Don. This obstacle was a crawl under a rope net.
I paced myself much better on the next running leg and I recovered my energy. This was by far the roughest area yet with hill after hill after hill; I'm really glad that I didn't have to bike this part! After the halfway point of this leg, I was feeling good and quickening up – from there on was my best.
The fourth obstacle was “The Inflatables”: a 30ft tall, inflated slide with a rope ladder up one side. Again, the only thing that slowed me was the same big guy in front of me! After sliding down the other side, I leaped back on the bike and soared the <2 miles to the mud pit and the finish line! With more paved road and grass, I was feeling great!
Don had been waiting about five minutes for me, much better than I had been dreading and better than how long Scott had been waiting for Mike. Don was expecting me to be dragging and ready to fall over, but I insisted that we sprint to the mud pit, I was exhilarated! The pit was refreshing and pretty easy after getting into a half-crawling, half-swimming routine. Finally, we got out of the pit and passed the finish line!!
This park had a lake, which felt fantastic. Experienced racers had warned me that, no matter how much scrubbing I could do, mud would still be everywhere. They were right. Mud, mud, and more mud. Finally, when I was as clean as I was going to get, I partook in the beer garden and relaxed in the sun.
Later, Don and I found out that we took one hour and eight minutes. Sorry, Don. I met my goals, though, and had a great time!

Goodbye '00's!

Holy crap, the '00's are ending! Ten years ago, I started keeping a diary, I was leaving middle school/starting high school, I left Christianity, I was coming out to myself, I left pop culture, I was in the middle of puberty. 2000 was quite a time to start high school, 2010 is quite a time to begin post-school life XP

Over the past decade:
- I've come out just as queer rights became more outspoken, successful (it's sad that what we're in right now can be called "successful" compared to the past)
- the internet became global, at least one computer with high-speed hookup in every home. Some memes are more well-known than hit tv shows.
- everything is wireless! Landlines are rare amongst my generation...I don't think any of my friends have landlines (or at least I don't have them in my phone)
- most of the decade has been defined by the hatred of Bush
- the first mainstream all-CGI movie, Toy Story, came out in the mid 90's. Now it's a genre unto itself. Excellent design programs (Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop, iMovie, Flash, etc.) are available to everyone now. Combine this with the internet and you have albinoblacksheep
- 9/11 combined with globalization, mistrust of government, and the internet has formed an unprecedented global identity. And then there was the "socialism scare" which occurred just as I became an active socialist.
- geocities and AOL came and went. MySpace came and now it's "ghetto." Now facebook and twitter are the most popular. YouTube has been...everything
- New fears: school shootings, identity theft, the economy, lack of medical insurance, emo, Kanye West

Put these all together and what you have is the ability to access anything from anywhere and to put your creations/expressions anywhere from anything, but you never know when your life will take a turn for the worse. Identity politics galore!

I HIGHLY recommend even just skimming The Rolling Stones' 00 issue. Until I read it, I hadn't been able to articulate the schism between what they call "internet music" and "radio music." Kelly and I had a really interesting conversation about why there is a lot of country music under "radio music" and none under "internet music" - I'll blog about that later. And it wasn't until I saw all the mentions of anti-Bush that I realized how much anti-Bush defined the decade. Now we're entering a new decade with a president whose very existence changes EVERYTHING, but who hasn't kept a lot of his promises. Could this mean that more people will believe that they, too, can succeed, nevertheless solidifying their mistrust of authority?

As the year itself comes to a close, I'm feeling grateful. Grateful that:
- I'm in a much better place (living where I want to live, a great apartment, a kitty, in a great relationship, my own spirituality, a better idea of what I want my relationships of all kinds to be and how to work towards that)
- I AM OUT OF SCHOOL
- I AM OUT OF WISCONSIN
- I went through some painful friend-breakups that, really, needed to happen. I'm now able to realize that, whether friend or family, holding on to the good memories in hope that they will continue is not a good reason to keep a relationship. I appreciate my friends even more now.
- cheese, pastries, olives, mushrooms, pomegranates, artichokes, hummus, peanut butter, bacon and chocolate exist
- sanitation, indoor plumbing, electricity, indoor heating, public transportation, indoor cooking, good music, the internet, comfortable clothing, libraries, books, good movies, the Bill of Rights, U-Haul, thrift stores, records, record players (especially Petunia), VCRs, VHS tapes, Peter Gabriel and elevators exist
- I have a better idea of where I've been and where I am gender-wise, more secure in discovering where I'm going
- I'm SCANDINAVIAN and CELTIC and GERMAN
- my family is AMAZING