him - 20jul13 - girl farts and rotting shoes

Story making fun of casey

so. it's true. before, i wasn't certain. now, i am. the earth has shifted. atlas has shrugged. the heavens have realigned.

a few weeks back, case and i were headed out to do something sweaty (i no longer remember exactly what it was). to that end, we were wearing our workout clothes and workout shoes and workout faces. now, i don't know if any of you have ever smelled a pair shoes that have ‘gone bad’, but it is a unique and unpleasant odor. i currently own a pair of gore-tex tennies that fit this bill...the gore-tex doesn't let them breathe as well as mesh shoes, causing the trapped water/sweat to sour and mildew over time...they're gross.

anyhow, we'd just gotten in the car and i had backed out of the apartment and started towards our destination (whatever it was). after hitting the road, i caught a whif of something awful. i couldn’t quite place it at first. thought it might be my shoes or maybe something had died in the car. a few more seconds passed…i smelled my pits, tried to smell my shoes (had trouble with that one since i was driving) and just couldn’t figure it out. still, i didn’t put it past me…sometimes, guys stink for unknown reasons.so, at this point, i was confused. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

then, casey giggled. 

then, i knew. girls do fart. and it stinks (like rotting shoes??)! damn.

we both laughed for several minutes…mostly at my reaction to her deception, though some of it was me laughing at her embarrassment. honestly, it was pretty damn funny. hilarious, even. whatevs. we kept on towards wherever it was we were going and casey thought the whole ordeal was over.

several weeks later (about the time i got the idea to write this little gem), casey learned that it wasn’t over. i told her i planned to write about this little event. at first, she was both upset and embarrassed…i’m sure she was thinking things like: ’how dare i tell the world that sweet little casey farts and it doesn't smell like roses!!!’ or ‘that’s private and you can’t put it in the blog!!’ or something like that. this was in the afternoon. a few hours later, as we were going to sleep, i brought it up again. we talked about it for maybe a minute before she started to giggle. then laugh. then belly laugh. then cry. for maybe six or seven minutes. it was hilarious. nothing much funnier than a person laughing so hard they cry. 

anyhow, she said she was laughing so hard because of my initial reaction to the smell…sniffing around trying to figure out what it was and not being able to do so. i like to think that she was laughing at herself for letting the world’s oldest secret out of the bag. whichever, I took that as implied consent (i mean, seriously, i'm not gonna post something that lands me on the couch for a week) and here we are.

Different perspectives

casey and i ran the Waugoshonce Trail Half-Marathon in Mackinaw City, MI on 13JUL13. casey has comp(l)eted in numerous races, from a 5K run up to a full Ironman (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and a 26.2 mile run). this was my first race. ever. well, other than ‘The Color Run’ a few weeks back (the ‘5K’ was actually 2.5 miles). so, this was the first real race.

  

she beat the hell out of me...almost 20 minutes. she placed 3^rd out of about 100 in the women’s

division (2:01) and i placed 39^th out of 78 in the men’s (2:20). she considered this a ‘short, training run’ and a good ‘measure of where she stands’. not knowing the terrain or what to expect, i just wanted to finish in less than three hours and get my t-shirt and not crap my pants (it was harder than i thought).

i actually did a lot better than i anticipated, but it was still awful. i made it about 8 miles before things went to shit. didn’t eat or drink enough (chalk that one up to dumbness and lack of experience). didn’t train enough (or at all, really; spent the 4 out of 5 nights prior to the race drunk off my ass with my bro-in-law, ryan). after mile 8 (the point where i bonked, the trail became hilly and generally uphill, and it got hotter), i walked quite a bit and generally felt pretty sorry for myself. my feet stopped working correctly and i couldn’t run through the damn forest without tripping over the roots and ferns and small leaves. so, i walked some more. eventually, i got my shit together and finished the race…actually managed to pass a few people on the way in (the last 1.5 miles or so was on a level, paved trail). made me feel a little better.

casey was waiting for me about ½ a mile from the finish…pretty sure she’d just finished repainting  her toenails…must've scuffed them a bit on the run. she paced me and this guy dave (we’d run the last 1.5 miles together) to the finish and then helped catch me as i fell across the line…it was pretty damn hot. at least i was done.

long, rambling story short, this was tough for me and it was a training run for casey. kinda depressing, but at least the only way i can move is up :)

Update on life and stuff

Past

returned from 8 days or so in northern michigan a few days back; needed a little vacation from my vacation. my family has been going to the same spot for about a long damn time…my great-grandfather and his family was from that area (East Jordan, MI). it was gorgeous and the weather was nice, but much hotter than we were used to. relaxed the whole time: several boat rides, went sailing, water skied, ate some super tasty food (i brought fresh salmon from home)!

Current

finished painting the inside of my house last night. finally! hopefully finish up most of the packing today and build out the back of the truck tomorrow. take everything to storage on thursday or friday and then leave on saturday! canadia, here we come!

Future

we’ll be in Whitehorse, YT for a week or so. mt biking, hiking, trail running, and exploring the town. there’s a trail marathon on 4aug; i’m running the half and casey is running the full…hopefully i do better than the last one. after that, we’ll be in WI for about 10 days for her family reunion…should be a blast as we’ll be staying in cabins on a lake in northern WI…fishing and swimming and biking and stuff.

from there, we’re over to Bozeman for a  little acclimatization and prep before casey’s big 50mile race on 24AUG. crazynuts!!! prolly stick around there until the 26^th or so and then head to Sun Valley, ID for some world-class mt biking and trail running and hiking and camping…stay there for a couple of weeks before heading down to Colorado to meet up with old friends (both of us have lived in CO before) for a week or so. i haven’t been back there in several years, so i’m really looking forward to it. after that, we’ll spend a few days in Dallas with my family before heading out to Costa Rica on 1OCT!!!!!!!!!!!

i’m so excited to be moving to costa rica! It’s gonna be awesome! as an added bonus, the job casey procured will have her working for a whitewater rafting/kayaking/adventure company! talk about awesome contacts for the future!

anyhow, that’s really all i’ve got for the moment. time to get packing!

adios, suckas.