Yakking It Up

Living in rural farmland country, I don't need a running buddy because I already have dozens of them. Of course, they're not the human kind and I guess technically, they're not the running kind either. But on any given run, I get to cross paths with all kinds of company: cows, horses, goats, chickens and even the occasional llama. But a couple of weeks ago, I encountered something new--a yak.

I had to look twice. Seriously... a yak? Don't yaks live in arctic cold climates like Tibet? Oh wait... this is Idaho. Nevermind.

As yaks go, he was a friendly fellow. Admittedly, I can't say I've ever met another yak with which to compare, but he seemed a fairly typical yak. He watched me approach; we made eye contact. I nodded to acknowledge him and out of courtesy struck up a little conversation.

"Haven't seen you around these parts before".

He didn't reply, which I might have taken for being a bit rude, but in his defense, he did stop chewing whatever was in his mouth. Our encounter was over in a matter of seconds, but I like to think the yak and I formed a little insta-bond in that moment of time when our existences intersected.

I finished my run and didn't think about the yak again until later that night. It was my daughter's ninth birthday and we gave her the choice of where she wanted to go out to dinner. She chose a hole-in-the-wall burger joint a few miles past Grandpa's old farm that serves one-pound hamburgers on gigantic buns with all the fixings. You didn't read that wrong... one pound burgers, as in one patty that weighs one pound. Despite how it sounds, they're delicious and the place is always hopping. They even have a wall with photos of people who have managed to eat the entire one-pound burger by themselves. No, I'm not pictured on that wall. 3/4 is as far as I've ever gotten.

We stepped into the diner and were waiting to be seated when I looked up and noticed a chalkboard sign above the cash register:

"Now serving yak burgers!"

All the sudden I felt a little sick to my stomach. Not at the thought of eating a yak burger, but at the revelation of the fate of my new BFF. Out of respect, I offered a moment of silence. But then I promptly proceeded to down my share of the one-pound hamburger when it was put in front of me. (Don't judge me. I don't personally know any of the local cows.)

Again, I didn't think about the yak until this morning's run when my route took me through his pasture. There he was again-- or one that looked eerily just like him. I can't be sure, but I don't think it was the same yak. This one didn't stop to look at me, much less stop chewing... and to be honest, I couldn't look it in the eyes anyway. Instead, I nervously averted mine and focused straight ahead towards mile six without looking back. But as I did, my stomach rumbled a little from hunger and I couldn't help but wonder...

Do yaks go better with french fries or tater tots?

Tall Girl's Excellent Adventure

Typically, by this time of year, I've already run the first one or two races of the season. This year, however, I've purposefully taken a different approach. Instead of throttling out of the starting gate at the first of the year to run every race within reaching distance, I've been patiently and diligently training while biding my time. Watching... waiting... like a sleek and graceful cheetah in an African savanna desert, crouching beneath the brush, intently studying the antelope as they graze, waiting for just the right moment to POUNCE.

My meticulous patience is soon to be rewarded; my moment to POUNCE is soon to arrive. In a little over a month, I'll be running my first race of the 2009 season. This race, however, will be unlike any other I've done before because this is the year I'll be running the Wasatch Back Relay.

The Wasatch Back is one of those monster 24-hour relays that divides 178 miles between 12 runners. It runs along the back of the Wasatch mountain range in northern Utah, covering terrain from serene flat farmlands to rolling gravel hills to treacherous mountain trails. As a 24-hour race, runners are competing at all hours, whether during the scorching heat of the day or chilly blackness of the night. Physically, it's not for the weak or faint of heart.

This is going to be an adventure for me in more ways than one. To begin with, I'm running this relay with 11 virtual strangers, all women and mothers like myself. We formed our team online about a year ago and while I've gotten to know them a little via a blog created specifically for this race, I've never met a single one of them in person. For someone as socially-challenged as I tend to be, this is somewhat intimidating. What if they don't like me? What if they think I look funny or talk funny... or worse... run funny? In a way, I feel like I'm about to go back 20 years ago in time to high school when every day of my life was spent in self-conscious agony amongst my peers. I'm going to be spending at least 24 hours with these women in very close confines at times... eating, sleeping, changing clothes, smelling bad. The only other person I've done that with is my husband and.... well... the fun of that honeymoon ended a long time ago.

This will also be the first time I've ever run late at night. My second leg (there's three of them for each runner) is predicted to start around 1:50 in the morning. There just ain't been too many times in the last 20 years that I've seen that hour of the morning. And if I have, it's been to feed a newborn baby or sit with a sick child while she retchingly hovers over the toilet. 95% of my life at 1:50 a.m. has been spent meticulously studying the insides of my eyelids and dreaming of happy places. But next month, I'm going to be expected to not only be wide awake at 1:50 in the morning, but also run 8.1 miles up a mountain. That is so not a happy place.

Along with the late hour comes the dark. A whole lot of dark. In general, I'm not a big fan of dark. In high school, I would always make my best friend walk me home around the block so I didn't have to do it alone in the dark (of course, that meant she had to walk back home by herself in the dark, but at that point it wasn't my problem anymore). We runners will be wearing reflective vests, flashing LED lights and headlamps and will have other runners and support vehicles nearby, but that doesn't negate the fact we're RUNNING. IN. THE. DARK. And I'm just a little more than concerned that because my middle-of-the-night leg happens to be across mountain terrain, I'm going to encounter some kind of furry animal. Along with dark, I'm also not a fan of furry animals. I don't do cats or dogs and I definitely don't do skunks, coyotes or mountain lions.

So, this is what awaits me a little more than a month from now. I'm anxious, I'm nervous, I'm scared and I'm excited. And I have the feeling I'm in for the adventure of a lifetime.

I just hope I don't trip up on a woodchuck in the middle of the night. And if I do, I hope my teammates don't see it.

Hitting the Mathematical Wall

What is it about long-distance running that affects one's (okay... MY) ability to calculate simple math problems?

This has happened more times than I care to admit, but most recently during my long run yesterday morning. Though I was aiming to hit a total of 14 miles for the day, I wanted to make it a point to note my time at the half-marathon mark (13.1 miles) because I was pretty sure I was on a personal best pace for that distance. When I hit mile 9, I knew I was exactly six miles away from home.

That's where things started getting fuzzy.

Now, I have a copious amount of training when it comes to calculating math problems, including but not limited to: balancing my checkbook enough to know I probably shouldn't have written that last check, figuring the discount on a sale item at the store in anticipation of learning I can't afford to NOT buy it, deducting the amount of tip my waitress will receive every time she forgets to refill my drink, multiplying how many servings of miniature candy bars are in a bag to make sure there's enough to supply the appropriate sugar high for my daughter's school class for her birthday, adding up how much money we don't have for retirement, giving the cashier the right amount of money to ensure I get back the least amount of pocket change, computing my next paycheck to make sure I'm not getting shorted (again), multiplying how many cups of flour would go in a cookie recipe if I'm doubling it, etc. and so on. The list is endless, really. It should be obvious by now I'm a veritable mathematic genius.

Why then, at mile 9, could I not wrap my head around the fact 9+3=12 and not 13?

I don't seem to have trouble with any other intellectual endeavors during long runs. I never end my sentences with prepositions; I wouldn't dare mix acid with cyanide salt; I don't embarrass myself in the company of French-speaking dignitaries by asking to ride a poulet instead of a cheval; I wouldn't be caught dead confusing the Spanish-American War with the Mexican-American War and I sure as hell don't use "there", "their" or "they're" incorrectly.

But add 9+3? Apparently, that stumps me.

I did eventually figure out that 9+3 does not equal 13 and never will, but only when I actually looked at the numbers on my GPS screen and realized I still had more than a mile to run.

I've learned my lesson, however. In the future, I've pledged to consciously prohibit myself from doing any kind of math whatsoever while on the run.

No more calculating how many spoonfuls of Moose-Tracks ice cream I can eat after my run without feeling guilty. No more contemplating how many children we should have before we can't feed them anymore. No more adding up how many miles are between God-forsaken Idaho and the white sandy beaches of Montego Bay. No more dividing my late-grandmother's inheritance to determine if my share will cover the cost of a new big screen LCD TV with a surround-sound stereo system in the finished basement.

And definitely no more adding up how many miles I have left to run.

Better just to be left in painful mathematical ignorance.