whitewater

it's been 86 degrees for the past couple of days out here in colorado. up until this week, it had been in the high 60's to low 70's. what does that mean? it means that all of the mountain snow melted in the past couple of days which caused the Animas River to be the highest it's been in the past 6 years. well, this opportunity doesn't hit me every day so I call up the closest whitewater rafting joint and beg and plead to join a 4 o'clock trip. Because of my enormous muscles (i am a beast) Scott and I were put in the front of the raft. Ok, so we were put in the raft because it was us and 5 girls. The guide must have figured that, with the water at 40 degrees and the front being the wettest spot, we would bitch the least. Boy was he wrong.

Shrinkage. Extreme shrinkage. By the time it was all over, i was the proud owner of a pair of testicubes.

mountain lungs

good god! that's all i can say about running in durango, colorado. at approximately 7500 feet above chicago, running out here makes you feel like you're breathing through a straw. my legs want to go faster but my lungs say "A HA HA HA ...fuck you". since i got out here on sunday, i've been running four times in the hopes that i will aclimate myself to the altitude and come back to chi-town and whip ass in the chase corporate challenge.

today was the biggest workout of all. i rented a mountain bike, hired a guide, and tore up and down actual mountains for 2.5 hours. during this stint as a mountain biker, i realized that i'm much better at going up a hill than going down. going up is all about leg burning grunt work...and cursing...lots of cursing. going down a hill is all about going fast enough to keep up with the guide, but not so fast that you wet yourself. on several occasions, i lost control on the way down and made my own trail through some nice sage and in once instance, a VERY large cactus. how i made it through that thing without losing blood is nothing short of a miracle.

the worst part of the whole ride came 20 yards before we were to finish. there was one final downhill switchback to navigate and then we were on flat asphalt back to the cars. up until this point i had not fallen. i had been knocked off my bike a few times but i had always kept my footing and remained upright. not this time. i came around the switchback only to find a large rock (in chicagoland, it would be classified as a boulder, out in CO, it's just a rock). i dodged it with the front tire and being the unexperienced mountain biker that i am, thought all was good. dumbass. the back tire hit squarely and my pasty white ass goes United and flew through the friendly skies. i sat there for a second collecting myself only to have Keaton, my very hot mountain biker chick guide, come back up the trail with a look of concern. me, being the super-tough guy that i am, state that i am ok and march back up towards the bike still resting against that damn rock. i wait until she turns around to truly check myself over and adjust articles in the overhead bin that may have shifted during takeoff and landing.

next time, i'm requesting a window seat.