All Tough, All The Time

Beefcake

After taking in an enormous quantity of Weightgain 4000 (i.e., the grams of saturated fat per serving) the night before, I participated in the first race of the rainy season biking series this past Sunday. I feel out of bed around 5am and consumed a hearty breakfast of tuna and old croissant dinner rolls. The entire lack of birds weren't singing as the sun rose, revealing that my bike shorts were actually a sleeveless jersey on upside down (I thought the crotch felt a little roomy). Once I straightened myself out, it was time to shotgun a beer and head out the door. I biked to the race site, arriving with an hour to spare. After a few minutes, all there enjoyed the heavy prerace rain for about half an hour. Feeling soggypants and ready to smoke the competition, we got in the pack for a 7:30am start time. The race was pretty much entirely uphill, but fortunately brief (about 20 minutes). Several of my friends/acquaintances (most of whom I met through the hashing crew) also participated, including Jenn (fellow New Hampshirite, snake wrestler, and a really sweet girl to boot), Renee (HC-5 pilot and swimmer extraordinaire), Randy (the physical equivalent of Spiderman), "Tampon" (the man of stilted legs), Ty (stout gent of the foul mouth), "Hamhock" (the stern one), and Grant (a.k.a. "Chili," the unstoppable man). After much panting, gnashing of teeth, and sweating, the summit was reached. Afterwards, I had a much-needed hosing of my bike, hosing of myself, and breakfast, which I ate through a hose. Check out this article to read more about the race.

Later that day (basically immediately after getting back from the race), I participated in a touch rugby tournament along with most of the brown treesnake crew. It was the first time I've played rugby (which was the same deal for Ginger, Justin, and Andy), so we were expectedly sloppy to begin with. However, we improved with every game. We had a rousing tie match against mostly 8-year-olds who very nearly kicked our collective asses. The following two games were lost to only slightly superior teams, but the final game we won by a landslide, much to the credit of ingenious strategy, Justin's two interceptions (followed by successful tries), and no luck whatsoever. I'm ready to do it again, if only I can get an occasional Wednesday night off... which doesn't seem likely.

Oh, on one other note of excitement, Jenn, Brent, Haldre, and I are going to Bali in less than two weeks. There's a rugby tournament there in which Brent and Haldre will be playing, but Jenn and I are just tagging along to have a good time. We'll be gone for almost 6 days (ah, such a shame). For those of you who don't know exactly where Bali is, check out the link above or picture a relatively small island right on the southern chunk of the Indonesian archipelago, directly adjacent (to the east) of Java and due north of western
Australia.

This is brief, yes, but I need to go buy some food. It's difficult to eat when you have just cleaned out your refrigerator, discovering all that remains following the disposal of mold-infested, crusted, and festering contents are a bottle of mustard, two eggs, and a crouton. I also need to do some laundry, seeing that my physical activities of only a week have depleated my supply of clean clothes to nearly zilch.