I was really excited to finally be able to introduce Jeff to some fellow coworkers on Friday when he came and picked me up shortly after school let out on Friday. A lot of them couldn't get over the fact that he was really going to Ohio to run 60 kilometers. It was sure to be a good time for all of us.
They were even more amused when I said my final "goodbye" and came back into school about 2 minutes later with Ted, who has the same color hair and runner-type stature as Jeff but is two feet taller (give or take), and wondered:
A) Did Jeff just grow two feet?
B) How did I pick up another man that fast?
Ted drove us in his faithful Subaru (partially because the Prius turned out not to have nearly as much cargo space as we thought it did) and we were also accompanied by Emily and Scott. All four of them were planning on running the 60K and I had high hopes for at least finishing the 10k. More about that 10k later, but, mind you, that's my longest racing distance, ever. It was a daunting thought!
So off we went. Jeff navigating in front with Ted, and me in the back with Emily and Scott trying to muster up some of my almost-lost four years of French pretending to "help" Emily do some 17th century translating. Scott had the joy of studying anatomy- a class that I am thankful was never required by the ed school. Now, had Scott or Emily been in need of some assistance for their music class that focused in playing the recorder, I definitely could have been their man!
The topic of our various ages quickly came up and we all found it amusing (except for Jeff?) that Jeff is pretty much exactly 10 years older than Scott and Emily. Not soon after, Jeff forever sealed his "old man" status with the rest of the passengers by needing to stop for a restroom break not 20 minutes after we'd left my school and also not 20 minutes after he'd used the fancy-pants "staff only" bathrooms there. After a variety of purchases (to include Perrier, Gatorade, chips, nuts, and bubble gum- the stuff of champions!), we were off- for real this time!
***
I won't bore with the details, but I can recall the remainder of our trip involved the following things: Catchphrase, radio tennis, the coining of the term "dozer" (one would have to ask either Ted or Emily how to properly use it; there was some disagreement on proper usage), and Skyline Chili (one would have to ask Emily about this, there was also some disagreement regarding Skyline). After about 6 hours including stops and some front-seat navigator swapping, we made it.
We had reserved a walk-in primitive camp site in the Hocking Hills State Park about 2 weeks before the race and Jeff had the confirmation email to prove it. We pulled into the parking lot and walked the 40 feet into the grass trail where our campsite was. We quickly found out, thanks to a few nerdy ultramarathon runners who come equipped with LED headlamps, that our spot was occupado. Ugh! By that point, it was well past 9 and dark. It was bedtime! We were all ready to get a good night of sleep before starting the next day at 5 or 6am.
It worked out (for the moment) in that the next spot over was unoccupied. We left most of our gear in the car and grabbed all of the necessities (flashlights, tents, sleeping bags, this, and somehow Catchphrase got in the mix), set up our two tents within 15 minutes, and were all drifting off exhausted after all of our fun we had on the trip out.
Enter: Lexus* (*names have been changed)
"YALL! SOMEONE'S IN OUR SPOT!"
Jeff and I peeped our heads out of our awesome new marital tent (Thanks to Aunt Annie, Uncle Joe, and crew!). Jeff: "Oh, we're sorry! We got here and someone took our spot, so this one was empty and we got set up here." We then heard some griping from faceless people (it was THAT dark!), but a kind woman said, "Oh, well, we don't mind sharin' tonight since you're already here." Appropriate gratitude was expressed toward our new neighbors and we zipped up our tent, ready to drift peacefully off to sleep.
I'll be the first one to say, I'm pretty easy-going with sharing spaces with other people and making necessary accommodations to make everyone feel at home. I'm a people person and (hopefully?) an unobtrusive house guest. But, at the same time, I am a terribly light sleeper when I first lie down to sleep. I usually have my "white noise" app blaring on the iPhone dock in our room. Nature sounds are nice, too, like the crickets and locusts we had just been enjoying while falling asleep. Jeff, on the other hand, can fall asleep with the TV on or with me facetiming on my phone with whomever will listen (Leith!). We BOTH had a little trouble getting to sleep that night, as did Ted, Scott, and Emily in their tent.
1) It took this family about TWO hours to set up the circus tent that they had brought with them. This process was accompanied by "Lexus" (the only name we caught), being bossed around by her (we think) sister and warning her not to get hit in "bathing suit" areas (this a family blog) areas of her body by the tent poles. Several times.
2) We also got to know a little about the family's travels through Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge on a recent vacation. This account was of course laced with expletives and exchanges that were just too much to handle! At one point, we heard the park ranger come talk to them about how noisy they were being and also asking if all four tents on the site belonged to them. We only could hear the family's responses because the ranger was speaking in a normal "past 10pm at a campsite" voice. We aren't sure what happened with that.
3) When all was settling down and it sounded like they finally had their HUGE tent up, it was time to drive the tent stakes into the ground. I think at that point I heard Emily, from her tent, say, "Are they building a house?!" There were a good 20 minutes of metal hitting metal hammering sounds echoing throughout the park. I also heard Ted complain about a "dozer" around that time.
4) Ahhh, finally, everything was settling down after the "hammering on railroad tracks" sounds stopped and I felt like I could finally, finally fall asleep. As mentioned earlier, I do enjoy nature sounds, but I really do prefer them to come from the wild, rather than Lexus' brother. We were serenaded by his "natural" sounds and the family's laughter for another 20 minutes or so. During the serenade, Jeff also managed to make the Catchphrase go off. I'm not sure how that happened, but if you have ever played, you know how loud the game is!
Finally, we could get to sleep, only to be woken up by the dad's snores that were strangely arhythmic. Five or ten minutes would pass without so much as a nose whistle and then it would sound like we were sleeping next to my very noisy classroom pencil sharpener (you know the kind).
Needless to say, after comparing stories in the morning and thinking about the timeline of events, none of us got more than around 3-4 hours of solid sleep on Friday night. We were ready to race on Saturday morning!
