Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Ain't So Tough, Tough, Tough

When I was little, I used to want a broken arm. I didn't want to break my arm. I wanted it to be all of a sudden broken, without pain, so that I could look tough and have a cast that my friends could sign and oooh and ahhh over.

I thought I had gotten over this. I haven't.

Last weekend, as you may remember, Tiffany and I ran this race called the Tough Mudder. I wasn't nervous until a few days before.

I began to picture the myriad ways I might injure myself: I could drown in the ice-filled water, for god's sake; or scalp myself as I crawled under the barbed wire; or trip and be crushed under the weight of the log I was supposed to carry down the mountain.

Actually, what happened was, I got a splinter.

No, I'm serious.

I hurt my hand too--the man who hauled me over one of the walls on the obstacle course crushed my metacarpals in the process. But that injury was invisible.

Tiffany, on the uninjured hand, fell and scraped all the skin off one of her forearms. It looked so tough. And, apparently it hurt a lot too.

"Careful!" she warned me, any time I approached that part of her body. "It hurts a lot."

"I bet," I said sympathetically. "My hand hurts too. You can't see it, but it really hurts."

Everywhere we went after the race, people noticed Tiffany's scabbed-over arm.

"Wow, did you get that in the race?"

"Yeah."

"And did you run the race too, Rebecca?"

By that time, I had already taken the splinter out of my finger (which really hurt!), and there was no point in holding my invisibly-bruised hand out for them to see.

Like a good partner, Tiffany ooohed and ahhhed over my invisible injury the same way I did over her visible one. She took my hand and turned it over, held it under various lights and ran her fingers over the still-functioning veins. When we got home, after she poured hydrogen peroxide over her arm, she gave me a bag of frozen peas for my hand.

And then we sat on the couch and talked about how tough we were.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Putting Our Relationship to the Tough Mudder Test

"Just so you know," I told Tiffany as we pulled on our spandex at 5 a.m. on Sunday, "this is not just a race. It's a test of our relationship. If we can survive this..."

Tiffany rolled her eyes.

My brother is getting married next month. In between trying on our matching bridesmaids dresses and looking for shoes, Tiffany and I have been doing a lot of talking about how you know your one is the one.

Anyway, a few months ago, we signed up for this race called the Tough Mudder. It's a 12-mile run up and down the ski slopes of Tahoe during which you must complete a variety of obstacles, like: swimming through ice-filled water, carrying logs down narrow mountain paths, climbing a series of too-tall walls.

I was joking about the race being a test of our relationship. But it turns out it was, and we didn't start out well.

"You are the worst person to do something like this with," Tiffany said before we'd even gotten to the starting line.

I was in the middle of a tiny panic attack. Having been told--only moments before--that if we drowned in the mud or fell backwards down one of the too-tall walls, race staffers would identify our lifeless corpses by our wristbands, I realized I'd put the wrong one on.

"They're going to know who we are," Tiffany said, pointing to our foreheads, where our race numbers were scrawled with permanent marker.

I ignored her and sprinted back to the car to get the green band.

We started talking again after the swim through ice-filled water. I'm not sure if we had actually gotten over our anger or if we had such a severe case of brain freeze that we forgot about it, but it doesn't matter. When we emerged from the tank, I grabbed Tiffany in a bear-hug, ice cubes spilling out of my sports bra, and screamed:

"I love this! And you!"

"My crotch!" Tiffany responded. "I can't feel it!"

Things went beautifully until mile 11. Perched on the two-inch wide top of a 10-foot wall, it became clear I would not be able to pull Tiffany up without falling off myself. She had helped me, and now I was helpless to help her.

This is it, I thought to myself. We're doomed as a couple.

Just then, another participant came up behind us.

"Like a boost?" he called in a thick Scottish accent.

"Yes!" Tiffany cried. "I would love a boost!"

"She would!" I said, swallowing my pride. "Thank you!"

"Don't mind my hands," he said, proceeding to put them all over my girlfriend's lower region.

On the other side of the wall was another wall (this happens in real life sometimes too). Tiffany and I climbed the second wall on our own, hurling our bodies against it at full speed, pressing off mid-way with one foot and grabbing for the top.

Strangely, I did feel better about our relationship after the race even though we hadn't been able to complete it on our own.

Hey, sometimes you need a little boost.

And you should always take it. Even when it comes from a burly man in a kilt.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Ring My Bell

So I told my brother Tiffany and I were going on a bike ride last weekend, and he asked if it was a work-out ride or a leisurely ride.

I hesitated.

"Leisurely," I lied.

It wasn't a work-out ride. In fact, I didn't even clip in (and, no, not just because I sometimes fall off when I clip in). But the ride did take us over the Golden Gate Bridge, and, as anyone who has ever ridden over the Golden Gate Bridge knows, there's no way to do that leisurely.

There are only two types of people on the Golden Gate Bridge: angry people and oblivious people.

That's because, unless you're oblivious, you can't help but be angry at the swarm of pedestrian tourists who refuse to walk in single file and have the audacity to try to take "scenic" pictures on a national landmark. Or at the professional bikers intent on maintaining their highway speeds on a path four feet across and hundreds of feet in the air.

Tiffany and I are not oblivious. Our only hope is to get across the bridge before we become angry.

Our strategy is that the front-rider rings her bell like crazy (yes, our bikes have bells). And I mean like crazy. Tiffany took the lead this time, and I stayed as close behind her as I could. We sounded like an old-timey cash register gone haywire as we careened down the path.

"Your bell's starting to sound angry," I yelled at her as we bore down on a pair of lovers smooching in front of their camera.

"Really?? I'm trying to ring it nicely!" she called over her shoulder.

We made it across with our tempers in check. As for the people we dinged along the way... well, it's every man for himself on the bridge.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Kenny Who?

The other day Tiffany and I rode our bikes out to an art fair across the bridge. Our friends had said it was worth checking out: lots of food, live music and, of course, art. We checked our wheels at the free bike valet and sauntered over to the ticket booth. I squinted at the price list.

"Twenty-five dollars a piece to get in?" I whispered.

"Yikes," Tiffany agreed.

She asked to see the program of a woman standing nearby.

"I'm just here for Kenny Loggins," the woman said. "He plays at 3."

"Oh really?" we both said, "Wow."

"Who's Kenny Loggins?" I whispered to Tiffany when we were out of earshot.

"You know..."

and here she broke into song:

"You gotta know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em..."

"That's Kenny Rogers!"

"Ohhhh," she said. "Then I have no idea."

After debating the ticket price and Mr. Loggins' identity for a few minutes, we decided we didn't like art that much, handed the woman her program and walked back down the shore a bit to a paddleboarding place.

For ten bucks a piece, we each got a board. As soon as we were standing and stable, we made our way across the water to the cove right behind the festival and listened to some of the music for free.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Into the Wild

I realized yesterday Tiffany and I need to get out to the country a tad more than we do now.

We were hiking up a mountain outside the city (okay, fine, we were hiking around a big hill outside the city) when a rabbit bounced out of the bushes on one side of our trail and into the bushes on the other.

"What the f*ck!" Tiffany screamed, jumping back, nearly taking us both back down the steep incline we'd just come up.

"It's a rabbit," I said.

"I know it's a rabbit, but it's probably feral," Tiffany said.

"By definition," I agreed.

"No, I mean, it's probably..."

"An attack rabbit?"

"Yes! Exactly."

Later, she turned to take in a panoramic view of the city (okay, fine, the fog) we'd left behind and a hummingbird nearly speared her between the eyes with his beak, mistaking her bright pink tank-top, perhaps, for an unusually tall flower.

"Did you see that!?" she cried.

"Yes," I said, "that was close."

"He could have poked my eyes out!"

Even I was somewhat concerned, however, by the extremely large traps set off a few paces from the trail in various spots. They were big enough to hold 40 feral rabbits. But judging by the poops we encountered (some of which appeared to contain rabbit fur), the traps were meant for something with a slightly bigger intestinal tract.

In any case, Tiffany and I survived the rabbit, the hummingbird and the hike, with only minor cosmetic injuries to our running shoes (read: dirt).