I had handed off to Shellie. I was done with my first leg of three. It felt good to be in the van, knowing two more people on my team would be running, then we’d get a little layover at Silver Lake while Van 2 took over and did their shift, and the next time I would ran would be in the night, the cool of the night. I felt as if I might not be recovered by then, but a night run still sounded nice.
I looked at my Garmin 405 watch and its damage, and I didn’t look forward to having to carry it in my pocket for my next two legs, instead of on my wrist. The duct tape had not worked. It had lasted me four miles of a seven mile run. And although we had a roll of it in the van, I did not feel it was worthwhile to apply it again, just to have it fall off again, especially at night. If it went flying off my wrist again, it might be hard to locate in the darkness. On Facebook, Jesse had told me to get something called 1000 Mile Tape to hold my watchband together. I had never heard of it. And now I wonder if there really is such a thing or if Jesse just made it up to mess with me. Jesse . . .
Now I never shop at Walmart, because of the way they treat their workers, but sometimes it’s the most reasonable place to find just what you need. (I once had one of my high school students ask me if I knew why so many parents took their kids to Walmart to spank them. I had to laugh because I knew what he was talking about, not that I’ve been there enough to say for sure, because I never shop there because of the way they make their workers work overtime off the clock and without pay.) Now I had noticed the week before when I was there that they had all these different colors of duct tape, although, as I said, I never shop there because of the way they discriminate against their women workers. So I asked one of their associates, or whatever they euphemistically call their floor staff, “Do you have any 1000 Mile Tape?” He looked at me like “How about you just keep walking, buddy, maybe a thousand miles away from me.” So I settled on the black duct tape to match my band. And I told myself once again that I will never shop at Walmart ever again because of the way they go into communities and destroy a bunch of local businesses.
Then outside our van, all of a sudden, we were inside some kind of cloud, a cloud of flying insects, insects of a rather good size. I thought, oh my God, poor old Shelley was out there running in this. She only had two miles to go when they hit, so I looked at the terrain ahead that looked the same, and I thought about how poor Kristi was going to have to run even more miles in it. But then just as suddenly, the sky cleared and we came out of the cloud near the end of Shelley’s leg. We asked someone what those bugs were and were told they were locusts. Locusts! Don’t they come out every seven years? And if that’s right, what were the chances that a vicious plague of them would descend on our own Shelley at that moment, in that place? What had she done to deserve this punishment?
Shelley then handed off to Kristi, and Kristi ran her leg bug-free, but becoming a little dehydrated by the end. Her worried mother Shana actually had a medic come check her out afterwards. Although the rest of us—I know me for one—would really come to appreciate Shana’s nurturing and mothering in our times of need, Kristi did not seem to like it at all, although, I do note, the rejection was in a loving way. Of course, Kristi’s been putting up with it for about a quarter of a century, so her perspective might be different.
Our van had completed its first mission. We were off-duty, so we headed to our first resting area, Silver Lake, where we saw no lake, or any silver for that matter. Maybe we’d get a little food, some rest, maybe even sleep, and maybe . . . we had heard, there were showers. We pulled over and Connor told a volunteer, an older gentleman named Gus, that we had heard there might be some showers, even though I tried to tell my teammates that I had received a tweet saying the showers in Silver Lake were not going to be ready this year. (I don’t know if the guy was really named Gus and Connor had seen a nametag on him or what, or if Connor had just made the name up because the guy looked like a Gus.) So we were stunned when Gus started giving us a weather report. “Well, there are no showers being forecast tonight, but there is a chance of showers tomorrow, especially in the morning.” We laughed before we realized he wasn’t kidding. He had actually mistaken our question and didn’t know we were asking about showers for bathing. When he realized what we wanted, he directed us to the cold hose shower near the fire station. I personally didn’t care enough about my personal hygiene enough to take an ice cold shower. One thing I can say is quite commendable about Shelly is her superior sense of cleanliness. I think she ended up showering at every opportunity, which I must say I appreciate since in the van I usually sat in the same seat as she did. Of course, she had to sit next to me. Sorry, Shelley.
At Silver Lake we sat in some unpleasant, dry, poky grass and ate. I remembered seeing some people resting and sleeping on some nice cool, green grass out in front of a school. I suggested we head there, and we did. I never slept, but it felt good to drink some coffee, to lie in the shady grass, and to see Connor reading “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and Kristi reading “The Help,” two books I myself had read recently and really enjoyed. Shellie lay there with her pillow wrapped around her ears. Shana and Sheri talked quietly; I don’t know about what. Everything was slowing down for now, and quieter too. I rubbed both my tired legs, thinking with some trepidation about the two relay legs I still had left to go, into the night and through the next day.
(To be continued.)
(To be continued.)
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