Title: FARTing in Moab

Key words: Wussies, Arches National Park, Buster, Service Animals, Cryptomatic Soils, Scrabble, Copper Mountain

Tags: #BetterThanLeesburg #ScenicPoops

Summary: 10+ Wussies converged in Moab, UT to run the Red Hot Moab 50k/30k.  Winners all around, as (a) Daniel bested this month’s Trail Runner coverboy Joe Grant to snag 9th place, (b) Martha got to cuddle with Buster, fulfilling a lifelong mission, (c) Sean gets to wake up every morning to Frisco instead of Leesburg, (d) Julian succeeded in continuing to lure his wife Asta into trail running, and (e) PJ further demonstrated why he won Rookie of the Year.  

Miles ponders what exactly is expected of him if Sean has a seizure atop this narrow strip of cliff

TEN LESSONS

Lesson #1.  If you really enjoy hosting visitors, move to Colorado.  Daniel reports hosting 39 visitors (including me and Aaron) since moving to Golden 1.5 years ago.  Sean’s summer in Frisco looks to be a revolving door of freeloaders.

Miles tries to inform Sean  that dogs don’t have opposable thumbs as they approach a rock wall

Lesson #2.  If you’d like your wife to enthusiastically take up trail running, sign her up unwittingly for the Moab 30k.  Even the most skeptical road runner type couldn’t help but be won over by Moab’s natural beauty.  And the course is surprisingly runnable.

Miles: wtf !!*@!$

Lesson #3.  If your wife is having a crap day (pun intended), and you’re not really in contention yourself, a high-rewards move would be to just run with her.  Even if that means putting up with a lot of moaning and dry heaving.  After laying 5 poops in the first 15 miles, I would have DNFed if Aaron hadn’t hung back to keep my spirits up.  Not sure what Aaron’s going to cash in all those points for, or whether he’s just going to sit on the stash.

Lesson #4.  No matter how bad you feel in an ultra, there is always a chance of turning a stomach problem around.  (By mile 22 I was eating and back to my old self.)  The challenge is to find that fine line of eating just enough to stay upright.

Lesson #5.  The real trick to ultra running is figuring out a way to appreciate the beauty of a place even when you feel like dirt.  #ScenicPoops

Lesson #6.  Your wife’s continued willingness to partake in ultra races may require compromise.  Given that my ultra races mostly consist of pooping and barfing, I decided that a way to keep me in the game long term is to strike a fair compromise.  Yes, I will continue to race ultras locally in the DC area.  But when Aaron and I travel to a really cool place like Moab, I want us to be able to just take the pace off and run it together for fun.  Otherwise a Marmot: Out! moment is imminent.

Lesson #7.  You need to overcome a lot of inertia to make a big move.  Especially if you’re someone as wedded to routine as much as Sean.  Kerry could tell whether it was Wednesday trash day by whether Sean was having pizza.  But once you do it, you wonder why the hell it took you so long.  And, by the way, the friends that gave you that much-needed push get everlasting dibsies on the guest bedroom.

Lesson #8.  The most prominently displayed words on the little vests that service animals wear should be DO NOT PET rather than SERVICE ANIMAL.  No one reads the small type.

Lesson #9.  Uber drivers are not informed of your desired destination until they actually pick you up.  So if you want a long-distance route (like Frisco to Golden), better to call the driver in advance and make sure they are game.

Buster!

Lesson #10.  It’s not a real vacation until you put on your bathing suit.  Fortunately, Daniel came through in the 11th hour with a hot tub experience to raise the bar for all future hot tubs.  Tunes.  Views.  Stars.  Snazzy lights.  Between Buster, the hot tub, and the basketball hoop, the Bedells are going to have a regular house guest.

Time for the audio-visual portion of this blog!

Conclusion: Marmots can sometimes be train wrecks.  But a little kindness from the hubby, some lovable kitties and puppies, and a consistent willingness to let her win at Scrabble can keep her a pleasant travel companion.

Future Discussion: Daniel had a very interesting conversation with Anton Krupicka in his podcast the Just Curious Show. Anton comes across as a pretty righteous dude who seems like a lot more fun than most of the lot of top ultra runners.  But it raised a series of interesting food-for-thought questions like:

• If you could run 200+ mile weeks and win big for 5 glorious years, but destroy your body in the process so you could never really run again, would it be worth it?
• Would Anton still be famous if he wore a shirt?
• Why don’t boys ever talk about really important things like girlfriends?

Lazy wussies discover new tricks in Canaan Valley, WV.  1) magic carpet = preferred way to ascend a sledding hill, 2) strategies for not getting feet wet include rhododendrons and Michele’s ‘monkey walk’, 3) running in snow shoes is damn hard and should be avoided at all cost.

In the 10th year of WUS, the Wussies got whacked with all kinds of surprises.  Sean moving to Colorado?  Greeley getting hitched?  Boots moving up to the Big Apple?  2016 had weddings and real estate transactions galore, expanding and consolidating the WUSsie empire.  Wussies also thrive on new blood, and it’s always a great idea to bring your friend who’s never run on trails before to WUS.

Seanie’s send-off

Best new gear: birthday hats
Best running outfit: jeans with no shirt (Dennis, Whitegrass snowshoe 5k)
Best wardrobe fail: floral mummu singlet (Cricket)

Best surprise WUS appearance: Brian Greeley
Best surprise race performance: Adam
Best surprise pace performance: Martha
Best post-race interview: Daniel
Best trail running debut: Ashlinn

Best alcohol performance (male): Trevor (beer mile)
Best alcohol performance (female): Kirstin (Signal Knob parking lot)

Best new concept: Post-divorce Bachelor party
Best new concept (runner up): SIP 9am shift

Best tolerance of pants during summer: Angie
Best ghosting: Joco
Best selfies: Katie
Best acceptance of pain: Julian

Shiela is still owed an award for her Beer Mile victory

Best blog post: Horrible Prizes
Best insane determination to make a race start: Aaron (Boston Marathon)
Best insane determination to complete an imaginary race: Katie (TWOT 200)

Best decision 2016: Sean moving to CO
Best running power couple: Adam and Robin

Best parking lot home brew: Art
Best fair warning: Britt’s cake smush
Best Freudian-slip-new-nickname: ‘Jewy’

Trevor was full of surprises in 2016, breaking the 3-hr marathon, finishing the Fat Dog 120, and managing to PR at just about everything

Best WUS business establishment procurement: PJ (foot rub parlor)
Best WUS real estate procurement: Kerry

Best new running game: three truths and a lie
Best truth: PJ

Best use of a race to get people to go to a wedding (or use of a wedding to get people to do a race): Escarpment
Best question: ‘What’s a leader bear?’ (Andrew)

Best bromance: Daniel and Phil
Best bromance that never was: Joco and Greeley

Sean’s new match.com profile pic

Sean is leaving Leesburg.  For real.  2016 really is the year of low probability events.

Sean’s Merry Farewell Party

Are we thrilled that Sean’s going to wake up every morning with a view of the Rockies?  That he’ll never miss a day of fresh powder for the rest of his life?  That he’ll live in a town where he can walk to a coffee shop.  Or a bar.  Or, hell’s bells, refill a prescription all by his little self.  Where a free shuttle bus will whisk him from Frisco to Breck faster than Sean can down a mountain dew.

Signal Knob overlook: one of Sean’s favorite spots in the ‘nuttens

But does my stomach pang every time I try to imagine running Magnus Gluteus without Sean?  Or Catherines.  Or Race for the Birds.  I’m trying not to think about it.  Sean loves trail running more than anyone I know.  He laughs harder than anyone I know.  Maybe the two have to go together, given how frequently Sean end-os on those rocks.

Keith wistfully recalls what he refers to (in front of his wife) as The Best Days of My Life, living with Sean in the WUS house

Did I mention Sean likes to laugh?

So how does a runner cope with sharply conflicted emotions?  Why, alcohol, of course.

Heather’s daughter Cortland learns the real appeal of trail running at the 6-hr tailgate

Group hugs help the Wussies say bye.  And stand upright.

The 10 mile loop up to Signal Knob was just long enough to justify the long party in the Signal Knob parking lot.  Sean’s been recovering from last spring’s knee surgery all summer, so it’s been a while since we’ve been able to chase him down rocky trails.  Or, should I say, watch him whizz by like the Flash and dissolve before our eyes into the trees.

Zubs finds a younger self

Schuster finds….

some rocks

Sean brings out the younger versions of folk, and even old-man-chronic-back-aches Zaruba was flying down like a spring chicken.  And speaking of recoveries, a highlight of the day was definitely seeing Schmidty hurdling over those rocks as if his pelvis had no idea it was being held together by a long piece of metal.  Sean told me Brian could hike 4 miles.  He did 8.

Brian was a Sugar magnet

Heather and Sean go waaay back

All hell broke loose when Sean cracked open a bottle of fine Spottsylvania bourbon in the parking lot.  For future events, we should coordinate and make sure only one person brings a bottle of bourbon.  Mr Corris won’t be making that mistake again.

Aaron falls victim to the second bottle of bourbon

We spent a chunk of the afternoon trying to convince Zaruba to spend more time with us in DC.  If we can’t have Sean’s giggles, can we at least have Zubs’s stories?

Zaruba retells the iconic story of the inversion table

Nobody does the ‘creepy Greg’ impression better than Greg

Truth is, I know we’ll still be seeing plenty of Sean, perhaps as much as I see him these days in Leesburg.  I promise, on the sacred paw of my cat Leda, that I will try in earnest to make it out to Frisco 2x a year (winter and summer), and I will set-in-stone make it out once a year.  In return, Mr Andrish, you should know by now that I will not forget your promise to visit DC once a year.  DC sure is nice in April and May during Frisco’s dreary mud season.  And we got Promise Land, Race for the Birds, Lobsterfest….

Marmots don’t forget