1. Ate M&Ms as a pre-race meal. In fact, I blogged about it here.
2. Spontaneously (as in on 48 hours notice) packed all my things into my car and drove down to Lancaster, PA to work at a summer camp for nerds. Seriously, these middle school kids had to take the SAT in the 7th grade in order to go there. They also met other nerds for the first time, fell in "love," and had "sex" in bushes. Don't send your children there.
3. Bought a pet rabbit on the side of the road in Maine. There was a sign that said $5 rabbits so we got one. RIP Mugsy.
4. Took a 27 hour train ride from Beijing to Chengdu, China. I pretty much lost a day of my life on that train. At least we got to see a really big Buddha and panda bears once we got there.
5. Climbed a 3 story scaffolding absolutely wasted. What can I say, I used to be wild back in the day (and...I can't post about that part of my life here).
6. Lived in the Bowdoin Hockey house for a month. There was blood on the mattress, porn magazines under the mattress, broken furniture, and a dirty handprint with an arrow that said, "Colby fuck '08" written in permanent maker on the wall. Good thing it was only $240 for a 4 bedroom apartment. Best deal ever.
7. Cooked a pot of beans at midnight and a a big pot of soup in the middle of summer. (Full confession: I STILL think these things are completely normal, but my sister and my friend, Jo, don't seem to think so).
8. Peed in an open trench in the countryside somewhere in China (the bathroom was basically a trench with 2 slabs of concrete that you stand on). A dog walked in while I was in full squat. My vagina has never felt so vulnerable.
...and my personal favorite:
9. Lived in an apartment in Portland, ME with no furniture, no hot water, and no transportation. This meant I had to walk 2 miles each way to work and my roommate, Ranwei (who refused to get hot water in order to save money), had to bike 15 miles each way. We heated up hot water in pots to shower, slept on air mattresses, used a piece of wood we stole as our kitchen table, and went to bed everyday at 8pm because we also had no internet (wireless wasn't cool back then). We also contemplated charging our laptops at work to save on electricity.
It actually was a very nice apartment
If you couldn't guess, Ranwei was also my roommate at the Bowdoin Hockey house. Apparently we used to be really cheap. Don't worry, we've really grown up since then. In fact, we also lived together in a respectable condo in Brookline, where we bought a $2,000 TV with $20 bills. Super classy.
Despite this non-exhaustive list of strange things I have done, last Sunday, I reached an all new level of crazy. I ran a 10K...in a snowstorm.
The Frozen Pilgrim 10K took place on Sunday, February 17, 2013 in Plymouth, MA. At start time, weather.com told me there was a winter storm warning and it was "feels like" 4 degrees, heavy snow, and high winds.
I'm still not sure why I did this, but I am SO glad I did. Mainly because I feel like a total badass now. The route was unplowed so we were running on snow and parts of the race involved wind and snow blowing right into my face. I shouldn't be surprised, after all, it is called the FROZEN pilgrim. I thought about turning back during the first mile, but for some strange reason, I just kept going.
Here are some photos (some taken from Bayside Runner's Facebook page):
Before the race. Contemplating...should I really do this? Why not, we're already here.
Start line
As one lady put it, "this isn't a race, this is survivor"
Lead runner coming in. What a badass.
It wasn't always pretty, it wasn't always fun, it wasn't always fast, but I FINISHED.
