I'm sliding down hill towards 50 and have decided to try and conquer the hilly 5 mile trail that I have had a love hate relationship with for a quarter of a century. I am out of shape again after some health issues and living an almost sedentary life off and on for a couple of years. I am able to jog the 3 mile flat trail near the college on a good day, so on this lovely warm spring day after our harshest winter in 20 years I thought, "I'll jog the first mile of the trail and walk the last 4 miles...in 3 months, I'll be able to jog this trail again! Whoot!"
About half a mile into it, I thought, "How is half a mile on a slight hill more work than 3 miles on a flat trail?!?! Then I thought, "Isn't there a physics formula about this? Work = Force Times Distance Times the Cosine of The Angle Between them. I can figure this out... Wait! I don't know all the variables...I don't know all the forces! Sigh, if I want to finish the trail, I need to walk." I didn't make a full mile....I fail...
I stopped too late, because I was tired. But the trail was packed. It was 75F after less than two weeks ago being 20F and freezing rain. Everyone who knew of the trail was enjoying it. Some were a bit out of shape like me. Some were in fabulous shape but were ghostly white from a winter of being covered up. (Almost as funny...but not quite. lol) I didn't want to be seen giving up. I decided to walk the first 2.5 miles and turn back because the first half of the trail was flatter. (I was calculating all of this while trying to walk fast enough not to be passed by 2 year olds.)
At the two mile point, I started feeling ill. The paranoid me thought, "What are the symptoms of a heart attach for women? Nausea?" But the rational part of me thought, "No, you have the symptoms of eating linguini marinara with your parents and being foolish enough to do THIS an hour later. You big Dummy!"
At the two mile point, I decided that being seen sick or having a heart attack was more embarrassing than turning around and going back and only traveling 4 of the 5 miles intended by the trail makers. I thought about asking one of them to call me in an hour to be sure I made it back to my phone...in my car...2 miles away. Next time, I am definitely taking my phone with me so I can tell people where to send the search party. Do they have search parties for the Noland Trail?...it's only 5 miles long.
Then a flash of brilliance hit me...or delirium....often they are disguised as each other. Over this weekend, there will be hundreds of people...some of whom are as wise as me, trying to get in shape for the summer. If all of the sports teams wanted to make money, they could all take CPR classes so that they could be certified people walkers. They could charge $10 a trip to escort wise people on the trail. They could carry back packs of water and charge $5 a bottle. HEY, I bet marching bands could do this. The tuba players could carry the water. They are always trying to raise money for uniforms and things too. This could make us all safer and protect ourselves from ourselves. They put "Caution, Contents are Hot" on coffee cups for crying out loud. Some of us obviously need protection from ourselves! I'm a genius!...or maybe delirious...I'm not sure....
I made it back to the car today. I will definitely not do that after linguini again, though. Even idiots can learn from the dumb things they (we) do.
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