New Thing #9: Mushing with support

On doctor’s orders, I spent $400 last week on orthotic insoles for back relief.

Suck.

But they got an auspicious maiden voyage yesterday: Salt Lake City Urban Iditarod 2010!

Urban Iditarods occur in several cities around the time of the real Iditarod. Teams of up to 8 runners dress up in costumes and decorate shopping carts to their chosen themes. There is a race route with five legs, each one ending at a different bar. The course is a few miles long, but teams usually start falling apart at the first taco stand.

This was my third Iditarod. I still haven’t finished an entire race with my cart.

Yesterday my friends and I dressed up as garbage and ran with a cart decorated as a Dumpster.

Our other friends dressed up as garbage men and decorated their cart as a Wasted Management truck.

Our competitors included:

Team Elvis

Team Snuggie

Team Miss Conception

Team Pirates

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Team ’80s Barnyard Animals?

Team Golden Girls

Team Love Boat

Team Shower

Team Camelot

and the Church of Bad Habits

Team Trashed performed well even though my orthotic supports took up so much of my tennies that I could barely lace them up, and our driver fell on his face about 10 yards into the race. Apart from that (and one tragic pants-pooping that did not involve anyone I know), a good time was had by all.

Picture pages Friday: Whooosh!

A few weeks ago, I went to the national team trials for bobsled and skeleton — a cool upside of living in a former Olympic town. One of the girls on the team used to live in the house where I live!

Anyway, you would not believe how fast the people zip around the waterslide-looking ice track. Fortunately, that was the day I figured out the zippy multiple-shots setting on my camera!

And I made a little slide show of this skeleton man.

My understanding is that the starting block is the key to a good time. A second in the start is worth three seconds on the track, or something. They want to run fast and jump smoothly onto the sled, rolling down from their upper body to their lower body.

(Sorry about the sparkly crap on the slideshow.)

Leave it to the jock boys

I quit kickball.

Yep, made it through three and one-fifth games.

The first two games were great for me. Scary, but exhilarating.

The next two were like being chained to the middle of Main Street in High Noon.

Things fell apart on double-game night. The sun was in our eyes. The innings wouldn’t end. I played third base, which put me right next to the opposing teams — collectively, the most combative people I’ve hung out with since junior high lunch hour.

There was a fight after every play. Fights with my team. Fights with the umps. People stomping toward each other and yelling. Third base coaches staging tantrums next to my ear.

Maybe this is normal sporty behavior. Which is why I will always smirk at the inferiority of jock boys.

But, inferior as they may be, they have an insidious power to ruin everything they touch.

My team could snort as loud as we pleased at their obviously vacant lives since there they were, investing a year’s worth of rage in an adult kickball game. And snort we did. But they still totally harshed our buzz.

We wanted to play our best, but if we cared about that, then we also had to care about all those tiffs. Let them have their way? Hell, no. We fought.

And before my eyes, our merry band of teachers, data analysts, lawyers, engineers, journalists and one artsy brew tech became what I never thought we could become:

Sober.

When you play with jock boys, you don’t do Jell-O shots and goof around. You get serious or give up. That’s how it goes. So there you are, all exposed on third base, a few feet from guys with shiny gunk in their hair who deafen you with piss, and you try to stand your ground even though you can’t feel your legs because the gauntlet has been hurled down, and by God you better be ready to do your part, which means you’re stuck on the field when hyperventilating panic fills your eyes with indigo dots.

And so, just as they did to all your favorite dive bars, jock boys came along and ruined kickball.

At least for me. My friends still are gung-ho. God bless, and I’ll see ‘em for beers afterward.

That was really the best part, anyway.

Fright

It’s been a long time since I’ve been as nervous as I was last night.

Trying something new is always a little scary, so I can’t be too hard on myself. But something about competitive adult kickball made me fear for my very dignity.

I showed up at Liberty Park with my shoulders near my ears and my saliva hiding far, far away. My team captain Chelsee gave me some kicking pointers, and I actually caught the ball a few times during field warm up. I croaked some feeble words of thanks through my cottonmouth.

But, see, I wasn’t so afraid of dropping the ball or kicking a fly or running too slow.

My greatest fear was that I would make an inexcusable strategic error. Like fielding the ball and throwing it at a base to which no one is running.  That’s something I’d totally do. And it would feel way worse than a fumble. So what if I suck at the sporty part?  I have a very good excuse in that I suck at sports. But stupid choices? That’s what makes me all shamefaced.

OK. It was time to play. Too late to back out. I took my position at third base.

Then it occured to me that I really suck at sports.

My knees began to shake. Violently. So did my hands, to the point that I started doing that special ed finger-flick anxiety thing to keep some sense of control. My hands felt a little better.

But my stomach tightened into a panicky little rock. I sooo didn’t want the ball to come to me. But, ohhh, I kind of really did. It would feel so good to actually catch it. But, ohhh, finger flicky, legs wobbly, third-base ump telling me “Don’t worry, you’ll be great,” obviously harboring a legitimate fear that I might cry or throw up on her.

That first inning was worse than a piano recital. And the ball never came anywhere near me.

Then it was kicking time. No longer could I repel the ball with the sheer force of hope. I had to make contact. The voice of God himself boomed into my ear: You’re up.

The ball rolled over the plate.

Foul one.

Foul two. Oh, Jesus.

Roll.

Boing!

Fly ball.

I trotted toward first, waiting to be caught out.

But no! Fielders crashing into each other. Ball bouncing off knuckles. Onto the ground. Boing. A few yards away from me.

It was like I’d just thrown a grenade at myself.

“GOOOO!” someone yelled. I watched the grenade over my shoulder as I took off sprinting.

And crashed into the first base coach.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

It isn’t clear how I ended up at the base after that. I’m still not fully certain that I didn’t at one point kneel down and kiss someone’s shoes.

But I got to first base. Later, to second. I don’t know what happened at third, but I stopped running there. It’s all such a blur. I have no idea whether we scored any runs during my time on the diamond, whether I made any bad decisions that screwed my team or whether I injured anyone that I crashed into.

All I know is that I’m really excited to try again now that I know to look where I’m running.

Jock girl

One of my guiding principles is Never Play Team Sports.

Team sports are trouble. You ask anyone who has played junior high volleyball. Life is never quite the same after you’ve been screamed at by the popular girl in front of half the 13-year-olds in your town. Your friends freeze in terror. No one comforts you as you bawl your eyes out in the locker room. But plenty of people stare.

There’s no bouncing back from that, even when the other girls turn on the tyrant a week later in a grand, weepy, hairbrush-throwing coup d’etat led by my friend Tara, to whom I am forever indebted and who, I believe, also has given up team sports.

Never Play Team Sports has given me a chance to repair. It has shifted my focus to more fulfilling pursuits, such as writing and music and watching Wipeout. Never Play Team Sports has buoyed my soul lo these many years.

But eventually, you look at yourself in the mirror and say, “My, how you’ve grown.” You tiptoe back toward dreams of glory.

And then you get drunk at a party and join your friends’ kickball team.

My first game is tonight.

Wish me luck.