Work hard, Play hard

Last week was a busy, somewhat stressful week, but so long as I end it with some fun and adventure, then it's totally worth it. Work hard, play hard, and live life to the max.

The week itself was spent with hours upon hours in the dungeon of a subbasement that houses the microscopy lab. The stress of playing around with 1 mm x 2 mm x 70 micron sections of leaf material for hours on end takes it toll. After 10 hour workdays staring through dissecting scopes cutting, staining and handling copper grids that could easily fit on the head of a pin, my brain was fried. Fortunately I have sports as my favorite remedy. I went climbing indoors for the first time at the Phoenix Rock Gym on Wednesday with Emily and Hannah. Although I'm not great at it yet, I had a blast and gave my fingers and forearms an incredible workout. Thursday was spent on our crossover game for ultimate (our team usually plays on Tuesday). The girls on the opposing team were very athletic, and after a long day in the lab, I enjoyed chasing them around knocking their disks out of the air on defense, and cutting around them to catch disks in the end zone. We played very well as a team, and are now 2-2 and looking strong for the rest of the season.

Out of all of the sports that I have played, I think that ultimate players as a whole are the most fun by far. Not necessarily hippies, just easy-going people who enjoy having a good time and want to make sure that the people around them are enjoying life as well. And I love being part the crazy group of ultimate players known as VOTS (Valley of the Sun Ultimate). On Friday several of us went to the Way Out West Octoberfest in Tempe. We had a few good German beers and just went with the flow of the evening. We rode carnival rides, sang along to the live cover bands, and then danced to the polka bands until midnight. I had never danced to polka before, but it didn't matter. Much like ska or Irish jigging, if you just jump around to the beat, you'll pretty much fit in. Our group excelled at jumping around, and VOTS owned the dance floor... whether it was because of our incredible polka skills or just the fact that we lasted longer than most people with our big group is beside the point. After we wore ourselves out on the dance floor, we biked over to Casey Moore's for a few more drinks and lots of stories into the wee hours of the morning.

After about three hours of sleep, I woke up way too early and reluctantly headed out to South Mountain with Hannah and Angel for some adventure race training and an attempt at geocaching. Hannah had gotten a new GPS as a wedding gift, and we wanted to try it out. Angel and I lagged well behind Hannah on the 2 mile bike leg up to the National Trailhead, but I figured it would be good training for sleep deprivation and mental toughness. After locking up our bikes, we started up the foothills with Angel and I sweating out German beer. My head hurt and my legs were wobbly as we alternated between running and walking up the slope. My mental state was about as good as my physical one as I contemplated how bikes were supposed to navigate the gigantic rock formations that made up the majority of the trail. Once we cleared the top though, I started to feel a little bit better due to the incredible view of the entire Valley from the vantage point. We soon turned off of National and headed to Hidden Valley, where a "map cache" was supposedly tucked away among the unique rock formations. Unfortunately for us, we couldn't quite figure out how to switch Hannah's GPS from degrees, minutes and tenths of a minute to degrees, minutes, and seconds. We were lousy geocachers, but had a great time scrambling over the rocks in the cool autumn-like morning. We didn't find a single cache, but got a bit of a good workout in and sweat out any alcohol that we had in our systems. Afterwards, Angel and I caught a late breakfast before I headed in to the lab for a few hours to catch up on some projects that I've put on the back burner due to all of my microscopy work.

During the evening, I went over to Hannah and Tom's for some beer brauts and college football. It was awesome... Stanford beat USC and Florida almost beat LSU. Purdue played some team in red... I don't think it was Indiana or Wisconsin... it started with The... something about little nuts... anyways, I don't remember what happened, the first quarter was too painful and I blacked out for the rest of it. At least we can win where it counts in rowing.

On Sunday, Team ODP went up for a romp in the forests of Prescott. Since Angel and I had felt bad on the first part of the training session on Saturday, it was only fair that Hannah took her turn on Sunday. It was too bad for her, as the weather was perfect and 305 was just as amazing as it had been the first time. We stopped a few times along the ride, and it just felt right to be out there. Clear blue skies, fresh air, tall pines with fat squirrels scampering through them, and proud mullein plants clinging to the last yellow blossoms at the top of their tall, fuzzy stalks. It is times like that when you understand why people like Chris McCandless do what they do. (Sidebar to my family, no worries, I'm not going to just vanish into the wild, no matter what I said when I was a kid). Standing on top of a ridgeline and looking out across the hills and valleys and granite outcroppings, you understand life in the balance and how lucky we are to experience moments of peace like that in nature.

In addition to the beauty of our surroundings, the ride was incredible, especially now knowing where the dips and turns and hills were. We flew back down the trail (Hannah kind of literally on one section) as fast as we could go, just living in the moment, and enjoying the freedom of it all. Again, the seven miles back ended way too quickly, and we headed back to civilization for a bite to eat at Sonic, a quick stop at REI to look at gear, and then returned home after a full weekend.

Life is best lived to the max, and I have certainly been doing that the past couple of weeks. With the potential to get back out on the ocean in less than two months, my brain has been running a million miles a minute with a hundred different scenarios playing over and over in my mind. Although it is stressful at times, I work best under pressure. My passions bring out the best in me, and when I have a lot on my plate, I usually get more things done. It's exciting to be excited again. Work hard, play hard, and though there is no break on the horizon, it's the life I choose, and one that I truly love.