Blunders

Sorry for the long hiatus between posts... been a bit busy here in the crazy life of this crazy rower.

Friday (Sept 19th), was a bit of a bittersweet day. It was Matoba's last day here at ASU. Matoba has been one of my mentors since the beginning of my PhD, and his advice and understanding have been instrumental in my growth as a scientist. After seven productive years at ASU as a post-doc and research professor, he accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Louisville and the Brown Cancer Center, and though we are all excited about the new opportunities he and his family will have there, we will also truly miss him. Friday night we had a party to wish him well. It was a grand affair at the Mor residence with the entire lab and some of the labs over in Biodesign, as well as all of their families. Lots of eating, drinking, and playing with the plethora of kids. Oh yeah, and spiking Matoba's hair into a mohawk. Good times.

After the festivities, I joined Hannah and Angel and we drove up to Prescott to set-up camp for the Gilmore Adventure Race. When we arrived at the transition area in the middle of the cattle ranches, a full horizon of stars greeted us in the cool (although a little smelly from the cows) air, surrounded by mountains. It was a wonderful contrast to the hectic weekday life, and I snuggled into my sleeping bag happily excited about the next day's adventure.

We woke to a prodigious day full of bright sunshine and dozens of teams milling about getting ready for the big day. Everything was looking great until we realized that we didn't know where the keys were to the car's bike rack, and both Angel's and my bike threatened to become immortalized on top of the little Subaru. For better or worse, the locks on those things aren't the greatest, and I managed to loosen the bolts enough that we got them down without too much hassle (let that be a lesson if you think your bike is safe in a Thule rack). And then the day went down from there...

I still don't like talking about the actual race, as it ended up being such a disaster. Most teams are made up a diverse group of people who each have a special skill or talent to bring to the team. Our talents are... well, special maybe, but not in a positive sense. I have special navigation skills that were responsible for making us trek several extra miles in the first leg of the race and completely miss one of our first points. Hannah has special running skills that make her legs fall to pieces. Angel has special biking skills that allow her to be shaken to bits on her fully rigid bike. The ODP Special, ladies and gentlemen. We had joked at the beginning of the day that things couldn't have gotten worse than the blow-up self-bailing kayak fiasco of the Lake Hodges Adventure Race, but after 8.5 hours of getting lost, scratched up, losing/finding a camera, trekking ~8 miles, dodging giant kamikaze grasshoppers, biking ~20 miles, hike-a-biking down a 30' waterfall, and finally rolling into the finish line 1/2 hour late with only 4 navigation points checked off for the entire day to the applause of the entire crowd of seasoned racers - I definitely felt that we had outdone ourselves. Hannah has a very good description of the race, but for once, I'm going to be trite on the subject and just leave it as a good training day in controlling frustration in a very beautiful setting near Granite Mountain in Prescott.

In the end, I did win a small first aid kit in the shwag raffle, so the day wasn't a complete loss. We headed back to the Valley munching on the best tasting gas station nachos in the history of processed cheese food, and then spent the evening watching the Lady Blues battle Coast Rugby at Chaparral. Even after such a crazy adventure race, Angel played almost the entire game. I don't know how she did it, as I was completely whooped and as soon as the game was over, I barely had time to take a shower before I fell asleep.

I took it easy on Sunday, hanging out with Kohl, watching movies, just generally relaxing, trying to forget about the previous day's blunders, and looking forward to the next adventures.