The Sage's Weekend of Truth and Embarrassment - Part 2

This is part 2 of a series, so if you haven't read part 1, please go read that part of the story ... go ahead, we'll wait ... Great - welcome back to part 2!

Normally we awake Saturday morning, feeling thirsty, a little fuzzy from the evening before's libations yet are very excited about the day's events to come.  As some groups of guys do when we're away from home, we throw health and self care virtues out the window. So we begin our day with a bacon, egg, toast, butter, coffee, hash browns breakfast - it's great to hang out and smell the delicious sizzling greasy bacon frying away while we start stretching for the bohemian Olympics to come.

Every year since the inception of the Sage's Weekend of Truth and Embarrassment, we have started the day with a warm up run - this is optional, but since most of us are former running competitors, we love to get out and run 5-10 miles to start the day.  We start a little stiff and slow, but soon we warm up and inevitably someone starts sprinting to egg on the others.  So immature, so silly - yes, that someone is usually me :)  It is so beautiful around serene lakes - the mirror reflection on the water, all the trees, the smells of drying mule's ear leaves blowing in the sun ...

OK, so we've picked T and A teams, have team captains, and are nice and warmed up for the first event - the dreaded summit bike race.  Now remember - most of us are now in the 45 - 50 age range, and vary from 0 - 30 pounds over our college weight ... not to mention varying levels of conditioning.  No matter.  We all race anyways ... we total up the individual times from members of each team, and voila - lowest cumulative time wins.

So we line up at the stopsign at the west end of donner lake - around 6,000 feet elevation ... we all take off like rabbits ... the first mile feels pretty good, but we're breathing like freight trains and legs are already tired ... that's just the first mile of 3 - all uphill!  Uh, oh, now it gets a little steeper on the second mile.  All of our egos still think we can somehow speed up and catch the guy in front of us ... or at least, god forbit, keep from getting caught!  We're breathing like fire breathing dragons now ... we can even feel the fire in our throats as we approach 7,000 feet.   The last mile seems to go  on forever - where did all these turns come from?  It seems so easy when I drive my truck up this hill!  Finally we round the last bend, lungs bursting, quads burning and egos yelling in our brains to sprint to the finish ... tiny voice in our heads saying "stop this hurts - go ahead and lie down on the pavement" is completely drowned out.

The little voice takes over when we get over the exuberance of winning or ignore the pain of losing - hey, there's 4 more events coming - anything can happen!  We go back to the cabin and enjoy the first cold beer of the day before the swim race.

The swim race is hilarious - we swim about 30 yards out to a moving canoe and back to shore to hand off to our next relay teammate.  No holds barred, there's underwater blocking, feet pulling, some guys can hardly swim (hey, we're runners) so it makes the rest laugh so hard that they can't breath or swim!  The serene lake water looks like a herd of piranhas were consuming a cow out there - a veritable maytag of arms and legs.

Lunch is delicious and usually so heavy that if we had the swim after lunch we'd all be anchors.  After a run, bike, swim, lunch and a few beers, we all feel like taking a nap.  As guys, we are obligated to act like we are not tired at all ... so we go play volleyball.  If you're a woman reading this, it probably makes no sense at all, I guess that's why women and men are so intrigued by each other :)

Volleyball.

I hear the Top Gun sound track in the background - we picture ourselves as if we were still in college - hard bodies, jumping over small buildings in a single bound, shiny glistening muscular sweaty torsos ready to film a commercial ... but then reality sets in.  Beer bellies are starting to form (I'm being nice in some cases).   Ouch!  that ball is hard as a rock.  Aren't there some kind of arm pads for this sport?  But hey, it's super fun and we all do our best.  I think I beat my vertical leap record of 1".  The funnest part is if you're on "Sport a Tan's" team - he grew up in Santa Barbara on the beach - if you're on his team, you don't really have to hit the ball his serve is so good.  Wow, where'd all the beers go that were in the cooler?  Darn bears - next year we really have to put the beers in a metal bear box!

Stay tuned for part III and the big life lesson and next year's resolutions ... thanks for reading :)