Muddy

There's going to be some muddy running, this weekend. It'll be fun.

Real Men?

Real Men? Whimsy, power, or buffoonery?

None of these guys are/were trail runners, I'll bet.

Trail runners have more fun.

Subjugation

The current story about the polygamist / pedophiles compound in Texas makes me sick. The common denominator in all extreme "fundamentalist" religions seems to be the total subjugation of women and children, to the pleasure of the few males in control.
The men really make me sick, but everytime I see a brainwashed "sect woman" with that cow-like contented look on her face, I get even sicker. It's as if she's happily left her brains behind, and has left her entire soul and welfare in someone else's hands.

Sorry about the non-running-related post. Some things just piss me off.

The Flat Hard Stuff, Mud Babes, & Throbbing Oral Structures

Bad Ben, Running on Pavement???

Yep. Twice in one week! I ran at the Wednesday night run for a nice 6-mile tempo run with the "fast" group. I surprised myself by running effortlessly on the flat hard stuff. (I haven't run on pavement since December 2007).

On the weekend, we scheduled a run in Downtown KCMO, to take in the exquisite graffiti, and the changing downtown sights and sounds on a quiet Saturday morning. It had rained a total of 5 inches late last week, so most of our normal trails were mudded-out, and would have sustained damage to them, if we'd run on them. The run was fun. Raul, Strawberry Hill Runner, Tim and our out of town guest, Rapid City Man ran with me. After the run, Raul and I had breakfast with SHR and her Hubby.

During breakfast, I noticed that it was painful to eat OATMEAL...one of my crowns was throbbing and was painful to touch. Before the run it had been fine. Huh? I guess a tooth root had decided to go south, and the extra blood pressure increase from running was the trigger that set it to throbbing and spiraling out of control into Major Painville. My dentist's emergency number didn't answer, so I ended up going to the ER at a local hospital for pain meds and Amoxicillin. I didn't see any pain relief until 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning, and of course, couldn't run (and could barely walk straight, due to pain, and the effects of the meds). So, I ended up being a slacker all day Sunday.

Now for the Mud Babes.
Sophia came up with a name for Female Trail Nerd members: Mud Babes. Strawberry Hill Runner and her decided to form a Brew to Brew (44-mile) relay team, called "Bad Ben's Mud Babes." (Brew to Brew was held on Sunday, April 6). The team ultimately consisted of Sophia "First Mud Babe" Spencer, S.H.R., AKA CynicalMudBabe, and Kelley "Mizuno Grrl" Johnson.

Sophia Takes her Training For Brew to Brew Seriously

S.H.R. has a friend that does illustrations for the KC Star, and he came up with a design for their shirts. It's a keeper.


Shirt Design.
While they were running, I was staffing the last Brew to Brew aid station with some other Trail Nerds and wonderful volunteers. Some of the volunteers were new to Kansas City and/or the Nerds, and it was wonderful that they could be there. What a blast we had...and a total of 62 trains went by (thankfully) without incident. We also got to see many Nerds go by in teams and Solo. Raul Flores took 2nd place in solo, despite not having trained for it. Danny Miller wrote a good race report, and it is here.

It was a busy week, and my training went well, but it ended on a sour note with my aching tooth and swollen mouth. I'll get into the dentist early Monday morning, so I should be okay by Tuesday night for running.
(Photo: Raul Flores leaving boat crossing area).

Happy trails,

Bad Ben


2/3rds of the Mud Babes, SHR and Sophia.

Tagged!

I was tagged by "Blyfinn," of "My Running Journal" to play a little game called "six word memoir".

Here are the rules:
1) Write your own six word memoir
2) Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want
3) Link to the person that tagged you in your post, and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
4) Tag at least five more blogs with links
5) Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Here is my six word memoir:

"Life is to enjoy, not waste."

So tag onward! Sorry folks, but I tagged..... Olga, Strawberry Hill Runner, David Wakefield, Shane Jones, Travis Liles.