Clouds and rainbows

Bittersweet.  That was the first word to come to mind when the much-anticipated, but much-dreaded, official job offer came.

Tomorrow, as they say, is the first day of the rest of my life.  It will have been 530 days since the last day I actually worked (before starting my sabbatical), 347 days of being unemployed (after ending my sabbatical, and losing my job), and 286 days of job hunting (after taking the summer off to play).

The bitter part is about the end of an experiment with freedom.  During this experiment, I was free to get up each day whenever I felt like.  I was free to choose anything I wanted to do each day, with or without Colin.  I was free to go to bed each night whenever I felt like.  I was completely in charge of me and my time, reporting to no one.  I was free.  Bitter is perhaps rather harsh - the feeling is more of a nostalgic sadness.

The sweet part is about the work on which I am about to embark.  Starting the hunt at the beginning of September last year, I contacted 47 people, passed out 22 resumes, and attended 21 meetings or interviews.  In a small handful of those, I discovered something that could make me excited, and people I could potentially be happy to work with.  And of that handful, only one job was "right up my alley", as many of my friends have commented - the one I am about to start.

I did not receive a single interview from resumes submitted to online job posts.  I received only one courtesy PFO from those online submissions.  It was like I clicked submit, and off the bits and bytes flew, disintegrating into the deep void of suspended bits and bytes from all those lost emails and submissions that never made it through to reassembly at destination.  As for the actual meetings and interviews, nearly all were a result of a contact initiated through friends, friends of Colin's, or myself.  Except one.

Remember another experiment, where I hand delivered a resume?  Earlier in March this year, I printed off a copy of my resume, along with a note, and personally dropped it off at a place in which I was very interested.  That, my friends, is what led to this bittersweet moment.

Cracks on the Trail

Is it bad etiquette to swear out loud on the trail during a race?  I'm thinking the bad energy disturbs the other animals, both four-legged and two.  Probably wilts some greenery in its wake.  Unfortunately, it is a bit of an innate Tourette's-like reaction that can shoot out when I am focused.  It happens in the kitchen too, for example when I am making a masterpiece (ie. my lunch), and put an ingredient back in the fridge before I've actually used it, my concentration temporarily wandering off or worse, interrupted.

So when, during the first half of the "Survival of the Fittest" race this past weekend (Coast Mountain Trail Series), I rounded a bend to see the trailway to heaven continuing on up into the clouds, and not tipping over to a downward angle like the map in my head said it should (it had been going up for hours), I couldn't stop the "OH FOR F*** SAKE!!".  It just shot out.  I looked behind me - I had just displayed a crack of weakness in my I-am-tough armour, and hoped none of the stalwart trail warriors around me had heard the crack.

I popped a reserve sugar chewy thingy into my mouth, normally saved for near the end, soon happy again in time for the rowdy downhill.

The assumption is: everyone else out there is tough as nails.  I imagine a regimented hard-core training program which involves uphill sprints onto overhanging trails, all-nighter long runs into trail-less bush by light of the moon only, sprints pulling boulders - not tires - roped behind, and weight training that would shame an Olympic weight-lifter athlete.  So that means, for everyone else this must be a jog in the park, and I am certain they are lovin' it.  And not swearing.

Even the volunteers stationed along the course - happy, smiling, cheering and seemingly unaffected by the steady rain and cold air - are tough.  So I had to smile back, salute, wave, banter, pretending this was great fun for all of us.  All of which, incidentally, made it quite fun again, my armour suddenly all shiny.

About three quarters of the way through the race, on yet another climb, I began losing control of the cracks.  I was heading up the steepest prolonged climb, the trail like a river, me without a paddle.  It was now more a series of mad dance steps around fearsome bottomless puddles and thick mud than running.  A few more f-bombs.  The rain of the past 24 hours had caused a sudden surge in brush growth that morning, and the soggy-leafed branches hanging into the trail whacked my face again and again.  More f-bombs.

I popped a second sugar chewy thingy as the climb angle lessened (but still climbed), and regained some cheeriness.  Allowed a small smile even - I can beat you, you bonking blood sugars RARRR!  I passed, then put some space between, those two people I kept shuffling order with.

A branch suddenly tore my number from all but one safety pin. BIG FAT F-BOMB laced with religious iconery (why is that so much more powerful, in cultures and languages all over the world??).  If I lost my number, I was hooped - no timing chips.  Pulling over, I ignored my disintegrating armour as my two nemesises passed me by, and fumbled with frozen, dripping-gloved fingers and swears to get at least one pin back in through the torn number.

Hunting down my nemesises, I caught them both on one last slap-dap-happy two-step down the slime.  Weeeee!  Alas, I could only keep one at bay as my empty legs barely sputtered up the last hill to the finish.

Mind's view of the Race Course profile - yes, physically
strange how the Finish was at much higher elevation
than the Start, even though they were one  and the same...

I didn't cry until I was through the finish line, past the people, and had begun hyperventilating - that huge relief-cry that occasionally follows Type II fun.  I don't think I have ever been so physically and mentally spent after a run.  My armour in tattered pieces, I had no shame.

We pick our battles.  On the one hand, Squamish really is paradise, with out-your-front-door access to almost anything you like to do.  Recreating is easy here, in as many things as you can fit into a day.  But people in Squamish are tough, driven, and train hard.  And that's for the things they do for fun.  If you want to compete, them's the minimum standards.

As my dad likes to say, "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed (wo)man is queen/king" (I paraphrase).  There are very few blind people here.

Driving myself home, rain streaming down my windshield (for added tragic effect), I lamented my +30-minutes finish time over the female winner, plus not finishing in under 2 hours like I had "planned".  Then I thought of my brother-in-law, a mountain bike racer for many years.  He used to get so mad at recreationist racers who, seeing their results compared to the top finishers, were sad and hard on themselves. "Open your eyes you eedjits!!", he'd rant, "We're not born this good, we work and train our asses off!!"

Hmmm.  Respect.