This shit was a lot easier when I was 20

My buddy, Dan, wrote me and a few other guys several weeks ago. 

"Hey - there's this fitness challenge event called 'GoRuck' coming up. I'm thinking of just signing up for the 'Light' one, which looks like a good time. I couldn't think of a better & more fun group of people to do it with than you guys. Whaddyasay?"

I'm not a big one on the 'sporty' stuff. I occasionally work out (not as often as I should), and when I do, it's usually just a two mile run. 'Run' being a very generous word for my shuffling-yet-somehow-heavy-plod of a gait. And the whole time I do it, I hate it. I don't even enjoy that afterglow of self-justification that comes with running. Because it's hard to feel afterglow when you're trying not to vomit up a lung. There's no "I ran, so I can eat nachos!" for me. I figured out a long time ago that I don't have to run to eat nachos. If I want nachos, I just order the damn nachos. I'm a grown man. I can do that. No, I run just because I feel like I have to do something to get off my butt, and as much as I hate running, I've never found another physical activity that I can motivate myself to do with even irregular consistency.  I run two miles because I figure, if you can catch me after two miles, then here. Have my wallet. It's not worth it. 

"It's addicting!" my friends tell me. Liars. It's not addicting. Unless you're addicted to shin-splints. And if you are, then you need help. But I'm pretty sure I could quit this shit anytime. Cold turkey. No problem.

We had a friend in California who ran marathons or some crap like that, and she was always telling us about how her toenails were turning black and falling off. She'd say it with a kind of gleeful mania in her voice and a zoned out meth-addict look in her eye. And then she'd talk about her new shoes she had to buy ever six weeks or something. Do you not see a problem here? We need to talk about interventions. 

Occasionally, though, I have a momentary lapse in judgement, and I sign up for something stupid. Like the Warrior Dash. Or the GoRuck. I have a chink in the armor covering my soft white underbelly, and it is events with catchy names and a promise of beer at the end.  

I signed up. The other neighbors all found convenient, flimsy excuses to skip it. "Gee... wish I could, but I'm going to France," or "I just had knee replacement surgery, and I'm pretty sure that's a bad idea." 

Damn I wish I had thought of that last one. 

Dan and I got together to train a couple of times. "You used to do this in the Army, right, Ken?" 

Yes. Back before I was forty. 

This is my team. We met at the Boston Common this past Saturday afternoon. It was a gorgeous day. Our cadre leader, Mike, was a lovely fellow who had served multiple stints overseas as a Marine Recon Sniper and then an Air Force Combat Controller. Mike spoke very softly. And scared the shit out of us. 

"Drop your rucks and go get wet," he said. 

We all dropped our rucks and ran into the wading pond at the bottom of the hill. We ran back up, dripping. 

"Not all of you are completely wet. Again."

Yikes. 

We had an hour plus 'Welcome party' afterwards. "Welcome" means pushups, and burpees, and a horrible combination of exercises called 'the Body Builder' which made me question my choice of cold sausage pizza for breakfast. We had to do them all in sync. If we got out of sync, the count started over at 0, and we began again.  I turned around and glared at Dan. He grinned back at me. Dan is a sadist. 

When we got on the move, we shouldered our rucks. My ruck weighed about 35 lbs or so, filled with duct-taped bricks and 2 liters of water. ("Do not let your rucks touch the ground. If your ruck touches the ground, that is an infraction"). We had an additional team weight of 15 lbs that rotated around the group. ("Do not let your team weight touch the ground. If your team weight touches the ground, that is an infraction"). We had a group weight that consisted of carrybags filled with sand, connected together into a 6 foot long, 200lb 'body bag'. ("Do not let the group weight touch the ground. If your group weight touches the ground, that will become an infraction.")  We had a team leader carrying a flag ("Do not let that flag touch the ground. If the flag touches the ground, infraction doesn't begin to cover what I will do to you.") 

And we hiked. Through the city of Boston, shouldering our gear, making pedestrians and cars alike turn and gawk. Every couple of hours, we'd pause and do more group PT. While we hiked, Cadre Mike would get creative and find fun things to fill our time. 

"This is a toll bridge. You must do lunges across the bridge, in sync, carrying all the weights. Do not get out of step. If you get out of step, you will have to go back and start over again." 

We got out of step.

Ironically, I don't mind schlepping heavy weights around. I do this all the time at home - carrying fifty pound bags of feed around, or tossing scrappy piglets into pens. That part of the challenge really wasn't a big deal for me. I could, and do, hike for miles for fun. 

The really challenging parts for me were those occasional stops. 

We found a lovely spot along the river to stop and secure our gear. ('Secure' is military speak for "put your crap down." Surprisingly, out of our class of 19, I was one of the only two military veterans. Probably because if you've been in the military, you are supposed to know better than to willingly pay someone to make you do a multi-hour ruck march, carrying a bunch of heavy shit. I am a slow learner. But I was able to help by translating the occasional jargon during the ruckmarch) 

"Do 10 mountain climbers; Get up; Sprint down to the other side of this field. Do 10 mountain climbers. Sprint back. Go." 

We did it. 

"Good! Your time was 1 minute, 23 seconds. That is now your time to beat. Do it again." 

We didn't beat our time. 

We did it again. 

"Good! You ran that in 1 minute 15 seconds. That is your new time to beat. Do it again."

I now remember what I don't miss about the Army. 

But I'll be damned if we didn't beat that time. 

Suck it, 40. 

Instigator Dan & myself, smelling like victory. Lots and lots of victory. 

In the end, the challenge lasted just at 6 hours. I think we covered a bit more than 12 miles. We sort of forgot to measure.  And when we made it back to the Common, we were jogging the flag in, doing indian runs as a group, and talking about who was going to buy the first round of beer. 

Dan and I were probably the two oldest guys on the challenge in our team. And the next day, I felt like I had received a prison-yard beating, despite the family sized bottle of horse motrin I had scarfed before crawling into a horizontal position. 

And hell yes, I'm going to do it again.

I've heard about benefits like this. Now I get it.

Today I had my first ever, at-the-office professional massage. (I know. Feel free to roll your eyes. But I am old now. And this has been a thing for a while. And suddenly, this thing as an accessible service makes a lot more sense.) 

Last Friday, I woke up at 4am in excruciating pain. I couldn't look up. I couldn't look right. I could look left. Which is more useful than being unable to move your head at all. But unsurprisingly, not enough. Even looking left hurt. Like my neck was telling me "Screw you. I left you this little bit. Do you want me to take that away, too?" 

For the record, when I went to bed I was fine. I hadn't done anything more strenuous that evening than catching up on a couple of episodes of 'Cutthroat Kitchen' off the TiVo.  

We have a masseuse/yoga instructor at the on-campus gym here at work at couple of days a week, but I had never used her before. It's $15 for a 15 minute chair massage. I don't know what the rest of her rate card is. I had always kind of mocked the people who used the service. I mean, seriously, what kind of person gets a massage at work?

Turns out: I'm that kind of person.

I figured that with my neck actively trying to sabotage my ability to do complex maneuvers like Looking At Things or Getting Up From My Bed, it was pretty much a good time to try. 

I sent her a note and arranged an appointment on her next on-site day. (Today). I know she does the longer, normal type massage, but I figured the 15 minute thing was a good start.

I showed up in slightly better shape than I had been - the past few of days and a couple of evening bourbons had gone some way to loosening things back up again. I can look to my right now. But up still hurts. 

Think about it: How many times a day do you tilt your head back and look up? 

Wrong.

It's way more than that. Which I didn't know until I was forced to count the tears I shed every time I tried. 

I explained things to the masseuse. 

"How do you normally sleep?" she asked. 

"Er... horizontally, most often. It's worked for me until now."

"Has this ever happened before?"

"No. And I've been sleeping almost every day for pretty much my whole life. At least once a day. Sometimes twice. I used to be pretty good at it. Suddenly: not so much." 

"How many pillows do you use?"

"One. Maybe two." 

She nodded sagely. "You should think about using less"

"Less than one is zero. I should use zero pillows?"

"Well. At least think about it." 

And then she jabbed her thumb into my neck.

"I bet it hurts right here."

"Erp!"

Over the course of the next 15 minutes, she poked and prodded and twisted expertly and turned the tight knotty balls of agony in my neck into a reluctant surrender to normality. And hey. You know what? I can look up now. 

The on site massage should immediately by law be made A Thing. It was awesome. 

If you need a reminder how good a simple egg can be...

This last month, our good friend & neighbor released an updated version of her book:  "I have some chickens, now what the hell am I supposed to do with all these eggs?"

(I suggested that title in one conversation. Too bad it didn't make it past the editor, right Terry?.)

I sometimes refer to Terry 'the chicken whisperer'. She's run a popular website featuring her animals for years at Hencam.com, and offers workshops on how to raise a backyard flock safely and effectively. She's the one I turn to when I need advice on some obscure chicken happening, and is full of both practical, down to earth advice and experience. Heck, she was featured on Martha Stewart a couple of years ago with one of her hens and the children's book she published. Starring - you guessed it - one of her beautiful hens.  We've traded occasional birds when one of us has either a surplus or a stumper (Terry and I. Not Martha Stewart). And we've come to value her and her family as great friends as well as great neighbors. 

Plus: she's a terrific cook. 

The real title (& cover) of the book... 

This book covers all kinds of great facts about eggs: selecting, storing, and most of all: preparing them in a host of delicious ways, and it's beautifully photographed.  You should pick yourself up a copy. 

She even touches on what it's like to care for your own flock, or how to talk up a local farmer to score some fresh eggs yourself. Though she did add a warning at her recent book reading - giving an incidental shout out to us when she told the audience: "Be aware... chickens are a gateway animal. One of our neighbors started with a few birds and now has a pair of pigs to go with them."

Last night, we made a pasta carbonara with eggs from our own flock, pancetta we cured ourselves, pasta made by the Critter, and some zucchini that we picked up at Stop & Shop. (It was 15 degrees last night. It'll be a while before I can expect any vegetables that aren't shipped in from well below the Mason Dixon line). 

Terry's a cook; her recipes are approachable and delicious, and highlight the good quality ingredients she recommends. I promise: you won't be disappointed in this one.