The Challenge

The day of my birthday challenge dawned bright and clear. Now it’s funny typing that because I feel like that usually implies the time before someone awakes, but on challenge day I was actually starting to run as dawn broke. It was a balmy 45 degrees out in the Baylands and I was pretty cold for the first mile or so. It was rather dark and somewhat foggy when I started out and I started wondering what I was doing. I felt somewhat reassured as I saw a few other runners and some bird watchers, but mostly I was thinking, “What’s wrong with these people that they’re out so early in the cold?”

As the sun peeked up from behind the mountains, I was rewarded with the beautiful sight of sunrise over the Baylands. I saw tons of cool birds (white pelicans, egrets, American coots, etc.) and was almost attacked by a flock of Canada geese. OK, the last is probably an exaggeration, but I’m always scared that Canada geese will charge me and peck my eyes out. The sun brought some warmth and I was able to strip off some of my layers and finish my run more comfortably.

Tom was waiting for me in the parking lot with a warm car and bags filled with 33 donut holes. We headed back to my brother’s house for second breakfast and the beginning of my eating challenge. I showered, changed into cycling clothes, and prepared for the second part of my physical challenge. Tom and my brother came along for the riding part of my challenge. We departed from my brother’s a little later than scheduled and rode along the Steven’s Creek trail, Baylands trails, and finally up onto the Dumbarton Bridge. The halfway point for the ride was the high point of the bridge so we turned around there and rode back to Mountain View. Every time we stopped to use the bathroom or eat some Gu, I ate a donut hole. Due to our numerous stops and my slow pace, the ride took 45 minutes longer than I had anticipated. But I was so excited about the ride that I didn’t care. The weather was perfect for the ride and the lovely bike trails left me longing for living in the Bay Area again.

When we got back to my brother’s house, I showered and changed again, this time into climbing clothes. While I showered, Tom went to La Bamba (our all-time favorite burrito place) to pick up lunch. I was already starting to feel sick from eating donut holes and only made it through half of my burrito. I took a few minutes to lie down on the couch, which was not scheduled. Between this and the ride taking a long time, we wound up departing for the climbing gym an hour later than I had planned. My brother had to go in to work, so Tom and I set out alone for the gym.

By the time we got to the gym, I was feeling fairly exhausted. I took a quick tour of the gym to scope the routes and learned that there were more than enough routes in the range of difficulty that I wanted to climb. This was reassuring because it meant that I wasn’t going to be forced to climb harder routes than I wanted to. I tied in and started up the first climb. Things seemed like they weren’t going to be too bad, but as I rested between routes, I kept eating more donut holes. The more I ate, the sicker I felt and the longer I rested in between routes.

Finally I came to the realization that if I didn’t stop eating donut holes, I wouldn’t be able to keep climbing. So I stopped eating at 18 donut holes and decided to save the rest for the bar. My friends Katie and Sasha stopped by to give me some encouragement and my brother showed up as I was finishing climbing. I climbed 12 5.8’s, 18 5.9’s, and 3 5.10a’s. I was feeling very accomplished until I remembered that I still had 15 donut holes to eat, 28 people to talk to, and the full 33 shots of beer to drink! I only managed to talk to 5 people at the gym and only two of them were self initiated. I quickly regretted having set this part of the challenge for myself. I hate talking to strangers! What was I thinking?

We left the gym and headed back to my brother’s place once again. I showered again and changed into sweats before we departed for dinner. We had some delicious ramen at my favorite ramen house in Mountain View and then we left for the bar. Arriving at Fred’s Place, I was reminded what a dive it is. As we walked in I was wondering how in the world I was going to fulfill the talking part of my challenge. It was a Monday night and the bar was far from filled.

Our friends Dave and Tina (and Tina’s friend, Dan) met us at Fred’s for the drinking part of the challenge. After drinking several shots of beer and eating some more donut holes, Tina dragged me over to a group of six people. She told them I had something that I needed to tell them. So I launched into a description of my challenge. After the ice had been broken I continued around the bar by myself, talking to some of the weirdest people I’ve ever talked to.

There was “pink sweatshirt guy”, who I guess is a regular at Fred’s. He looked homeless to me and might be the drunkest person I’ve ever seen. I was nearly in hysterics as I explained my challenge to him. I’d call it a conversation, but it was really a monologue since he didn’t respond to anything I said. He did, however, give me a thumbs-up at the end. I started talking to two middle aged men who were sitting at the bar. They were self-described “wolves” who talked about carrying me out of there on their backs. They asked if kissing 33 men was part of my challenge and said all sorts of other creepy things. I wound up staying with them for a while because they bought me four shots of beer that they insisted I drink. Tom finally came over and saved me.

As it turned out, I talked to every single person in the bar (which was 20). This brought my total up to 25. I made it through 22 shots of beer and 28 donut holes before I called it quits. We had to get up early the next morning, pick up Tom’s mom and drive all the way home and I was having a hard time imagining doing this severely hung-over and sugar-coma-ed. Some might say that I failed in my challenge, which in some respects I did, but I feel pretty good about what I did accomplish. And I’ve already started planning next year’s challenge because this was the best birthday I’ve had in a long time!