I made a nostalgic (for me) mix tape to sync to my Garmin, from the mall rat and early club kid days, so ages 14 – 20 (I started clubbing at 15, because I knew people to get in the door at first and then later was able to get somebody’s ID to use for entry). I tried to keep the playlist from getting into current stuff and tried to keep it on the somewhat lighter side. #music
Here is my school pic from 9th grade. Sorry about the poor quality. But, this is the era. I wish I still had that Cure shirt. It was from the Disintegration tour, which was such an amazing experience for me.
It was hard to not put more on there. This was a great time of life for me. It was also hard to not include some other stuff from that era, and the more I think about it the more I want to add to it. So much is still unrepresented, but it is already at 100 songs and that is a nice number to stop at, for now. I can’t stop thinking of stuff that I could potentially put on there from that era but I have to be more granular. I know I’ve already crossed some genre lines as it is.
I miss those days, when I had a solid group of friends and we hung out together all the time, often really just doing nothing but sitting around listening to music. Nobody has time for that anymore. I know I don’t. Not to mention that schedules never seem to coincide anyway nowadays and most of the people that I have music in common with now, I have nothing else in common with anymore.
This is a long post. There is just so much I want to remember.
What was an amazing weekend could have ended very differently, but it didn’t, and being alive never felt so good.
I had planned to go down to cave dive with a new buddy on Saturday and a different new buddy on Sunday and also to spend some time with a good friend for his (slightly belated) birthday.
I woke up at 5 am on Friday and drove down to High Springs, so I could pick up my dive gear from Extreme Exposure and have it in time to be at Peacock Springs when they open on Saturday, instead of having to go get it in the morning first. I worked in the library all day on my laptop and was quite productive there, so have learned that this is a perfectly reasonable option for me in the future. The internet is fast enough and it is quiet and very easy to concentrate. I will be doing this again when I need to be there for a Saturday morning. Of course, during marathon training that isn’t really an option, but right now I’m in the in between marathon and next training cycle time.
When I was done with work I met James and we had dinner at a Mexican place. Peppers Mexican Grill in Gainesville. We got the Fajitas Carnitas. They were so delicious. I could eat that all the time. As it turned out, James had a cancellation this weekend so would be available to dive with me on Saturday and Sunday. I was so excited about this! My weekend just got so much more fun!!! It’s always awesome diving with him. I cancelled my plans with my Sunday dive buddy (who I still hope to dive with someday) and would dive with James on Saturday afternoon, after my dive with my other buddy Mike on Saturday morning, and then I’d dive together again with James on Sunday morning before I headed back to Atlanta.
I met my new dive buddy Mike at Peacock Springs first thing in the morning on Saturday. It looked so peaceful with nobody there. I was looking forward to being the first ones in the cave today.
We were going to do a single stage dive, to Challenge Sink and back, via the peanut line. We spent a few minutes hanging out on a slippery rock at the surface doing some pre-dive checks and then headed off. He ran a primary reel to the peanut line, which is just under the stairs and to the left when facing the stairs. The dive went very smoothly and was super relaxing and enjoyable. We dropped the stages at 32 minutes in. When we got to Challenge, we surfaced to chat for about 10 minutes and then headed back. The way back was just as pleasant as the way in had been, even slightly moreso because the flow was assisting. It took an hour to get to Challenge but only 54 minutes to get back to Peacock. It was a lovely dive. I really enjoyed it.
After the dive I headed over to Dive Outpost to get fills and then met James at Cow. We were gonna do a longer dive than I had done in there before. I was bringing a stage and he was gonna bring another stage for me.
I got my stuff ready, carried the gear down to the water, put my doubles on and descended the steps.
Although I was holding on to the handrail, it wasn’t enough to keep me upright when I slipped on the bottom step. My light cord might have snagged one of the stage bottles that was sitting on the edge there; it wasn’t tucked in properly. I didn’t notice if it had, all that I noticed was my foot slipping beneath me, but I know that it wasn’t tucked in. I won’t do that again, I will tuck the light cord securely into my waist strap always, and I will also hold on more tightly to the handrail in the future. My feet came out from under me and I ended up on my back. I hurt my toe a little bit, but it turned out that it was not actually injured and quickly felt fine. But, now I was in a stuck position. I had managed to hold on to my fins in my left hand. My mask was still on my head, backwards, but I was hanging on to the steps and half my body was hanging off of the platform. I couldn’t move and was afraid to try. Once he realized I was not really in pain, James captured this moment, which at that point was still a bit amusing.
I was like, well, what do I do now? I am afraid to move. James came down to help me. I said wait, let me inflate my wing, so I did (a little, but not enough). I wasn’t ready for what happened next.
He slid me into the water, but I quickly sunk. I had my fins in my left hand still. Without fins, in scuba gear and especially in double 104s, it is near impossible to move around with any control, much less to flip over from your back. I was as stuck as a tortoise on land that had been flipped. I was struggling and breathing in water through my mouth and my nose. I was choking and immediately thought I need to get my backup regulator into my mouth. I found it with my right hand and put it in my mouth. I managed to get a breath, but I had already inhaled so much water and was still struggling to flip over and in the struggle attempting to breathe without a mask on. I took a bunch of water in through my nose and lost my backup regulator from my mouth. I went to locate it again, still choking. I remember so vividly wondering if I was going to drown in that moment, even though I wasn’t more than a foot or so beneath the surface. My dive computer never kicked on from it. If I hadn’t had my fins in my left hand it might have occurred to me to find my wing inflator with that hand, maybe. Who knows though, because my mind was not on my side in that moment. Reality closed in around me; time lost all meaning. I couldn’t believe what was happening as I continued to choke and tried to keep my backup regulator in my mouth as I flailed about. Then I heard James jump in and he pulled me to the deck and inflated my wing the rest of the way. As I breached the surface I began to cough and cough. He got me around to the side where there was a rock to support me. It was over. I was ok. That was the closest to drowning that I ever want to get. Thank God that he was there. I can think of many occasions when I have gone down the steps by myself, way before my buddy was ready. This whole thing could have ended very badly. The trees never looked so green as I sat there on the edge of the dock and coughed until I felt ok. I feel like I know what it would feel like to drown, to in that last moment have to give up, and that is a very scary thing to know. I see things slightly differently as a result of this experience. I will probably never go down the stairs without my mask in place again. Having it on when I entered the water unexpectedly without fins on would have made the whole situation less dire, because when I was struggling, after I found my backup regulator, I would have breathed just fine with my mask on. The first thing I said when he pulled me out of the water was that I had dropped one of my fins. Clearly my focus was on the wrong thing. That hand should have been on my inflator. Hindsight is 20/20. It’s good to be alive.
I had already been a little nervous about the dive because I had only been to Cow one time before and it has 2 tight restrictions at the entrance and then another place (called “not my fault”) where you have to go head down and then round a corner to get through. Both of those places made me very uncomfortable when I dove it before. But, I guess I got the high stress event out of the way first. It really shouldn’t be as bad as that was. I made sure to fully recover emotionally from the experience before we got in the water. Surprisingly, I felt ok after a few minutes sitting there, staring at the trees above, just being thankful to be breathing, celebrating life and friendship, glad to have not been alone for that.
I pushed my stage in front of me going in. It wasn’t easy, and I didn’t like going through the restrictions much, but I made it. The dive went well from then until I got to “not my fault”, where I got a horrible charlie horse in my left calf as I went head down. Life was not going easy on me. I stayed still while it went through the peak pain and tried to indicate to him what had happened, so he would understand why I wasn’t moving. It eventually lessened in severity and he helped me through after I stretched it for a couple minutes there in the middle of trying to get through “not my fault”. It continued to hurt for the remainder of the dive, and the next day, and a little bit the day after, but I’m ok now (almost 48 hours later). The dive was really cool otherwise. The cave is beautiful. I switched to the other stage that he was carrying for me at about 17 minutes and then switched to backgas at I think around 32 minutes or so. He took some photos, which are pretty cool. Here is my favorite one.
We turned the dive at 65 minutes. He helped me with the stage on the way back out through the restrictions, which was greatly appreciated. This dive would be much better in sidemount, and better still, I imagine, in a sidemount rebreather. But, I’m not ready yet. Sometime.
We had dinner that beautiful evening on a patio at The 406 on Duval in Live Oak, sitting on a couch and staring up at the trees and the sky. Dinner was delicious.
I’ve been friends with James, albeit somewhat distantly, for 23 years, but this year we’ve had the opportunity to get to know each other a bit better recently, mostly over text but it still counts, and it has been really awesome. I don’t have a lot of people I can really talk to about stuff and I feel really comfortable around him and I’m enjoying letting someone into my world. I had a rough time last year, losing my cat and my father, and still have the ongoing situation with my Mom and some health issues I’ve been going through, and it has been so nice to not feel completely alone through it. I know he has gone through some heartbreak recently and I hope that I can also be there for him, to let him know he isn’t alone either and that somebody cares, and to hopefully make his life a little better. We’re pretty different but we get along well. Not to mention, fun dives and stuff. Something about knowing him from so long ago makes it all so familiar and comfortable.
*****
The next day we did a single stage scooter dive at Little River.
He took this cool photo in the clear water on the way to the entrance
I was super careful walking down the steps before the dive and wore my mask walking down them, even though it really wasn’t necessary there. The steps are slippery though and I did feel my foot slide some towards the bottom step. I will always be so careful now. The water was very shallow at the bottom of the steps and a repeat of yesterday’s stuck tortoise fiasco was impossible, but falling was definitely still a risk. Regardless, I’m not taking any chances from now on with the no-mask thing. I will make it a habit to wear it down the steps, just like on a dive boat. Once I’m safely in the water if I want to take it off to chat, then fine, but let’s not forget when it fell off my head in one of the cenotes in Mexico where we popped up in the middle of the dive and Nikola had to find it for me so we could continue on. Even backwards on the head is kinda risky on the surface if there is nobody to get it for you. Once you learn something the hard way, you should apply your lesson to future experiences. I intend to. Better safe than sorry.
I had a very enjoyable dive. I love Little River. I love the twisty, turny, coppery snake like nature of it. I just think it is so cool looking. Today we went back farther than I had been before. I hadn’t been beyond the well casing before today.
We rode the scooters out to the well casing and then swam another 300 or so feet to the water source.
At about 46 minutes we turned. The flow was up. I had to click the trigger into full speed a few times, especially at the entrance to the cave. That is a really cool feature of the Bonex Subgravity Discovery RS scooter that I was riding. I love that thing; it’s quick and light, the battery lasts forever, it’s easy to adjust and maneuver and it’s so much fun! We got back out so quickly, even with the scooters dialed way back. Getting out I was very tenuous; it felt like it was just going to shoot me straight up so I went really slowly in the 40 and 30 foot range. I braced myself between two things as I relaxed for the 10 or so minutes of deco I had. The O2 felt good.
We had a little lunch and then I was on my way back to Atlanta. This weekend was a win in so many ways. I learned a valuable lesson and emerged from it safely. I feel extremely grateful to be alive and to have such a wonderful friend in my life, with whom I hope to share many more good times.
If you want to reach James for dive training, or fun guided dives with cool photos you can look him up on Facebook. He stays really busy, so book ahead.
I can see why people love this race. It is very well run, the crowd support is great, logistics are fairly easy, swag and expo were good, post race food is good, and the course is very cool looking in some places.
I don’t normally repeat marathons, but I would consider doing this one again.
I had a cool view of one of the bridges from my hotel room. I could swear I heard the WKRP song.
Now then…. To those of you who said that the hills were only in the beginning, um…. No. Lol. Sure, they were rolling hills in the second half but they were still there and I noticed every single one of them.
I knew that my current performance level is not in qualifying range, so that took a bit of anxiety away and I just ran by feel, never even checking my pace or time. That is somewhat liberating and it allowed me to enjoy myself a little, other than all the pain. Since I knew that what I really want was out of reach anyway, I could just relax and run. I still managed to keep the average pace under 10.
4:22:09, 9:54 pace
Sadly, my 2018 performance level that had qualified me for Boston seems a distant memory and 2020 ruined my opportunity, but I will still run and I will still try. Maybe something magical will happen for me again physically.
It never rained other than a few sprinkles today. It was humid and breezy and overcast until the last hour, when the Sun came out. The Sun made the last hour noticeably more unpleasant but it made for a nice relaxing time afterwards, instead of being cold as I usually am, so that was nice.
A super cool thing that happened was that my name got prime real estate on the marathon car. Front and center!!! This gave me great joy.
While I was in Cincinnati, I did a few fun things. I went to the very cool Findlay Market. It’s a farmer’s market with art, poetry, cool people, great food, and live music outside. I had some amazingly delicious BBQ pulled pork and jalapeno cornbread while I was there. Sadly, I also dropped my phone there and shattered the glass, but this was the only casualty of the weekend and I’ve since had it repaired. I also checked out the area near the University of Cincinnati, and Vine St., both pretty cool areas. Saturday night I went to the Hard Rock Casino and came out $60 ahead, thanks to Black Jack.
Sunday, after the marathon, I visited Spring Grove Cemetery. It is the third largest cemetery in the United States and has over 300,000 buried and 45 miles of paved roads, according to the groundskeeper with whom I spoke. It is 175 years old.
I drove around slowly for a couple hours, stopping occasionally and getting out to take photos. I couldn’t help wonder if this Harding grave above is a relative in any way. My mother’s side of the family traces back to President Harding, and they lived in Ohio.
Spring Grove Cemetery is a beautiful place and is also an arboretum. It is massive and even after a couple hours I don’t think I saw it all. It’s gorgeously maintained. I’m glad I made the drive over there. It was definitely worth it, it made good use of the rental car, and was a peaceful and relaxing way to spend some time after the marathon on a lovely day with perfect weather, without having to walk too much.
I enjoyed myself. Thanks, Cincinnati and #flyingpigmarathon I am pretty sure that I will be back. This is a good one!
Full Marathon number 19 is a wrap!
I’m #grateful to my body and mind for getting me though it, and to my friends who support me along the journey to 26.2 and tolerate my incessant running posts and frequent complaining.
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