This weekend I drove my protesting mother down to Bisbee, AZ to participate in their 18th annual Save Our Stairs, 1000 stair climb. I signed my mother up without her knowing about it. (I'm a good kid that way.) We had to get rolling at 0530 but I found my mother still in her pajamas when I went by the house. I remember the old school days when my mother used to get me out of bed in the middle of winter by pulling the covers off my bed. I was trying to think of what I could do along those lines when I just decided to get back to my military training and started shaming and berating her into getting ready for the race. (For example, "What are you still doing in your pajamas? Get yourself upstairs young lady and put on your job bra! Yeesh. Do you know what time I had to get up to get over here at 0530?" [The answer to that is 0515, by the way.] No one said it was easy to have me as a daughter.) You see, I was under the impression that we needed to be there by 0730 to get our race packets because the race was at 0800.
Bisbee is about 1.5 hours south of Tucson and its this old copper mining town that used to be very prosperous "in its day." That means that it has a lot of cool old fashioned buildings that have aged well. It's built into the sides of this valley and the houses are all sort of built up onto the hills. As a result, there are a lot of stairways in this town that seem to go on and on forever. The event was a 5k where we run between a bunch of sets of stairs (1000 total stairs to be exact) and the proceeds go towards preserving the stairs. At every stairway there was a type of band playing music for us. Now, Bisbee reminds me a lot of Vermont because it has a lot of "artisans" or hippies (as they used to be called) who smell like patchouli, wear a lot of tie-dyed stuff and eat a lot of organic things. A few old miners are scattered among them. Interesting combo. This is the same place we visited on the 4th of July where the guy bled all over a rock.
So, we finally got under way a little after 0600 and there is no direct route to Bisbee. We have to drive through Benson and then Tombstone. These are all speed traps too. They remind me of those legendary southern speedtraps where the local sheriff pulls you over and you get sent to jail because you don't have the cash to pay the fine right away. I went very slowly through these towns. I mean, I know its 2008 and all but the town is STILL called Tombstone.... Its also one of the few places I know where you can be going along at 45 mph and suddenly notice that the speed limit has changed to 25 mph. Yikes!
About 25 or so miles out of Bisbee, my mother's gas light comes on. I hadn't noticed that my mother was so low on gas! I started panicking and my mother thought it was really funny. Really funny. Why do you think a lot of horror movies start with two unsuspecting women getting stranded somewhere with no gas? In between towns there was NOTHING.....I mean NOTHING AT ALL. Great. My mother went through her owner's manual trying to figure out how many miles you have in reserve when the gas light goes on for her car. [I suspected 30 miles.] We learned the hard way that Mercedes does not feel that type of information is necessary for their owner's manual. I clicked around the computer/digital dash display to no avail either. We just had to hold our breath and hope we made it to Bisbee. By some miracle, we made it.
Of course, I then panicked and sped walked up to the registration area where we learned that the race didn't start until 0900. Phew. We walked back to the car to put our stuff away and my mother kept telling me how "she knew they were going to be fine" and everything. That's right...I'm just your spazzy daughter that likes to be on time for things and that likes to have gas in her car when they're driving in the middle of nowhere...I'm crazy that way. When we got back to the car, my mother put on her spf 200 sun screen and her big floppy hat and her long sleeved shirt. She was wearing shorts though. I wore a baseball cap, t-shirt and shorts.
Before the race, I went to the bathroom and (by some miracle) my mother didn't need to go. She said that she'd wait for me by this fountain. I came back and my mother wasn't there. Now, I have a history of losing my mother. No...it wasn't some traumatic department store thing. Its the exact opposite of what you'd think. My MOTHER gets lost and I'm the one who frantically must search for her. My mother has a tendency to wander off whenever she's asked to wait somewhere. I had a very harrowing experience at Wolf Trap Park (a concert venue) in Virginia when I invited my mother and Ray to see Earth, Wind and Fire. I was a summer associate with Skadden Arps and got them tickets to see the event with our group. We all had a nice dinner and went to the arena and my parents disappeared. I MEAN TOTALLY DISAPPEARED. I searched the whole arena and pretty much missed the whole concert. I was running up and down the aisles and picturing all sorts of stuff that could have happened to them. After the concert I finally found them and it turns out that they had wandered down to the front row and these people had invited them to enjoy the concert in the front row. My mother and Ray thought it was really, really funny that I was upset. So....with that in mind...I started making concentric circles around the fountain looking for my mother. (Asking myself why she just couldn't have stayed put this one time.) After about 10 minutes of not finding her, I just stood by the fountain looking around for her. Of course, she eventually walked up and told me that some guy had offered her a free massage in this tent. I don't even know where to begin. Basically, its a miracle that I'm alive because, if I were to follow my mother's example, I would easily have been abducted by anyone who offers to give me a ride or show me their puppy, etc. I think I'll tether her to my side the next time we go out.
Another thing about my mother and me is that we both usually need to go to the bathroom about 1-2 miles into any run. We both plan our runs according to where there are bathrooms that we can run to (just in case). I'm not proud, I'll go anywhere. But my mother really likes to know the place is clean so we run near a lot of golf and tennis clubs. The better shape I'm in, the less likely I'll have to go to the bathroom on a run though. It doesn't matter for my mother though. I have a very vivid memory of running around this walled city in the Veneto region of Italy looking for a place where my mother could go to the bathroom. Unfortunately it was during the "siesta" time where all the stores are closed (around 3-4 pm) and we couldn't find anyplace. We contemplated running into a church and begging for "sanctuary" and I considered asking some villager for mercy for my mother. It was a pretty desperate time for my mother and (by proximity) me. We finally made it back to the hotel. Afterwards we drank a lot of wine.
So....my mother asks the race coordinators the inevitable question regarding this race. Where are the bathrooms on the route? To our intense dismay, we both found out that there were no designated bathrooms on the route. My mother couldn't believe it and muttered about the "lack of organization" the whole time after that. I assured her that I would kick down whatever doors necessary to ensure that she could go to the bathroom if any emergency occurred. She still wasn't happy.
We ran the race. By "ran," I mean we ran between staircases and EVERYONE walked up the stairs. Some people skipped steps when they walked but even the fast people walked up the stairs. There were 9 staircases and we finished the first 7 very easily. Several people wore costumes which, at the end of the day, weren't such good ideas. For example, there was a guy with a long mullet wig on and a spandex body suit. It IS cooler in Bisbee but we're STILL IN ARIZONA! Hello? Mensa? That dude ran with a group that mostly wore Mexican wrestler masks and capes. They looked like total idiots and when they ran by my mother and I could smell the fumes of alcohol coming off their skin. (Brought back a lot of memories of Army runs actually....) Then we hit staircase number 8. My mother kept repeating "staircase number 8" and shaking her head yesterday after the race. It was pretty long and steep and there were hills after it. My mother told me that she wanted to walk and I ran ahead. We met at the finish line and she wasn't far behind me at all. She's a total stud!
After the race, we walked over to this other staircase where the "Ice Man" competition was taking place. In that competition, a person grabs a 10 lb bag of ice with old fashioned ice prongs and runs up about 150-175 stairs (no one could give me an exact count). The fast times were 22 and 24 seconds and we got really good at telling whether someone had a shot at a fast time. By very good at telling I mean that my mother and I could tell from the first few steps. A guy would take a few steps up with the ice and we would both look at each other and shake our heads, "he'll never beat 30 seconds." Some other people got into it with us and we all started predicting times based on the first few steps. We were pretty much on the money too! We went to a coffee shop (don't tell Mack) and my mother got this awesome scone and I had to "settle" for a chocolate chip cookie (a very big one). I know, I know...I'm going straight to hell.
The Gods were smiling on us because we had enough gas to make it to a gas station and I drove us home. We took the route past my old stomping grounds in Sierra Vista which is much, much bigger now (and still as dumpy looking) and got back in time to take a nap. I'm proud to say that we both made it through the course without any toilet emergencies.
This morning I signed both of us up for a "Thanksgiving Cross Country" where we have to negotiate hay bales and jump over water obstacles on Thanksgiving morning. Awesome!
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