Even Paradise can have its faults...

So I look back on the past couple days with its highs and lows and have com to the sad realization that this tropcal paradise is not perfect. Over the past week life has been one adventure after another with very little if anything to complain about. Not that I'm saying there is much to complain about lately. Just these past couple days have been more average "Louis" days where random, stupid unlucky things happen to me. Something that has been sorely missing from this island adventure I am on.

Let us go back to Sunday...

I wake up around 7:30 to drive out to the southern region of the island for the 2010 Xterra Trail Trianthlon Championships (Olympic distance). This was one of the most exciting things I have been able to watch. A hardcore triathlon that took place on trails for the biking and running. NOt only that but tthe run was an 11k rther than the traditional 10k. There were obstacles one had to jump over throughout the course including a 2ft wall jsut 150 meters from the finish. The last thing one wanted to do at the end of a 3 hour race. The bike and run coure were diesel. Hard hills, steep decents, 1 mile of softsand beach running. The bike course was brutal. No one was allowed on the course to preview it before the start. There was a completely different warmup course people could use the days before. There were people crossing the line covered in mud, blood, grime. Some people broke their bikes and carried them the past couple miles to the transition. The men's race was won for the 4th time by the same person. He crushed the field in the bike and went on to cruise the run. The women's race was won by an American who came from a 3 minute deficit halfway through the bike to win by oer a minute. This is something I could see myself getting into in a couple years. A great morning to be capped off by getting my run done. Had to run 16 miles. So I run the roads a bit then hit the trails. There were about 20 miles of trails to run. Almost an hour into it I get kicked off. Apparently this is all private property and the only place I am allowed to run is the busy highway. Annoyed I end the run after an hour, drive home and decide to go for a swim/run. Of course I am getting into the water as it's getting dark. How come no one told me that as the light fades every coral outcropping looks like a large animal swimming at me. At least a dozen times I think a sharkmor large fish is coming at me. It doesn't help that the way the waves are hitting me I kep getting pulled out into the ocean. After about 24 minutes of this I exit the water (tripping over unseen coal and faceplanting of course). A short run back to the start and I'm done.
I decided that the bartenders and shop owners around here have got to be the nicest people ever. On my way to a bar I stop in a shop and chat with the owner. He has some really interesting statues of seas animals. He finds out I'm trying to get a job teaching and gives me a couple leads on private schools, specifically Maui Prep. More on that later. I go to this bar called "Cheesebugers in Paradise" (yup like in the song, the original restaurant) for a beer and burger. Chatting with the bartender for a while we share stories about wher we are from and what brought us to Maui. I mention how i'm living in a tent right no andwhat does he do? Offers me his place for next week cause he and his girlfriend are going away. That way he would have someone to kind of house sit and feed his cat. i explain th apartment thing and thats that. But just like that, this guy does not know me from the next person. From there I wander down to another bar and somehow find myself sitting with a group recovering from a wedding the day before. It is the wedding party itself. I start chatting with one of the brides maids and find out the groom and bride picked Maui for their wedding though they are from northern california. How come Mike and Katie couldn't do that? This group had 54 people fly over for the week. Can you imagine if Mike had his wedding in Maui? Anyway we started exchanging wedding stories, I recounted the festivities from Mikes. Alot of similar stories were shared. After a couple drinks and realizing it was past midnight I decide to call it a night. I get back to my tent to find out the air mattress was a bit deflated. As I fill it back up with my very loud inflater I realize everyone around me (including the couple with the baby) must love me right now. And low and behold assoon as I finish the baby starts crying. OOps.

Monday finds me up at around 8. I decide I will try doing my long run after I go visit Maui Prep and see about getting a sub job. I head up there and wander into the office. After talking to the receptionist she gives me a card and tells me to email the principal. She also tells me to drop off a resume. So i shoot over to office max, print up my resume and email the pricipal letting him know my interest. I head back to the school to drop off the resume and as I am giving it to the receptionist she calls over a guy my age. Apparently he's the principal. He looks like a hippy/surfer. I introduce myself and he laughs. He had literally just finished reading my email and was about to call me. Into his office we go. We talk about my teaching and then he gets to the point. He is interested in teh coaching. Apparently they are in need of a track coach. He tells me that it pays 2500 then asks me if I want a tour of the school. So we go walk around. Maui Prep is a K-12 school with a total of 180 students. Small classes. It overlooks the ocean and takes about 2 minutes to walk casually across the campus. The school is broken up into about 6 smaller buildings. So after chatting for about 1/2 an hour we wrap it up with him telling me to just mail him some references and he'll make sure I geton the sub list. So far good day.
From here things get frustrating:I decide I wanna go running somewhere different. So I google state parks in Maui and find Haleakala Natioanl Park. The volcano. So I decide to drive out there and run around the volcano. I head out, it takes about an hour and change to get there. As I am climbing up it I notice a sign saying 20 miles to top. Alot of zigzagging back and forth. About 15 miles to top my gas light goes off for the second time (meaning 1 gallon left. Nervous I do an iphoen search for closest gas station. 20 miles back other way. Now i get annoyed. At this point it's around 3:30pm and I have to have my car returned by 8 and its an hour drive to rental place. Swearing I am forced to turn around and drive back down to gas station. Haleakala another day I guess. Now I start bargining with myself. "If I find gas quickly I can still run in the area. I find the gas station and after they put gas in my car they tell me they only accept cash. Having none I am forced to give my phone for collatoral. Closest ATM: 4 blcks away. Out of order. Damn it! Next one: 2 miles down road. Out of money. Seiously. Fuck! Next one: 3 miles farther down. Swear to god... Finally one that works. 2.75 fee. Jesus Christmas Tress (to steal from Brian). I get the money and get back to the gas station. Pay, grab my phone and realize now its almost 4:30. I have resigned not to run. Now I'm just gonna drive to the rental, drop off the car and go pick up another one from a cheaper rental place. I had realized earlier in the week that I would need a car until at least after I moved into the apartment.
Now the guilt starts eating at me. For those who are still running and competing you know what I mean. Mising the long run really bothers me especially cause this is the second day in a row it is screwed up. I'm upset with the world cause my schedule has been screwed up. As I get closer to the place I started rationaling and promising tomorrow I'll do the run. Then I'm driving by teh walmart, it's around 5:15 and I say "Fuck it." I whip the car into the parking lot and grab my running stuf. As I walk into the stoe and beeline to the bathroom I convince myself I'll at least run an hour along the highway (there is a bike lane I can run in and wide grass shoulder). After changing I head out along the highway back toward Lahaina. It is still decent light.
WARNING: tHE NEXT COUPLE PARAGRAPHS WILL CAUSE BOTH DISGUST FOR THOSE OF A WEAK STOMACH AND WORRY FOR THOSE OF A PARENTAL NATURE!!!
I'm feeling sore and tired from past couple days of driving aroun and training. Also, I think the lack of proper nutrition is starting to get to me. A couple miles in I notice there is a fiece wind at my back and realize I'll be running into it the entire way back. We're tlaking 20 mph winds here. It makes the running out kind of nice. At around 25 minutes my legs fel OK so I decide to kep going. I'm doing the full two hours (my goal is to get in around 16 still). Then 50 minutes in it hits me. My tomach decides it is not happy with me. It starts with slight rumbling. I shake it of and keep going. Now its getting worse. About a mile later I am gettting worried. There are no stores or bathrooms anywhere. Nothing but highway, cliffs to me right, ocean to my left and cars zipping by. At this point it's dark out. The sun has set and all I can see are cars, the white line of death (you know, the line if I cross cars are running my ass over) and about 50 feet in front of me. Just aroun an hour I'm starting to fel like the guy from Brian's half marathon story. NOt quite as bad but lets say about 5 minutes from being him. Then I hit luck finally. Right at 60 minutes I see a small dirt road that leaves teh highway and goes down to teh waters edge. A kind of scenic stop. I dash down it to find vehicles parked along it. I'm mad. What the hell could these people be looking at? It's fucking pitch black out. There isn't even a damn moon to see the ocean by. Clouds cover the sky. About halfway down I can't hold it and dash into the brush. The spiky, spiney brush. Thorns rip at me legs and bare stomach. Unfazed i find a spot and drop shorts. My bowels do the rest from here. as this is going on something occurs to me. Maui flora is not like New England flora. Maui doesn't have leaves. I look around and realize there i nothing to wipe ith. Just sharp thorny branches. My aggitation rises to a new level. Right now I hate Maui. Oh I hate this island and it's stupid dark roads, it's lack of fast food joints that should be located every 2-3 blocks. It's lack of super leafy trees. Finishing I have to make a decision. My options are limited. I have socks, shoes, and shorts. Shoes are a no. The socks are brand new dry-fit, sweat repelling, blister preventing awesomeness. My shorts... have an inner lining! I don't hesitate. I litereally rip the lining out of my shorts and I have toilet paper. Now it's time toget back. I start running, freeing more free than ever. I still feel crappy. The legs are dead, stomach still upset and the wind is as bad as I predicted.
Here's where things get prett scary. This area of Maui is like a grid where everything looks identical. If you view it from above it all looks the same. Farmland with cities in far distant. As I am running back I realize I didn't reallypay attention to what long dark highway road I turned onto. There were like 4 to choose from that looked identical and since I didn't pay attention to mile markers along the highway I didn't know which it was near. These highways all took you to different parts of the island. The worng one would lead me miles in wrong direction. As I keep running I start worrying about which light I was supposed to turn at. Nothing looked familiar... or everything looked the same. I am running still at about the same pace I went out at even with teh wind so I am able to narrow it down to two turns about 1/4 mile apart from eachother. As I come up to the first one i make the executive decision to go to next one. Turning down that one I see nothing but blackness ahead of me with carlights scattered for miles down the road. I keep running trying not to freak out. As the miles click off I don't see myself getting any closer to a city that should be there. To make things worse my stomach reminds me it's pretty pissed at me. I am forced to make another pit stop and there goes the rest of the lining in my shorts. Let's hope I don't need to stop again. At this point I am contemplating turning back and heading to the other turnoff I passed on. That would require me running about 3 miles back. I decide to soldier on hope for the best. About a mile later I see a set of stop lights. I vaguely remember them and focus on them as if they were the pearly gates. Theya re about a mile of and when I finallly reach them I see they lead into a golf resort. A car is parked at the red light so I jog over to ge ttheir attention. The guy sees me and what does he do: rolld his window partly up and locks the door. I explain my situation and ask him how close the walmart is. He looks at me like I'm crazy. :Go past those lights down there, past the church, walmart on the right" and drives of without waiting for a reply. I look down to the lights he's talking about. Very far away. My body feels like it did during the marathon of the ironman last year. During the second loop. I start "running." Its more like a death shuffle. The light turns out to be a mile and a half away. Walmart is another 3/4 of a mile away. But I make it back. I swear to the gods of everything. At this point its 7:30. The run took me exactly 2 hours and 39 seconds. Even with the stops, the wind, the bowel movements and the terror, the run back only took about 1 1/2 minutes loonger than going out. I measured the distance and it was exactly 16.05 miles. My inner odometer is on the money as all my Clark athletes know.

I am exhausted by this point. I get my car back just in time and have to hike 1/2 to the other rental place. I feel sick and wanna just sleep. I also must smell horrible. I get back to the campground, kill a quart of Silk chocolate soy milk (cause the store does not carry quarts or half gallons of chocolate milk), eat a couple peanut butter and fluffs, soak in the ocean, and go to bed around 12.

Today is Tuesday. Pretty unproductive. Still waking up around 8:30. Didn't do too much. Went and got a TB shot so I can sub in public schools. Ran an hour, swam 15 minutes. Vegged and read a book. Good day. Still feling crappy.

Move into apartment tomorrow. Thank god. I miss warm showers and real bathrooms and eletricity and doors.

Training: Building back up. Running going alright. Swimming more. Start workouts this week. Marathon in January.
Weight: Down to 142 now. Understandable after yesterday's run.