Running 8 Tuff Miles

I've been on the sideline and covered the St. John 8 Tuff Miles Road Race the last two years with the other hired geeks. This year, the race director talked me into running the event and once the boss heard of this, a first-person column was in the works.

My man Thomas Layer took some killer photos. All I had to do was run the bastard.

Much easier said then done. For those people not living here, let me try my best to describe this very unique race: It's freaking hard. Five miles of all uphill -- about 1,400 feet of total elevation is climbed in the race -- then the last three miles is mostly downhill.

This race is not for the phony tough. Only the crazy brave. The day after it was all over, I could barely walk but I sauntered into my office and tried to make sense of it all.

An excerpt from my column about the race: "I thought there's no way I would be able to watch Zuber finish (unless I cheat - an idea I momentarily contemplated), but if I finish before Zuber's girlfriend, then I can still be a champion.

She didn't know it then, but Michelle became my racing rival at that exact moment. Lots of people listen to music to get focused, some meditate. For me, I just chase other people's girlfriends up and down treacherous hills for 8.375 miles."

Here are the links to my column and the official race story.

If any of you runners out there want a Caribbean challenge, this would be a great time to make a visit. If you just like to sit around and drink beer, of course this place is good for that, too. Cheers.

Hitch? Or not to hitch?

There were close to 1,000 runners at the start line, hundreds of volunteers and many on-lookers gathered in Cruz Bay for the start of the 8 Tuff Miles road race.

A helicopter flew overhead during the National Anthem, they had this guy yell into a microphone while people cheered, clapped and carried on. I was there to take pictures of all the commotion because that's what I get paid to do.

And then less than seven minutes later, I was sitting there absolutely alone and the scene was eerily quiet.

The runners had taken off into the hills and the fans left. The two people that promised me a ride to the finish line ditched me in confusion.

I didn't have many options left at that point. I had to get to the finish before the race winner so I could take his picture for the newspaper.

At first, I considered to just quit, walk into a nearby bar and start drinking but it was only 7:23 a.m. Only the wackos would be putting them back at this ridiculous hour.

I didn't quit. I took action.

I did the only thing I could do. I started to walk down the road and I hitched.

Thankfully, a lady I met earlier in the morning's commotion saw me and stopped to pick me up. She knew where I was headed.

Hitch hiking is actually very common on St. John, which is a good thing. All good people on that island. But around here, instead of throwing your thumb out, you just sort of point in the direction you're headed as motorists pass by.

I try to pick up hitch hikers on St. Thomas but it's hard.

Two years ago, a young law clerk who just moved to the island picked up two young drifters on St. Thomas and a few hours later, he was dead. Shot execution style and stuffed into the trunk of his own car.

Pretty gruesome, huh? You think I'm making it up?
The defendants are on trial right now.

It's crazy stuff. You know, hitch hiking and all that jazz. When I was hiking the Appalachian Trail, I relied on people picking me up when I got into town.

When I first moved here, I picked up a few guys walking toward Red Hook and became good friends with one of them, Bill Haynie, who is now a sea captain cruising around the Caribbean. I wonder what the hitch hiker equivalent is out on the water?

Profiling inevitably comes into play here. I hate to say it -- and we all do it -- but I always size up people hitch hiking:

1. Do they look dangerous?
2. Could I beat them in a foot race?
3. Ketchup or mustard on their hot dog? Or both?

I've given my girlfriend strict orders not to pick up hitch hikers unless they are female. I think she told me she had picked up a few of her students one time on the side of the road because if she had not, they would have been late for her class. And we can't have that. No sir.

But it's a tricky thing. I don't have an official stance on it.

On one hand, I don't want to die. On the other, I like to make friends.

Anyway, to finish my 8 Tuff Miles story: the lady who picked me up got me to Coral Bay just in time to take the winner's shot. It didn't run in the paper anyway so in retrospect, I should have gotten drunk.

What a great ending to an uneventful story.

Put your back into it

My flight to DC was great. My flight back to paradise was a nightmare.

Spirit Air sucks. There's no way around it. Sure, they may have some cheap fare to the islands but that's about it. They charge for carry-on bags (which usually makes up the difference compared to American Airlines and Jet Blue) and they charge for every single thing on the flight and that includes aqua for a man with a sore throat.

So I was headed back to St. Thomas and my flight was leaving Ronald Reagan at 7 a.m. on a Monday morning. Spirit ran a special on that particular flight so everyone and their mother jumped on.

I like to be the last person on the flight. Yeah, I'm that ass hole. The way I look at it, I want to spend the least amount of time possible trapped in some metal missile up in the sky.

As I walked down the center aisle, the very few people who had an open seat next to them actually prayed this 6-foot bastard wouldn't sit next to them. From about 10 feet away, I grabbed a quick gander at my seat. The most overweight person on the flight was sitting bitch to my window seat. Check that, he was super fat. He was muy gordo.

And get this, he rolled his eyes when I gave the innocent point to symbolize the vacant seat next to him was mine. What an asshole.

This guy had body rolls that oozed over the seat railing. It was horrible.

I'm not a touchy person, especially with random fatties, so I literally adjusted my back so I didn't have to come in contact with Lieutenant Big Mac. My spine was crooked as a politician and I held that uncomfortable position for the entire 2 1/2 hour flight to Miami. After we landed, I elbowed Colonel Cottage Cheese so he could wake up from his slumber and get out of my way. When I walked around the Miami terminal and stretched out, I thought I was fine.

Two days later, I woke up with a slight cough and then ZANG!

The pain was so intense, I wanted to collapse on my kitchen floor but my body would not allow it. I sort of slumped on to the top of my living room couch. My dogs started to get concerned after I let out a blood-curdling yelp that was muffled because once again, my body would not allow it.

Somehow, I made my way back to bed where my girlfriend was sleeping.

"I think I'm going to die," I said.

She woke up and didn't think much of it until the next round of back spasms made me punch the wall with one hand and cover my face with the other.

Besides child birth, it was the worse pain I could imagine. I don't have a vagina so I really don't know what that could possibly feel like but it didn't matter. It was horrible.

Thank goodness my girl had a mini pharmacy at her personal disposal and her mother is a certified doctor. For the next few days, I floated in and out of consciousnesses as Brianna kept me hopped up on all types of multi-colored uppers, downers, laughers and everything in between.

"Thanks for the drugs, baby," I said a few days later. "They really helped."

"It was only Ibuprofen -- you're such a whimp," she answered.

It doesn't matter what I ingested. The pain was like nothing I had ever experienced. People at my work became concerned after I called in sick for a third straight day and other people started to call in favors as chiropractors were alerted.

But I couldn't even get out of bed. No joke, Brianna had to help me to the bathroom just so I could piss.

I now know why there's a random metal pole sticking out of the wall in our shower.

Back injuries are pretty messed up. Putting pillows under my knees while I slept became a past time and each time I coughed, it was like someone kicked me in the back and I couldn't kick back because my back was fucked up. It was a cruel joke.

I never did go see a doctor and I'm coming back to life slowly. I haven't ran in over a week and just sitting on an office chair for more than an hour is a challenge.

I hope to be back soon because I want to run in the St. John 8 Tuff Miles road race coming up next month. I covered the event last year for our paper and I vowed to the champion I would be gunning for him in 2011.

He's an international track star. I just like to talk crap.

In retrospect, never fly Spirit Air. It's all their fault.