May 23rd: Another Ending

      Always a man for a challenge, that does not necessarily mean I am not excited about the challenge coming to a close.  The journey is always nice, but there has to be an end to all things and this adventure in Goat-hood was no different.  I did as my students challenged me to do, growing it from the first day of school to the last.  I fought through counter-challenges from students and adults alike, one of which included me shaving all the hair on my head and face, eyebrows included.  I was rather glad that one did not work out, as I have enough trouble with my eyebrows as it is--those wayward ne'er-do-wells atop my brow-ridges do not want to obey and, as my boss at my second zoo job once told me, "...your eyebrows only get worse as you get older, and you'll probably have to have someone take care of them."  He had his wife take care of his with regular trimming and, though I would never subject my poor wife to that, I do allow the razor to stray occasionally from the chin and face to take the errant brow-piece.  Hell, my trimmer came with an "Eyebrow Tamer," (their words, not mine) so why not use it?

      In the end, it was 277 days of Goat-growth, 178 of which I spent in the company of children whom were not my own, as I battled through another year in an elementary classroom.  By the end, I had heard all the possible comments on my beard, its variety of colors, lengths, growth patterns, and everything else you could imagine.  Parents were the same in their approach, growing ever more fearless as the year progresses, and they knew me better.  You see, I have something of a scary-guy reputation at my school for whatever reason, with or without the beard, and most parents find that, after we meet for our Fall Conference, that is about as far from the truth as could be.  All the same, they have no fear of commenting about the beard as we near the end of the year.  My favorite comment came at this year's Field Day as one parent stood next to me and said, "Look, I think you're a good teacher so I can put up with all this..." (gesturing to the beard.)  Never mind that none of us would have found ourselves subjected to this year of beard-dom without the day one challenge from the kids.  But it takes a bearded fool to take up such an errand, and I suppose I am just that kind of fool.

Early May: Mud in Your Beard

       There are so many amazing opportunities to flaunt one's beard out in the world and if you may allow me to highly recommend one, it is to take part in a Tough Mudder immediately, if not sooner.  In early May I had the opportunity to run my second one in southern Vermont, once again talking my brother into running it with me.  As a former college sprinter and sturdy mountain and rock climber, my brother (Keith) was up for the challenge of last year's event, though he was a bit concerned about the running, as the event claimed some unspecified distance "around ten miles."  It was a difficult slog up and down Mount Snow in southern Vermont, but he agreed (after some time off to forget the pain of that day) to partake once again. 
       With this year's goatee challenge to follow up on last year's assault on the Mudder by the Bearded Brothers--and on Mudder's Day, no less--Keith was up for growing the facial hair that I did not.  Thus the serious Wolverine-esque man-chops in the above photo.

     This year's Mudder featured over ten miles of mountain running over a slightly different course, including some new obstacles during the run.  The Berlin Walls (above) remain my least favorite obstacle, mostly due to my stubby arms and legs.  Last year my arms were so cold after repeated mountain-water dunkings, that I could barely lift them to pull myself up on the walls.  This year I was significantly stronger in the shoulders, though I was not helped by the fact that there were no toe-hold foot-boards to use as a step up the 8-12 foot walls.  The manly technique I demonstrate above shows how short people have learned to compensate for vertical inadequacy for years.
 

   
   A gripping new obstacle this year was the Electric Eel, in which we competitors were asked to belly-slither along a man-made rubber pool, all while attempting to avoid the dangling wires prepared to jolt us with a shot of stay-down electricity.  The combination of water and electricity proved numbing to my right shoulder blade, which regained feeling some time after the race a few hours later.

      This, of course, does not negate the charge one receives out of the Electroshock Therapy obstacle that serves as the traditional end-point of all Tough Mudder races.  The wooden apparatus above is hung with thousands of dangling wires, most of which offer varying degrees of shock.  Apparently the hay bales over which Keith is performing a picture-perfect face-plant were not there at the beginning of the day but the race organizers found the wires were suspended high enough to allow many competitors to skirt under them, in a strictly metaphoric sense, though there were a significant number of runners wearing skirts and other costumes.
      While Keith made it most of the way through before getting dropped by an electrical charge over the last bale, I was smiling so much (the story of my race--all photos of me feature toothy smiles) that I took a jot to one of my massive upper incisors.  Served me right, I suppose.

       And here we are, the inverted bearded faces of two happy competitors who survived another Tough Mudder...and signed up for another in October.  Whether we are pushing our luck to be taking on another on, in a different state, in the same year, remains to be seen.  But, hey, it's an Olympic year so why not go for it?