After my first taste I forgot how miserable it was on
the 50/20 and went back every year until I was sixteen. The next year
I started it out with my brother and friends, they lasted about 21
miles again and then I decided I was going to quit as well. I
actually got in a minder van and was planning on heading home but at
that moment my dad showed up to shame me into continuing. It worked I got driven back to where the van had picked me up and I finished four hours faster then my last years time. The third
year I went with a couple of older friends that set a really good
pace and never contemplated quitting. I shaved off two more hours and
finished in in twelve. I now had three medals but no new savings
bonds. The fourth and final year I went on the hike I went with my
then girl friend who was on a really monomaniacal girl power trip
that had her thinking that any girl had the power to best any boy at
anything. Adorable. My passive aggressive nature bolstered my spirits
in the face of her misery. I was cheerful and goofy right on through the
incessant complaining. When she would say some sexist thing about how
women are more pain tolerant then men I wouldn't even argue I would
just mention how much fun I was having and ask how she was feeling.
She was miserable and getting more and more cranky about my happy go
lucky insolence. About the thirty mile mark she said if I wasn't
going to complain she wanted me to shut my [Redacted] mouth. I shut
my mouth for two hours and that made her even more mad which made me
even more happy. I was in immense pain and was absolutely exhausted
but my girlfriend's girl power implosion made it all worth while to
keep stoic in the face of overwhelming desire to show weakness. As
the sun came up and we were coming around the final mountain she
yelled at me for being quite and I said I didn't feel like
complaining and she had asked me to shut up my cheerful face. She
said that I must be in pain because she wanted to quit so I replied
that it hurt a little but I must be better at dealing with pain then
she was. Needless to say she was super impressed and realized that
she was being sexist with all of her constant stream of condescending
comments about how women were superior to men. Just kidding she said
I was an A-hole and that I had better start complaining or she was
going to kill me. I Gave her her wish by loudly lamenting the horrors
of the discomforts I felt. She was not impressed and tried to slap
me. I jogged ahead a hundred feet and kept yell-plaining at the top
of my voice because now it was distracting me from my actual pain. My
girlfriend got her second wind from the pure purple rage that she
felt because I was not playing along with her game. We finished
really strong driven by my pleasure in antagonizing her and her
desire to kill me. When we finished all was forgiven and I drove her
home where she apologized for being so mean all night. I told her it
was fine and didn't apologize. We dated for a few more years and she
was still pretty big into girl power but she toned down the pain
tolerance and willpower rhetoric.
