Mick Aloha Adventures

Well I walked, crawled, and ran to San Francisco. Now my body is in terrible shape from the whole ordeal. My body reeks of pain. Stiffness, chafing, and blisters plague my body.

I started off making pretty good time. Palo Alto was right on time andd I zipped right through Menlo Park, Atherton, and Redwood City. After that when I entered San Carlos, my feet started to swell and hurt. My shoulders were killing me also by having to carry a backpack filled with 6 liters of water. This caused me to slow down considerably as I went through San Carlos, Belmont, and San Mateo.

During San Mateo is when I wanted to quit. The city was large and I was at my slowest pace. I then started to look for any place that sold Advil. I need something to kill pain and take away swelling. San Mateo didn’t have a place like that until near the edge of the city. Mostly what San Mateo had was mortage companies and real estate agents. I didn’t need to buy or refinance a house. I needed medicine and I found some Motrin at an ARCO station. I bought a 4 pill package and immediate downed all 4. I needed pain relief! If some guy would have come up to me and said I have morphine for sell, I would have bought it on the spot and tried it. That is how bad I wanted the pain to stop. I was also in conodrum also. Everytime I stopped to rest, my feet would feel relieved. When I started again, they hurt worse than before. About 1 hour after taking the Motrin, I didn’t have to stop as often.

After finally making it out of San Mateo, I was lost. Not really lost but for some reason I didn’t know where I should go. At the Burling game sign, El Camino branches. CA 82 which is El Camino for most of bay area went left. A road they called El Camino went right. What was even more confusing was that both roads were called El Camino. My driving instructions said to follow 82 north so I did. As I made my way up 82 north/ El Camino, I kept thinking maybe I took the wrong way. I needed to make a slight on San Mateo avenue to continue and San Mateo avenue was nowhere to be seen. Luckily a Pole walked by and he had a map. He showed me the map and that is when I discovered that San Mateo avenue was in San Bruno. I was two cities away from it. I thanked the Pole for showing me his map. He and I were walking in the same direction, but he was clearing outpacing me by twice my rate.

I finally made it to Millbrae and the pain in my feet started to subside. I started to walk doubletime to make up some lost time. I made it through Millbrae pretty quick. Right before I left Millbrae, I got a text message from Brian Z. Asking me to text or call him if I am still there by 6:00 PM. I replied back stating I didn’t need a ride if that was what he was implying. He responded back saying no. He wanted to be on the blog. So I said sure, feel free to meet me but I am continuing on my way. I then get a call from VeganSandy. She asks where I am and I tell her that I am meeting Brian Z later. She encouraged me to give up. Saying that I have gone far enough and that this is still an accomplishment. I told her I was fine and that I could keep going. During all this, my phone only had one bar of battery life left. Brian Z called me up and we met in South San Francisco which is a complete different city from San Francisco. Think East St. Louis. I met up with him and that is when my phone told me it had a low battery. I told him I would take his picture but would not post it until the end of the trip. I wanted to save enough battery for the final photo and post. I took his photo and I was off.

On the last leg of the trip which was from South San Francisco through Brisbane and finally San Francisco, I ran. Running was actually easier on my feet than walking somehow. I really wanted to make the caltrain and then met mainting an 11 minute mile for the remainder of the trip which was 8 miles to make the 8:00 Caltrain. I didn’t do it. I maintained a 12 minute mile. At 8:03 I quit running although I was only 2 blocks away from the train station. I was positive the train had already left. I started to walk. My feet were absoluting killing me. I noticed the blisters and chafing when I walked. Running was really a bad idea. I walked the two blocks and saw people getting on the train. I thought oh shit!, I could still catch the train. I ran up to a ticket machine, bough my ticket, and hopped on the train. I asked the titcket taker what the delay wass. He told me there was no delay, the train schedule is 8:25. I was like FUCK! If I knew that I could have run a slower pace. That was the past. I f knew I could have run at a slower pace, I would have missed it anyways. After I discovered I still had 10 minutes to spare, I hopped off the train and grabbed a bag of chips and coke for dinner. I got back on the train and took the final picture you saw and posted mission accomplished. I then posted the picture of Brian Z rooting me on. As soon as I posted that, my phone died.
On the train ride home, I leaned against the window and took a brief nap. I awoke from my map thinking where I was on on the way. Did I pass up my stop? I see a sign saying San Mateo station. Whew! I also noticed that my body was stiff as a board and that the chafing is worse than I thought it to be. I really should not have ran or worn runners shorts. I looked at all the stops and cities in the dark. All the places were lit up. They seemed like two different places now. The day and the night. San Carlos had a couple of night clubs I didn’t notice on the way up. Belmont had a restaurant on a hill called “The Vans” that was lit up. I went through the remainder of the stops before I arrived at my stop at San Antonio. Unfortunately, the San Antonio exit doesn’t have a parking lot so I had to walk home which is about a half mile or so. It was the hardest walk ever. I was stiff, chafed and tired. If my phone worked I would have called a cab to take me the rest of the way. I am having to walk like Vince McMahon tomake my way home. After what seemed to be 20 minutes for that half mile, I make it inside my apartment. I talk to VeganSandy for a few minutes. She wanted to know if I made it home safe and sound. After I finished the conversation with her, I took a shower and then turned into bed. I slept for 12 hours.

Lessons learned from this trip are don’t run unless you have to, make sure you have pain medications, have a back up battery for your cell phone, and I am the greatest!

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