Going Gluten-Free-Free

            I’m sick; and not just of work, and the rain, and people who push their political and religious views on others. Of course I’m sick of those things, but I’m also literally ill—my head hurts, my body aches, and my energy is zapped. I know what you’re thinking: What’s the big deal? People get sick. Well, not me! Ok, that’s not completely true. I do average one minor cold a year, but that cold came and passed a few weeks ago when my super strong immune system kicked its weak little butt. So, what the hell is going on? How can I possibly be sick again? I mean, twice in one year is one thing, but twice in one month? There has to be a reasonable explanation. The problem with getting sick when you never get sick is that you won’t admit that it could possibly be something that you brought upon yourself. After all, I’m healthy; I exercise; I eat right. So, then, why am I sick? After carefully examining all possibilities, I believe that I’ve finally put my finger on the culprit. We just need to go back a few days…

            “Wow,” the petite girl says. “You really downed your beer fast!”

            “That’s because it’s not beer,” her boyfriend replies. “It’s beer-flavored water. Or beer-wine at best.”

            I’m surprised that he says this, because he looks exactly like the kind of guy who would be all about a place like this. With his long scraggly beard, clean cropped hair, and ironic button-down western shirt, he perfectly portrays the quintessential twenty-first century Portland hipster. I’m not only surprised to hear these words come out of his mouth, but actually quite relieved, because I’ve been biting my tongue all night. “It’s like beer that’s missing something,” I chime in. “Like, diet-beer.”

            We’re all sitting at a picnic table outside of a gastropub that prides itself in being the “first dedicated gluten-free brewery in the United States.” Until today, I didn’t even know that the term “gastropub” existed, and upon researching it on Wikipedia I’m comforted by the fact that Merriam Webster didn’t even add it to their dictionary until 2012 (I guess I’m not as far behind the times as I thought). In essence, a gastropub refers to a bar that is also a restaurant that serves “high-end” beer and food (not like the bars that we commoners usually frequent; the kind that serve “low-end” beer and food). So, on this beautiful Saturday evening in March, I sit outside this gastropub and sip on samples of every Indian Pale Ale (my beer of choice) that is currently on the tap list. One is crisp with notes of pine and sharp citrus, while another showcases the tropical fruit flavors of Santium hops…hell, who am I kidding? They all taste pretty much the same. They all taste like watered-down beer!

            The food isn’t much better. I order the Rueben, which isn’t half-bad, while my beautiful girlfriend tries the pizza. Now, I’m no “foodie,” but I’m pretty certain that the term “pizza” is being tossed around quite loosely these days. If I take a cracker and put a slice of cheese and pepperoni on it, I don’t call it a pizza, so if a restaurant takes some flat bread and melts some goat cheese on it, why are they allowed to get away with it? In any case, language aside, I try a bite of her “pizza,” and immediately realize that something’s missing, and that’s it’s got to be the gluten, and I wonder: What the hell is gluten anyway, and why is everyone suddenly against it?

            It turns out that gluten is in just about everything that tastes good. It’s what gives elasticity to dough and that chewy texture to bread. It’s in pizza and pasta and ice cream and beer—all the things that I love most. Not only do I typically eat a large amount of gluten on a daily basis, but often times I order extra gluten to dip my gluten into. Simply said, I love gluten. Then, why do so many other people hate it? I don’t really know. But I do know that a lot of people will be pissed off when I say that it’s probably because it’s little more than a passing fad; like hot yoga; or how a few years back everyone was doing Pilates and cutting carbs. Now, it is statistically accurate that a percentage of Americans are in fact sensitive to gluten, but unfortunately that number is less than 1%. I’m pretty sure that the rest of you are just trying to be trendy (No, not you, I definitely believe that you’re in the 1%. When I say “the rest of you,” I’m referring to all the other posers out there).

            So, what does this have to do with me being sick? Well, the next day—the day after eating the gluten-free food and drinking the gluten-free beer—I got sick. And the day following that, I felt even worse. I mean, if there was no gluten in my sandwich (which was made out of bread), or my beer, then what exactly was in it? Something that made me sick, that’s what! As I lay in bed, immobile, trying to contemplate what exactly I want to write about in this week’s blog, it dawns on me—I need to tell the world about the dangers of gluten-free foods!

My girlfriend isn’t buying into my theory. “Maybe it wasn’t the gluten-free food,” she says. “Maybe it was the beer you drank before, or the beer that you drank after, or the pound of chicken wings, or the three cheeseburgers, or the big bowl of oatmeal, or the imitation crab sandwiches.”

“Impossible. I eat that stuff all the time and have never gotten sick before.”

“You were cutting up raw chicken yesterday.”

“But I washed my hands afterward.”

“With soap?”

“Yes, with soap.”

“Maybe you overexerted yourself training?”

“I always overexert myself training.”

“Didn’t you say that a few people from work are also sick with the same exact symptoms as you? You probably just caught a virus.”

“The people I work with are always sick, and I’ve never caught anything from them before. Plus, my immune system is much too powerful for viruses anyway.”

“Ok then, you must be right. It couldn’t possibly be any of those things. It must be from the gluten-free food.”

“Thanks for understanding, sweetheart,” I say as I close my eyes to sleep, knowing that from this day forward, though it may not be easy, though it might take severe dedication, and that it might mean  avoiding certain foods and restaurants, I will live my life 100% gluten-free-free.

Waking up on St. Patrick's Day

            I get passed by a pack of runners—a half-dozen in stride—drafting one another like a peloton in a cycling race. I try to grab on their tail end, to use their tightly assembled bodies to block the wind. They leave me in their dust.

            I get passed by Tom and Paul, the two most optimistic runners on Earth. Though I’ve never met them before, I know their names because I can hear their encouraging voices as they breeze by me:

            “Good luck Tom!”

            “Good luck Paul!”

            “Great job Tom!

            “Great job Paul!”

            Screw you Tom. Screw you Paul.

            I get passed by a little kid. Not “little”-little, but little enough to make me feel slow.

            I get passed by a large man. Not “large”-large, but large enough to make me feel even slower.

            I get passed by an old lady. Not “old”-old, but old enough to make me wonder what the hell I’m even doing in this stupid race.

            I pass mile-marker four and the devastation really settles in—I’m not even half-way done.

            I’m running in the 36^th edition of the Shamrock Run in Portland, Oregon. With over 35,000 participants, it is the second largest running event on the west coast. Runners get to choose between three distances—5k, 8k, and 15k. While most runners choose to wear green, many participants go a step further, dressing in flamboyant St. Patrick’s Day attire—kilts, funny hats, suspenders, costumes, etc. Those people don’t typically sign up for the 15k race. To run that far, that early in the morning, it usually takes a particular kind of person who is reasonably dedicated to their athletic endeavors. At this moment, I really, really wish that I wasn’t that kind of person. At this moment, I wish I was trotting along in the 5k, dressed up like a pot of gold.

            My race started off fast—too fast. My pre-race strategy was to take off with the front of the pack, with the real runners—the guys who are going for the win, the guys who earn money racing. It was a simple strategy—follow the lead pack as long as I could, and when I couldn’t keep up any longer, just settle into my pace. In theory, the beginning of my race would be so fast that even if I slowed down every subsequent mile, I’d still beat my time from last year, which was my goal before the race started. A rather straightforward goal, I thought—simply finish with a better time than I did last year. After all, I am a year older; shouldn’t I be a year faster? (Whatever that means.)

            Strategy can be a powerful asset to any athlete, but when it backfires, it can also be very detrimental. I don’t know why I thought I could keep up with the lead runners, but from the initial whistle, it was quite obvious that I was in over my head. I couldn’t even keep up with them for the first 200 yards—their pace was my sprint. In my dream, I was racing against leprechauns and their short legs couldn’t keep up with my long stride. In reality, I was racing against professionals, and completely outclassed. The good news was that I ran a six-minute mile, a pace that would destroy my time from last year. The bad news was that there were already about 50 runners ahead of me, and I was fading fast.

            I followed up with a 6:20 mile, then a 6:40, and then a 7:00. At this rate of deceleration, it would take me well over eight minutes to run my last mile—what I would normally consider a leisurely jogging pace. And the worst part wasn’t even the falloff of my times. The worst part was the hordes of people that were passing me. There are very few things that can make a runner feel worse than constantly getting passed. And I sure was getting passed.

             As I go by mile-marker five, my mind begins to fill with excuses—I ate too much oatmeal before the race; I didn’t warm up properly; I’m coming off the worst cold I’ve had in years; I went on a four-hour mountain bike ride yesterday; I haven’t been training appropriately; I haven’t been getting enough sleep; I’m ten pounds over my ideal race-weight.

            Excuses can be a powerful asset to any coward who’s in a funk, but when deep down you know they’re all bullshit, they can also be very useless. None of mine hold water—this isn’t my first race, and I knew far in advance that it was happening today. And on top of that, I have nobody to use them on anyhow. I’m the only one who even knows about my goal, and I’m certainly not the kind of guy who’s going to buy into any of that garbage. So, just quit being a little chicken-shit and run!

            We hit the Terwilliger hills and I suddenly find a second wind. While most runners find inclines quite daunting, I on the other hand, seem to excel up them. I decide that nobody else is going to pass me. I decide that if my mile times can get longer throughout a race, they can certainly get shorter. I decide that I can still accomplish my goal.

            By the time I reach mile-marker six, not only has nobody else passed me, but I’m now passing others. And as I overtake mile-marker seven, I kick it up a notch, knowing that it’s all downhill from here. I’m already feeling rejuvenated and then the greatest rock song of all time—Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell (music and lyrics by Jim Steinman)—randomly comes on my iPod shuffle. Out of the 144 songs I have programmed on it, what are the chances that this exact song would play at this exact moment? Actually, it’s 1 in 144, but anyway, math aside, I see it as a sign, and like a bat out of hell, I hit the pavement hard. I begin picking people off, counting them as I go—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven…

But then something happens. The numbers start going backwards—six, five, four…I’ve lost my kick. The other runners are crushing the downhill too. And they seem to be doing it faster than me. I’m running as hard as I can, but it’s not hard enough. I have little left in my tank.

But wait! What’s this? There’s a group of people off to the side of the road handing out bacon and beer to the runners. Maybe that’s exactly what I need—a cup of beer. Yes! Perhaps that will get me back in the race.

Beer can be a powerful asset when you’re lacking courage, but when you’re running as hard as you can, it can also be quite unsettling. I chug the beer and immediately begin to burp. My mouth fills with the flavor of oatmeal mixed with Pabst Blue Ribbon—not the greatest blend in the world. And as I finally have the finish line in my sights, I’m trying hard not to puke in my mouth.

As I cross the line, I stop my watch—1:02:43—four minutes slower than last year. My pace went from a 6:18/mile to 6:43/mile. Though many people would be very pleased with these times, I am disappointed. I shouldn’t be getting slower. I should be getting faster. But I can’t change the results; I can only learn from them. I always try to take something away from every race, no matter the outcome. I may not have accomplished what I set out to accomplish, but there is definitely something to be learned here—if you’re going to have a goal, and if you’re going to set that bar high, then you damn well better prepare for it. Just because you did something once, doesn’t mean that you’re going to do it again, especially if you don’t properly train for it. I will use this race as a wake-up call, a lesson for what I need to do next year, as I try once again to run a personal best on St. Patrick’s Day. Hell, maybe I’ll do it dressed as a pot of gold…but probably not.

            

And We'll All Float on OK

          

           Years ago I read an article about sensory deprivation tanks and they immediately sparked my interest. In his piece, the author mentioned the movie Altered States, so I checked it out of the library and watched as a young William Hurt ate some hallucinogens, submerged himself in a tank, and transformed into a proto-human monkey. While most sane human beings would find sensory deprivation unsettling after watching such a horror film, personally, I just knew that I needed to try it. But then, like many of my crazy ideas, I forgot all about it.

            Years passed without the thought of sensory deprivation even crossing my mind, until one day, I was running late at night and came across a floating center in Southeast Portland. Normally I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, because, after all, we’re talking Portland, Oregon, where there are strange and unusual places on every other corner. But then something very bizarre happened—a Modest Mouse song came on the radio. I stopped in my tracks, snatched a brochure called Beginner’s Guide to Floating, and listened to the music streaming through my headphones: “And we’ll all float on OK, And we’ll all float on any way well…” What were the chances that that exact song would come on the radio just as I was running by that exact location? It was obviously a sign.

            Now I really needed to try out a sensory deprivation tank. There was only one thing holding me back—money. It’s not that I didn’t have the cash, it’s just that it’s really hard for me to justify spending a large chunk of money on something I might not enjoy when I know that for the same price I can purchase several cheeseburgers with the absolute guarantee that I will definitely savor every beautiful bite. I call it cheeseburger-logic. It’s the same reason that I have no tattoos—because I’d much rather have cheeseburgers. Now I had a major problem—life was telling me that I needed to try sensory deprivation, but I was just too much of a cheapskate to actually pay for it. So, I did what any man would do in such a situation—I constantly mentioned the float tanks until my girlfriend bought me a session as a gift.

            So, now it’s a cloudy Sunday morning and we’re sitting on a couch, waiting for our sessions to begin. An employee who looks like a barefoot Jerry Garcia tells us our tanks are ready and leads us down the hall, explaining the process along the way—you take a shower, climb into the tank, turn the lights off, and float in silence until the music turns on to let you know that your session is over. There are two different kinds of tanks to choose from. The first has a six-foot high ceiling with a door that any normal-sized human could easily walk through. The second one looks like a large coffin that was specifically designed for an obese man who had an unhealthy obsession with spacecraft from Star Wars; or an industrial oven that’s used to cremate human remains. Either way, all I can think is: there’s no way I’m climbing inside of that thing!

            “You can have this one,” I say to my girlfriend before scurrying off to the more spacious tank next door.

            I close the door, remove my clothes, take a shower, climb in the tank, and turn off the lights. With 850 pounds of Epsom salt in the water, I float weightlessly on my back. I am in total silence. I am in total darkness. I am immediately bored out of my mind.

            Flotation tanks were first developed in 1954 by a neuro-psychiatrist named John C. Lilly. Working at the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, Lilly wanted to study the human brain while individuals were completely isolated from external stimulation. Sixty years later, the popularity of the tanks has grown substantially, with hundreds of privately-owned flotation centers operating all around the world. People float for various reasons—to recover from injury, eliminate pain, fight addiction, reflect on life, spark creativity, and relieve stress. I’m not exactly sure why I’m doing it, but none of these things appear to be happening.

            People claim to have cut strokes off their golf game from floating, to have developed scientific theories, to have drafted entire portions of books. I only seem to be getting more and more aggravated. I don’t know why, but my left foot keeps bumping into the wall. My neck hurts. I don’t know what to do with my arms. The brochure specifically said, “Being in a float tank is like relaxing in outer space.” Sure, if outer space was completely dark, with not a single star in the sky. Plus, I saw Gravity—there’s no relaxing in outer space. Outer space is a lonely, frightening place, where the ghost of George Clooney visits you just as you’re running out of oxygen. I wish the ghost of George Clooney came to me right now. Maybe then I wouldn’t be so Goddamn bored!

            Wait a second. Maybe it’s working. Maybe this is the “reflecting on life” that they were talking about. Oh, give me a break—these are the same reflections on life that I have every night when I’m struggling to fall asleep. What should I do? I open my eyes—darkness. I close my eyes—darkness. So, that’s established—it’s definitely as dark in here as it is under my eyelids. Breathe! The air is warm, warmer than the water that’s kept at 93.5 degrees—skin-receptor neutral—whatever the hell that means. Think! Who do I really hate? Yeah, I hate him alright. I really hate him. Stop! What are you doing? This is supposed to be relaxing. Don’t think about people that you hate. Think about things that you love. Like the Buffalo Bills. But free-agency starts this week and I just know that the front office is going to make horrible decisions like they do every year. Why don’t they just let me run the team? I mean I did win the Super Bowl with the Buffalo Bills in Madden 2003. I could do a much better job than those idiots. I hate the front office. Damn! There I go hating again. What can I think about that I don’t hate? What is it that I love? I got it—cheeseburgers! Think about cheeseburgers—grass-fed beef, cheddar cheese, no, wait, Swiss, with bacon and mushrooms, and all the fixings, on a sesame seed bun. Yeah, that sounds good. Imagine how many of those burgers I could have eaten for the same price it cost to be laying motionless in this dark room. This is the biggest waste of money ever!

            But wait, maybe something good can come of this. I just started an adventure blog and this would be a great thing to write about. After all, it is strange and unusual. Who the hell am I kidding? I’m lying in the dark in complete silence. Adventure? Give me a break. This is the opposite of adventure! This is anti-adventure! Just my luck—my first adventure blog post is going to turn out to be an anti-adventure.

            OK, I’ve had enough. The music machine obviously broke. It was supposed to turn on after 90 minutes. People often say that 90 minutes in a float tank feels more like ten. It feels like I’ve been in here for at least eight hours. I can’t take it anymore! Not everything is for everybody. Maybe some people are just not meant to relax.

            I turn on the lights, climb out of the tank, and stand in the shower. A half-hour later and the music finally turns on. I dry off, put on my clothes, and return to the couch in the waiting area. Barefoot Jerry Garcia walks over. “How was your float?” he asks in a relaxed voice.

            “It was OK,” I lie.

            I wait for my girlfriend, but she doesn’t come out of her room. After a few minutes I start to get really nervous. I’m waiting for Barefoot Jerry to tell me that he’s sorry, but “there’s been a situation.” This is the opposite of relaxation. Finally, she arrives and I quickly jump to my feet and rush her toward the exit. “What’s the hurry?” she asks.

           “I need a cheeseburger,” I say, “and I need it now!”

Mission Statement

Ok, I admit it, I was wrong—the Internet is not a fad. It doesn’t appear that it’s going to fade from our popular culture anytime soon, like the way of the hula hoop, hacky sack, and pog. If anything, it seems to be getting even more popular with time. The fact that I started this blog is proof of that. I mean, up until just a few days ago I didn’t even know exactly what a blog was. But thanks to the Internet I found out that it’s simply a truncation of the term “web log.” Hell, up until just a few seconds ago I didn’t even know what the word “truncation” meant. But again, thanks to the Internet, I found out that it’s something that has been shortened by cutting off a part, end, or top. So, anyway, this is my blog. Welcome!

Since this is my first blog post on jonpenfold.com, I feel that it’s only appropriate to explain the purpose of this blog. Primarily I will be writing about adventure. And not those super expensive “adventures” that are featured in the “Destinations” department of Outside Magazine—the kind you can only afford if you make six-figures a year, or decide to tap into your retirement fund. After all, the majority of people in my generation can’t even comprehend the concept of a retirement fund, let alone crack the six-figure barrier. No, I’m going to write about adventures for the rest of us.

According to Dictionary.com (there I go with the Internet again), as a noun, an “adventure” can be as straightforward as “an exciting or unusual experience,” and as a verb, as simple as “to take the chance of.” So, that’s what my plan is—to write about exciting and unusual experiences, and to take plenty of chances along the way. An adventure can be as dangerous as climbing a snow-packed mountain in a complete whiteout (which I have done, and do not recommend), or as simple as riding a bicycle twenty miles to complete a burger-eating challenge at a dive bar in the middle of nowhere (which I have done, and do recommend). I plan on writing about races and rides and hikes and climbs. About roads and rivers and trails and tracks. I plan on writing about things that I’ve done a thousand times and others that I’ve never done before. And because my mind often wanders, I can guarantee that I will sometimes venture away from the topic of adventure to write about anything that happens to be occupying my thoughts on any given day. But that’s just part of taking chances.

So, tell your family and your co-workers about his blog. Tell your friends and your enemies about this blog. Tell your frienemies about this blog. Tell anyone and everyone you know about this blog. I promise that it will be an exciting and unusual experience!