Home

I dreamed about my dad last night and woke up missing home. We were going out to eat at an Italian restaurant, much like the last place we went out to eat together which was DiMille's in San Diego. The place was crowded so until the waitress could find us a table, we danced on the dance floor. I woke up and rolled over to stare at the oversized painting on my wall of an elegant woman wrapped in thin linens. It reminded me of when it hung on my bedroom wall in La Mesa and Emily asked if that woman was me. For days the three of us would go back and forth and Candace would get Emily to say it was Mommy and I would get Emily to say it was me. That was an awesome house and I loved how my room was almost seperate from the rest of the house, with french doors that opened up to my own private patio where Candace and I would sit at night and have a glass of wine or a few beers. I needed a change in my life though, as I was stuck in a stale cycle of routine that was leading me to make bad decisions about my life. I'm definately happy where I am though and have some great friends up here. One of my friends here from San Diego asks me if I think I'm here for good. We wonder about it and talk about how we never really know, because after all, we somehow ended up here to begin with, but San Diego is still home.

Slow Start to Fire Season

I realize it's warm and dry elsewhere, but for most of California there's a lot of rain going on. I figured I'd post some of the websites where you can get fire information just in case you're curious. Everyday we pull up our local weather as well as the "Incident Management Situation Report" (or "SIT Report"). It tells us what is going on in the world of fire. It sometimes hints at where we might be going next or if we have any hope for a fire season at all. It can be found at www.nifc.gov/ and select "Fire Information" and "Incident Management Situation Report". IMT's are incident management teams. Our most complex IMT is the Type I IMT. When you start seeing lots of Type I's committed, we've got fire season going on. Type II's are pretty big as well.

Also, there's a forum for wildland firefighters and their families at: www.wildlandfire.com. There's a bunch of info on there as well as a bunch of firefighters chatting. If you click on "TheySaid" you can read the goings-on of firefighters across the nation. "FamilySaid" is a good support forum for families of firefighters, and I guess it's mainly used during fire season when everyone's firefighters are out and about. "HotList" has up to date information on new fire starts as well as continuing incidents.

Right now the best shows are in Alaska and Arizona. Alaska is expecting more dry lightning and therefore, more fires. My vote is for Alaska, but I would take an Arizona trip in a heartbeat. Any day now...

Handy Man Wanted

The refrigerator repair man is here right now fixing my refrigerator. My landlord is paying for it. My attempt at fixing it went badly, obviously. It has occured to me that it's so much easier to hire some one to come over and do things than to struggle with them myself. While there is one guy in town that would come over and do things for free, he's incredibly annoying and I wouldn't want to encourage him or cause him to think in any way that I need him to take care of me. He has offered to fix my fridge (but watching the pro do it, I can see it would've been too big of a job for the other guy)and build a fence in my back yard. I hate to think how that would look.

I don't even need a maid. Just some one to do stuff around the house. Put together furniture, build my fence, mow the lawn, etc. Maybe if I ever get rich I'll hire one.

Keeping Up With the Boys

All my life I’ve been trying to keep up with the boys. I had two brothers and not a lot of girlfriends, so I’d hang out with them and all their friends. Where they went, I would tag along like a puppy not wanting to be left behind or left out. When they would climb trees or shimmy up the wall between our house and the lumberyard next door, I would follow- and get stuck. My mom or dad would have to come haul me out of the tree because I couldn’t get down myself. I would follow my brothers on bikes and on cross country excursions through town before one of us got picked up by a police officer while the others ran off into the bushes. My parents always found out.

In high school I joined the boys’ freshman football team because I just wanted to play like I had with my dad and brothers. The difference of course was that my dad and brothers didn’t tackle or run into me. I stayed on the team even though I couldn’t run as fast, hit as hard, or kick or throw the ball as far as the boys could. Always trying to keep up.

When I joined the Forest Service and started working as a firefighter on a wildland fire engine, I was once again trying to keep up with the boys. Whether it was on a run, a hike or a hoselay, I was bringing up the rear, trying desperately to keep up. I wanted to be as strong as the boys, as big as them, as fast and as fearless.

Now when I hike with my Hotshot Crew I’m once again bringing up the rear, scurrying up the mountainside falling behind the pack. Every once in awhile I’ll look up and see the line of guys tightly knitted together as they march up the hill and the big gap between me and them. I feel so small buried under my heavy gear and moving my little legs as fast as I can. I hear the voice from my childhood in my head- Wait for me guys, I want to come too! I keep my mouth closed and the voice hidden because I’m an adult now, I’m supposed to be able to keep up. We aren’t kids anymore, this is serious business. But there I am, tagging along behind the boys, just trying to keep up.

Thinking this through...

I'm 13 minutes from the Boston qualifying time, which over 26 miles comes out to 30 seconds per mile faster. I don't think I need to put that kind of stress on myself. I think I'll save Boston for 2012. I could make that my aim.

My Marathon

So I just finished the Avenue of the Giants marathon. Sometimes I really have to ask myself why I wasn't born a sprinter. I can't believe I just trained 5 months to inflict pain and extreme mental and physical discomfort on myself for nearly 4 hours. I'm really not sure why people, and more importantly, I, do this sort of thing. What's worse is that I actually did it quite well which only guarantees that I will be doing it again someday and pushing myself even harder, which can only lead to more pain and discomfort. Here's the recap.

Avenue of the Giants is a gorgeous, almost flat marathon, half marathon and 10K. Just so we get this straight, ALL marathons are 26.2 miles. If it is not 26.2 miles you cannot call it a marathon. If you're running a half marathon, you must call it that and be clear that you are not running a full marathon. 13.1 miles is not a marathon. Not even close. Just had to put that out there. Trust me, if you ever run a marathon, you'll forever be irritated by people who say they are running a marathon this weekend, when they're only doing half. Moving right along. So the race follows the scenic Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt county (northern California) through groves of enormous redwood trees. It's quite breath taking. It's also hard to run while looking up at the sky in search of treetops. The weather was quite cool and the route was gorgeous. Amoung the trees are thick blankets of fern and giant clovers. Apparently there's also giant poison oak- I squatted in it to pee around mile 10.

Every once in awhile I passed by little waterfalls running under the road into the huge river that we followed most of the way. The trees allow for a lot of shade (I'm not kidding when I say they're huge) so it was nice and cool. So cool in fact, that I over hydrated, causing me to have to stop 3 times in the first half of the marathon to pee. Thankfully a few aid stations had bananas because I was starving. I had scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast but I get so hungry when I run these days.

I was actually quite surprised by my ability to stay in the moment for the majority of the run. Usually I get through a run, mentally, by envisioning what it will be like to stop and be done. Since this was going to be a 4 hour trip I decided that wasn't a good idea and I was going to have to settle in and get comfortable (hahaha). So I pictured it to be a day trip. It worked well for awhile and I was way ahead of pace. I just wanted to be under 4:30. When I ran my first (and only) marathon years ago, I hadn't trained very well for it and ran a 5:29. Kinda sad, but whatever, it was my first one. So I had been training to get under 4:30.

I just tried to focus on being in the present and not let myself think about being done (because it was hours away). I did great with that until about mile 18, then things started to hurt. I was worried because I knew I had been running quite a bit faster than I had planned and trained for, which in a race that long can lead to absolute disaster- like having to be carried off the course by an ambulance. My breathing was doing really well though and I had tried to slow down several times during the race to no avail. Sometimes your legs just want to go a certain speed, so you do.

Around mile 20 I began to wonder why on earth I would do such a thing to myself. It was stupid and painful and I didn't want to be doing it anymore. So I just ran faster. I started to pass by a bunch of walkers (fast people who couldn't run anymore)and picked it up even more. The sooner I got done, the sooner I could stop running. There was a point around mile 21 or 22 that I actually almost cried. But I reminded myself that if I cried I would have a much harder time breathing, so I choked back the tears and pushed on. The last 4 miles were the longest of the entire race, but once I got to mile 25 my brain quit working. I just ran. I pulled ahead of so many people in that last mile. As I crossed the finish line, I heard my name being called over the loud speaker "Carrie Bowers from Yreka!" and I almost cried again.

Then I stopped and walked. I had made it in 3:53. An awesome time for me but not quite Boston Qualifying-- which, why the hell would I want to do that? If you've ever done a marathon, the ending is always the same. You stop running, then walk to the people giving out finishers medals, then to the water and food corral. It's literally like herding cattle. I stuffed my face with food (this is instantly, like 30 seconds after finishing) and grabbed a bottle of water and drank several cups of electrolyte replacement drink. I was hurting so bad at that time that I was ready to cry again. Everything hurt. And it hurt deep down to my bones. I hobbled to my car and grabbed two motrin and a leftover vicodin from my surgery. Then I hobbled back to listen to the awards ceremony and eat more food.

Now I'm offically on bed rest. Boston Qualifying time for my age group is 3:40. Everyone is talking about it. Lame. See, Boston is a fairly respected marathon. I guess it's like the marathon of marathons. It's in April. A couple people have already talked to me about it. Here's the thing. You have to qualify for it first. You can't just enter. So if I want to run Boston (ick) not only would I hve to run that one, but I'd have to run one before it and go a 3:40. I'm going to avoid this for awhile.

So I texted my buddy Brian, who is one of those fast marathon runners (much faster than me) and told him I don't know why I do stupid stuff like this. He said it's because I'm psycho like the rest of them. Grrr.

First Assignment for Writing Class

I wondered how many days in a row I could cook my brain before I did permanent damage, as I started up the mountain for the second consecutive day under warmer weather than we’d had all year. It was the Friday of my second week on a Hotshot Crew in Northern California and only a few of the overhead were at work. The rest of the twenty person fire crew would show up in two weeks and I had a lot of work to do to even get close to the required physical condition that these elite hand crews demand. Hotshots regularly hike several miles in steep terrain to reach a fire before going to work on clearing brush and setting backfires or burning out vegetation in advance of the main fire. I had spent five years on a wildland fire engine and had only limited experience on a Hotshot Crew, but for some reason it was what my heart wanted so I was damned to follow regardless of the pain and difficulty.

Loaded down with thirty-five pounds of gear on my back and a twenty-five pound chainsaw slung over my right shoulder I trudged behind our other Senior Firefighter and focused on setting my boot down in the dirt where his picked up. Wearing green pants, a long sleeve yellow fire shirt, wool socks and leather lace up boots that rose to the base of my calf, I could feel my body temperature start to rise within minutes of the start of the hike. I could feel sweat start to gather in the sweatband of my white hard hart that bore a sticker with the Hotshot emblem on each side. Jeff, hung over from a late night at Jolly’s, lead the hike wearing the same uniform and carrying the exact same gear. The difference was, I was half his size.

We had hiked a much steeper and longer hike the day before and I had nearly collapsed. They offered to take the saw from me but there was no way I was going to be the girl that couldn’t hike a saw, so I staggered up the mountain overheated and exhausted with one of the guys behind me to steady me when I started to topple, which happened more frequently than you would think. Without him there I surely would have tumbled down the mountain for quite a ways before coming to a stop at a landing.

This year I would be one of three women among seventeen rugged and dirty men but I was the only female on the crew who was a Senior Firefighter, which put me somewhere in the middle of the ranks. I would be expected (and I expected myself) to lead by example, both physically and mentally. Becoming a Hotshot doesn’t merely involve being hired onto a Hotshot Crew; it must be earned through sweat, hard work, dedication and having enough grit in your heart to earn the respect of your peers that are already considered Hotshots and have been for years. Technically yes, I am a Hotshot for I’ve been hired on as one but that doesn’t buy me a belt buckle or the ability to lead so the crewmembers under me will follow.

During the weeks preceding my transfer from an engine in Southern California to a Hotshot Crew in Northern California, I had endured so many expressions of doubt from friends, family and coworkers. Everyone worried, as did I , about the stability of the vein in my shoulder that had literally been crushed between my rib and collar bone the summer before during a short term detail on another Northern California Hotshot Crew. My rib had been removed and a new vein grafted out of my leg and after 5 months on Disability, my doctor had released me to full duty. My arm still felt funny sometimes, as if some one was kinking a hose in my armpit, but I had yet to develop swelling and figured this was how it was going to be for the rest of my life. A firefighter assigned to a helicopter actually told me I shouldn’t go to a Hotshot Crew and belonged on an engine. He said “Hotshot Crews tear girls up”. When I responded that Hotshot Crews tear guys up too, he responded with “You don’t want to go to Klamath Hotshots, they’re dirty!” I’m not sure what about me gave him the impression that I didn’t like to get dirty because I never showed up to work wearing make-up and it was a rare occasion that I even wore deodorant.

I continue to lace up my boots despite my own doubts and comments from others because I absolutely love my job and the pride that comes with a long day of hard work. The smell of smoke is fairly equal in my book to that of freshly brewed coffee in the morning. It soothes me much like the feeling of home. Ignoring all my setbacks, I’ve started a new chapter in my life: packed up all of my belongings and relocated to a new town filled with strangers. I put on my brave face, but in all honesty I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep up with the crew, that they won’t like me and that I’ve committed myself to several years of loneliness and extreme physical demands. I’m afraid but I will keep my head down to hide my pain and fatigue and I will act like a leader. I will clench my jaw when I want to cry and I will act like a Hotshot, and maybe, I’ll become one.