Monday, July 15, 2013

Herbs and the Apocalypse

Or...  Why more than strength and speed are needed for survival.

You all know that we did the zombie run this weekend.  It was awesomely fun.  I started on the zombie fit quest a while ago after watching a marathon of The Walking Dead.  I had the realization that I had all this awesome knowledge and great skills but may not be fit enough to survive long enough for it to be useful if I truly had to run for my life.  So, I began the quest to lose some weight and get back into shape.  I've been plagued by illness and injury but have persevered.  I've still got a way to go to be truly zombie fit but this weekend showed me that I can hold my own and do have things to offer.

The weather was a great equalizer in the early waves of the race on Saturday.  Rain made the trails muddy and treacherous so that even those who were young and fit couldn't go fast.  That meant that those who were young and fit were rubbing shoulders with those of us who were slower and possibly less young.  And sometimes... it worked to their advantage.

In trying to keep her balance on a muddy slope, a young woman (one of those young/fit people) inadvertently grabbed onto a nettle which were growing in abundance along the trail.  Her hand on fire, I offered assistance, telling her I could find a plant to help relieve the pain.  She declined and smeared her hand with mud from the trail, saying she would be fine.

Fast forward a quarter mile and a crawl through the stream later... she approaches complaining that her hand was still burning.  The mud hadn't helped and she had scrubbed it with sand in the stream which made it worse.  A few feet down the trail, I spied Jewelweed (also known as Touch-me-Nots), picked a bit and gave it to her, telling her to break open the stem and smear the juice on her hand.  She had a quite skeptical look on her face but tried it- I think at that point she was desperate. Her skeptical look turned to one of amazement, relief and joy as she realized that it actually worked.

Ha!  See... the old and slow do have their uses when running from zombies!

3 comments:

  1. Great story, the race sounded like a blast and how funny that your non-athletic survival skills came into play! But good on you for getting in shape too, it's so hard to be motivated to exercise and having a practical and fun goal behind it helps a lot. For me, it's biking to work--saves money, parking is a challenge anyway, and it's good for me :)

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  2. Wisdom will out-do young and fit any day! I did the same thing with my sister - who decided to help me weed and plunged into the nettles before I could stop her. Hurray for us wise-guys/gals!

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  3. I admire you doing the Zombie challenge. I could probably walk the course but there is no way I could have done anything resembling a jog. Not only did you do the thing, but you posted pictures of yourself doing it!

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