Being a good friend, I thought that I'd support Greg's Birthday Challenge efforts by shlepping food, water, and gear as needed in addition to participating in many of the events.  Thus, I offered to do the mountain biking, kayaking, running and volleyball with him.  I also offered to play my Ashiko drum and sing along to the Grateful Dead songs.  However, even good friends have their limits...1) I'm not an experienced rock climber (but hope to be in the near future), so I decided I would stay on the ground; 2) I have good taste in beer, so I committed to drink 16 "real" beers while he drank LoneStars (besides, I'm training for this year's Oktoberfest in Munich); and 3) I'm not fond of puking (which is what I would expect to do if I attempted to slug down 16 cup o'noodles in 32 hours), so I packed PowerBars instead.

Speaking of which, it was all I could do to keep from puking just winessing Greg's noodle consumption.  Distinctly I remember my needing to stop to cool down in the middle of our mountain biking.  Greg had taken a minor tumble and when I stopped to wait for him, I realized that I was overheating fast.  I felt a little dizzy and nauseaus so I laid my bike down, sat on the ground and poured water over my head.  As I started to feel a little better, I looked over to see if Greg was ok.  Well, that was a mistake...for what I saw immediately made my stomach churn once again.  There was Greg with his head tilted back squeezing hot gobs o'noodles from a water bottle down his throat.  If that wasn't bad enough, he also had noodles stuck on his chest glistening in the sun.  Fortunately, I was able to look away before the PowerBars that I had eaten earlier could make a return visit.

Greg definitely earned my respect completing the challenge.  Particularly because he was able to overcome the unknown obstacles that made it all the more challenging.  Things such as:  the cop who told us we were breaking curfew at the location where we were unloading our kayaks to begin the paddling event, an unexpectedly extra spicy cup o'noodles for his 16th serving, and the need to multi-task events in order to beat the 32 hour limit.  His simultaneous hula hooping, drinking beer, eating cup'o noodles and singing Dead songs acapella while String Cheese Incident songs were blaring from the stereo for the final 32 minutes was the stuff of champions.

Although I was tired, stinky, dirty, and my body was aching by the end of the challenge, I was glad to have been along for the ride...and what a long strange trip it was.

Congratulations & Happy Birthday, Greg!!!