Ballin'

Instead of the standard Saturday routine, which is the N2 ride at 7:30 AM with a dozen or more (sometimes 2 dozen) fine folks who like to ride their bikes fast for 40 or 60 miles and get back in time to have a Saturday, I ventured to Leesburg with 4 other dads and our sons for 5 hours of paintball action.  The ten of us had a splatteringly good time.

I knew I was out of my element when, as I pulled into the venue in the suburban mobile known as the minivan, I had to park amongst the 4x4's and Tundras and Explorers and Scions and all other vehicles that are not emblematic of my style of driving.  While the people were decidedly different, the atmosphere was remarkably similar to that of a road, crit, or 'cross race, in which we all pull into some remote parking lot, register for an event, pay a fee which we justify as the cost of engaging in recreation, prep for the event by brandishing specialized equipment for the specific tasks at hand, eye each other warily, preen about in our "costumes", regard the officials with suspicion, make cutting and joking comments with our competitors, and then throw ourselves pell-mell into a physical activity in which we engage many muscles (some seldom utilized) into an admixture of anaerobic glucose metabolism that does not subside for hours afterward, experience euphoria of small victories and disappointment of small setbacks, and talk about it afterwards, embellishing each telling with the hyperbole that makes the stories memorable.

We played eight games with a break for lunch.  We wore red armbands to differentiate ourselves from the white team.  There were about 60 people on a side, so we had 50 teammates we did not know, but got acquainted with as the day wore on.  Innocuous stuff like:

"Thanks for laying down the cover when I needed to get to the spool from that rock knob"

"Was that you who got nailed in the face ten seconds in?"

"Nice move on the bunker--there were 6 guys trying to nail ya"

"Paint check!"  "You're good, dude"

"Stay on your back, it's easier to see and you don't expose your ass"

My most memorable moment was trying to stave off a nest of 6 marauders while they advanced on our flag.  I was isolated but I picked one off before they finally sent one guy up to nail me at 5 feet.  The barrage of shots on my location was intense, and I came out looking like a Jackson Pollock painting.

When I got home I felt like I had been on a 4 hour ride.  That's some good cross-training.  I think I'll be doing it again soon...