"H.Y.O.H."

One of the mottos long-distance hikers live (or at least, hike ) by is "Hike your own hike."  That is how I am living my life.  I am hiking my own hike . . . which sometimes doesn't involve any hiking at all.  Device Guy's race/track events are like hiking for me.  I am a bit (totally) out of my element standing around with a bunch of guys talking about cars and engines.  We spend a lot of weekends in hotels, in unfamiliar towns, hoping that the food will be decent.  This same not knowing what to expect is also part of life on the trail.  Some tracks have great facilities where you can spend a day relaxing in the shade, enjoying a good book (or writing your next blog post.)  Other tracks are just out in the middle of the desert, with no shade to be found, and not a comfortable place to sit anywhere.  You just never know.  The only thing you know is that you don't know, and there's no way to know until you get there; but that's also the fun part, the adventure of it all lies in all the unknowns.  It would be boring for me if I knew about the facilities and the layout of the place.  I think that's part of the lure of hiking:  you never know what's around the next bend.  It could be an awe-inspiring view, or it could be a hungry mountain lion.  Food is also an unknown on both trail and track.  Track food, like fairground food, is what I call necessity food:  rarely good, never healthy.  The only good thing about it is that it's there; so you eat it and are happy to do so.  There are fewer risks on the track than on the trails.  I don't think there's ever been any problems with bears at the racetrack.