Watt's Running

All,

Well I finished, but it wasn’t pretty. I’m sore now especially my knees. Tomorrow I have to be on my feet all day (volunteered to help at a Lego robotics competition at Round Rock High School). Hopefully that should be fun – maybe I can find a chair and do my job from a sitting position – ha ha ha yeah right. In any case, I should have stuck with you all. I don’t know what got into me. Each time I either waited or caught up to you I somehow kept pushing and ran out ahead and shouldn’t have. Where did you go Glenn? Being alone made the run even longer. No talk, no companions – just my freakin’ thoughts to keep me company – and those were not very positive for the second half death march. I missed you all very much today. I walked most of Ladera Norte, and I’m glad that the hills were much smaller after that – sheesh I know that Rogue loves hills, but enough already. So I was dragging at the end and just wanted it over. Got to the park in 2:56. It was only 16 miles and I can’t even think about doing 18. The high point was getting to Celeste’s home, seeing her, meeting her hubby Matt, and the kids especially Zack, and getting a bottle of water from the mail box then heading out. I carried that bottle from there to the end. It was very much appreciated – thank you very much Celeste, that was special.

Bri

Well “it was a dark and stormy night” fits very well with the long run today. I tried to dress warmly in long tights, two long-sleeved shirts and a pullover, two pairs of gloves, hat and ear band, two pairs of socks (one pair, a plastic bag, and another pair to keep my feet dry), and my new shoes. Only about 30 people showed up at 6:30 AM today in the cold and pouring rain at the Balcones Country Club. Indeed I was surprised to see Glenn there. We ran together which was great. Within the first mile of downpour we were soaked through and puddle after puddle our shoes were dripping. We were probably lugging a few extra pounds of rain and sweat soaked clothing and shoes for the distance. By half way the plastic bags on my feet had ruptured and were now filled with water. I know I wouldn’t have completed it in 1:37 if Glenn wasn’t there helping me – running beside me, just being there. We didn’t talk much mostly because of the constant rain noise, and my struggle to breathe as we ran hill after hill. This was definitely a good prep for Decker – I just hope the weather is better. There was one hill in particular that I just started walking while we were in a small cluster of four runners – I was beat, and Glenn said that he would stay back with me. When I heard this instead of continuing to walk I started to run again because I just couldn’t do that to him – I couldn’t have him walk too, it just wasn’t right. So from then on we ran the entire rest of the way. He helped push me when I didn’t want to go on. For that I very much want to thank him. So although we didn’t complete at the pace we wanted, we adjusted and we completed – wet, cold, shivering and miserable through and through. What fun.