The Triumpant Return

After several hours in the middle of nowhere with no aircard service, and no real sign of anything but trees and a couple random horses, (in the middle of nothing which was strange,) we’re now in the middle of nowhere with some aircard service, so I need to get this out before we’re back on radio silence – which is the only silence because Selecia and Vince are currently engaged in a battle of dueling snores.

We’re currently done with our second set of legs and Van 2 is out there somewhere on the hilly, gravely covered paths of god knows where doing god knows what to god knows who, or what, or who? I just caught a little sleep – nothing substantial but enough to make me feel like I’m dying of thirst and need to vomit. So, awesome right?

So the question is how’d my leg go right?

Well, running, much like this blog, is a funny thing. Sometimes you think you feel great, you’re dialed in, you’re completely ready, and you get out there and just aren’t feeling it. Sometimes you feel like I typically do on a Saturday morning - beat up, worn out, your hair is all over the place, you’re laying next to a couple chicks you just met hours ago, and you go out there and you’re on. And then sometimes you travel across the country, run 6 miles up a 45 degree incline, stay up all night telling ghost stories with people you barely know, step out into the 3 AM pitch blackness, and tell a 5.69 mile run to “suck it.”

Right before my leg I said I’d be happy running 6:30 pace – it seemed practical., but if I was really feeling it maybe 6:15. That’s all I wanted, needed, or thought I was capable of. For one of the few times in my life I was wrong as I clocked in at 36:50 which broke into 5:56 splits over the deceptively hilly course.

I felt decent going into it but I totally didn’t expect to be moving that fast. But every time I thought of backing down I told myself that I’d wait until I was hurting. For the most part it never came, and I just keep picking off road kills (13, to bring our van’s total right now to 45.) So with one of the hardest legs on the entire course left to run I’m feeling pretty beat, but I’ll finish, and in a race like this if y ou have one leg to hang your hate on that’s enough for the story.

After I was done Nat dropped some 7:15s over a bitch of a leg 18 to pass us off in pretty decent shape.

I want to write more but I keep getting distracted here. We have about an hour before we run so I’ll check back in a little.