First and foremost - another big "Thank You!" to all of you who have made a donation!! Laura and I would not be able to do this adventure without your support. We were able to meet our registration deadline! During the registration process, Laura called me to go over some of the information we needed for registration. One of the questions was regarding our team name. What?! We need a team name? I wasn't sure I had any creative juices left to come up with yet another team name. After several phone conversations that night, we settled on a team name. We are "I thought this was a 5K!" It makes me laugh every time
To date we have raised $1607 - That is so RAD :) That means we over 1/5 of the way to reaching our fundraising goal.
On November 19th, Laura and I participated in the Grand Ridge Trail 1/2 Marathon. The course was an out and back on single track trails reaching an elevation gain of 2,000ft. It was a very cold and wet morning. We stayed in the car with the seat warmers on, until just before start time. At 8:40, it was time to leave the warm cocoon of the car and make our way to the start line. After a last minute Porta-potty visit, the safety briefing and winning a pair of socks in a drawing; it was time to start the run. 9:00 am sharp, we were off, running through mud, gravel and leaves on a slight downhill to the "trail head". Promptly the trail goes up and up and up. Everyone was packed in tight until about mile 3. From there the 5 mile runners turned off and Laura and I headed on. The aid station marked mile 4 and we felt good - no need to stop. The next section of the trail was relatively flat and smooth. Our pace was comfortably set by some fellow runners and we enjoyed some easy conversation. Laura and I noticed that the trail was starting to descend at about mile 6. Who doesn’t love downhill, right?! After a mile of steep downhill, Laura says “I don’t think I want to go downhill anymore!” Little did we know; we had another mile of descending to go before we reached the turnaround point of the run. If you have been doing the math that makes 2 miles of downhill. It isn’t so easy to run downhill for an extended period of time. Our fellow runners and hikers will also know; what goes down must come back up. As quickly as the feelings of joy came from making it to the turnaround point, those feelings fizzled as we made our way up the 2 mile hill we had just come down. Laura and I have a new appreciation and respect for walk breaks!! There were a lot of them on that 2 mile uphill climb. I have never been so excited to reach an aid station! This marked mile 11 and time for a snack! I had a shot of Pepsi and some pretzels while Laura dined on a slice of bagel slathered with PB – MMMMMM. With break time over, it was time to finish this thing! Leaving the aid station behind, Laura started ahead of me as we returned to the trail. We had just over 2 miles to go. Everything was going great and then it happened. I had read somewhere that it was just a matter of time, a “when, rather than, if” situation. I fell. Not the trip and stumble forward kind of fall, but the fly in the air then “BAM” kind of fall. “SON OF A BITCH!” echoed through the forest. I picked myself up, wiped the mud off my hands the best I could and walked up to Laura. My comment to her was “stupid rock!” We walked for a minute and then started running. As we came off the single track and back onto the double track trail, we had a ½ mile to go!!! We dug deep and pushed our tired legs to the finish line. Laura and I completed our first trail run in 2:43! We came in 74/75 out of 170 half marathon runners and 9/10 in our age bracket – Woot Woot!! It was a great experience and we had a blast.
During the Thanksgiving break, Laura and I have been in Spokane enjoying the holiday. While we have been here we have spent time with friends and family, eating yummy food, celebrating Natalie’s 6th Birthday and getting two runs in. We hit the pavement early Thanksgiving day and pounded out 4 cold miles around the hood before we had dinner. Today (Saturday), braving the cold weather again, we got in a 7 miler on the Spokane River Centennial Trail. Now we can enjoy 7-layer dip, chips and football. GO DAWGS!!
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