Wow...what can I say about this crazy weekend of racing..
Let me begin from my house where Nate met me and we took off about 8 am after he worked all night.. I told him I would drive so he could try and get some Z's in on the way..He ended up getting maybe 2 hrs at best.
We got to the expo about 3ish and picked up our packets and got a free session on the compression boots which helped a bunch after an eight hr car ride.
We hopped back into the car and headed over to my sisters house about an hr away with the traffic. We did a small shake out run and then tanked up on some really good sushi. After dinner Nate was really tired and we headed back and hit the sack. Saturday morning we got up out of there a bit before 5 and went a different route that Carrie knew that didn't have hardly any stop lights.. We arrive at Woodlands a bit later than I would have liked but still had time to warm up..we met Chris who was taking care of the elite field and he showed us where to leave our bags and I asked him where the ports were and he pointed us to the general public ports that had a line a mile long...
Before Nate and I left my car I made a valid and verifiable point to Nate that I learned from my buddy Jake Buhler...Never go to a race without a good supply of TP...Nate was very thankful for my advise and even more thankful that I had a good supply. We made our way to the woods and took care of some business. Afterwards we got a small 1 mile warmup and I determined that I wasn't done with them woods so I went back.. We got our warmup clothes off and headed up to the start line which was about a 1/4 mile up from the VIP tent.
The morning was really nice about 50 deg. with a heavy fog...kinda eerie. We took off and a pack of about 5 Kenyans and 1 Ethiopians jumped right out front there was a couple of dudes a little behind them I was probably about 8th or so for the first 4 miles.. about mile 3 I knew my pee urge wasn't going away and spotted a port right off the course and hit it.. I was running with the lead woman when i jumped off. After relieving myself i counted about 15-20 seconds behind her and wasn't too worried about the few lost seconds until about mile 6 when I had the ole dreadful bowel poop pains and at mile 7 I started trying to find a port.. just before mile 8 i couldn't take it anymore..I ducked down in the woods for a record setting poop and knew the cheap cotton gloves I had on were there for an important reason.. When I jump back on course I was met by a younger runner and ran with him for a good bit.. we chatted and ended up catching the lead woman at mile 16 and they took off from me about 17 or so. I ran the rest of the race in no man's land till we joined the 1/2 marathoners. I dodged walkers the rest of the way in..couldn't make heads or tails on which course was which but did the best I could to not collide with anyone. I ended up having a short distance on my watch..this was a first...I also caught Brandon the younger runner and finished just a few seconds behind him..
The goal for this race was basically to run a free race and win a little money if I could...I knew with the race the week before took some out of my legs and I felt that on the back end..My sister did well on her 1/2 ...she took off about 15 min. and Nate my buddy did really well too. technically he was 2nd but they gave him 3rd place money...long story.
  smiles all around
| 
