A Fish, A Beer, and a Birthday

Woo..whoo! It's done. It's in the books. Now, here's what it took.

I went to bed around 9:30 PM on Saturday night. After 3 restful hours of sleep, I popped up right up (er, maybe not right up) at 12:27 AM on Sunday morning, my birthday.

Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday dear Andy
Happy Birthday to me!

Yall knew I wanted to do this, crazy, whacky birthday run. I nixed the run from the house run, figured it was too dangerous and too much road running. It's a good thing I did, there is a lot of traffic on the roads at midnight on a Saturday, and a lot of it is perpetrated by drunks on Labor Day weekend. So on Saturday I'd put all of my stuff for the run together. This is no small feat as we decided to do a little my birthday (that was my idea :) and Labor Day (the rest of the USA's idea) BBQ today. So here's a partial list of the junk Barbara and I put together for the run/Q:
For the run:
1/2 gallon Gatorade. 1/2 gallon Hammer Heed electrolyte drink. Shot Blocks by Cliff, Power Gels, Cliff Bars. Two Pepsi's, Two Starbucks Coolers, two gallons of water. I partially freeze the Gatorade and water the night before so I do not need to put ice in the cooler which goes at the 1/2 way point of our trail.

For post run:
1 1/2 pounds of ginger terriyaki salmon (yum yum). chips, salsa, guacamole (homemade of course), asparagus (marinated in Lemon and garlic, yum yum), Homemade spinach dip, wheat thins, charcol, propane and propane grill, er beer (yum yum).

Anyway all this took some time.

Special thanks to Woody, who met me up there at around 2 AM for the run (it's 50 miles for me, more like 75 for Woody). Woody and I took off from the Croom parking lot at 2:30 AM (I had already run one warm-up mile), and we ran the 3 1/2 miles on the dirt road to our cooler, we decided to save the woods until it got light out. When we arrived at the cooler that we stash in the woods, we noticed that the two cars that had been there when we dropped the coolers were gone. We thought this was odd, we figured we were the only nut-jobs out running this time of the morning. Turns out the cars belonged to the trail LunaChicks, E, P, Linda, and Marilyn, we know this because hanging on a bush right above my cooler was my first B'day card of my 46th year! Complete with a handful of green cash money from the Lunachicks! $1 for every decade of my life in one wad, and $1 for every year in my fourth decade in the other wad. Woo-Who, those 10 clams will buy me a movie and popcorn, these are few of my favorite things. That was cool, thanks ladies :)

Anyway, the Woodman and I took off once more and ran down Nobleton Road, this is a hard-packed dirt road for 5 miles, then we picked up the bike trail that crosses it. When then ran another 2 miles to a little park that had opened restrooms as well as a water fountain that dispensed ice-cold water. We filled our bottles, I filled the restroom (10-200 for you Smokey and the Bandit fans, Gimme a Diablo Sandwhich and a Dr. Pepper to go, and make it fast, I'm in a Gotdamn hurry!), and we went back the way we came.

We arrived back at the cars just prior to 6 AM with 20 miles under our belts (geez, only 26 more to go!) In the parking lot we saw a few cars, Dan Miller's, Candi's, Julie's and Andrea's vehicles had joined ours in the parking lot. Things were shaping up for the BBQ, if I could just get this simple additional MARATHON finished! This time Woody and took off down the trail, (special thanks to Dan Miller for knocking down all of those webs, they don't call him Spyderman for nuttin!) When we got back to our stashed coolers after 7 more miles, Woody and I decided to part ways for the time being. As it wasn't his 46th birthday he figured he'd just take the 8-mile South trail back and call it a day with a measly 35 miles (wuss!). Well my considerably math skills had deteriorated, but I figured since the first out-and-back Woody and I did was 20 miles, that if I did that again and added 5 miles (I'd done 1 before Woody got to Croom) that I'd be Aces. Ok, how was I going to pick up 5 miles. Well, I'd already added 3.5 by taking the trail instead of the road, to the coolers, I'd figure out how to get the other 1 1/2 later. between miles 29 and 40 I was cruising. I was back on the road wanting to finish and grab a brewski. I also wanted to get back to the parking lot by the time Barb came up with my lovely daughter Alison. Anyway I was clocking sub-9 minute miles (not fast for you road marathon runners, but downright speedy for a trail runner not named Sutton or Docs!) So my miles back to the little park were rapid, but uneventful. I arrived back at the cooler after clocking in about 12 more miles in about 1:45. 5 miles to go. Duh, there are two 5-mile trails that lead back to the parking lot. I took the South trail and ran (mostly) back to the car. My 9 minute miles turned into 13 minute minute miles for the last 5 miles, but that worked out well, because as I was finishing my 46th mile, Barbara and Ali pulled up in Barb's sporty red Prius, we hit the parking lot simultaneously :)

After the run we had a wonderful BBQ with Pete and his pretty finance Mary Beth (will somebody please explain to Pete what it means to outkick his coverage?), Julie and her gracious husband Eddie, my long time pal Candi (whom I love dearly), Dan and Woody (they are ok) and of course my best gals, Ali and Barb. I'll tell you one thing, I grilled some salmon that was so good it would make you want to slap your granny! And Barbara's spinach dip was right handy to swaller as well! As a special surprise Ali had decorated a cake in honor of my B'day, it was beautiful as well as tasty :) As for the brew, well, two words, Downtown Brown! As one of my all-time favorite people has pointed out, anyone that likes Downtown Brown can't be too bad (and that's exactly what I am shooting for, not too bad! Here lies Andy, he wasn't very handy, but we are a little sad, because he really wasn't too bad!)

Nough said! Tomorrow, just about a 5 mile shake out the dried up platelettes run.