A colleague said it best on my facebook page, "What a great way for you to unwind from the school year!" Unfortunately, because of 5 snow days I couldn't go to Sioux City with the team on Thursday night. That also meant Matthew had to drive me and the kids two hours to Ida Grove on Friday right after school to drop me off. It had been a REALLY hot day of running, and when I got there it was finally beginning to cool off. I began to meet and catch up with everyone, not realizing this was going to be the beginning of a great relationship:) I wanted in the rotation right away so I grabbed the provided spaghetti supper and put it in the RV fridge for later and got psyched up to run. My first run was about 10 - 15 miles outside of Ida Grove through a town called Lakeview, it was about 8:00 at night. It felt great and I was excited for the next run. Little did I know, this was just the beginning of a total of 7 runs I'd be doing in the next 2 days:)
As I began to settle into the run, it began to be an act of survival. When you finished running you had less than 7 hours to get food and drink (and I needed it right after I run so I don't puke like Dave), check to see if a shower was possible (warm preferably but either way is great), is there a field available to use as a bathroom, and lastly can I squeeze in a quick cat nap. Later on I figured out I got approximately 2 hours of sleep Friday night, catnaps Saturday, 1 hour nap in afternoon, 2 hour crash after night run on Saturday, 1-2 hour nap Sunday afternoon on ride home None of the little stressers of life could get in the way, it was only me, the road, and my team (who came to be my friends).
It was fun getting to know everyone outside of running and to share a little about myself too. I think possibly because of the lack of sleep and the muscle fatigue, things became very silly easily. I giggled more in this weekend than I have in probably 2 years. I'll never forget funny times like;
"Noone ever drown in sweat." (one of many Chuckisms)
Justin (right after his 2nd run when he found out what I teach) - "1st AND 2nd grade, huh? You're an overachiever!"
Being super excited for... Bacon for breakfast and even taunting Justin with the idea of bacon at his check-in to keep him running.
Justin convincing all of to be excited for breakfast for not only bacon but the "best-worst coffee ever!"
My second run was in the middle of the night, I started at 3:48am. I used to run around 11pm when I was in highschool but that was just around my small town, never on country rodes or through towns I did not know and with a headlamp it was so dark. I started about 2 miles outside of Dayton, got to run through Dayton (which reminded me of running through Nevada so that was nice) and then run 2 miles outside of Dayon. Chuck let me use his really nice headlamp and it was a beautiful run, no wind, 66 degrees. The lamp was REALLY bright and was messing with my peripheral vision but I did my best to just keep looking straight ahead. When I got done I was telling Matt, Chuck, and Justin about these big white birds swooping down in front of the lamp to eat the insects that were attracted to the light. The group quickly informed me that those were probably not birds, but rather bats! But don't worry they tried to convince me, bats only come out on Friday night, tomorrow night it'll be vampires:)
When we got back to the RV after everyone ran, we pulled up to see a curious sight too. Laying on the grass next to the RV backed up to a field, is Jesse in his sleeping bag, face down. Cars driving by. We later learned the RV was too stinky and hot and Jesse couldn't get to sleep so he crawled out the passenger window so as not to wake anyone and got a couple hours sleep outside. Another laugh-out loud moment!
But there were hard times too, or times where I learned I'm a lot tougher than I thought I was...
The shower in Jewell at the highschool, where Mindy and I screamed so loud from the cold that we convinced Justin to skip a shower and sleep instead.
The warm shower in Independence but because of the wind that day my hair was in knots and nearly impossible to brush out. I felt like I ripped out half of my hair and was near tears by the time I gave up.
Getting tired of peanut butter and jelly and meat sandwiches. It was great to find honey in the tub after our last night run to try to change it up a little bit:)
Feeling amazed after running 15 miles, but psyched after running 20! Too bad the picture says 02 instead of 20:) Little did I know, the hard part hadn't happened yet...Lastly, there were times of real friendship and caring toward each other.
Running through Dubuque was more tough than I think any of the newbies knew it was going to be. I ran 4 miles of hills I had no idea were going to be there. We cheered each other on and checked in on each other more often than the rest of the race. It felt good to see the whole team throughout your run. One of my runs was so hilly there were no place for our vehicles to park and Matt ran back to check on me to make sure I was ok, knowing my legs were fatiguing and cars would have a hard time seeing me around the curves.
Jason offered to jump and run a mile when Kim was taking a bathroom break as I ran past to exchange, although I quickly turned him down, not willing to give up:)Our last run was through Overton Park to the finish line. Most of us had decided we were going to do it together and GPS was showing it was only half a mile. Dave and Chuck decided to drive the vehicles and the rest of us got out elated and began our last run. As we got inside the park I realized the S-curves were really tight and it seemed like we were going straight uphill. It also seemed like it was never ending! Pretty soon my legs were fatiguing and I was falling behind the group of 8, walking probably would have been faster. Matt suggested giving me a little push on my back for a little bit to see if that would help, and it did! I made it to the finish line without walking (which was 1.1 miles NOT half a mile) and couldn't have done it without his encouragement.
As we began to reflect on the ride home, I realized what a special experience this was for me. I hope that we get to run together again, maybe even before Relay Iowa next year and that we continue to support each other on this journey through life:) As Tim said in one of his emails when we were all reminiscing about the experience...in the words of Dr. Seuss, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” And I definitely smile when I think about this experience and I also get excited thinking about next year. My husband said to me after I got home and began sharing with him, "Just remember, next year, you need to go up Thursday with the team." I feel so blessed!
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