The Sweaty Twenty

Today was a run that has been in the works for a while - a twenty miler on the scenic (and very hilly) road between Bastrop and Buescher State Parks. I got an early start, picked Clea up on the way and we met the others at the Bastrop park entrance. We'd lucked out with the weather, but still decided to drop a cooler about 4 miles in.....just in case.

We started off with 6 people, but some drama in the first mile soon dropped that number to 4. Undaunted, we ploughed on.

This was a challenging course, but we took a nice easy pace and enjoyed chatting together. Is there anything better than running through beautiful scenery with good company? We had a fun group and there was a kind of unspoken agreement to wait for anyone who stopped off. The road was nicely shaded and the miles slipped by until we got to Buescher, turned round and headed back. This may have been the point we started noticing the hills and the heat a little more, and we all started dreaming of reaching the cooler. We finally got there, refilled our camelbaks with some deliciously cold water, and Clea kindly shared around some of her Dublin Dr Pepper winnings from last week's 10k. Refreshed and refilled, we continued on.

About 2 miles from the end, my calf started cramping. I'd been really lazy and hadn't been taking enough salt tabs (maybe that should be any salt tabs?) or sports beans. Now I was paying for it. I told the others to go on ahead, but in keeping with the spirit of the morning they all stayed with me and we walked a good portion of the final few miles (most of it was uphill anyway).

Coming round the last corner we saw Robert Heynen sitting on a bench so we decided to suck it up and all ran in together as if we'd been hammering the course. He'd been there with his Rogue group when we left, and now he saw us coming and greeted us with a resounding "here come the road idiots" :-)

The run finished at around 21 miles, and we hung around chatting some more. I'd put together some comedy "finisher's certificates" and we all posed with them while Robert took the picture above.

Everyone agreed this had been a lot of fun and we should do it again soon. Big thanks to Clea, Meredith and Moogy for being such good company, and especially to Clea for coming up with the idea and making it happen.