All new friends, all kinds of fun!

I’m not exactly sure how it started, although I think I can trace it all the way back to when Michaela and I started running with the Fleet Feet Training Group when she was training for her Ultra runs in the early part of this year. However it happened, we started adding to our group of friends at an alarming rate and the main thing that we all had in common was our love for running. When you spend 4 or 5 hours battling with nature, climbing through unimaginable terrain, and fighting your own inner demons with someone on the trails, you really get to know them a lot and you find out how much you truly have in common.

As we have discovered this past year, the running community is a very tight group, who are happy to admit you into their circle no matter if you run a super fast 100 miles or a super slow 5K….the only pre-requisite is a love for the sport and a friendly demeanor…Maybe it’s the “runner’s high” that you get after a good run or just the self-satisfied grin you get after you survive a grueling trail, but these people just seem to always be happy, and let me tell you…it’s a pretty contagious way to go through life.

It seems like every person that we see out on the trails knows someone that knows us, and we all end up playing the six degrees of separation game until we figure out who is who…but every time we do that, we add a new friend to our “group” and the circle expands…it’s pretty nice to know that on any given day we can put out the bat signal and have 5 or 10 different people volunteer to go on a run with us!

At any rate, Michaela and I have found ourselves spending more and more of our time with our new friends, and we’ve been having an absolute blast.

This past Saturday we got up early and met our friends Kirk and Scott for what was supposed to be a nice and easy 14 mile run from the Auburn Dam Overlook to Cool and back. Well Kirk and Scott are both exceptional runners and they elected to take Michaela and I on a little adventure up K-2, which is one of the steepest running trails around. As we had never been up it (although we had heard about it plenty), we said “sure, let’s do it!” and up we went…I can’t really say that we “ran” it as there were quite a few sections that a slow walk was all I could muster while I tried to catch my breath (without much success). This crazy adventure was only about 5 miles into our run so the whole time I was going up I kept thinking “we’re not even halfway there, we’re not even halfway there!?!?”… we eventually made it to the top (the climb was roughly 1,100 feet in under a mile I think) and continued on our quest to Cool. Kirk had already run 7 miles to come meet us so he was done when we hit Cool and the remaining three of us turned around to head on home.

All was well during the majority of the run with the exception being that I was sucking down more water than I probably should have…I drank approximately 50 ounces on the way out and another 50 on the way back which is apparently way too much. About mile 13 was when I started having some trouble. I had sucked down all the water in my pack and was having a hard time with all the fine dust that was flying through the air…not to mention it had really started to heat up in the exposed parts of the trail. Michaela and Scott had gone on ahead and I was struggling to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I had heard about “bonking” before but had never really experienced it firsthand. Well, I’m still not sure if I did or not, but it seemed to be in the ballpark as I thought I was going to pass out several times and had to stop running altogether around mile 14…I just said “enough is enough” and walked in the last mile…it was a little scary as I was by myself out in the wilderness and I thought I might look like a decent meal to some wandering bear or mountain lion should I pass out on the trail…needless to say, I eventually made it back…it was a little over 15 miles and it was tough…but that’s why we go out and run, because we never know what kind of adventure we’ll be in store for!

Saturday afternoon we headed over to a barbecue with some of the aforementioned new friends. I mentioned in a previous post that Michaela joined the Ultrarunnerpodcast’s Ultra Running Team. The barbecue was a get together for all the team members and their families and it was all kinds of fun. There were tons of little kids for Landon to play with, good food, and some really excellent company. Again, we felt like our circle of friends expanded quite a bit.

On Sunday we headed up to Cool to visit with our friends Kirk and Jenny. Landon thought he was hilarious by saying we were going to “Cookie and Jenny’s house”…ahh the imagination of the little ones. For those of you that aren’t cool enough to have been to Cool before, it’s a cute little town way up in the Mountains past Auburn. The only way to get there is by taking a seriously windy stretch of road which could cause even the saltiest of sailors to get a little motion sick. On the ride up Landon was complaining that his “tummy hurt” and we knew that wasn’t a good sign, but we really didn’t have anything we could do…there really isn’t a safe place to pull off on the side of the road so all we could do was keep on going. Well, we made it to their house and literally as we pulled up the driveway he finally let loose…while Landon was projectile vomiting in the backseat I jumped out of the car before it had come to a complete stop, yanked open the door and attempted to untangle him from the mess of puke and seatbelts. I managed to get him out and set him on even ground in their driveway, right as they opened the front door to great us! I’m sure we were a sight for sore eyes, with me patting Landon’s back while he continued to blow chunks on their pristine driveway and Michaela looked on in disbelief.

Oh well, as I told them later, they’ll never forget the first time we came to visit! After Landon had sufficiently evacuated his stomach, he was good to go and wanted to go play. Unfortunately we didn’t have a spare outfit (bad form, we know) so we stripped him down to his chonies and let him run around like a “free spirit” while his clothes dried.

After that fiasco, the rest of the night was great. Landon terrorized their cat for hours on end while the four adults had some cocktails and enjoyed some good company.

All things considered, we had a great weekend. We feel extremely fortunate to have made all of these new friends and look forward to continuing to grow our circle…and it’s good to know that all we need to do is find a trail to find a new friend….