Rough One!

Since I'm the first one to blog, I suppose it was only due to me waking up from a nap first! Not really sure how to document today's run with Rob and Bill. We thought it would be a great idea to run with the Kansas City Track Club on a predetermined, and supposedly premapped, course. Rob and I arrived at 6:10 for the 6:30 run which gave us time to get in a little prerun walking in order to warm up. Bill arrived around 6:20 and immediately started knocking on doors in the neighborhood and introducing himself. After trying to figure out the course maps, we just decided to run with three or four other guys that knew where they were going. They were kind enough to give us a prerun verbal map of their course, which was kind of confusing, so we just decided to run with, and follow, them for the 10-12 miles. We stayed with them for about 50 feet before they were out of sight! Several of the ladies in the group passed us with their usual chitter-chatter and also left us in the dust. One of the ladies dropped back to run with us at around the 3/4 mile point, due to getting left behind by the ladies she was running with. Welcome to our world Natasha! We ran up the two miles of stairs at UMKC and through the gardens of the Kaufman Foundation where we re-hydrated and used the restroom. I think we'll keep this restroom our little secret from the guys that took off and left us! Anyway, we ran around Mill Creek Park, down the ramp to run along Brush Creek, back up the ramp to rejoin the Brookside Trail, where we retraced our steps back to the starting point, which gave us 5.3 miles so far. At this point, Rob and I retrieved our hydration systems from the car. We thought there would be more water available on the course (that's what we were told), so we elected to leave our fuel belts and fore go the extra weight. Semi-bad mistake! We made it okay, thanks to Bill and Natasha sharing their water and Gatorade and the stop at Kaufman Gardens. Okay, so we then continued south on the Brookside Trail where the plan was for Bill to make his turnaround in order to complete a ten miler. Rob's and my plan were to go just a half mile further to get in our planned eleven miler. A huge wrench was thrown in the works when Natasha needed a twelve miler. Now, we all knew this, as it was part of the conversation earlier in the run, but the plan was for Bill to make his turnaround, Rob and I make our turnaround and Natasha was to go a half mile further and make her turnaround. At least that's what I thought the plan was! You'll have to read Rob's blog if you want to know how this ended up, but as for me, I was having just enough of a little hip problem that prompted me to make the turnaround with Bill. Very smart, as it turned out. Bill and I took our time and covered the remaining miles needed to make the ten miler, where we promptly changed our shirts, grabbed some cold refreshment and waited for Rob. We thought he would be around 20 minutes behind us at the most. However, Rob did a really cool thing! He stayed with Natasha due to her running into trouble (read his blog). All in all, it was a nice day, even though we weren't able to run just a little faster. My splits are not worth repeating! I was all over the palce from 10:38 (fastest) to 14:32 (slowest, stairs). Still ten miles is ten miles. Just glad to get out of the heat! That cool shower and two hour nap was terrific!.................Mike