We set them off this morning, Sam happily skipping after John and Goldie with her hair in pigtails and her little Camelback on her back. Ryan, Nathan and I took the summit trail up to the summit and backtracked on the BBU course to the top of Lunchbreak hill, where we waited for the group to arrive. As soon as Ian (and the dogs), Mike, Blaine, Martin, Val, Xar and Mindy arrived, we were off. I was feeling a little off, but figured I'd settle in. It was a really nice morning, fairly cool although still humid, and it was fun to be running with a good group.
As we got back close to the park, there was John, Goldie and Sam. But Sam had a HUGE goose egg on her forehead and a good scrape on her knee. She had tripped and gone down hard. Poor Sam. Poor John. I know he felt terrible. They were headed back to the park headquarters to get an ice pack. When Sam saw us, it probably made it worse as she almost started to cry again, but after a few minutes we assured her that she would be OK, and after confirming many times with John, we headed out. We knew we could check back in again after our miles on the east side. The problem was that we went away feeling HORRIBLE. I was particularly anxious and was all out of sorts as we ran along. We caught up to Val, Xar and Mindy, and Val regaled us with a tale of dropping one of her boys at 6 months and having to take him to the ER, and Mindy told us the story of a toddler falling out of the window of a camper at VT. Ok, so these things happen, but we still felt badly. The ladies pulled over for a pee stop and Ryan and I continued on. I followed along but my head was not in it. I was feeling extremely anxious about Sam and felt bad for continuing the run when she had hurt herself. I was not in a good place. We talked back and forth, and finally agreed that yes, it sucked, but that we probably mostly felt badly about it because we felt guilty we weren't there when it happened. Still, I was glad to get through the singletrack and back to the parking lot. We ran down to the playground to check on Sam, and she was happily reading a book with John. Phew! With that reassurance, we decided to continue on with our miles, and headed back out.
Sam walking Goldie
Sam and Goldie (enlarge to see the bump on her forehead!)
Playground selfie with matching sun hats :-)
I immediately felt better. Hey, it only took 1:20 for me to feel "normal." I cruised up the Ski Trail hill, feeling good. We ran along at a decent clip and I finally felt like I had a rhythm going. We caught up with the rest of the crew along the Connector, each little group having done the miles slightly differently. The ladies dropped back up near the Quarry, and it was Ryan, Nathan, Mike and I, a good group, for the rest of the run. It was fun chatting and catching up with everyone.
At the summit
Although there was a nice breeze, I was pretty much soaked, and was drinking a lot of water. I had three Gus during the run, and probably could have used one more, as in the last mile up the Tote Road, I was suddenly feeling quite tired. Up at the summit, I was ready to head down as quickly as possible, and apparently, it was good timing for us to shoot down the Switchback Trail as Ryan got a call from John that they were thinking of heading over to Edna & Lucy's. After a quick wipe down with some wipes, we hopped in the car all together and went to get lunch. Yum!
Still, despite a bit of a mental breakdown early on and a bit of slogging at the end, it was a good 15 miles for the morning and fun to run the BBU course with friends. OK, yes, so we skipped Lunchbreak this time around, but still, it's a solid run. Man, the course is legit though, no messing around. Total time 3:05, with Strava saying 2:45 moving time.
Many thanks to John for watching Sam for the morning! She had a lot of fun despite the bump on her head :-)
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