Thanksgiving

Had a nice Thanksgiving yesterday. Started the day with a 17 mile training run. Ran like a snail but had fun nontheless. Went home ate and watched some football. Cleaned up and went to help my friend Julie, who was feeding the homeless in downtown San Diego. This really was a feel good thing and I am very happy that I was involved. Cant really see doing anything else now on these types of holidays. She will do it again on Christmas and so will I. The one thing I missed was the Kids. The Lord has been so good to me and the kids are amazing. I cant imagine what life would be like without them. I love them so much! I am honored to be their dad.

JJ 100 Recap

Ok, well here goes. This was a very fun trip. I got to take both kids along and I was stoked. We were off to Fountain Hills for 4 days so that I could run my second 100 miler. The trip in was great except for that small section in Gila Bend where I got pulled over by a 12 year old who said I was speeding. Oh well, I wasn't going to let him spoil my fun so off we went. We got to Javelina headquaters and set up our tent. Thanx goes out to Willam who had his drill handy. The ground was was like cement, and he learned from last year, so he drilled holes for our stakes. We got our camp site set up then went down the hill to feed the kids. Came back got checked in and received bib # and goodie bag. Got to sleep at around 8 but couldn't sleep a bit. It was in the low 40's and the ground was hard as a rock. As soon as I fell asleep, Joel had to pee so all in all I think I slept 2-3 hours. Got up at 4:30 when I heard the others around me waking up. 6 am race start, said goodbye to the kids and off I went. The first 30 miles I ran way to fast but I felt great. Syd did a great job of getting me what I needed and just seeing the kids every 15.4 miles gave me the boost of energy that I needed. Didn't hydrate and eat like I need to and it bit me in the butt at mile 40. I was starving and ate 2 peanut butter sandwiches which was soon to become part of trail that I was running about half hour later. Felt much better after throwing up but at mile 62 felt pretty bad. I don't know if I wanted to quit, but I knew that I wasn't going home with just a speeding ticket. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Mary Ann an old friend from high school came to see me at the 62 mile mark and it was great to see her. She looked great and seeing her gave me an extra jolt of energy, that I really needed. 62 to 77 were some hard miles but after power walking alot of them I started to feel alot better. 77 to 92 were a little better and at 92 Syd got her running shoes on and said she would run with me the last 8 miles. I am so proud of her, it was cold, 4:00 in the morning and she had been up helping me for the past 20 hours. She really stepped up to the plate and proved to be the trooper I knew she was. That 8 miles with her I will never forget. What a blast to be out in the middle of the night running with my only daughter. Her spirit and laughter made it so much easier to run at that point. I kept joking with her about how they must have moved the aid station because it seemed like forever to reach that last aid station. We finally made it as the sun was coming up and from there we only had around 4 miles to go. This section was smooth and bit downhill so we managed to shuffle most of the way with a few walks in between. I have only done 2 100 milers but this much I know. When you are about a mile away from finishing, you can taste it. I mean it! You can finally see the madness behind all those early morning weekend solo runs and those 10 to 15 milers after working a 10 hour day. For just about 10 minutes it all becomes so clear as to why you are putting your body through this much stress, and for those brief moments there is no more pain. Thanx to Syd and Joel for being there for me, and I can't forget Stephanie because if I said that I didn't look foward to seeing her every 15.4 miles, even if she was with her boyfriend, I would be lying. Thanx for keeping an eye on the kids when you could. I am grateful. Now, what next?