Friday Girlfriend is Back and Memphis Rain

Big weekend (three-day) with tons of activity so let's hop right to it...

Friday I dropped into work early in anticipation of sweet afternoon weather and a date with my Friday Mistress (love me Friday rides). Things worked out as planned and at noon I was off for two hours. It was pretty nice weather, but I quickly found out the moisture in the air had it feeling much cooler than the temp showed as I rolled out for two miles only to return and wrap up another layer. Good ride.



Deb and I left work a little early in the afternoon as Ian received recognition for getting straight A's for his first semester in 3rd grade. Very proud of the little man.

Immediately after the program we shot down Hwy 13 to get to Ian's basketball game. The kids played tough, but took a their first 'L' of the session. Afterwards we (my mom, dad, bro, both nieces, and grandma) snagged some eats then it was back to Bolivar.

Ian spent the night with a friend as he didn't make the trip to Memphis with us due to him having another ball game on Saturday. He was staying with a teammate until Saturday afternoon when he hit a birthday party then it was over to Uncle Jim's for the rest of the weekend. Jim's daughters and wife were gone for the weekend so he was looking forward to catching all the football games with Eball. The two of them really like each other and it's fun to watch.

The rest of Friday evening was spent packing... until I heard COD MW2 calling and before you know it Jake and I went to bed around 2am. I didn't mention yet that we had a 5:45am wake up call in order to get on the road by 6:15am. I was a hurting unit when the alarm went off (sigh).

On the road and met Diane and Thomas (Diane's 17yr old son) around 7am and then we all hit it to Memphis. 5 hour drive went fast as the conversation was good. Met up with the rest of the SGF (John & Cynthia, Beau, Mia, and Cliff) and Branson (Dathan, Kendell, and Jay & Terry) at Rendezvous Ribs for lunch. Pretty good stuff, but not as good as I expected; all in all still worth hitting it if in the area. Interesting entry in an alley and not on a main road. ***The below pic is what was left of a rib/shoulder plate with hot bbq sauce and probably the best coleslaw I ever had***



Checked into hotel; Deb and Jake grabbed a nap while Diane, Thomas, and I went to packet pickup. A quick scan looked like the trails were in decent shape with not too much moisture. That ended pretty quickly as it started raining (and turns out it didn't stop until 5 minutes before race start). Back to the hotel for some major relaxation/napping until dinner.

The crew headed over to Milanos, a great pizza and pasta dive in Millington, for a huge grub fest. Like last year, I ordered a size too large of the stuffed meat pizza, but did my best to put a dent in it (left overs for after the race was the plan). After stuffing ourselves it was back to the hotel for a little tube (Yes Man is always fun to watch); Jake and Deb had stopped earlier at a Walgreens for some stuff and so Jake reaches in the room's fridge and pulled out a carton of chocolate ice cream and three plastic spoons (pic below)... eating again. It was still raining when we turned out the lights.



Not too early of a wake up as the event didn't start until 8:30am. Grabbed a quick breakfast of the hotel, kitted up (running wise that is), and off to the start... still raining.




Tough to figure out what to wear as it was mid-40s and raining. 5 minutes before the start it stopped raining so a quick drop of the rain top and I was on the line for what was to be a slip-n-slide fest. I worried about Jake breaking something as he hasn't done much running (off-road that is) in super muddy and slick conditions. I reminded him several times that we were there for a training/fun run and he agreed (although is 'fun' pace is not too much fun for me usually), but we both wanted to be at the front when going down a steep section of stairs about 400 meters into the event.

So the gun goes off and we quickly get to the front, make our way down the stairs in the lead, and settle into a comfortable pace. A couple fast characters go by, but to our surprise we were clipping right along near the front while going at a realitively easy pace (he and I were chatting it up for the first couple of miles). Since the course is 99% single track dirt (not chat or gravel, but dirt) it was mud-central and standing water everwhere (kind of fun). A couple miles in and Jake rolls his ankle in a big slide and he is in quite a bit of pain. He keeps going, but it favoring it quite a bit and is hard to put a lot of pressure on it while doing downhill; not good for the conditions of the day. We kick back the pace a some, but keep cruising along. I felt bad for him as it was going to be a long morning on a bad peg and he was looking forward to a solid tempo run and he was on a good day prior to the injury.

Deb was able to catch us at a couple spots which is always fun. She always had a huge smile for us with lots of cheering. Outside of 16.3 miles of the worst running conditions I ever seen it was a fun morning with 'the boy'. He and I had several laughs and thoroughly enjoyed the time together. With about 3 miles to go Jake took a hard spill and hurt his leg/knee pretty bad. After a little 'walk it out' time we made our way to the finish. I was on a pretty good day (even it you don't take into consideration I hadn't ran enough to properly prepare for the event) and would have liked to see how it would have gone with the injuries. Either way I had another 'one of my best times' doing one of my favorite things with one of my favorite people - simply can't beat that combination.

All the SGF and Branson folks had solid runs so count on us back for 2011.

Headed back to the hotel, showered up (and ate the rest of the pizza), then hit the road back to MO and home.

Picked up Ian around 7:30pm from my brother and turns out they stayed up Saturday night until 1:45am playing MLB (Ian says he was up 3-1 in the series). We all missed the little fella.

Got home, unpacked, and soon there after everyone crashed for the evening.

Another solid weekend of fun and more importantly quality time for Deb and I with Jake. We only have a couple years left with him and we are trying to squeeze all we can every chance we can.

Already looking forward to SwampStomper 2011...

***Disclaimer - I am still working on the Bean's video settings so be patient as I know the clips are much blurrier than normal***