Here We Go – Year 8. I’ve done Legs 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 11, 12. This year was a great time to get 10 off the books. Pretty standard legs roughly 5 miles each. Bridget, the bad ass she is, got tasked with Leg 11. That was my first leg doing the RTO many years ago. And to this day, I still feel its the worst leg that I ever had. I remember running the last leg in the 90 degree heat. At that time, this leg went alongside McCarran. I remember hitting a wall with miles to go only to be saved by a bust of GU energy. As I was finishing up the leg, I remember Opa grabbing a beer and running me in with a Corona, and that was the last thing I wanted to have. Oh to the RTO in … 2008, I think. Yes, that was Bridget leg this year.
And the funny thing, Bridget didn’t even need to train that much. I mean… she went to Kaia fit in the mornings before the kiddos woke up at 5am. But, the running was minimal. Apparently when your B, training is overrated. She thugged it out and did an awesome job with her leg. She averaged her 9 minute miles and took names in her pocketbook. I had though a good training. Perhaps it was new shoes; maybe it was the night runs, instead of morning…. (Bridget works out in the morning; I then run after the kiddos go to bed.) So, I am used to the runs that start at 10pm and end at 11:30pm.. only to go to bed at midnight.
Either way, the overall runs were some of my favorite. We had a good chemistry in our van, and it was fun. The first run was a nice flat run along the highway. We also saw a giant bear in one of the runs, which ran across the highway. It quickly ran off into the woods. There was a random runner nearby that stopped and put up her hands like… “What the…” So we quickly drove in front of her to “honk” off the bear. The second run was the night one. I like this run as this one went into Genoa. It was nice; during the entire RTO, I got passed by one person, which was Jim. Super nice, and I tried to stay close to him, but… ugh… didn’t happen. Last run was a heater through Damonte. Not too bad, and the van got lost trying to find me. So, during the hot run, the van found me at mile 3 or 4. Either way, it was a good, strong run!
And then poor Bridget was tasked to run up Windy Hill in her last leg. Despite the 80 degree heat, she basically said you ain’t got nothing on the B to the W. I ran with her for the last mile and gave her water support throughout. No words spoken, only determination to show who was boss. And we were done!
The final leg was this little tidbit. Rob’s parents were awesome and watched the kiddos overnight. (Bridget’s parents were in Boston visiting Jason.) We met the kiddos at the finish line, which was awesome. Nixon ran us in. They were great, and they had a lot of fun sleeping over at Carter and Haileys. And then we had to though get the rental cars returned, clean up, unpack, and make sure the kiddos were happy enough until bed time. Well worth it… and we made it to the finish line… bed.
Overall we finished 35th of 250+ teams. We came in 10th in our division. BOOM! And, another year in the books with only 4 more to go!
