20.7 miles filled with too many giggles, toots, and "Hether's this way!"

I've been looking forward to this Soul Buster for a couple weeks now. I'm not going to lie, I was stressing about it. Mentally, it was the first checkpoint into if my marathon goal time of 3:50 was doable. My week was crazy that lead up to this mornings run. I took Monday off from work because I was sore from my bike crash. Tuesday's hill workout seemed more challenging than I remembered before and my leg was sore from the road rash. I NEVER travel with my work, but ending up doing so on Thursday and I skipped the PP workout, so I didn't have the normal consistency going for me.

Friday night, I went to Sabrina's to help her with some of her grunt work stuff. Easy stuff, but time consuming and it's just not in my nature to NOT help a friend out when they ask. They cooked me dinner for helping and as much as I wanted to get home and get to bed, I couldn't resist their gesture of gratitude and stayed. Steak, sauteed spinach with bacon, and potatos. DELICIOUS!! Peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream for dessert. I got home around 11pm and stayed up till around 11:30am.

Alarm goes off, and I jump right out of bed. I had the "first day of school" feeling. I NEVER wake up too early on Saturday mornings. I always tend to get up with just enough time to get to the runs and get going. This morning I got up, decided to take a nice long hot shower, pack my clothes, get my stuff ready and get to the run around 5:20am. I had big intentions of rolling, but didn't. Dee and I were both giddy with excitement and we were riled up to get this party started. We took off, and I was amazed at how well I felt from the start. It normally takes me a good 3-4, sometimes longer to get into a rhythm, but not this morning. We were doing 10:00's to start, and it was good. The weather was cool and everthing seemed perfect.

We approach the track and see that the fasties have already started and the rest of the group is on the track hovering around. I stop at the gate, start to walk down to re-group myself and all I hear Sisson say is, "Get to the line, come on... let's go!! OK, line up and GO!" Oh my God, I didn't have enough time to reset my Garmin or anything. Before I knew it we were running. I started off behind Dee and we were trucking. It felt good, but since I never reset my Garmin and everything started so fast, I never once looked down at my pace. I was just running. The whole thing went by sooo fast. I saw Clemmie up front and I was on her heels for about a lap, but she slowly dropped me and I kept thinking that I would catch her "later" but with 4 laps, there's really not enough time to make up time. Clemmie crept further and further away. She passed Stephanie, and she was about 100 meters in front and I started going after her, but I couldn't bring myself to kick it in. My breathing was labored, but I had it controlled and steady. Thinking back, I know I could have done better by pushing more on the last two laps. Sisson was yelling, but in all honesty, I thought he'd be yelling more obscene things. I thought he was rather nice to us :) A few fasties lapped me and I didn't have the energy to cheer for them. Wiley, Kamran, Ken, and a few other shirtless wonders blew by me and it was inspiring to see them huffing and puffing and putting their hearts into the workout. After the run we figured out that I probably ran a 7:13ish, which I'm thrilled by. My goal for the next one is to break 7:00 and stay as close to Clemmie as possible.

We got water afterwards, but didn't hang out very long. About five minutes into the run both Dee and I compared how we were feeling and both of us agreed our legs were burning. The lactic acid was in there and it was churning. We kept a decent pace and rolled with it. We saw several deer and it was nice to look up in the sky and see the moon shining bright and the stars still out. What a perfect morning for a run. We chit chatted some, but dang if Dee and I aren't talking 2-3 times PER DAY, then it's not a normal day so we didn't have much to catch up on. I think we're both cured of running with Ipods. We haven't run with one in quite awhile and it's finally ok to have all the crazy random thoughts running through our minds as we pound out the miles.

We get to Balcones where Sisson is waiting for us. I tattle on Dee and they have a private moment. The next few miles I, yes I, the runner with no issues (HA) try and analyze my running buddies running strategy. Funny stuff, but we don't come up with anything conclusive other than we both lack in confidence in our running ability. I think we're both MUCH faster runners than what we let on and we need to be more confident. So after this is when the good stuff starts.

We get to Exposition fine, make it to the trail and then things start to get sketchy. We mentally remember Sisson telling us, "You're gonna feel it around mile 16-17." Sure enough, we start to struggle. I check my Garmin a little more frequently and our pace is slower, but we never dip too far over a 10:00 min mile, so I'm happy and try and work through it. I take mental notes of this feeling and do the head to toe check. I remind Dee that we need to check our head, check, arms, check, armswing, check, core strong, check, floppy legs, check, and that seemed to help. We end up on Bluebonnet and this is where all hell breaks loose.

We got to cross Lamar and a guy in the left hand lane decides to turn RIGHT, as we're trying to cross. We have the walking sign and the guy in the left hand lane actually honks at him. OMG, the guy turning had his window down and Dee yells out, "Bit%$" It was the funniest thing. So we cross Lamar and Bluebonnet ends into Curto Del something. Both of us start laughing. We're lost, how do we do this time after time?? Dee wants to run SOUTH on Curto Del whatever and I tell her we need to go back to Lamar cause I know where Hether is. It's where Steph used to live, so "Let's go this way..." We back track to Lamar and start running south. Dee says, "Why are we running AWAY from Rogue??" No answer. Dee says, "Why do we see Manchaca??" and I knew something was wrong. I told her "Stop it, maybe it's the next light." Mind you, this entire time I can't stop laughing cause we are lost souls out there. Legs are feeling that one mile and we are lost. So Dee comes across some strangers and stops to ask where Mary is. Their reply, "Oh, y'all are FAR away, how do you plan to get there??" She said, "running" and they made it seem like we were trying to get to Mary in Oklahoma or something, so we giggle ourselves back UP Lamar and sure enough, "Oh yeah, Hether's this way!" Dee won't talk to me, look at me, and now I made her mad and she's picking up the pace. Have you ever tried to run and laugh at the same time on tired legs, now that's a soul buster!!

We make it to Mary and realize we just ran all over and the directions said RIGHT on Hether and we should have taken a LEFT. Oh well, the fun was just beginning. We're on Mary, we find 5th, but I'm instantly confused. How in the world did we end up on 5th?? 5th runs perpendicular to Mopac and 35, where the freak are we?? We check our miles and we're good and decide to just try and get back to Rogue. We're delirious, we can't stop laughing at our lost butts and start south on 5th, even though the directions said RIGHT on 5th. We start running and none of the streets sound familiar and then Dee sees a dog. Dee seeing a dog translates to tooty toot tooterton :) OMG, I don't know what it is about farts, but it's inevitable that you have to laugh. So I start laughing and in the process, I must have seen a dog. OMG, I was laughing so hard, I couldn't catch my breath. If you can imagine a fart with every foot strike till you're bent over laughing so hard you think you're going to inhale all of Austin's oxygen with your next breath, that was us. We were tired, delirious, gassy, and LOST, could it be any better than this???

We stop and ask directions again and I still don't have a clue where we are. We come out to Barton Springs and BAM, there's TWO 5th streets. No wonder I didn't think it hit Barton Springs, somewhere along the way it's called Dawson, not 5th. So we know where we are and we're on our way to Rogue. We jump the fence on Congress to run and we actually pick up the pace. It felt good, legs felt fine, and we were doing at least 9:00's, dipping into the high 8:00's every once in a while. That was a good confidence booster. During the next Soul Buster and in California I need to remember that it will suck at moments, but I can work through them. Both of us were fine for miles 19 and 20. We rocked it. We had a great run. These are the runs that conclude my, "Why do you run" answer.

I can't wait till the next Soul Buster. I gave it my all cause I came home and fell asleep. I didn't wake up till 3:30.

Total miles: 20.7
Average pace: 10:21