Mud, Sweat & Fears

Despite consuming quite a few beers at my cousin's birthday party last night, (Happy Birthday Abby and thank you to Emily and Dawn as the best ever hostesses and the best ever house!) I pulled it together and met Laura for our 10 a.m. 7 mile run.

Running with Laura was great. We are old friends from high school and Laura is actually the first running partner I ever had. Now we are kind of cousins because Matt and her husband are cousins. (I met Matt at her wedding) Laura and I used to train for road races in high school. So, we met at our old meeting point, Roe park.

Due to rainy weather, we soon discovered the trail was saturated with mud. So we readjusted our route and turned the other way. There was still quite a bit of mud running east instead of west, but it seemed better.

It was hot and I found my sweat and sunscreen burned my eyes, but everything else was feeling pretty good. My knee did really well which I was a little worried about. I have a huge blister on my left foot that started to bother me around mile 3. I can see now why I was in so much pain.

It was kind of fun to explore a new path. Laura and I are used to the run west of Roe and this run took us all the way to 103rd and State Line. At the half-way point we both had to visit the ladies room and with a lack of options, ended up at Royal Liquors! Ha. A nice friendly reminder of last night's fun.

During the first leg of the run, we were following the creek and there was a bed of rocks. Suddenly I saw a small brown snake slithering along the path near the rocks. I screamed (terrified am I) and Laura who was closer to the snake, saw it at the last second and made a leaping dance over it, screaming too. The snake slithered back into the rocks and we carried on.

We made a few walking breaks to get past mud and water obstacles and then to drink gatorade. I had to walk a bit at the end too because of my blister. I felt pretty good and strong though throughout.

Route: Roe Park east, meandering through Leawood and eventually to 103rd and State Line.
Snake Sightings: 1
Bathroom Breaks at Liquor Stores: 1 (early on in my runs, before the blog, I had a bathroom break at a bar...do I see a theme here?)