In awe

Time waits for no one. The weekend came and gone. I’m glad for it to have happened even though it was not something I planned and in fact I view most of family time as time away from training and that to me is bad! I was almost not there most of the time and that was kind of sad.

I’m seemed as an ungrateful brat. It has been years since I took a trip with my family that of which is not running related.

A lesson to be learned is to be still and enjoy the time to be with one’s own family!

The time with your love ones are definitely precious and would not come again a second time.

The trip was as perfect as it can get in term of time and location. I was just winding down a long series of training (GVRAT and GSER). As far as not being in convenience this is it. Location was not too far and not too near either.

It was not the most beautiful place to go to but I would give 7/10 in term of pretty. All natural places are wonderful. I love having the campsite right by the lake and we could swim at any time. The water was warm and the lake is fresh (not swampy nor filled with mosquitoes). The sunset was nice. I caught the golden hour…one night and trees became golden, and the lake reflected the trees. Boom, we were immediately transposed to paradise.

I think with any place, as long as the heart is at rest, you can see some amazing things. Sorry I didn’t take any photos.

One night I watched the stars. It is beyond what words can describe of the stars out in the country side. We saw Jupiter. It was a good day to wind down.

I have been running as much as I can during the day time (trying to still reach for GVRAT 1270 miles finish, so over the weekend I had to do 100 miles to reach thay goal. So all my waking hours was set for running.

I ran a lot during the trip but nowhere near 100 miles, Total was around 50 miles. Also Friday and today I did not run much. More on that later. Basically I was only around during Breakfasts, Lunch, and Dinner. After the first day of putting in 33 miles I had blisters on my toes. One of them became infected. I am still limping from it. My mileage on subsequent days felt dramatically.

The place was not the runner friendly place because the camp was tiny. All the roads in the camp only added up 0.4 miles. There were no trails.

I ran out from the camp to civilization (Hwy 58) on the first day. That was about 3.5 miles. I spent the afternoon exploring all the parks and roads in area and that came up to about 30 miles. All roads are like single lane in the city undivided (meaning with no median or line) and also no pull off shoulder. If I run, I have to be on road. Yes it was very dangerous with cars flying by at 45 or more and it is about a foot from you! First day I was not scared but subsequent days it got to me.

The second day was Sunday. We had a virtual Sunday Church worship (watched a video online). Then I spent the rest of the morning with the kids and to swim. After lunch I explored the forest there.

This was an Corps of Enginneers Wildlife Management Area. I can see no one really go in there.

The afternoon was hot and humid. I walked the first six miles, unable to get myself to run. My foot was hurting from pounding the pavement, and a bad blister festering on a toe (I didn’t know at the time). The body refused to move… Only after six miles it was able to run. Once it started moving, I enjoyed that tremendously. It was cooler by then. Evening was setting and I was rushing to get back for dinner. I did only 13 miles on the second day.

The third day. I woke up with itchy feet. I actually couldn’t sleep much the night of. We had better weather too. The first night was stormy and water leaked into the tent (my fault of not setting it up properly).

The second night I slept like a baby. The third night was hot and humid. I had my tent cover off, but still too hot to sleep. It was the itchiness that kept me awake.

In the morning I checked my foot. Yup I got poison ivy somewhere during the weekend, probably in the Wildlife Management Area. I did crawl into some dense bushes and I saw some three-leave plants. Or there were times I stepped off the road into the shoulder and might have stepped into some poison ivy plants. Any way, the rest of the trip was very uncomfortable.

The sun, humidity, itchiness, some mosquito bites, bad blisters, and poison ivy made my day.

The whole trip was kind of weird in a way. There is definitely a lesson to be learned, like what if I didn’t run but have stayed in the camp and enjoyed like the rest? Then there would be no poison ivy?

My mom said what if I just stayed at home wouldn’t I have my 100 miles then? Who know, it could have been worse.

Time (or opportunity) comes and will be gone forever. While I went to the camp half-heartedly, there were some bright moments during the trip. My brother-in-law mentioned the trip to his team at work while on the way to camp but his whole team from work showed up too (uninvited) but it was quite fun. They liked him a lot (I guessed being almost six months only meeting online) and finally able to get together in person. Yes the 6-feet social distance is out the window. Spontanousness is what make a moment memorable. We made a lot of memories (we/they made a faux-pas, because they ‘partied’ allnight way after the 10 pm curfew hour, to the whole camp annoyance). There were no loud music though, just a guy refused to sleep due to the storm and just talking throughout the night. He set off his car alarm by accident too in the middle of the night. I had some good beer and food from them. The camp was supposed to be family friendly (meaning no alcohols)! It was a trip I won’t forget. The park probably won’t let us back though.