Random Friday – I am ashamed to put up any number today, because I walked 75% of the time than run. 4 miles done. GVRAT total ~ 86-87.
My body is fine with minor fatigue here and there on my foot. My spirit though is not like yesterday. I rather skipped prayer meeting for a run but the run didn’t lift my spirit. One of those trade-offs.
Forgot what I was going to say. This will be one of those aimless blogs. I had great thoughts during the run and was going to write about those too, but now can’t recall them. Had it all plan out.
A fellow blogger was blogging about childhood favorite things. This brings to mind of songs I remember when I was a kid as I was running. I like to hum during my run. Today I hummed How Great Thou Art. I don’t know the lyric to it but in my childhood, that was something I remember.
I wish for a normal life, but nothing is normal. The stay-at-home is supposed to be normal. It likes this is what life is supposed to be. You get to spend more time at home and to do the things you always don’t have the time to do, like cleaning and endleas chores. Then I said it is not normal to stay at home. I never have enough time. Why life is always so hectic?
Then in the middle of my run, I got to plan out this race across the America for real. You can’t just wake up and run out the door for it. Same for the real run down at Chattanooga. I can’t just go and do it.
I figure for the next 10 years, I will need to take a break 3-4 times during the summer to reach some of life goals. Cross the America will take 4-6 months. Hiking the Appalachian too will take about that much time. I might want to throw in the PCT and CDT. And the question is if I have $50000 what would I spend it on? A running vacation or downpayment on a house? I am struggling whether to do the sensible thing or to do what my passion dictate.
This reminds me I still looking for a mission statement for this year or the next so that my life has some kind of anchor. I know I have one – Run.
Oh I finally remember what I was going to write. Nothing earth shattering. Many people who embark on this epic journey pf 1000k GVRAT wanted to watch some documentaries on running, or podcasts. Fpr me I don’t feel like reading or watching on any those right now. What I feel like reading is the Canterbury Tales, and the Pilgrim’s Progress.
I thought it would be a quick one. I had on road shoes today instead of trail. For six days I wore trail shoes (my usual get to), but I have been running on road (sidewalks). So today, I said why not switch it up, let wear the road shoes since I am going to be on the road any way.
Lo and behold, my impulsive self decided to head off to a different direction and I ran in the park instead. It is mostly paved but there were sections where there was the creek crossing and mud and of course trail. I haven’t been back to this neighborhood park for couple years. It was actually big enough to get lost in. I laughed at my own irony of wearing a pair of road shoes and running on the trail. Afterward it was just a muddy mess. Ruined them.
I had fun and ran relatively fast. I felt fast though my clock said otherwise. I think running is a mental thing. I no longer care what my watch says any more. Every year it says I am getting slower, but my brain is saying I am running fast. It is an area I rather not let science / data telling me what to do 😉 Let not follow the data here.
The park is beautiful. I didn’t know Centeville has something like this. I always we are a bunch of herd they tried to cramp as many people in a tiny area. Yet there this big parks with many acres of land with nothing but fields, streams and trails. They do have big mc mansions around. Ha, I didn’t know Centreville has those either. The park is like their backyard. Probably is paid by the county too. What a deal. It is the other side of Centreville!
Body wise: It is getting better. It heals up rather quickly. I am not that young any more, and I am glad to see it snaps back. Now I have to do this over again for the next 14-15 weeks until I reach 1270 miles (Note I found out the actual distance is 20 miles longer than I thought).
Day 6 into GVRAT. Put in 10k this morning. GVRAT is about 76 ish. I lost track. There is a site to log all this. I am aiming for 1250 miles, so it is still couple weeks away to reach 10%. I passed the 5% mark!
I tried not to look at the ranking or streak. This is an individual race and challenge. I am dropping on the ranking now because other ultra people are putting in 15-20+ miles everyday. That was my earlier goal, but it is hard to do.
I’m no longer at 75th or even 125th. I might drop down to 500 or lower. I knew that. I hope to be part of the 10% group. With 17000 people signed up so I am looking 1700-2000th place, which is good enough for me.
I am barely maintaining my miles. Supposingly to average about 10 miles a day to make it to the finish line on time. So far day six with 70+ miles in is good. I hope to build in a buffer in case I need to take a day off or so. I hope to have a day off every couple weeks.
My body starts feeling it. This morning though, I didn’t need a booster to get me out the door. I woke up and ran out the house.
However, afterward, was more a walk. I did run some. I tried to run more on the uphills.
The body is trying to recover from the weekend run. I hope it will be soon, so I could put on another high mileage weekend. We’ll see.
It is a four month affair, so pacing is important to get myself to the finish line.
I plan to go on location for the last 100 ish miles either in July, on 4th weekend, or in August, Labor Day. Will write more about when the time comes.
Mile 4 of my 6 mile run. My lovely neighborhood. Nothing much to see, but it is breath taking to look at after a run up the hill and you can see the valley kinda of all the shops in Centreville. Cloudy today with a bit of early morning mist
Today run was in no way easy. I remembered the encouragement from the race director who wrote something about getting the first step in and it gets easier once you started.
I didn’t want to leave my bed this morning. I am no longer a morning person. I like to stay in bed as long as I can. And can sleep until noon everyday if allowed to. However, real life won’t let you stay in bed.
So, I got up and ran, admittedly it wad not really, something I have to do, but I needed to get it done so I can do everything else. Off I went. It was 10 degs cooler, probably like 5 for the rest of the world using Celsius.
I walked the first mile. My bones and all my body felt worn. I skipped dinner last night and instead had two bowls of icecream. They didn’t give me the carb I needed. It was not until mile 3 I felt my blood flowing and my legs freed up.
There’s always consequences. They say runners can eat anything. It is not true. Not having the energy when you need it is not fun.
I was thinking about rockets and stuff, maybe influenced by a blog I read in the early wee hours. I like rockets. I like the tremendous power it needs to get a lift off. In highschool Physics class, we calculated the benefit of having the boosters separated at different stages, and each time it does so, the rocket gains speed.
So I felt like at mile three, my booster finally came off. I was flying uphills and downhills. It was not my fastest run but I like the feeling of flying.
I like running in that during that brief moment everything in life became clear. They became less important, the only thing matters is the steps in front of me and even that came effortlessly.
I figure if I post about my GVRAT run every day, my readers will have blog fatigue, so I will go back to my old format of posting an update once a week, like I did for my training run.
So this week so far, (Friday to Sunday) total 58 miles.
So I will go back to posting maybe a weekly update. I stopped training for my June race, which was canceled or postponed until Fall. I don’t know if I will run it then.
I did run maybe once or twice last week but I didn’t log them, until Friday when I signed up to run across Tennessee virtually (#GVRAT).
Friday: 6 mi
Saturday: 43.7 (recorded 42)
Sunday: 10 mi. mostly walk. It took me couple hours to finish.
Live tracking of where I am with the GVRAT. I am somewhere between Oakland and and Somerville. As you can see there are a thousand runners on my tail.
I got lazy of measuring the distances on Google Map. I don’t know how to do it from the phone. There is some problem with the live tracking website, so I am running blind now until they fix it.
Today run was kind of hard as expected. I walked most of the way.
On ranking, 13000 people started. My ranking goes from 150 to 75 ish bouncing up and down. I have some fierce competitors. Usually in a big race like this I do fairly well. I think I will be at the top 10% or higher.
Narative (fiction). The first day was off to quiet start. There was no rush to get to the finish. Maybe a thousand some odd people lined up to start at 1 minute after midnight, the race official start time. It was a massive wave start. Basically people start as they arrived. I needed my beauty sleep, so I was not there when the first wave went off. Actually I didn’t sign up until the day of 12 hours after the race official start. At that point, many already had left. The check in was easy. I threw on my running clothes and shoes and off I went.
I didn’t really plan to be on the road for the next four months. It was really a flash in pan operation. I had no food on me or drink for the matter. I figured I would go until I drop. Winging it. So I started running. Along the way, I saw people just stopped and hang around. This was one of most casual race I am taken part in. I guess they were done for the day. As I ran I saw more and more people. I caught up with the crowd around mile 5 ish and I plodded on for a few more miles. Most have started to camp here or there for the day. I decided to go on further. There were about nearly 6 or 7 thousand of us, so finding a place to camp could be a challenge. Luckily there were enough land on either side of the road. The neighbors were friendly and welcomed us to camp on their front yard as long as we clean up after ourselves. Not a problem. I have gone camping enough times to know the Leave no Trace principle. (Edit to add: Ah, most took a ride back to Memphis for the night, and I didn’t know and roughed it out)
This is pretty big deal to have a first ever a race across the state. We have people from around the country and the world joining in on this event. Hey, with the summer Olympic canceled, this is the next best thing. Best of all this race is open to both the elites and the every day joe like me.
Everyone just chose an area and chilled. I don’t remember seeing any trees around. So people just scattered about. The mighty Mississippi is nearby. I imagine some went fishing. Some were barbequeing. Man, I left my camp stove at home.
I explored a bit and went to the post office about half a mile away and dropped off a postcard home.
The first day though, I survived on bananas from the race aid station and candies from the crowd. We were still in a remote part and there is no store around. I didn’t know at that time that the city is about 20 miles away. If I ran for another 5-10 miles or so, I would have reached ‘civilization’.
Oh well. The next day was a slow start. I was not a morning person. Might be because I went to bed too late the night before. I wanted to plot out a course to take.
I had a long day and was out until sunset, for a total 11 hours. I really put in the distance. With still 600-ish mile to go, I had to pace myself better. I immediately felt asleep.
The third day now. I started to feel hey this won’t be over soon. I did not want to go today but realized I can’t stay here. The race just started. I remember back when I was in Patagonia, each morning, we got up, we packed, and on our way. So this is the same. Just keep on treading and repeat. I put in just a nice 10 miles. I started to see some regular faces around me. Hopefully, we will all arrive at the finish line together.
The next portion of the run will take me away from the city. I don’t know if the battery on my phone will last. So there might not an update until I get to the next town.
I am a bit tired so might not be thinking straight but there are 100 ish more entries so if I don’t put it up, it will passed by and be forgotten.
The longest I ever ran was back in November for the JFK 50 miler. Today was close. I wish I got out couple hours earlier and I would have done a 50 miler. I was just 8 miles shy. Any way, it would have been too much pressure to run a certain number of miles. I prefer free lance see as we go. If it is too hard cut back, if it is too easy, extend a bit.
I did not started out wanting to run 42 miles. I didn’t know how many miles I would be running, in my mind, I was hoping to do at least 26 miles and maybe at most would be up to 30 miles.
I did have in mind to revisit Reston, where I was almost there the last time but was just a few miles short. So today I wanted to get there. I also noted that the Fairfax County Parkway Trail connects to another famous trail, W&OD at Reston. I wanted to explore it a bit.
So that what I did and it ended up being 42 miles. I came prepare this time with a flash light, so I could find the path after sunset.
I got to Reston Town Center
A closer view of the fountain. Reston is the running mecca of Northern Virginia. Many of my races are held here.
W&OD is a rail to trail. Vienna was one of the train stops. Mural. See viva Vienna. I got to Vienna around 6 pm.8 pm now. Trying to get home as quickly as possible. I already put in 30 miles by now. Here is the apt I grew up in (and recently had a dream about it). The neighborhood has developed all around.Just a shopping center, but it meant a lot to me. I am now halfway of the final 12 miles, about 6 more miles to go. I have a habit of counting down when I am exhausted. Say if there are only 6 miles left, I will want to cut it down by half, so I would aim for running 3 miles. The time was I think after 9:30. Also this place is near my mom’s house, she said she would be waiting for me. And I was looking forward to it. The shopping center was a milestone.
My strength didn’t falter much. I ate earlier around 6:30 pm at a Thai place called Tom Yum Thai in Vienna. It was carry out only. I couldn’t really eat my granola any more. I ordered a Tom Yum soup. I was dyhadrated, and did not pee for an entire day! I couldn’t take dry food by then. Soup was really good. I ordered a house salad. It was a good choice even though it didn’t have much calories. The lettuce was what my body need (water/liquid). I sat on the side of the road and ate. It took a while for my body to adjust (cool down) because initially, I had no appetite. I told myself, take as much time I need. I know food is important, so I needed to rest and let my body do its work.
The reason for this is our digestive system shut down during a long run or intensive excercise, to divert the blood to power the leg muscle, heart and lung. So most people couldn’t eat and even if they did, it would come back out. It is a skill to get the body to do what is not natural. Mostly happen to those who run say 100 miles, but I started to feel it around 26 miles.
So by 9 pm the food finally settled and I could feel the energy flowing in. It sustained me to the very end.
By 11 pm I finished the final six miles. It was easy to run in the neighborhood where I am familiar with. I saw many things I want to comment on, like I came across several groups gathering of 6-7 or more people outside, having a good time. The weather was nice, but social gathering such as these are discouraged to slow down the spread of the coronavirus. I have so much to say about this of people not abiding social distancing. It will go in another post.
I don’t have time to really present how my run would have looked according to the route in Tennessee. I did a partial drive by using the Google Streetview in the morning before the run, and was going to use for this write up. I know I am still somewhere in Memphis.
My watch data. Recorded 43.8 miles and almost 11 hours. I only counted 42 miles toward the GVRAT instead of 43 miles because I have used about a mile going off the course for say buying food or shopping or sightseeing.
I ran out of time here and didn’t write about my nutrition plan. I mostly drank sodas, sport drinks, and water. Apparently I didn’t drink enough. I didn’t eat enough either.
Also I learned an important about outfits . My shorts were giving me rub burn. Don’t wear swim trunk on a long run. Also some of my groin area got bad rub burn. I didn’t apply oil or lube up before the run. A lesson I should learn if I am considering doing even a longer run.
I am outside of the city of Memphis, but still in its suburb, I think
run1 – 6 miles this run. Total traveled for GVRAT so far 6 miles.
I found myself something to rally around for next few months. When my Facebook notification popped up from one of my former race directors – with something like this: would you like to run across Tennessee?
At first I was skeptical. Ya you go run yourself across TN. I am interested but I’m not there yet in my ability.
Then I saw the word “virtually”. I’m sold. As long as I could sleep in my own bed.
Take my money. Please. I insist. Take a few dollars more for some good cause.
I paid my entrance fee and off I went during my lunch hour. I am running off to TN for the next three months (virtually) in small cap. Whoo hoo.
As I ran, I started to calculate the feasibility. Sure, in 100 days, if I do 6 miles a day, will get me 600 miles. 1000k is 621.4 miles. I need about 4 more days. Gaah, I should do about 10k for the next 100 days. It is definitely doable. I can add in 13-14 days of rest (give me 114 days). It will take 3 months and 24 days.
Here is where my first run ended.
6 miles, finished at the fire stationOur humble sign: Welcome to Centreville. I have been looking for this sign for ages. They should put “population: 71,135” underneath (2010 figure)
My progress is being tracked somewhere on here. You can still sign up for the race [1]. They say they will give a map of my progress by tomorrow. I am doing my own map with some wizardry from Google and images from there to give a sense where I am in Tennessee! Actually after consulting the map, I am in Arkansas. Pretty awesome.
Virtual run summary. I started at about 4 pm GMT, local time was probably 11. Many probably were there in the early wee hours, maybe 5:00 or 6:00 AM GMT and were already on their way. I didn’t see anyone myself, but knowing the field now have over 12000 entrants, I will bound to run into some. People can still join until August 1. My plan is to start putting in some heavy miles to give enough buffer and maybe if I still feel up to it I will run back to the start in a month or so. Hopefully I will get to the front of the pack soon.
Today though, I am just easing into it and chose to stop after a brief jog. I did about 6 miles starting from the Mississippi River and running along the levee. And ended somewhere near a post office.
so here is what I am supposed to run with the help of satellite image from Google map.Day 1. Ending point. Landmark. image of what is there. US post office. About half mile from today stopping point.
I wish I can find some images of the mississippi River of the starting point.
This is a lot of work to pull images off the web, not sure if I can keep up like this every day. But I really wish to see more of Tennessee virtually through the run. Can’t wait until I get to Memphis or any bigger city!
There were a lot farm land.
If I am doing it for real, I would have to find a place to sleep for the night. I wouldn’t have stopped in the middle of the road and call it a day. Today though, being near a PO is good enough.
This has happened to me several times before, all recently within the last couple months, well maybe six months, three or four times. I woke up, between sleep and wake stage actually. My eyes were still closed but I felt I was awake and conscious. I was pretty sure or I thought I was back at the old house but in my present body. My mind pictured everything in the house and if I walked down the hallway, my mom’s room was there. I laid on my bed and felt exactly like I was in my old room. No one was home and no one here either. I had two rooms but I felt I was in the smaller room. My mind said hey, that couldn’t be. It doesn’t make sense. I am living alone now, how can there be a room for my mom.
I don’t know what age I was in the ‘dream’ but it was so photo, more than photo realistic, it was like I was there. Virtual-realistic if that is a word. Well I think I was in my present age – hence plot hole.
Even when I woke up, I was still disoriented and really wanted to open the door of my room and peek to see if I was dreaming.
I guess I missed the old place. I moved about 10 years ago. Gosh, not sure what bring me back to that place. I ran passed it couple weeks ago. It was a feeling that I was ‘back at home’. Even then it didn’t make any sense.
Maybe because before falling asleep I had a super strong desire wishing I was a teenager again. The mind just laid down the images of what I wanted and I was submerged in it.
It was one of those weird feeling to relive a moment of my teenage year. Well not like reliving, but more like traveling through time in my present mind and body.
The weirdest feeling was when I opened my eyes, I had to remind myself, I am now here in the present.
I don’t usually dream (they say everyone dream but it is just we don’t recall them) and when I dream it was about sleeping in my dream. In anime, there is a genre called slice-of-life, where to me is pretty pointless to watch – I guess it is like reality tv, but usually the main character is doing something irrelevant and there is no plot and sometimes the whole conversation in it is pointless too — well maybe I just don’t get the genre. It is a window into someone’s life at a moment in time and most of the time, that moment has nothing going on. Who would spend all the effort to produce an anime about nothing? But I still watch them, sometimes, because they produce certain feeling – nostalgia.
I felt my dream is like that. Those are what my dreams are like. There is no action, I just laid around in my dream doing nothing except thinking of stuffs. Weird. The plot hole happened when I realized I am in a dream and forced myself to open my eyes to find out. I rather dream of adventures and battling monsters, going on quests, those kinds, not the boring kind.
Is it scary when you realize you might be in a dream and can’t wake up? It happened to me. There is a pause between sleep and awake. My mind convinced me that I was in a dream, so now how do you wake up. I have seen the movie Inception. It was almost like that except there was no sleep machine. But it was a freaky realization…since your mind was telling you that you are awake in the dream. There was that brief pause where I can’t move my body (I guess for transitioning) – or at least I felt I can’t. Luckily I was laying then. And somehow my eyes were closed in my dream but I could see too with my eyes being closed – I guess I was using the mind eye. So I woke myself up by forcing my eyes to open. It took a great deal of effort. When my eyes opened I would be fully convince I am back at the real world. This time though it was easy to wake up. I think the first time it happened to me, it was pretty hard to get out of the dream.
Am I losing mind? Is this some kind of disassociation?
I chickened out to do my 50+ miles last weekend even though it was a perfect weekend.
I did a long run though – a 7 hour marathon. Yes it was super long. I did not feel motivated to push myself to run faster. I dragged myself out the house in the morning. That’s good in itself.
When I started, I was kind of aiming to run for as long as I could until I drop, maybe to midnight. I checked the weather. It was against me, forecasting that rain in the evening and lasting into the next day. I know I might need 12-13 hours to finish a 50+ miles, and so would be caught in it. Not good.
I was going to try to run a 50 miles any way but only half heartedly. That was the reason the first 27 was so slow. I aimed to save my energy for the second half.
I had no committed plan in mind when I started off. I was smart enough to bring myself a bottle of water and the runner backpack this time. For food, I was expected to stop back at the house from time to time to top off on fruit cups and all other goodies.
My route was going to be a 4 loops of 13 miles around the neighborhood, like many times I did before. However having done that so many times already, it would be a boring run. I decided not thinking about it and just go by feel. I don’t know how to explain this. If I feel good I’d run, if not I quit. Yes, it was a very dangerous thought to have on a long run, because I will likely quoit prematurely.
It took me a while to get going. It was nippy (50-55F) about 10C. Normally cold doesn’t bother me. But recently, 50F was not something I can handle in short sleeves. I put on a second layer with a long sleeves, which was my normal winter run getup when it is 30 F outside. I was feeling wimpy because the cold.
I walked the first few miles to get my core temperature up. Ditched the outer layer. I tied it to my waist.
Through out the run it was like this. It was a combination of walk and run and repeat. Note I normally do not walk on my run.
First few miles. I love this neighborhood and this was where I started to seriously run
I stopped by my mom’s place, which was around mile 6. I haven’t seen her for two weeks. Of course we kept our distance and I didn’t go inside the house. She came out with water for me. I didn’t need it because I was carrying my own today.
Normally at this point I would turn around and head back home and then repeat to build up the mileage.
Today I felt a bit wanderlust. I headed away from my house on Stringfellow Rd (weird name) toward the other direction. I was brave enough to cross the divided highway, Lee Jackson Mem Hwy.
I don’t usually go here because it is on the other side of the busy highway. It led to a part of the bike trail that I never ran on but it is considered one of the pride trails of the Fairfax County.
The trail runs along side of the Fairfax County Parkway, which crosses the whole county from the south-eastern end to the north-western end. The road was built recently (about 20 years). Note we rarely laid down a completely new road here. This road was one of the big undertaking.
This road is long. The mile marker where I entered the road was at 26.5. That was maybe little more than half way. I don’t know how long the road is. Maybe 40 miles? (I looked it up 35 miles)
First time running on the Fairfax County Parkway. North bound at mile 26
The bike trail is beautiful. The whole trail is wide and mostly rustic feel and plenty room to run. My goal was to run as far as I could. At that time my mind went into full planning mode. I want to run 26 miles before heading back. However, I might likely get caught by the storm later on my way back and I didn’t have my rain jacket with me. I was not willing to rough it out with the element. I also didn’t have my flashlight. The trail has no street lights and is rather remote from residents and markets.
At that point it was around 8 miles into the run. I know the trail has only a few businesses until I get to the city of Reston. To me Reston was very far away. I know how to get there by car but never attempted by running there before. It is crazy to even think about it. I did a quick math. Normally it would take me 25 mins in a car from my house. I decided to run until 3 pm then turn around assuming I might not able to reach Reston at all.
It was noon at the time. I was kind of regretted of not accepting food from my mom when I made a stop at her house. I started to feel hungry.
Fairfax County Parkway is like an interstate, so each exit or cross road is far away. This is good for runners and bikers because we don’t have to stop frequently to cross a road. It is amazing they built skybridges for us on some intersections so we don’t have to navigate through the car traffic.
I kept on trudging. In the end I saw Reston from the distance as it’s skyscrapers and office buildings came into view.
Reston being seen from the Fairfax county parkway overpass. The city is our silicon valley here in Fairfax/northern VA. It has many tech companies and data centers. It is still being developed.
I didn’t get to Reston Town Center, which was about few more miles (three-ish) but I turned off at Target to buy lunch. It was the first store I saw.
Healthy lunch! Strawberry Banana Smoothie with no added sugar. Forgot to check the calories.Adding some more substance to my lunch – Bear Naked’s Granola trail mix. If it is good for bears it is good for me
After lunch, I decided to turn around. The return trip was pretty boring. I didn’t get caught in the storm. I made a second stop at my mom’s place and she made me a real smoothie of her specialty an avocado smoothie. It was a great boost to my strength. I was at mile 20, generally, hitting my ‘wall’ (my glycogen limit – emptying my energy store). It was 3 pm by then.
However, I was not as tired as in the last marathon but I just was not as motivated to run. I was still on the fence whether to run another 26 miles but internally I was kind of dragging my feet. I knew deep down I didn’t want to do it. So I was mostly walking the last six miles. I hit the wall I think, but it was not that bad. I was just tired and I could feel my feet was not ready to run the diatance. It was like if I push on some more on, my feet would sustain so injury. Having run long enough from experience you could feel it if you are healthy or not, or know if you are tired versus that your body is about to crashed. It was probably at mile 24. I decided I wouldn’t go out for another loop and called it a day.
I was happy with the decision to head home. I was hungry. There was no point to drag out for another 6-7 hours when rain would come and darkness fall. The worse thing is to run when I not feeling it. It would be just miserable out on the road. I will save that 50+ miles for another day.
The overall route and race clock. I didn’t pause my watch even when I stopped at my mom’s place or at Target. I am old school. The clock kept ticking to simulate race condition.
Final thought? Nothing deep but some observations. I went back to a neighbhood/corporate park I thought was beautiful, however, it didn’t look that pretty on camera. My mood changed too I think. Oh, I came across the sign welcome to Centreville, but my phone was out of battery at the time to take a shot.
Originally, the purpose (a side mission any way) of this run was to shoot photos for one of my earlier race reports. I think though I was at some of the same places as before but it did not evoke the same feeling. They say you can’t step on the same river twice. I ended up not posting those pictures.
In awe 