Shaky Saturday

So.  Friday.  Rick and I were happy to go out to eat in Portland.  We didn't want to do anything fancy and decided on Ri Ra's.  Unwisely, I listened to the waiter and chose the Fish N Chips special.  For some reason I've been drawn to fish and chips lately.  Rick had my other choice and was very happy.  Mine was an entire of slab of haddock that was very heavily breaded on top of a huge, huge bed of fried onion rings.  Thinking I should add a veggie to this, I ordered a side of carrot and parsnip mash.  Ugh!  The mash probably had as much fat in it as the fried stuff.  Definite fat overload.  The odd thing was the Guinness I ordered seemed off.  I had most of it, but decided it wasn't me; Something was definitely wrong with it.  On the drive home, my stomach was uncomfortable, but nothing bad.  Just before 3 a.m., I woke up feeling way worse than uncomfortable.  I spent most of the rest of the morning in the bathroom pretty sure I was going to be sick.  At least I almost caught up on the Scientific Americans in there.  By the time I should be getting ready to run, I was feeling a bit better.  I headed to the Brad.  I stopped at McDonald's for coffee.  I figured if I could drink it, I might be OK to go.  The few sips I took stayed put.

I expected Mary and Double T, but wasn't sure what other TMs would be around; I knew various people were off doing various things, including the Squirrel.  A group was there to run the Scuffle course.  Yana(!), Julia, Mary and Ruby, Nathan, and I headed off on the BBU loop.  The pace was definitely faster than I would have chosen considering I was doing 15.5, but I figured I could hang on till the people peeled off.  Like last Saturday, most people weren't doing the full loop.

When we got back to the parking lot, a runner was heading out.  I yelled to him about the BBU; I've been mentioning it to any runner I see at the park.  He stopped and came back to the group.  He was interested and decided to hang with us on the run.  I could tell it was hard for him to go as slow as the group.  Mary and Ruby pulled off a bit after we started the Boundary.  I think the pace, though sometimes dictated by Ruby, took its toll on the pup.  She was beat.  At the start of the Connector, Julia and Yana peeled off.  That left the new guy, Double T, and me.  I tried to keep the pace up.  Ugh.  Though the run helped me feel better, I was still not myself.

When we got to Lawrence Road, I kind of told the new guy (who seemed familiar with the Connector from mountain biking), how the course went from there, thinking he might want to go his own way.  He said he'd stick with us.  Heading back towards Brad from the power lines, I started to fade a bit.  The new guy kept to his pace.  Nathan could have stuck with him but eventually dropped back with me.  It was very good to have Double T leading the way.  He just bopped ahead pulling me with him.

At the summit, he waited till I caught up.  Was I gonna bail or finish the BBU?  Hmmm...I'd asked myself that on the way up.  If Nathan hadn't been along, I'd have quit back when Yana and Julia headed in.  Even though, I'd let myself think I was going to leave off Lunch Break - kind of mentally tricking myself, I knew I had to finish it.  Lets do it.  I mentioned that we might be the first to run the final BBU loop.

We lamented that Adventurous Joe wasn't on the summit.  Last Saturday, a guy was on top of the summit handing out samples of Adventurous Joe coffee.  It was quite good.  Maybe he'd be set up by the time we re-summitted, another mind trick.

Nathan bopped ahead, looking like he did at the start of the run.  He was waiting for me at the basketball court. Yup, nearly in the bag.  I think I managed to run most of the hill.  Phew!  I really didn't think there was any way I'd get much of it done.  My garmin read 15.56 when we reached the parking lot.  SportTracks would later correct that to 15.8x.  After a yummy reward at E&Ls, I headed to home to an afternoon of naps.