#14 Follow Me Down Memory Lane

First off, let me explain why it has been half of a week since you have heard from me. Evidently running forty miles in a day can potential trash your legs more than I expected. The last 6 miles were all on ice and I think I tweeked my knee. Since it is March there is no need for me to go into superhero mode, so I called off the dogs for this week. I think it is HILARIOUS that through three days this week I had 76 miles and I will end this week with a whopping 84 miles. Full recovery mode these last few days. My favorite days of the week are Sunday because I go to much nicer trails and run them harder than normal and have more company than my normal days. I packed it in as an attempt to salvage my Sunday run and I also threw down 40$ to go break the course record at some southern WV trail 25k. Southern West Virginia is much like this part of West Virginia except much slower at every aspect of life. But don't tell them that. Actually, if you're ever in southern WV offend them. They are my favorite nest of beings to stir the pot with, they will give you great reactions; quite entertaining. Also entertaining is Pokemon Red on Gameboy color. I ran across that game Wednesday and said blog? No, I'ma replay my childhood.

Bromance time

Want to hear about the big 8 miles I ran between Wednesday and Saturday? It took place Thursday in the polished turd town of Fairmont. I started my run at pops' house and took a familiar course. The same course that I ran with Patrick for 150+ consecutive at one time; and hundreds of more times. I went through quite a few memories on that run and decided to give you the play by play of my memories on that run. Put on your fake 3-D goggles, here we go. Oh and if you don't care for bromances, press previous page now.

Casual Friday 2007

Mile 0- My house. Before Patrick moved across town, all of our runs began here. Patrick probably deserves a lot of credit for anything I've done in the running world. There were dozens of mornings before I was in love with the sport where we would wake me up to run. His old house was a short walk up the street so he would run down, come into my room, and wake me up to run. My favorite memory is having a friend over to play Call of Duty 4 like bosses (two tvs, two xboxes) all night and quitting as the sun rose. I put my shoes on and slid on my running shorts before crawling into bed. After a brief nap, Patrick was in my room and was surprised when I rolled out of bed already fully dressed for the run. After laughing at the sight of my friend out on the sofa and the collection of energy drinks, pizza, snacks, etc scattered across my floor, we left.

Us with Dave(guy who used to exist)

Mile .25- At the end of my street we would run through/behind our school: Fairmont Senior High School. Living a quarter mile from my high school, I had a very difficult time making it to class. My final transcript claimed that I missed 140 days of school, 115 in my junior & senior year. My excuse was/is that 7:30am- 2pm is the ideal time to sleep. So I often did. I would often sit on my porch, watch in hand, and time my walks to class off of the ringing of the bells. I would also walk home from school whenever I got annoyed. See, I'm a much happier person recently because I avoid all of the people that I don't want to be around. I only need/want to see a handful of people; ever. Then, I was semi-forced to be surrounded by idiots for a large part of the day and they would frown at me leaving when I pleased. I frowned right back. My favorite absence came during one of my last two winters. I walked down my steps, already ten minutes late, and slipped on a patch of ice and fell on my side. I quickly popped up and dusted myself off, pulled a u-turn, and returned to bed. School wasn't worth falling twice for. Anyways, we would run by that place.

'08 Track. Slow n Dumb

Mile 1- The first mile clicked off right before we would jump over the barrier and on to the 3rd street bridge. It's a neat bridge because it is like a 90 degree turn; I feel like most bridges are just straight and boring. Looking over into the shit colored river, we were only a mile down/upstream from the train trestle which was the site of almost every single run in 2008 track. This was still before either of us had gotten serious with training, or knew what training meant, and we would just run down to the trestle and jump off. Then go back to track practice. I remember freshman year of track we were supposed to do 400s once and we didn't want to so we did the first 200 and dipped out of the side gate and went to the trestle. That was led by our captain Dave though. Seemed like much more fun. It is amazing to think of how many times one of us fell on a run, particularly in the winter, yet not once did either of us have a mishap hurdling that bridge wall. After returning from Oklahoma, my first of many injuries occurred hurdling that bridge. I went to hurdle the wall and didn't put enough power in my jump and only managed to get my toes on the wall and basically wall planted (Tony Hawk game players) when I wasn't trying to and messed up my achilles. One of the worst memories on that route would be turning around and limping home with an extremely sore Achilles. I still don't have a proper diagnosis as to what kept me out for 6 weeks. I just diagnosed it as- muffed up achilles.

Times Invite '09, amen.

Mile 1.75- Merchant street was the majority of the 2nd mile and was home to a lot of our(Patrick's) spills. As you come down the brick road hill you have to make a sharp right turn that would always be covered in ice in the winter. That patch must've tripped Patrick up eight times. So funny. I would run behind him intentionally to see where the ice was by watching him. There is also a reflective window around that turn, which turned into a vanity mirror on all of my runs. This stretch is home to the most epic fall either of us had made, but it was on the way back, so wait. This run is an out and back. This stretch used to be beautiful because the newest gateway/interstate exit was being constructed for probably two years and every day we had the benefit of running right down merchant street without traffic because that road was closed. We didn't realize how nice that was until that s.o.b opened up and we had to deal with a busy 4 way. That's not fun, especially as we aged and began trying to run our normal runs faster. When this turns to mile 6.5, it is hilarious...

Times Invite '10

Mile 2.5- Crossing the street past NAPA was the scene of potentially the scariest series of events on this run ever. When you run through a town infested with idiots, you have no choice but to encounter countless idiotic remarks yelled at you. As we passed the street a man yelled something at us and I kindly let him know that he could fuck off. Next thing we knew the car was flying down the parking lot after us, similar to the Libyans chasing Marty. Patrick broke to the right; I split left. I caused another car to slam on its brakes as I jumped out in front of it to avoid the car trying to hit me. I was so close to the car that if I leaned in, I could've kissed it. I was trapped. I walked toward the now parked car and looked around and couldn't see Patrick. Me and the idiot exchanged a few words and carried on with our day, Patrick had returned by this point. Moments later I noticed that I pissed a few drops during the argument, or perhaps when he was chasing us or when I almost got hit by a car. I don't know what the cause was, but my shorts had spots of wetness. It was cold out figured into my excuse of why I peed out of fear.

If you text me, you text both of us.

Mile 4- The tunnel on the rail trail is weird. The lights inside are on all day, and they turn off when the sun goes down. I feel like it should be the opposite. Whenever we would run more than 8 miles, we would continue down the rail trail toward Prickett's Fort which was our turn around point for 12 milers. There is nothing scarier than running through a tunnel at night in nothing but dark. Since I put the picture up, I have to touch up on the result of all of the mileage that we put in together on this route. I can remember when he would run with me after I broke my femur on this course, the conversations we would have running through that tunnel or while we pissed by the tunnel. That was the pee break every run. Only section where we were secluded. Sophomore year/ his junior year, we never accomplished anything impressive on the local stage yet, but our aspirations were there. We never said- it'd be cool to improve a little bit. The idea was- Man, we need to get all-state. All-state this, all-state that. That was always the goal. And sure enough fall of '09 we both finished top ten and the picture to the side was after the 2010 3200m race where we both finished all state (1st & 5th). Huge races for both of us and the most gratifying day in high school. It would be significantly less of a memory if Patrick wasn't placing with me. I never saw him in the race, but had that feeling that I wasn't the only one feeling great that day. I went on the next year to get two all state medals- didn't collect either one of them. Getting all state was irrelevant at that point; nothing more fun than getting awards with your best friend. Especially when that was a goal that both trained for together for two years leading up to it; every single day.

Mile 6-6.5- For years I have said that my death would occur from a car on Elkins Street. There is a hidden left turn on the fastest stretch of road on our course. We would have to slow to a stop just to see if cars were coming, but my competitiveness with myself would often have me flying by the intersection just hoping a car wasn't coming. So if I ever return to Fairmont on a run and get struck by a car at that intersection, don't feel bad for me. Be upset that I saw that coming. Nothing worse than when I'm right. I intentionally avoid that stretch now because I am so certain in my ability to know things. Now for the most epic crash! As we take a left back up the hill that Patrick liked to fall at the bottom of, there are about three hidden driveways. Unlike Elkins st, no one ever takes those roads so we never thought twice about running right by the drives without looking. Plus, they have a stop sign if anyone ever takes that route. And everyone stops at stop signs. I'm sure that everyone in the world has seen Superbad at some point, this next scene will sound familiar. Patrick is on my left and I hear a car slam on its brakes and a thump. They hit Patrick's butt and sent him flying forward. Now, this is absolutely false, but in my memory- they sent him across the street and down into Palatine Park. In reality it was a fender bender and Patrick was completely fine, but once it happened I jetted off. Then I turned around and was completely surprised and confused as to what happened. We laughed about that for the rest of the run and for at least a month or two. The sight of Patrick being off of the ground due to a car hitting him will always be one of the funniest sights ever.

Family Picture 2010

Mile 7 - There is this kid. His name is David Collins. I have no idea how old he is, because in my mind he will always be a freshman in high school. He is the closest thing to a cartoon character that I have ever met. By far the goofiest, funniest, and caring little man I know. I have a ton of funny pictures of Collins. I will definitely share more stories about him; actually it's decided. In the future there will be a blog entry titled David Collins and I will tell the story of my relationship with Collins. I chose this picture of him to keep the bromance with Patrick going strong. David Collins... While me and Patrick would drag the rest of

We are coming for you, Collins.

our team on our route every day after school, most of the team would branch off early to go do their own thing. There is one guy who tried to run with us when he couldn't yet every single day. Every day David would go with us and turn around well before we did and we would catch him as we ran back down Merchant street every single day. Crossing the 3rd street bridge we would look back at us and try to keep beating us, but would crumble in laughter with my commentary. Every single day I would narrate his attempt to out run us word for word with the commentator from Spongebob when Gary the Snail attempted to race. And blew up, crashed, eye exploded. It was amazing; to see him giggling and slowing back to us. Running with us would turn Collins into quite the man however. I will touch on that once I tell his story.

Nothing super eventful has ever happened in the last mile as far as I can remember. But that is the end of this bromance and the tour de Fairmont. If you are ever running in Fairmont, try not to. If you can't run the only route in Fairmont like we do. Tomorrow is Sunday Funday again on the trail; hopefully next week will see 7 days of running. My knee should be good to go. and a week from today will be the second trail race of 2014. Exciting stuff...

Bracket Challenge:

Join the group and make your bracket selections tomorrow evening after Selection Sunday. PASSWORD- pajamapants

http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/2014/en/group?groupID=315080

Free prizes for the smartest brackets.

One love!