Not a bad view on today’s run. It’s from the junction of Ponderosa Loop and Wild Turkey Trail. I ran my furthest run yet on top of Wapiti Trail. I ran 2 hours and 41 minutes at a 13:42 pace. Recording that here more for me than you, to look back on when I’m considering if I trained hard enough for a Hill Country trail run in January.
I ran in my new Tecton X 2s, as I have for the last three days. They felt great. I could feel the ground and yet the rock plate protected me from over-feeling the ground. My legs were heavy today and I stumbled, tripping over rocks, uncharacteristically often. Good test for my new shoes though. My feet felt great while I was running, but one of my toes feels bruised now from that bruising earlier. That’s fine though. My toes need to toughen up.
I’m guessing this trail looks a lot like most of Bandera. Its hills are different, Heil Valley has graceful hills but at altitude; Bandera is 4000 feet lower but with short, steep hills. But many of the Heil Valley rocks are good Bandera replicas.
I’m not confident yet that I’ll be able to finish or feel good running those 62 miles of trail in the Hill Country State Natural Area. But I’m enjoying training for it. I’m getting in hours on a replica trail. I’m testing new shoes, new gels, new electrolyte drinks. My son-in-law is coaching me, giving me tips.
Flagship Tracksmith store on Newberry Street in Boston
I want to be clear that I don’t shave my body hair. I have it waxed. I’ve taken to waxing off my chest hair because I now need to have a heart monitor patched to my left breast a couple of times a year to check for atrial fibrillation. And health clinics are not spas. If they do shave a patch of hair off first, which they haven’t the last few visits – ouch – it’s only a patch and nothing more. I initially waxed off my entire front side but Karen felt like I’d surrendered my man card, so I’m allowing the belly hair to grow back. Chest only going forward.
Commonwealth Avenue where I ran a loop around the Back Bay in Boston
I just received the results of my recent heart patch and it recorded zero A-Fib over a week’s time. Even better, my doctor said he was okay with me running the Bandera Ultra in January. I should be happy with that. I don’t like that I’m at that age where I need to check with my doctor before I do fun stuff, but I am at that age, so there you go. I can check off the A-Fib box, clearing me to run Bandera. But if I’m honest, there was maybe a part of me looking for an excuse to not have to run it. I’ve set myself up for something that I’m just a little bit scared of. A 62 mile run through the Texas Hill Country.
The colors in Maine
Except for a couple of short runs around Boston this past week, I’ve hardly run since the Boulder Marathon. I have two months to try to lose another ten pounds and prepare for this ultra in January. I don’t mind setting myself up for failure. I’m actually quite comfortable with it. I think it’s the pain I know I’ll endure that has me scared. I don’t like admitting I’m scared, but I am.
Dropped off a copy of my second novel at the Ogunquit Library in Maine
I don’t know why people run ultras. I don’t know why I want to run one. I suppose because I don’t know if I can do it, but I can’t explain why that appeals to me. It just does.
Processed work email at the Boston Public Library one morning during vacation
While in Boston earlier this week, I stayed at the Lenox Hotel and my room looked out at the Boston Marathon finish line on Boylston in front of the Boston Public Library. That photo is below. I found it inspirational. I’ve never run it. I came within 3 seconds of qualifying for it in the Boulder Marathon in 2015, six months after a prostatectomy. It’s on my list still. There’s a lot still on my list.
The thought occurred to me while running over the brutal cement in the final 10K of the Boulder Marathon that there was no way I could run the Bandera 100K ultra. This marathon was partly intended as a stepping stone to committing to that ultra. Distance running at that magnitude is a confidence game. But pain and doubt have a way of fading over time; in this case, a couple of days, and I’m already strategerizing on how I might complete a 62 mile run in the Texas Hill Country. I’m reviewing my lessons learned. My focus has shifted from the lows I felt on that concrete to how well I ran. This is a list of my green lights.
I ran about five minutes faster than I did two years earlier, on what I believe was a tougher course. I was also about five pounds lighter I think, 185 pounds vs 190. Weight is everything in distance running. I’d want to continue to lose weight. I’d be confident in January at 175 pounds. Historically, in my older years, I’m pretty competitive at that weight. At 165, which I was for a good three or so years in my fifties, I’m on the podium in everything from a 5K to an ultra. I don’t care to drop to 165 again though because it makes me look too much like a skinny runner.
And speed is the first thing I need to get over as I train for a 100K. I think I have. I’m really comfortable and happy with my slower pace. I need to run slower yet, I need to learn how to run a 15 minute mile pace. The trick is probably running whatever pace I’m comfortable at, say 11 minutes, and then add in some walking. My fitness instructor buddy Rob suggested that approach to me. I’ll figure that out this fall.
Next is gear. I could spend all my time thinking about the right gear. Gear is fun. Between my recent backpacking and this marathon, I have a number of lessons learned. I know the socks I’m going to wear. Alpaca wool. I backpacked five days nonstop in the same pair of socks and my feet stayed dry.
And I’ve discovered a gel I can stomach. Science in Sport – SIS. It has a good amount of liquid and is almost palatable. This came to me from my ultra running son-in-law. I’m not certain I’ve settled on an electrolyte drink, I used Maurten for this event and I’m not 100% on it. I’ll be good with the Scratch served at the aid stations, I have experience with that sports drink. I might use what I carried during the marathon. I did have some slight stomach pain and I wasn’t big on the flavor. I really like my Cure, it tastes so good but it doesn’t have enough calories or electrolytes for an ultra.
I bought some SaltStick FastChews (salt tablets) that I’ll begin to train with on long runs. It’s difficult to gauge how much you sweat in Colorado. We sweat in Colorado, but it’s a dry sweat. Ultra runners get pretty scientific about it. They want to know how much salt they sweat in addition to how much they sweat. I’ll try to figure out how much salt to consume based on what amount keeps me from cramping. My muscles did fine in the marathon so I did well on electrolytes. I credit the pickle juice.
I’ve gained a sense of my pace. To my surprise, I’m pretty comfortable running a 9 minute pace, but only for a half marathon. This marathon would have been easier had I maintained a flat 10 minute pace, which was my overall pace. I want to break 17 hours in Bandara and I can do that with a 16 minute pace – over hills and rocks and hours – but still, seems like it might be in my wheel house by walking enough, well before I even need to.
I believe I’ve found the running shorts that will work. They’re essentially short tights. A TrackSmith brand that didn’t even hint at chafing. I’ll need to buy a rain jacket. Sort of learned that backpacking. Interestingly, this was the very first time I wore my bib on my shorts. I studied photos of ultra runners and they all wear their bibs on their shorts. I suspect so that they can change their shirts. I’ll be sweating in Texas, even in January with that humidity, so changing shirts often is part of my plan. I changed out from a t-shirt to a tank top half way through this marathon and it made a big difference in my comfort.
I learned that I absolutely hate my hydration vest. Gels fell out. Not enough pockets or big enough pockets. These photos show how I twisted one of the shoulder straps without knowing it. Likely when I took it off to change shirts. So, this is not a green light, and if I’m honest, it contributed to me also failing at consuming enough gels. I’m tempted to not even wear a vest. Again, studying photos of the runners at Bandera, it appeared the elites didn’t wear vests. Many wore waist packs but the aid stations are so close that they’re optional. I figure I will wear one to store a rain jacket, if the weather suggests rain, and other emergency gear, but it’s something I’m still considering. Either way, I’m buying a new one. At races where aid stations are so plentiful, I suspect it still pays to carry gels with you in order to consume them at a slower pace.
The final topic area I needed to monitor was my atrial fibrillation. I think it kicked in twice. Without my heart monitor or Apple Watch, it’s hard to know but I found myself walking twice and unable to easily catch my breath. That’s a good indicator. I just had a heart monitor patched onto my chest yesterday that I’ll wear for two weeks. The results will be helpful and should lead to a dialog with my doctor. I’ll bring up the ultra and see what he says. I don’t expect it to be an issue but I don’t really know. Time will tell.
Before I could run this morning’s marathon, I had to attend Rachel and Aaron’s wedding in a Denver brewpub last night, replete with food truck. It was great. Rachel is Brit’s good friend that sings with her in GirlfriendCult. Margot enjoyed the wedding too. She got the flower headband from Rachel’s childhood friend Audrey who’s been helping out over in Ukraine – so you get the colors.
This year’s course was difficult. A lot of hills in Niwot and a good measure of concrete sidewalks on the return through Boulder. Concrete’s fine if you train on it. I tend to run trails. Karen wanted a photo of my shoes to thank Brit and Eric for gifting them to me a year ago. Those Hoka’s came in handy to cushion the cement.
The run felt much warmer than the 40s, 50s and 60s it was supposed to be. Perhaps the full sun and zero wind. Smartly, I carried a tank with me in my hydration pack and put it on a little over halfway. That might have saved me. I also did a good job hydrating, including 500ml of dill pickle juice. I shared some with another runner who was cramping. I felt comfortable most of the course, until the final 10K where the wheels typically start to fall off. Averaged a 10 minute mile pace though overall, good enough for a second place water bottle award for my age division. Today was tough enough that I’m rethinking that Bandera 100K in January, but still, it was a good run.
I have to add, I blogged last night that I expected to run a 4:30 to 4:45 total time. Without wearing a watch, I crossed the finish line in 4:30:59.
I was disappointed I couldn’t run last year’s Boulder Marathon. I thought I could do it and I wanted to start out my sixties by running a marathon. I ran two in my second decade of life, there’s a gap, then a dozen or so in my 40s and 50s. There’s a gap again. Shorter this time. And now. I’m confident enough to project a finish time between 4:30 and 4:45.
The important thing about that time range is its specificity. That’s how good I am at these projections. Anything outside that range should make for more interesting stories.
I’ve been told I go out too fast – an understatement for just how spectacularly bad a few of my marathons have gone – but most of them go okay. The people who say that haven’t seen all the good ones. I think I’ll run fine.
I need to do well because this is a warmup for a pending ultra. I’ll waterboard myself in hydration and electrolytes. I’ll wear a vest to prep even though I doubt I’ll need one, It has great aid stations. I’ll consume ungodly gels; not to get to the end of twenty-six miles, but to prep for what it’s like to eat that shit over sixty-two miles.
Like last month’s backpacking, this Sunday is all prep. My pace is noticeably slower than it was a few years ago, like in 2015, when I cranked out 8 minute miles for the full marathon on the Boulder Backroads. I like to predict my pace ahead of time and am usually spot on. I haven’t been wearing a watch much this year, but I’m getting a sense of my pace. This course reminds me of the Austin Marathon – there’s a hilly section around mile ten.
We were three men in our sixties. We were three men who hiked over Buckskin Pass to sleep under the view above of Snowmass Peak.
We woke up to a bit of snow at the Snowmass Lake Campground. Rob ported a flask of whiskey in his pack, so we found ourselves talking as we setup camp each night.
And you know me. I’m not a big talker. So, anything I share here probably came from either Rob or George talking.
We talked about our health. Because we’re men, our talk was graphic, and because it was graphic, it was funny.
We shared stories of our heroic wives for sending us out together into the remoteness of the Maroon Bells. They’re the best.
We told stories that only sixty-year old men could tell. Stories of what’s next.
I see my trail runs like a toddler turning two soon sees flowers. The trail is pretty. The Wapiti Trail is rocky too. Just like I imagine the Bandera 100K trails to be.
These photos are mostly a shoe-eye’s view of the Wapiti Trail to Ponderosa Loop clockwise and back.
If you have run the trails in the Hill Country State Natural Area, atop the Edwards Plateau, west of San Antonio, comment with photos you have of that course. I’m interested how well it compares to my weekend training course.
These rocks lead you back on the inner loops of Ponderosa and Wild Turkey. This is my second Saturday to run in Heil Valley Ranch. It’s my Saturday workout from now until the ultra. The plan is to groom my trail legs.
This intersection drops a path down to the Lyon’s trailhead or around the Wild Turkey Loop counterclockwise, but I steer right to return, first up and then back down the Wapiti Trail.
The trail up to Wapiti offers various textures. I call this texture – rocks.
Sometimes the trail gives back a little with a more pliable surface. This was nice.
But this section was mostly rocks.
And then, there it is, the trail down Wapiti. The heavy lifting is over. I tumbled down slowly and in control. Still finding my trail legs.
The path was rock after rock through the wildflowers.
Any wildfire trails out at Bandera?
Ending my run among the burnout was surreal.
I went dry in July with no drinking as part of my conditioning. I need to lose a few pounds and I need to be pulling all the old levers to see what helps. I no longer consider what works, just what helps. Still, I’m down 15 pounds so far for the year. It’s a slow pace, but I’ll get there. Besides, slow is the name of the game in ultras.
It occurred to me this week that I’ve never run a 100K ultra. I ran a 50K (31 miles) about ten years ago. That was fun. This should be twice as fun.
I’m considering the Bandera 100K in the Texas Hill Country in January. Where the sotol cactus sing and the runners scream. Seriously, runners have to sign a waiver to not sue the race organizer after bleeding out from sixty-two miles of slashes from the sotol cactus that line the trail. Sotol isn’t actually a cactus, but it’ll take you out if you fall into one.
Thinking that I could run a 100K is pretty wild dreaming at this point, but I’m excited thinking about it. I ran a local trail today that has characteristics of the Texas Hill Country. I might not commit until I see how I do in the Boulder Marathon in October, but for now, it’s good to have goals. Ran ten Friday evening and nine this morning on the rocky Wapiti Trail where I imagined I was running through the Hill Country.
My brother spied a BMW M440i xDrive online Friday night and just had to have it. Problem was, he was in Austin and it was in Spokane. No problem for a single guy though. He hopped on a flight and purchased it from the dealer by 7pm Pacific time. I’m not a gear head so I don’t quite get that. My neighborhood is rated 62 walkable and 69 bikable on Zillow, so Karen and I have been a one-car family for years. Steve and I walked to breakfast this morning.
He stopped by my house in Colorado this am on his drive home. I didn’t think to take a pic so here’s a photo of us together a few years ago at Gueros Taco Bar.
I couldn’t wait for Steve to leave so I could get my run in. With all the rain, the irrigation ditches are running strong. Perfect for dipping my hat into to cool off.
There is not a more magical place to listen to a concert on this planet than Red Rocks. The clouds to the north, on the left of this photo, backlit the stage with a playful lightning show Wednesday throughout the evening.
Karen and I met with friends for dinner in Golden before the show. First time to see Jed and Gretchen post-apocalypse. We had a blast.
I still have my Lyle Lovett CD from thirty years ago. This is the first time I’ve seen him play in concert. His voice was as sweet as Texas tea – experienced, melodic and enchanting. Imagine listening to a Texas country twang backed by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Great show.
Brit ran a two-hour half marathon Saturday from the Loveland ski area to Georgetown, termed the Slacker Half because it’s mostly downhill, but it’s also quite high in elevation. Meanwhile, her husband Eric paced his buddy Matt through the Western States 100 mile ultra in Tahoe. It’s a running family.
Karen and I took care of baby Margot in a comfortable townhome in Keystone while Brit ran. Great location just past Loveland Pass. When I drove Brit back over the pass for the race start, we saw deer crossing the road at an actual road crossing sign and a herd of big horn sheep near A-Basin. It was a good day for running.
I think Margot and I were both falling asleep in this photo. I can tell you that she lasted maybe ten more minutes with me stroking the back of her head. I’m still tired, but that’s age.
I’ll tell you what this cool weather and rain is good for. Running twelve miles on the LoBo Trail. This sign was my six-mile turn-around.
The rain has been good for the grasses too. Everything is so green. It was a good run.
Ellie texted this photo of her painting to the family chat and said it was going to be a painting summer. None of us are quite sure what she meant by that and we haven’t heard from her since. But, knowing what kind of summer it will be helps me to plan.
It’ll be a runner’s summer for me. I ran 8 miles today on the East Boulder Trail under an infantry of cloudlets marching toward the Front Range. The trail looked muddier than it was. The bridge is back over Boulder Creek, for pedestrian traffic but not for horses. The cement is still curing. I recall the old bridge to have had wooden planks. This is like a sidewalk.
Of course, in Colorado, Mother’s Day weekend is also about planting flowers. Or in the case of what we did today, hang flower baskets. Summer is coming.
I don’t normally do public service announcements, but in case you don’t subscribe to AllTrails.com, this is an East Boulder Trail update.
I ran the three or so miles out to the bridge over Boulder Creek, despite having read the bridge-outage notice at the trailhead. I didn’t really know what the sign meant, if the creek was indeed passable. I needed to check out that bridge.
I would say the creek is passable. I didn’t care to climb down the slope and get my trail shoes wet, so I turned my planned eight-mile run into a six-miler. Boulder Creek is passable if you have to get to the other side, it’s not dry. In the photo above, which trail over my head do you think I ran?
I ran the outside loop, with the perspective of the straight, crushed gravel trail as my anchor.
Ellie and I celebrated our joint birthdays this weekend because I’ll be in San Francisco the last week of April and Canada the first week of May, and she has finals approaching.
But of course, today wasn’t about us. Today was all Margot Fay.
Wearing her mother’s thirty year old dress and baby Doc Martens, Margot sprinted around the grass in search of eggs.
The sky looked like winter still but the weather was quite warm and the grass was starting to turn green – perfect for hiding eggs.
We walked home from the park for brunch.
Margot’s first discovery was her new Minnie chair.
And then she was off to play a song.
Margot never tires of climbing the stairs, although she can do it now walking on her two feet.
A dear friend passed away this week and it’s hard to hide from the melancholy thoughts, hard to find the cheer. The clouds have been hanging heavy over the neighborhood and I don’t see them lifting for a while. But I have to say, all my memories of Eve are so pleasant, as comforting as her warm personality.
I picture her and Jabe pedaling their bikes past my front porch on their evening rides down to the Left Hand Brew Pub. Those two rode their bikes over half of America, from Boulder County to Jamestown and Ward to the Texas Hill Country. And they always waved as they rode by.
Not sure why I’m so sad because all my memories are so good. They’d include me in their running gang and I followed them out to Moab four years in a row to run a half marathon along the Colorado River. Drinking beers after one of those runs, I recall Jabe teasing Eve with her storytelling. Not someone I associate with hair salons, Jabe said, “I’m thinking of getting hair extensions.” With her dry wit, Eve responded, “They don’t come in gray.”
Those two were such a cute couple. The type that when you saw them enjoying each other’s company, you hoped your marriage was as good. It’d put me in the mood to flirt with my wife. It always made me feel so good to see them together.
The melancholy got me thinking about others in my life who have passed, and how I only have the best memories. I have such few memories of my father, he passed so young, six days after his thirty-seventh birthday, September 8, 1967. But the memories I do have are all good. I tended to get into trouble a bit and got my share of spankings. The only spanking I recall though is the one I didn’t get.
I’d been playing out in the street, something they let four-year olds do back in the sixties. I would stand on the curb and wait for a car to get close, then sprint to the other side of the street. Someone told on me, likely one of my five sisters. My dad walked me into my room and told me he was going to have to give me a spanking. As he took off his belt, he asked me why I’d done it. “Son, why were you running in front of those cars? You could have been killed.”
I responded, “Because I thought I could beat them.” He laughed out loud and told me he wasn’t going to spank me, but I’d have to stay in my room until dinner. That story gets better for me every time I recall it. He probably wasn’t gonna use his belt. He might have though. Catholic Fathers invented punishment.
I know Jabe will be telling countless happy stories from her memories of her life with Eve. When you loved someone and they loved you, those are the memories you are left with, countless happy stories.
I’ve recently started a 4th novel. No, I haven’t yet finished my 3rd novel. This will be historical fiction from 1846 to present day in the Texas Hill Country. Let me know what you think of my prologue in the comments either on this blog or on Facebook. Be honest. I can take it. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, despite my last name, I’m over 60% German, mostly from Bavaria and the Black Forest per 23andme and Ancestry.com.
***
Guten tag. I’m Ellie-Kate. My formal name is Katherine Elizabeth and I’ll get to how my name came to be, but this story on how my grandma, my mother and I exposed the most loathsome Mexican border crime in Texas begins much earlier than my prep school years. This story spans generations.
My fifth great grandparents gave birth to ten daughters in the 19th century spa town of Baden-Baden, in the Schwarzwald principality of the Holy Roman Empire. What you might know as the Black Forest. Germany didn’t become a nation until 1871, after the American Civil War. I’m in Germany now visiting, expecting to meet up with distant relatives. My fifth great grandparents were Johann Eduard Jordan and Marguerite Rose Jordan. A popular Christian baptismal name throughout Europe after the Crusades, Jordan is Hebrew for “to flow down”, or “to descend”, as in the Jordan River. Johann’s surname did not descend beyond his daughters’ generation as he had no sons. And that’s okay, because this is a story of the strength, resilience and determination of the Texan descendants of those Jordan women. The Hill Country frauen. The Hill Country women.
Johann and Marguerite joined the Adelsverein, the Noble Society of German Immigrants, on a Norddeutscher Lloyd ship to America in 1846. Before landing at Indianola, Texas, a coastal town long-ago wiped off the map by a hurricane, their daughter, my fourth great grandmother, Catharina was married by the ship’s captain to Mathias Zenner. It’s possible she fell in love during the transit, despite bathing in nothing but sea water and sharing a communal bucket for the privy for three months at sea. I prefer to think she excelled at numbers, knowing that she could double her fortune as her mate would be awarded twice the property stake once arriving in the Fisher-Miller land grant in the Llano Estacado upon arrival, if they were married. If it didn’t work out, the average age of an American male in that decade was about twenty-five years. Doubtful she’d of had access to those stats in the 19th century, but anecdotally, she’d have known. She wouldn’t have to suffer him for long. She did the math.
I learned all this from my Oma, my grandmother, Constance Fay Freitag Mountbatten. When you grow up in the Hill Country, they teach you much about the early German immigrants who settled the region of Texas that reminded them of Schwarzwald in grade school as local culture and history. Oma shared with me the past that they don’t teach to children.
Her story starts with the legacy of James P. Waldrip and his murderous hanging band of outlaws during the Civil War. Die Hangebande as they were known in the German-speaking, Texas Hill Country in 1864. J.P. wasn’t the ring leader, but he was very likely the most vicious of the gang of Confederate irregulars that terrorized Gillespie county during that time.
Understand that the early German settlers of the Hill Country voted overwhelmingly against succession from the Union. Like Sam Houston, the first president of Texas and its governor before the war, well over ninety percent of Fredericksburg residents were pro-Union abolitionists. Although this was less a philosophical and political statement. It was more pragmatic. There were only a handful of slaves in all of Gillespie county. Townsfolk felt the military focus should be on defending against Indian attacks more than on fighting the Union. The Hill Country was the frontier. For his disloyalty, Houston was booted out of office and retired to Huntsville. The Hill Country was placed under martial law by Governor Lubbock and suffered horrific depredations at the hands of the depraved outlaws among the Confederate troops.
The night Waldrip arrived with his gang at the house of the Fredericksburg school teacher and outspoken critic of the war, Louis Schuetze became one of the many victims of the Hill Country violence. The secret society Soldiers’ Friends who directed J.P.’s lynchings were well aware there was no greater threat to their aspirations than a school teacher. Schuetze was found the next morning hanging from a live oak three miles outside of town along Palo Alto Creek.
My day always begins with a fresh Margo photo to the family chat. Well, more often than not, it begins with an exchange of Wordle outcomes, but quickly followed by a ray of pictorial sunshine. A joy I could never have imagined fifteen years ago, pre-iPhone.
And on weekends such as this, I read, I run, and I write. Although we mixed it up this morning by listening to Ian play Bob Dylan at the Winot Coffeehouse. It was good to get outside today. The sun and air conspired for perfect running weather.
I’ve been working out fairly well over the holidays, but mostly indoors on the elliptical. I got outdoors today, the last day of the year. It was a gorgeous day. The deep snow was slow and exhausting, but I got in six miles. I have big running plans for 2023 that include three marathons. I can’t run a marathon just yet, but it’s still 2022.
I’m making the most of 2022’s final day. A friend is coming over tonight to celebrate the new year. And I’m watching the Michigan vs TCU game now. It’s getting interesting in the 3rd quarter. I looked for Rice but they don’t seem to be playing in a bowl game.
Christmas, for me, started early in the month, on some weekend when I watched Girlfriend Cult perform Christmas songs. It was my stage job to watch Margot Fay. This was when it started to feel like Christmas to me.
So, like anyone else on holiday, I began drinking eggnog every day from my moose tumbler.
I didn’t need anything for Christmas and failed in my task to share gift ideas, but I got some great presents. Tracksmith running gloves, a Tracksmith shirt, a desktop lamp, and a novel that I’ll read on my return flight. Oh, and eleven hours of sleep Christmas night, which is a modern day record.
I got in a Christmas run on Boxer day down on Town Lake.
Ellie strolled Margot while Brit and I ran a few miles.
Margot was tired because she’d been up at Aunt Nancy’s house since 3 am.
We walked along South Congress after our run and stumbled upon a Luddite movement among the hipsters.
While we were on the east end of the lake, my buddy Rob and his wife Sue were strolling through Barton Springs. They were on their way from Durango to South Texas.
We took Chad out for his birthday to Dos Salsas, but I’m pretty sure we made him pay for his dinner. Happy birthday, Chad.
The cousins spent quality time together.
And siblings got to catch up on what they’ve been doing the last 60 years.
With weather-induced flight delays, our Christmas time in Austin was too short, but we got to see family and that’s what Christmas is to me.
A Runner's Story 