Decker 'Tights are a good thing' Challenge '06
To sum up the weekend, I ate buffet three nights in a row: Friday pre-6man football meal at County Seat Restaurant in Gatesville, Saturday at the AT holiday party and Sunday post-DC/Marble Falls "Fantasy Nutcracker" pig-out. Oh, I did workout some: Saturday I rode my bike 20 miles from my house out to 2243 and back. Sunday I ran the Decker Challenge 20K. And drove to Marble Falls.
Having never been to Gatesville before, we had no idea what our dining options might be. Cruised down main and then 36 but a vote from the 3 of us decided the County Seat, with the fake steer on a 30 foot pole and a sign boasting all u-can-eat-buffet Fri and Sat nights won. We'll just say I did not follow a prudent diet. Nor did I want to. Didn't sleep too well, my cold seemed to be winning in the 'I need to breathe to sleep' category. Finally forced myself to ride my bike about noon from my house out Parmer to 2243 (Which is exactly 10 miles). It was a bit chilly and I took it easy. Showered, then picked up my DC packet at RunTex and tried to take a short nap just about the time my neighbor let his yappy dogs out into the backyard. Got everything ready for the AT party and arrived about 10 min early - I figured since I had to cut out right at 8:30 I'd try to help ahead of time. Looks like everything got taken care of just fine. For the first time ever, all the candidates I voted for won. I'm hoping the new board (some of whom were on the old board) continues the forward progress we've enjoyed over the past year. I will help out in whatever capacity I can. Thanks to
cam_ray for organizing a great holiday party. Sleep well, you earned it! On top of the I-wonder-how-the-holiday-party-food-I-overate-will-affect-me-while-I-run-12.4 miles-tomorrow internal dialogue, I also had the what-do-I-wear internal dialogue. The forecast both on the weather channel and the hour by hour on the web did not paint a pretty picture. But, I did this last year and survived so I assumed that possibly I would live through it once again. Especially since this year more of my TZ buddies were going to be there. I had told Susan F at the party that I planned to take it slow and run with Stacy S, since she'd been having some IT issues. Susan commented that if you're going to run 12.4 miserable and cold miles, there's nobody better to share it with than Stacy. I agreed. This may sound counter-productive, but since I had not slept too well Friday, I took some generic Ny-Quil about 9pm Sat. I knew that would help me sleep better and getting a little more sleep and possibly feeling a little groggy was better than not sleeping well two nights in a row. The alarm went off at 5:20 and I felt like I had a pretty decent night's sleep. My head hurt a little but I kind of attributed that to possible dehydration due to a) beer I drank at the party - I have to fess up to this cause Susan took pictures and b) NyQuil. News8 of course was a prerecorded forecast and weather channel said it was cold. And Windy. I debated - do I wear the tights? or shorts with the legwarmers that I can remove later? long sleeve white TZ shirt UNDER the SS red TZ shirt? or over it? As you can probably guess from the title, the tights won the contest. I finally settled on red SS TZ shirt underneath, white LS TZ shirt outside, long bike-style tights which served me well at FreezeScale, smartwool socks, mountain hardwear gloves, brooks earwarmer, TZ hat, TZ timing chip.. And I carried the armwarmers in my hydration pack with the bungee cord. My frozen brain didn't think to try the new toll roads - I just took Parmer over to 290 as if I was doing yet another Danskin. Still arrived in plenty of time and located some of my buddies just inside the expo center. There was still one more piece of TZ gear to be donned -- a buff that I wished I had before I went into the bathroom for my final pre-race pitstop.. As we stood around Tracy's car with our buffs around our noses, Catherine said we should call ourselves the TriZones Bandits. I counted lots of TZ members before we took off: Catherine, Scott & Katy, Genny, Stacy S, Stacey H, Coach Tracy, Sam, Alexa, Sarah,
tripam, Dena, Jimmy. I know others were there but didn't see them till the finish: Stevan, Susan & Richard. I know Monique and Kathy also participated although I didn't see them. Nor did I see
shubbe or
xomox but I know they were there runnin' fast. Likewise my friends RF and Elizabeth. MIA:
pammyaggie. Hope to find out what kept her from joining in the frigid fun. We saw Kim Hanford just before we took off and she reminded us she'd finish before we would! I said I'll bet you win today! Dena, Stacy and I ingested a few last minute calories and Stacy shared her water with us. The start was, well, the start of a Decker Challenge. Stacy had a new Garmin 305 that took forever to get a fix, while mine - the old 301 - was ready. Maybe I just powered it on in time. We ran, miserably along Decker Lake road, turned right onto Decker Lane, unbelievably into even more wind, when I started to remark to my running buddy Stacy that the tights were a good idea. We stopped at the 2 mile water stop so she could stretch a little and we both could, well, spit. As cold as it was we were wondering why the noses were running instead of just freezing. We did notice that the mile 2 water stop was lined with vehicles containing champagne and orange juice.. After we had run about 45 minutes I looked at my Garmin and said "Well, Kim's done now". And she was, and she did win her age group. At mile 4 we mercifully turned onto Lindell where the wind was at least in a different direction. Saw some of our TZ friends waiting for porta-potty at mile 4 when we stopped to gu & water, and StacyStretch. And my forearms, although covered with the long sleeves, were cold from the biting wind we had just run through. So I might be the first person yet to ADD armwarmers at a run water stop. Once we got going again, all our buddies passed us, of course. The wind was not as biting here, I again remarked that the tights were still a good idea, but I removed the armwarmers. Both of us ran up Little Mr. Tard, priding ourselves on not walking. Most of the time we chit-chatted while running, except for the uphills, which were mostly just breathing and running. After the 10K split, we started thinking hey, the milemarkers seem to be coming at us faster. That, or the run was not quite as miserable and we were sort of enjoying it. Stacy looked over to our left and said Hey, I didn't realize there was a little lake there! and I told her it's because we're used to flying by on our bikes and probably never noticed it. Sometime before mile 8 we took the 'shortcut' onto the packed dirt road. It was actually kinder to our lower extremities than the asphalt. Even though it was slightly uphill it didn't seem really terrible. I mentioned again that the tights were a good idea, and at this point told Stacy she'd probably hear me utter those words until we were finished. Once on 973, we knew what lie ahead - rollers, and Big Mr. Tard. We stopped for a gu, water and quick SS (StacyStretch) at the mile 8 water stop. Energized and full of hope, we knew we'd finish. Maybe not fast, but we'd finish. And we had that We-got-up-and-ran-8 miles-already-when-most-people-were-still-in-bed smugness. We saw ahead the mile 9 marker. Woo hoo! Ran past it, and on up Big.... Mr......Tard. Ran. not walked. We passed lots of people who did walk. And the 10 mile marker. Only 2.4 more miles! Then we turned onto Decker Lake Rd and veered up that last couple of against the wind hills. Cruel. But at least the finish didn't loop you out and back, over gravel to an uphill finish. Just before the finish, Stacy saw a couple of her friends who ran to the finish with us. We were having fun and ran across the finish line holding hands! My Garmin said 2:36 (something) and it was darn close (I had forgotten to hit the start button right at the start). We immediately jogged inside to Toasty Expo Warmness. Found other TZ people and had stretch time, donuts and water followed by a team picture near the christmas tree. I was hoping to be done and ready to leave by 11:30 and actually got out of there about 11:10. Then I got lost on the dang tollroad - when we did the bike ride, there weren't any signs yet so I didn't know to take the "45/Round Rock" offramp. I found myself at 130 and 79, but knew that I could make a uturn, and get onto 45 over to Toll loop 1 back to Parmer. It took me another 20 min but now I know! Managed to nuke the AT party leftovers for lunch, shower and put on a decent outfit to travel to Marble Falls to see my sister's entire family involved in the Fantasy Nutcracker at the HS Auditorium. It was an impressive performance. They were hungry and I joined them for dinner at the Lucky Buffet, which used to be Parker Lumber, where my brother in law used to work. I ate until I could eat no more and by no means tried everything they had. We then adjourned to their house in Meadowlakes so I could meet their new family member, a 10 week old female Dachshund named Sugar. Now, I'm allergic to dogs and my 4 year old niece kept asking me if I wanted to pet her. No, Nikki, I think you're petting her quite enough already.. I left their place about 7:30 and decided to take the 281/29 route home. I turned off onto CR268, just for grins, because periodically I have to see how bad it looks while they build the bridge over the South San Gabriel. It was way worse than the last time I did this, and in the dark, I nearly lost track of where the road was. There is a big pile of dirt with construction equipment on top, where the road makes a left hairpin turn. Only you can't really tell that at night when all the dirt looks the same. It was fairly creepy, especially with the full moon shining on the dirtpile/construction equipment. When I finally got to the river, there actually was a little water over the road, which I've seen before but I was not prepared for the 'patch' of asphalt they had dumped there. It was very very bumpy and thank goodness I slowed down to a very low speed. No way could you navigate that on a bike right now. Even driving in my car after crossing the river worried me. Evidently, all the equipment passing over that 2 lane road, dumping who-knows-what is making navigation of any form not-so-fun. Got home about 9 and washed my clothing the dog had bit/licked because she doesn't know I'm allergic. Finally celebrated my victory over this year's Decker Challenge by having some champagne of my own.