As usual, I had a super fun running weekend... have I mentioned how much I love the people I run with? There is a pretty solid core group and a bunch of different people that rotate in and out depending on schedules and mileage, and they are all great. Seriously I have not yet met a single person that I don't like and wouldn't give my left kidney to. (Well, maybe not my kidney, but I'd sure give them some blood or bone marrow!)

Saturday's run was at Clinton Lake as usual and this week the ladies outnumbered the guys big time! We had 7 girls and 3 guys... lucky guys! It started out as a beautiful sunny morning, and we had brought plenty of food and drinks to party in the park after the run. We took it easy and stayed together as a group, chatting, telling stories, and trading comments on last weeks race. When we got to mile 5, 3 of the girls turned around to head back to the cars, they said they'd go get coffee and would be back for the after run party. The rest of us continued on and at about mile 8 the skies opened up on us, we were under some pretty heavy canopy so it sounded awesome and we remained fairly dry for awhile. At mile 10, 5 us headed back on the blue trail which heads back to the cars but in a more direct route, so we'd do a total of 16 miles. Sophia & Jeremy wanted a full 20 so they headed back on the white trail. By this point it was raining really steadily but it felt great, nice and cool, and I found myself drinking very little and I only took 1 S-cap the whole day... it was great!
I was running in a new pair of shoes that I picked up on clearance at Gary Gribbles last Friday. It was a huge mistake to help out at packet pickup for Psycho Psummer, I couldn't hang out in a running store for 5 hours and not end up wandering over to the shoes at some point! So I picked up a pair of La Sportiva Fireblades, they didn't have any size 6's but the guy working said they ran pretty small, so I tried a 6.5, and they fit pretty good. I got them good and muddy on Wednesday night out at Wyco Park and liked them enough to take 'em on a 15 mile trot. They were pretty good until the rocks got really wet and slickery, I slid around a bit more than I liked but it was darn wet and I'm not sure any of my shoes would have kept me from sliding. I like how lightweight they are and I had no shin problems, so I'll put them in rotation and hope they end up being a favorite.
When we got back to the cars it was still pouring rain so we set up the food and drinks under one of the picnic shelters. As soon as we stopped running everyone started freezing so we wrapped up in towels, sweatshirts, blankets, whatever we could find in the trunks. It was really crazy to be freezing our butts off in July in Kansas City... it's supposed to be in the 90's!! With blue lips and chattering teeth we sipped our "pineapple panty rippers" thoughtfully concocted by Gary and ate the vast amounts of food provided by everyone. Debbie had even made a spiked watermelon! After a few drinks, Debbie and Julie admitted that after they turned around at mile 5 they got a wild hair and took off all their clothes and ran about a mile of the trail naked in the rain!! I think their new mud babe names are the Nekkid Mud Babes!

On Sunday I ran at Wyco Park with a considerably smaller group, 3 guys and 2 of us girls. The guys were feeling their oats and started out really fast. Jonette and I stuck together... well kinda. Jonette won the women's 50K race last weekend and is much, much faster than me, so I just kinda hung on for dear life. My legs were super tired and I just never felt warmed up until the last 2.5 miles which is my favorite part of the course... the muddy part of course! I had never run with Jonette before so it was nice to find out a bit about her (the times when I was close enough to hear her talk!) We got in 13 miles, and I was shot for the restof the day. Husband & I took a trip to Home Depot to get more stuff for "my" room which is still not done 'cuz when you have a 100 year old house nothing is easy. Then I napped for a good 2 hours in the afternoon and went to bed early. It was kinda nice to be really lazy and not do anything. Friday night is the Lunar Trek and I'm really excited to run in the dark, I hope the skies are clear so the moon is super bright!