…I want to start by talking about the weeks that led up to our trip.
10 days before our team left, I flew to Missouri to speak at my alma mater and to meet with a client.
5 days before our team left, our merry band of running idiots ran a marathon in Killeen, Texas. More on that in a minute.
2 days before our team left, I flew to North Carolina for a conference.
1 day before our team left, I spoke at the conference and immediately after my session made a mad dash for the airport to meet up with our group in Miami.
Crazy, crazy, crazy times.
But back to that marathon.
The weather was reasonably warmish-coolish leading up to the Army Marathon. Until marathon morning, that is.
It was a little chilly at the start line.
Though some people were unfazed.
But it got colder and colder throughout. Strong winds dropped the wind chill significantly. Soon my hands were frozen, red and swollen. Memories of the horrible Icenado Marathon were still relatively fresh on my mind, which is why I stepped off the course at mile 9.5 – I explained all of this in a post not long after the race.
Yet I’ll have you know that I still stood in the freezing wind at the finish line to cheer for the guys.
They had respectable times, though the frozen insides of me do wish they would have run faster.
As it was, I sat with Kelly in a warming tent for about 20 minutes as he was huddled under blankets with warmed bags of saline trying to bring his core temperature back up. Not good.
Even more not good was the long slippery drive home in sleet and slush – all on Texas’ untreated roads. We survived, but it took forever.
At least we got home that day. J&S had to stay the night at the side of the interstate and restart their journey home the next morning.
I’ve had more than plenty of crazy weather this winter.
And more than plenty of a crazy schedule.