retired sauconys, a bee sting and 2 ankle twists

thursday i headed into palgrave for the usual 2 loops. i was on my own this week, as vents' holidays are over, and homey is once again on the temporary disabled list. stoopid calf! i'd had a massage from the ever-nasty channie the day before, and was feeling pretty good! i managed to cut 2 minutes off our record time, and included a bunch of crossfit. the run also gave me 450 miles on my old sauconys, so i figured it was time to retire them. they served me well, especially through the 146km of the sinister 7.

plans for saturday involved a repeat visit by the toronto pylons. i started out from humber station at 6:30 with my headlamp - it was still pretty dark. as i was just finishing off the dingle - the uphill part - i looked up and noticed robbie! he had come over from waterloo to join us!! we ran together up to cooli's, and met up with the rest of the guys - captain, digger, cy, vents, onions and the beaver. it was a pylon reunion! woo hoo! i believe there was only one rule infraction involving a pair of arm warmers, but we won't mention any names. after only 3 minutes and 47 seconds into glenn haffy, i made everybody stop so i could take a pic. i figured i wouldn't see the rest of them again!! do you like how they coordinated the shot, with the black shirts on the outsides, and the blue in the middle??!! almost as bad as the matching bel monte shirts last week.

me and vents managed to catch them at the top of the lookout by the 7th. notice how we all coordinated the colors again. what was up with that??!!!

and so the guys headed over to the water drop - no police this time - while me and vents kept going. well, vents stopped to turn around just before the entrance to the trail, but then decided to go a little further anyways. i was clueless as usual. while at the 'water station', cy managed to get stung, but was okay. the rest of us met up at the tai chi center, and i started on my way back. here's one of the brief moments the sun came out - on the 2nd switchback north of 9.

unfortunately, poor cy twisted his ankle just after leaving airport road, and had to walk up and eventually meet robbie for a ride back. and then a little later, digger was distracted by robbie going off to do 'whatever' in the bushes, and he too twisted his ankle. so according to cap, by the time they got to the dingle, there were only 2 of them left running. again, i was clueless. once i got back to my little red mazda, i drove up to the 7th to pickup the empty water bottles. i passed by cooli's and found cy sittting in the car waiting for the rest of the guys to finish. we decided to go and grab a coffee, and were later joined by the other 3 toronto pylons. we sat in timmies, digger with an ice pack on his ankle, and discussed training runs for our upcoming epic adventure to moab in november. in all, a great day!

thanks guys - life is good !