This One's Rated R for language

We can all agree 2020 is off to a shitty start. So far we find ourselves living through a pandemic and  the social and economic fallout of said pandemic.  Meanwhile, Americans are faced with an election that is deplorable with no great option of a leader to help guide us through this nightmare.  And amid all this, when we need our friends and family the very most, we're being asked to social distance, stay home alone, and for the love of God keep our damn hands to ourselves (but don't you dare touch your face with your hands that's a big no no).  I'm actually sitting here watching the Sunday morning show and there's a segment explaining how to safely hug people. It's ridiculous. Yes there are countless lemons in 2020 so far and those are some numbers that, like Coronavirus numbers, seem to keep growing.  Well, Mird and I didn't let this all get us down this past week. No, instead we went ahead and took those GD lemons and made some fucking awesome lemonade together. And then we went ahead and added vodka to it and drank that shit like it was going out of style.  My liver definitely needs a vacation from that vacation!  But we didn't just drink all week long.  We're better than that!  Mird and I did some awesome running too!  We finally pulled off the Big Ten 10K in Spartan style with a couple of our favorite running buddies! 

A little background on the Big Ten 10K. It's an awesome race put on each July in Chicago and the participants register for the Big Ten team they will represent on race day. Everyone's shirts are in their team's colors and the race itself is somewhat of an unofficial contest to see which team has the best representation come race day.  Well Mird and I've wanted to run this one for years ever since our lifelong friends Sarah and Jane endorsed it as the best 10K they've run.  The Bennett girls have run it several times. Well every July we're too damn busy to fit in this race.  One silver lining to all the lemons of 2020 is the fact that nobody's too busy anymore because everything is canceled.  Like so many other races, the Big Ten 10K went virtual which sealed the deal.  The sisters could literally run the race anywhere in the world on any day the week of July 26th and bonus we already had plans to be camping together that week if the damned pandemic would cooperate and the State Parks remained open.  Well small miracles do happen and this past week we not only went camping for a week as planned, but we also managed to pull off the Big Ten 10K!  GO GREEN!

This was Team Sparty aka Mas Rapido!

As far as a race day recap here's the basics.  It was fucking HOT, Like Haiti in July during a heatwave with the heat turned on full blast, hot.  And it was HUMID, like sitting in a sauna in a snowsuit drenched in sweat, humid.  So I'll be honest I was not excited to run on this particular day.  Internally, I thought maybe we should wait until later (or never) before we go ahead and run a 10K in these impossible conditions. Well after setting up camp and with impending rain on the horizon and a few sprinkles in the air, we decided to head out on our adventure against my better judgement.  It wasn't awesome initially. I'll say it again, it wasn't awesome initially.  Initially it sucked ass running in air that was heavy and hot and difficult to breathe with tired legs and no crowd to encourage us. About 2 miles in the rain began and then it got awesome! Really awesome! The rain definitely saved us.  In the end, it all worked out and I got to run the Big Ten 10K with Marisa which is a testament to her awesomeness because she could've run fast. She could've finished 10 minutes earlier and been drinking a beer when I arrived back to camp, but she chose to run with me!  She's really a special human being.  A woman of character who gives 110% to all things in her life!  The fact that she chose to run with me means I was basically running with Spartan Royalty for this race because Marisa ran Spartan Cross Country a few years ago so she's legit!   So despite all my reservations, we had a glorious run and then ate amazing pork thanks to our injured friend Amy who created an amazing post race feast for us!

Well we are already busy planning our next adventure and I still have one race that I'm working to write up so stay tuned for some more running adventures in this crazy Coronavirus year!

Vern and Mird Out...No actually in on the couch recovering from this one!