Tales of the Kid, Part 3: No More Running Left in Me

The Kid is awake at 3:30 AM, a little before his alarm goes off. "Perfect," he thinks, "Now I can get a lake loop in prior to the 5:00 AM lake loop, which, of course, is prior to the usual 5:30 AM Big Nine Mile Loop."

Getting up in the early AM hours at all seemed problematic for the Kid. The previous morning he had gotten up at 1:45 AM in order to pick up his friends, Larry and Chris Orwin at 2:45, and get them to the start of the Burning River 100-Mile race by 3:30 for the 4:00 start. He had then made his way over to the Medina County Road Runners aid station in order to help out for about four hours. He had then managed to squeeze in a run on the towpath with some fellow MCRR volunteers, and had then gone into work for his 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM shift. And then he had gone home and crashed.

But after that, the Kid was just getting ready to drive some of Chris' pacers to various locations, when he received a call from the one called the 'Mountain Goat' to inform him that Chris had unfortunately dropped out. "I have no more running left in me," she'd told him.

No more running left in me, thinks the Kid, is a good way of saying that I just can't do this anymore; I've had enough. Or, in the words of famous runner Forrest Gump, "I'm pretty tired. I think I'll go home now."

Now that the Kid was off the hook, he was able get some additional rest and this in turn enabled him to wake up at an early hour for the second morning in a row.

So the Kid starts running around Hinckley Lake at 4:30 AM. He finds himself moving at a pretty decent clip - about nine-minute pace. The 5:00 AM crowd, Debbie Scheel and Caitlin Oblander, show up, and they begin another lake loop. This one's faster, and it has the Kid huffing and puffing a lot.

At 5:30 AM, the 5:30 crowd, Brian Rosenstock, appears, and the four begin their Big Loop. This doesn't go quite so well for the Kid, and he has a tough time keeping up, but Brian kindly stays with him.

The Kid is getting pretty tuckered out, more so as the run progresses. As he finishes up, Debbie and a few others (the 7:00 AM crowd), are milling around. Debbie asks the Kid if he wants to run another lake loop with her.

"No thanks," says the Kid, "I have no more running left in me."

MCRR BR100 Aid Station                 Photo by Jim Perichitti

P.S. Larry did, remarkably, make it to the finish of the BR100. That's quite an accomplishment. He evidently had just enough running left in him.