John - A different kind of fight

I just ran the Reno Tahoe Odyssey with my company’s team, Hometown Health 1. 

We placed 55^th out of 250 teams. 

The winning team, Runny Bums, had a quote on RGJ.com this morning:

“It was a pretty tough course. We’re all beat up. It was a fight. We fought for it.”

We ask our little dragons, “Is fighting good or bad?”

They all respond by saying, “Bad!”

However, when you get old enough, you should learn that not all fighting is bad.

People fight for their country, fight for their freedom, fight for their rights, fight for their life, fight cancer, fight disease, fight famine, fight for justice, and fight to win.

So, our RTO team and all the other RTO teams fought for 178 grueling miles. We went up and down hills and mountains. We ran during the day. We ran at night. We ran through cities, forests, and deserts. We ran by rivers and lakes. We ran next to speeding cars on the highway, and we ran past cheering crowds. I would call that an impressive fight.

RTO MAP:

SBN Terri also ran on an RTO team, Get Hoppy, and I’m proud that two masters belt testers were able to experience this challenge this year.

Below are my stats for last week. Since, I knew the RTO was coming up. I limited my activities because I knew I needed a large reserve tank for my runs. During the RTO, I ran some of the toughest runs in my life. I ended up running 14.09 Miles within 26.5 hours. I had a total elevation gain of 2,617 feet, and I averaged a 9:50 minute per mile pace over those miles and elevation gain. 

Also, with all my increased training the last few month's, I put a lot of wear and tear on my running equipment and my bike. The rear derailleur broke on my mountain bike, and now I need it repaired.