“You know you can buy Blue Bell ice cream at the store.. You don’t have to run 6 miles for it.” – Noah Voigt

All the same, this weekend I ran 6.22 miles to get a strawberry Popsicle in my belly. There were other reasons for running it, though. Important reasons. Like, I needed a goal to get myself to stop watching marathons of Mad Men on Netflix and get on the treadmill… not that it worked all that well…

I finished the 10k in 1:09:53. My goal was under an hour. What does this mean? I need to run more 10ks and just keep running them until I get under that 1 hour goal. Likewise, I need to run more 5ks. I ran the Turkey Trot with my sister and a couple of her friends this past Thanksgiving and finished it in under 30 minutes, but when we started the race on Saturday I hadn’t run 6 miles since my half-marathon last October. Needless to say, I didn’t train hard enough, but that’s no bother! I didn’t collapse either so I’ve come quite some way since Summer ’10 when I was “training” to run a 5k because I couldn’t even run a mile. So I’ll take it. 😀

I’d like to take a moment to applaud the other people who tackled this 10k with me:

Daniel–finished in 47 minutes and something. His goal was sub-45, but the race was hilly and he also didn’t train very much for this race. Last 6 mile run: the April ’11 Blue Bell 10k.
Michael–no idea when he finished, but he trained and I imagine he finished at or around the same time as Daniel. Those long legs make for a nice easy stride, I imagine. He’s got the wingspan of a freakin’ albatross. Last 6 mile run: April ’11 Blue Bell 10k.

But the REAL achievers here (in my book) and the ones who should be the MOST proud of themselves:

Christina and Kara–finished around 1:11ish and kept with each other the entire race, challenging and pushing each other to finish in an excellent time. Last 6 mile run: NEVER. You ladies are awesome!

A little background info before I move on to the rest of my epic Saturday: April 14th has been my favorite day of the year since Miss Congeniality hit theaters and Heather Burns as Cheryl Frasier a.k.a Miss Rhode Island delivered that amazing line in response to William Shatner’s question “Miss Rhode Island, how would you describe your perfect date?” (she answered with “I would have to say April 25th, because it’s not too hot, not too cold, all you need is a light jacket”). I decided then and there that I was also fond of the April month for that very same reason and because it’s the only even springtime month, but that I would likely opt for the 14th, not only because it’s even but because I was #14 in my class registry from 1st through 5th grade (oddly, that’s where “Morgan” fell alphabetically in relation to all of my classmates last names every year) AND I discovered that “14” comprised the two-digit center number hyphenated out of my SSN. Also, Abraham Lincoln was shot (not killed) on April 14th, so not only does it have major historical significance, it also represents the handful of hours where there was at least a little hope left in the post-civil war US.

Epic Saturday part two: Daniel and I drive to Houston.

This gets a little jumbled. Originally, we were driving to Houston to meet my parents for lunch and to go to the Fine Arts Festival in the Woodlands with Taylor and David. Unfortunately, we were going to have a couple of hours to kill in between and decided we’d spend that time bouldering/rock climbing at Stone Moves. Well, as we got closer to Saturday, April 14th, my parents decided not to go to Houston and instead to meet us for dinner on Friday here in College Station, and David got an infection on his stomach and he and Taylor could no longer go to Spring for the weekend. So what did Daniel and I do? We stayed the course, of course. We drove to Houston, ate lunch at Chuy’s (after a minor tift over my inability to make a decision), and went bouldering on our very worn out legs for three hours. Yes, we could have done all of that without ever leaving College Station, but we had planned to make an adventure of our Saturday and BY GOLLY we were going to stick to that plan, come hell or high water.

Bouldering was a good bit of fun, minus the exhaustion that overcame me about an hour in, but the highlight of that minor adventure? We met a guy named Tyler and climbed with him for awhile. As we get ready to leave, he turns to Daniel and says something to the effect of,

“Hey man, I hate to do this but I couldn’t let you leave without saying anything… You look exactly like Zac Efron. I didn’t want to say, ‘Hey, do you know you look like…’ because I’m sure you hear it all the time, but I seriously feel like I’ve been climbing with Zac all day. ”

I NEVER get tired of that.

From there, the original plan was to move onto the Fine Arts Festival. This likely would have been fun, except for the fact that Daniel and I had some pretty exhausted limbs. Instead, we drove across the street to a Target and bought some Icy Hot for his knees.  I called up my fancy woodlands friends to see if they might be interested and grabbing dinner with Daniel and I before we headed back to College Station. Dinner turned into a super awesome game night with the Voigts (Luke, Amanda, and Noah)  where I lost something awful, and Daniel and I made it back to College Station around midnight, exactly 18 hours after we had left it.

Needless to say, I woke up the next day and hurt everywhere, but it was an incredible day out filled with lots of friends and food and a strawberry fruit bar, which totally made running 6 miles worth it. 😀