I returned yesterday afternoon from a long weekend of running, aching, camping, and itching (not necessarily in that order). On Friday night, Eric, Trent, Mike, Becky, and I drove to Florence and stayed the night at Trent's parent's beach house. Trent, Mike, and I ran the Cape Mountain Trail Run for the second year in a row and had a blast. The only rough section of the run came after I referred to Mike as a stallion and his body had a strange reaction to the compliment (mainly comprised of muscle cramping due to dehydration).

After the race, we stuck around for door prizes and everybody won one except for me. Trent won a free pair of shoes for the second year in a row! He is one wild and lucky guy.

We soon headed back to the beach house to get cleaned up before our drive to Diamond Lake (Eric, Trent, and me).

Ok, this blog is getting longer than I expected and I'm sleepy. So, here is the abridged version...

Arrive at campground
Lots of mosquitoes
Tent is hard to set up
Mosquitoes are hungry
Hang out inside tent
Go to bed
Wake up
Eat breakfast
Mosquitoes
Drive to trailhead
Begin
Mosquitoes
Hiking
Mosquitoes
Running
Mosquitoes
Incredibly hot outside
Mosquitoes
Devils club
Mosquitoes
Lose trail often
Mosquitoes
Somehow entire loop trail is uphill
Mosquitoes
Heat exhaustion
Mosquitoes
Drive back to camp
Eat lunch
Eat dinner
Sleep
Wake up
Drive to Crater Lake
Beautiful
Mosquitoes
Drive back to camp
Nap
Swim in lake
Mosquitoes
Nap
Eat dinner
Sleep
Wake up
Drive home

It was an awesome time! Here are a couple of pictures...

Well, about 24 hours from now I'll be somewhere around mile 8 in my 26.2 mile odyssey.

Pain is my friend. Pain is my friend. Pain is my friend.

In other words, I'm expecting to never use "marathon" and "fun" in the same sentence. Unless, of course, there's a "not" tossed in the middle somewhere.