The RUR's in Bay Hundred

The Sunday morning crew - Pierre, James, Valliant, Dominic, Joel, Keene and Katherine, in Keene's shop before departing on a 6 a.m.'ish 13-mile run.

Drivers along Route 33 between St. Michaels and Tilghman, Md., are not used to seeing runners spread out along the road in the early morning hours. Neither are residents of Wittman, home of RUR stalwart Michael "Wood Frog" Keene.

But it's fall racing season, and the Wood Frog invited the RUR crew down to his neck of the woods to get in a good training run for upcoming marathons and half-marathons. We've got quite a crew gearing up for racing the inaugural Rehoboth Beach Seashore Marathon on Saturday, November 22. Dominic, Lori, and Valliant are signed on to give the full marathon a go, and relay teams of Keene/Joel and Katherine/James, will see each runner complete a half-marathon to finish the full distance. Come the weekend after Thanksgiving, while we're all figuring out what to do with those extra calories, Pierre will run them off at the North Central Trail Marathon, outside Baltimore.

For our Sunday run, we ended up with a hodgepodge of runners, working at various speeds, engaging in various conversations, and running with different folks, accordion-style, closing in on and catching up to one another, and spreading out, all reconvening at Keene's after 13 miles. Pierre saddled back up and ran another 7+ miles back home and beyond to get in his last long run before his marathon.

Rather than give you a narrative of the run, I offer some thoughts that Keene shared with the group later on. The things that stuck in his head:

- Katherine’s muffins (I think there were 6 fewer muffins then when she left her house; Woody?)

-The sunrise over Harris Creek and the warm light hitting the trees.

-The great conversation I had with a French marathon runner

-Joel talking a little louder than usual because he had his IPod earphones in his ears.

-Joel, talking louder than usual, when he asked me if I “owned tights” as we passed my waterman neighbor who was getting his newspaper out of his box.

-Joel doing pushups on the Tilghman Island road.

-Joel running one of his longest distances he’s ever run

-Woody running over the Tilghman Bridge and me wondering if he really won’t shower until the 22^nd

-Wondering if, in deed, Bieber is qualified to critique graphics

-Wishing there was someone on a bike distributing Gatorade and muffins to us dehydrated and fuel starved runners

-Wishing I had my new Clif gels from the backseat of Lori’s car

-Wondering if Derek ever wants to run on flat ground again; Route 33 is a dream, except for that hill leading up to the bridge

-Wondering, “Charlie who?”

-Dominic closing gaps in distance between runners on a whim.

-The thought of Katherine’s muffins waiting back in my barn to be eaten

-The expression on my neighbor Margaret’s face when runners kept turning into our driveway at 8:30 in the morning

Very many thanks to Keene for hosting and route planning, and to Katherine for muffin-baking, and for all who came out to run!