Not so Sweet Sixteen

SO here we are...the big one six! 40 miles away no less - needless to say my Chipper Sue and I decided to car pool to our run. The whole concept of schlepping in a car (so far that you resort to carpooling)just to run on foot seems foriegn to me. Surely (I thought) the course would be so worth the drive. Like the redwood park, I would have driven an hour just to kill myself on those ridiculous mountains. It was so beautiful! Chipper Sue and I found ourselves ending the driving directions in an oh so ordinary looking suburb neighborhood. Walking up, we found everyone meeting by a picnic table next to a giant port-o-potty. Nice. What was even better was another team joined us and the line for the giant, single hole I might add, was around the friggin' culdesac! Turns out our sixteen mile run was along a dry river bed...get this, on a cement sidewalk! Literally we ran in direct sunlight along an unforgiving hard slab of concrete for four miles out one direction, turned around and ran the same damn sidewalk we just ran (hitting the exact same water stops)for four miles back, pass our trusty port-o-potty, and then do the same thing out the opposite direction from starting point. I was bored, bored, bored. So was Chipper Sue. The concrete and direct sun were so draining and hard on our bodies. Not to mention I was highly menstral, cramping and cranky as hell. Actually, I thought I was IN hell. Both of us stayed strong and toughed it out with as much positivity as we could muster. The last mile and a half was achy on my hips and knees. (After this run entered the realm of taping down my iliotibial band, so genius)When we finished both of us were pretty over the lame course we drove 40 miles to experience, neither of us were hungry enough to eat the grub provided, and opted to not revisit the same gloomy port-o-potty with the neverending line. Big double thumbs down for San Leandro "Alameda Creek" course. Afterwards I discovered big fat blisters on my feet, jumped in a giant triple bagged ice bath (woah, scale back to two next time!) and bee lined it to the taco shack for some yummy fish taco protien. Cross my fingers that 20 miles is better!