Go, you chicken fat, go away!

Mike was sick today, and John was in Flagstaff.  Luckily Alyssa and Phil came to run this morning.  Alyssa has run a few Ragnars with me.  At least three that I can think of, maybe four.  I'd never met Phil before.  He's a friend of Rebecca's who was on our team last year.  This week we assigned legs to all the runners.  Phil will be our first runner.  His first leg is no joke and Alyssa and I laughed in unison when he told us he was the first runner.  I'll be runner #10.  My first leg is 8.2 miles and my second is 5 miles, both a gradual uphill the whole way.  My last leg will be downhill, then evens out with a few rollers.  Anyway, Alyssa has been battling diabetes this year, so I hope she's able to get in shape enough to run her 13 miles.  Today she walked all the way to the top and jogged back down.  Phil and I ran the first half mile together.  Then he asked if I would be offended if he picked up the pace.  I told him not at all and it didn't take long for him to put a significant gap between us.  However, then he started walking.  Looks like he was doing the Galloway method.  It worked for him.  He stayed in front of me the whole time.  Today was the first time this year I made it all the way to the top and all the way back down.  So, that was good.  About a mile and a quarter into my downhill, I saw Alyssa.  I stopped to see how she was doing.  She assured me she was all right.  We started running this morning about 8:30am, so it was really warming up and my mouth was drying out.  I was glad to finally finish, and that last half mile seemed like it took forever.  I drove up to check on Alyssa, and I saw her jogging back down almost the same place I saw her on her way up.  Once again, she said she was doing fine.  I asked if she wanted me to follow her.  She declined.  She just texted me as I'm typing this up to say she made it.  I'm proud of her.  We should have a fun van.