TIR: The Livers Made It!
By Gabriel Trinidad, Rogue Runner and Texas Independence Relay Finisher
Team "We would rather be livers than have one" Made it ahead of our projected finish of 31:45:09!!!
We finished (203mi) in 31:14:00 hours!!!!!!!! With just 47 miles left 2 of our runners got lost on their legs out in the Barker Cypress reservoir in the Katy/Houston area.....we lost our 1:15:00 advantage we had built....that was after starting off early with one of our runners getting lost in leg 4 of 40 and putting us in a negative projected arrival time! By far one, if not the hardest run I have ever done! Many stories to tell for another day.
We put together a team of eight runners so my friends Tom and Carla McGinty from Charlotte N.C. could get some miles in and make it worth the trip, Eloy Collazo from Sam Marcos, Kenneth Hausmann and Eleazar Trevino from Austin, Ken Black from Houston, Hal Schwartz from Dallas....only eight runners...big mistake....who knew....we were so ill prepared!!!! Shout out to Mr. Hal Schwartz who everyone and I mean everyone did not think would complete his 5 legs of the race....came thru after fighting the flu the week before!!!!! AMAZING WHAT PRIDE AND VANITY CAN GET YOU THRU!!!!!!!!
Thanks for all the shout outs (cell calls) along the way. I just could not answer...after hours of running into a 25 to 30mph headwind for so much of the race no sleep for close to 38 hours and a diet of chips, ham and baloney sandwiches, sausage wraps, cokes, nutter butters, sprees candy.....after a while... anything we could find in the big towns of Flatonia, Weimer, Schulenburg Borden, Eagle Lake, Wallis etc....from midnight till 5 in the morning made it tuff to want to do anything but finish...so ill prepared.
The sight of the San Jacinto Monument after starting out in Gonzales with the Cannon firing to start your race and where the Texians said to Santa Anna "Come and take it" and knowing the Alamo and Goliad were literally just speed bumps to slow down the Mexican army so that Sam Houston could organize the Texian army was very cool.
One of my legs in the town of Altair (6.32mi) at 11pm, I was really hurting and started thinking of what our Rogue/Marathon coach Amy and Steve Sisson had discussed during the Austin Marathon pep rally.... how to "get my head back in the game" ...."Why am I really doing these"....positive affirmations...What did I want my teammates to shout out as they shadowed me by car for encouragement...so... I started thanking God and saying how fortunate I was to physically be able to do this and then a big grin would come over me and I would say out loud "Thank you Lord for letting me born in Texas".....seriously... that's why us folks from Texas are so proud of our heritage and I would then crack up to myself and keep on running!!!
I swear Pride and Vanity......
