Not a good day today,.....But last weekend? Yeah, that was good.

Out on the trail today it just didn't feel well at the start. Usually it takes awhile for me to get "in the Groove." After a mile I start to settle into a get comfortable pace. That comfort did not come today. I slowed, I walked, but just could not get my legs to respond on today's 4ish miles (visions of those hiking shoes I saw at REI last Sunday sure looked good).  Just when I thought I'd send my friend John a text saying "I can't do it anymore!" he calls me! I told him what I was thinking and we laughed. For over a year now I have not been able to run comfortably, or maybe comfortably at the pace I am used to. Time to slow down? That is difficult to accept.
 Once home, I dropped and broke my smoothie jar. I
Hung it up for the evening. There will be another day.
John wanted to tell me how humbled he was by our recognition of him as our groups founder.
Saturday last, our group gathered at Hill Country State Natural Area near Bandera Texas for ROCKHOPPER weekend. Rockhopper weekend was an idea our member Rich had three years ago. Rent the lodge at the park and have any and all members and friends come for a day, a night or two. It's been a real hit.
Ten years ago John had a dream of forming a group of fun loving trail runners in the San Antonio area. I thought he should be recognized for it. I asked Ed, one of our group members, to paint an image of John on a run at the Nueces River from a photo I had. We presented it to John at the Lodge at last Saturday's Rockhopper weekend.

John said it takes more than one guy with an idea to make it happen. As I remember it, John gathered email addresses at a training run we attended from people he thought may be interested in forming a trail running group. He envisioned an informal group with no dues, no officers, no politics. Early on there were five then it was reduced to three of us. Then we grew to seven! Arne gave us the name, I got us on the web with a blog that Tim turned into a website, Brian the friendly giant, Chris the 15 year old in a man's body, Liza the talented everyone's friend runner, and Tom with his quick wit, helped bring so many others to join us.
Today we are a fun loving bunch of Ultra and sub-ultra trail runners who support each other. Whether you run 50 or 100 milers, 50K's, Marathons or 10K's. Win, place in top 10, are a mid-packer, or come in DFL. We love you. We are a group who, as Chris puts it;
"Take our running seriously, but don't take ourselves seriously."

 We had Fun running in the Hill Country mud and rain last Saturday.

Fun with the Rockhoppers.