As most of these loop stories begin, Barron, Kindra, and I decided to put in a loop. This particular loop went down sometime in mid-January of '04 when we were tryning to put in some base work for track. It was a weekend so we had all day and we decided to put in a long loop and run to LT from my house, which is about a mile away from DGN. We set off and the loop started just like any other loop. It was a freezing cold day and Kindra hadn't run in like 2 weeks so he was bitching nonstop about our pace, and Barron was getting bored since we were going at a pace that could barely be considered running, so he began his usual pattern of being obnoxious.
For some reason, Barron was feeling particularly mischevious and the fact that we had to run over two highway overpasses was not a good omen. So we were making progress slowly but surely since we had to go at DK's ridiculously slow pace, but soon enough we got to downtown Hinsdale. As is a common practice for Barron, the sight of a car blocking the intersection that we were crossing sparked his knack for disregard, so he decided to wail on it's trunk. The guy in the car yelled something, and proceeded to turn around his car in pursuit. We put on a quick burst and turned down some side streets in order to lose him, which we did and came to the conclusion that the guy may not have even started to chace us in the first place. But the damage was done and the 3-4 blocks of sprinting took a lot out us (at least me and DK) which is no good when you're trying to put in a 14 miler. A little winded, but with our eyes on the prize, we kept on truckin and about 10 minutes later we crossed our second overpass. Barron was intriguied by the ice chunks and assorted trash on the side of the road and the fact that only a fence seperated those would-be projectiles and the speeding cars under the bridge, but being the law-abiding citizens we are, DK and I persuaded him to avoid commiting any crime.
Shortly after the overpass we got to LT and explored the school. We discovered these really weird ant-drug posters they had. (Stuff like: Say no to Crystal Meth". Which raised the quiestion: If you did crystal meth how effective would a poster in a high school locker room be in helping you rid yourself of your habit? But there was no use debating the effectiveness of outdated anti-drug posters, we were cold and thirsty.) After exploring LT, we went to the Jewel that was right by the school to get some Gatorade. We had like $5 and a sufficient amount of Gatorade for the 3 of us cost like $5.25. Barron graciously offered to get his shop lift on, but again DK and I made sure our friend stayed within the law. We were able to borrow some money from the lady in line behind us and drank our Gatorade at the Starbucks inside the Jewel.
After Gatorade, we hit the road again and realized that the last 7 miles of our loop would be straight into the gail-force winds (aka the faggot, but this term was yet to be conceived). Kindra was not pleased with the realization that he was going to have to actually man up and run into the wind and actually contemplated calling his mom and having her come pick him up (he revealed the fact that he brought a cell phone on the loop for this purpose). We convinced him to man up under the condition that we would keep the pace down.
Since this loop was an out and back we had to cross the overpasses again. This time Barron couldn't resist, and DK and I were too tired to notice that he had decided to throw his half-full bottle of gatorade at a semi. He had surprisingly good aim, but he assured us that "the driver didn't care" or something along those lines. We managed to keep him in check for the most part until we reached the second overpass. This time, he decided to get the rest of his mischeviousness out of his system. Unfortunately for one car speeding down the highway, this meant that a large chunk of ice was ticketed right for its windshield. To our dismay, the car stopped on the highway and pulled off to the side.. This scared the shit out of DK and myself and we quickly ran to a nearby church and hid in the parking lot (it made sense at the time). Eventually we summoned the courage to finish the loop - although the fear of an insane army vet with a weapon collection in the back of his car patrolling the streets for the trio of runners who threw ice at his car was in the back of my mind - and finally made it back to my house unkilled. Then we ate some donuts and called it a day.
The Untimely Duece:
I was too lazy to retype this, but this is from an online convo...
This was the summer i was doing 750 so i was putting in all kinds of mileage and on this particular evening (about 7ish) i decided i wanted to put in a loop and i decided to try out lyman woods cuz id never run there. so i take off and quickly realize something is not quite right. My bowels are acting up and i observe that im going to have to shit in the very near future. the route i was taking offered no bathrooms so i managesd to tame the beast until i got to the parking lot of lyman woods. Luckily there was a portapotty there so any damage was averted, but i was a little too leisurely in my relief and when i was done handeling my biz it was almost dark out. i figured i could just blaze through the woods and be on my way, but i was mistaken.
cubsrule3001 (6:27:20 PM): I get out of the portapotty and start running and there is this one section where there is really high grass on both sides and as i ran through this part i kept seeing these shadows walking across the path from one side to the other. luckily i had just dropped a duece cuz otherwise my pants would have been in danger. anyway, i ended up running about a 19 second 200 through this section and made it home alive.