Ended up not taking the camera and just opted to carry my iPod Shuffle instead (which died a few miles in... that thing has been a piece of Junk!)
But, the run was Beautiful! The leaves hadn't changed yet, but the foliage was still gorgeous.
Someone asked 'why the Creeper'? We obviously are blessed with tons of trails to run on here in East TN, I didn't 'have' to go to the Creeper to run, but here's why I did:
It started out that we have a group that goes and bikes it and camps every fall (for about the last 7 years or so I guess) and so the idea of running it one time instead of biking was always there. Last year a friend and I had planned to run it and began getting ready, had the campsite booked, travel plans made, and 2 days before we were to leave, my wife and I went in for a routine checkup (she was pregnant with our 2nd after 8 months of fertility issues) only to have the doctors tell us that the baby was gone. A miscarriage had taken her and that my wife needed to stop taking the progesterone (that her body requires to sustain a pregnancy), start taking pain meds, and stay fairly near a hospital in case of complications. The Creeper was out, and the furthest thing from our minds. We stayed nearby home instead, actually went to a little campground about 15 minutes away to camp just to get our minds off things and try to spend sometime with a few friends. My wife, my stubborn, intuitive, hopelessly optimistic wife, refused to stop taking her progesterone and refused to take the pain meds.
1 year later, that baby that the doctors had said was gone is now 4 months old.
And we took her to the Virginia Creeper with us this year.
So why the Creeper? To celebrate. To celebrate miracles, hope, new life, and The Creator of the beautiful creation we ran through this year to celebrate - With the new life that, on that very weekend last year, we thought we had lost.
For those interested, here is that story, the story of our daughter who's middle name is... Hope.
Special thanks to my dear friend Kevin who was supposed to run it with me last year and came back with just a few days notice to run it with me (more than double the distance of his furthest run Ever) this year in honor of baby Hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment