AM - cruddy night sleep. I could not seem to get the hotel room cool enough. I was sort of up early but I waffled back and forth a jog. The calf felt okay but there was enough of a twinge in it that I thought it could be irked again if I ran on it. I finally got the shoes laced and headed out the door. Nearby is the University of North Carolina Charlotte, so I jogged in that direction, picking up the Shaw Trail. It was cool to see where the XC team had their intervals marked off on it (200, 400, 800, 1k, 1 mile, 2k). 6.1 miles and the calf felt pretty good. Either that or my hands were so cold as I forgot to wear gloves that I decided not to think about my calf.
I was able to enjoy connecting with another friend that I not seen in a long time because of my work. This time it was Larry. Larry was the guy that really pushed my backpacking boundaries in college. Those adventures alone would have been stacks of entertaining blog entries, and I was all the richer from it. We shared a house at Woodstock our senior year at UCONN – which we both find a bit hard to believe was 20 years ago now.
He didn’t hesitate in driving the hour from his place in SC up here to Charlotte to come get me and to share a great meal with him and his wonderful family. Even though I have not seen LAr in 8 or so years, we fell into conversation as if we had not seen each other in a week.
After yapping for several hours with him, his wife, and his kids, he drove me back to the hotel (and then turn around again to SC). Awesome to see this old friend, unfortunate that it was for just a short window.
