I am happy to report the wedding was a wonderful success and I enjoyed dancing the night away!
El Paso is far! I could see Mexico (Juarez) from my hotel room. That meant Friday and Sunday were primarily travel days, but luckily I had some good reading materials.
The wedding was at 2pm on Saturday, which meant I had the morning to do whatever I wanted to do. What did I choose to do? Meet up with a local running club of course! I had a 12 mile run on my training schedule for the weekend. Originally, I was just planning on doing a shorter run, potentially on the hotel treadmill. Friday night though, I stumbled upon www.runelpaso.com. The website was super friendly & made it clear newcomers were welcome to just show up. I figured this would be a great way to get my run in & save me from the treadmill.
Unfortunately, just show up was at 5:30am. Luckily, El Paso is two hours behind my usually timewise so that was really like 7:30am! When I showed up to the random parking l, there were a ton of cars in the parking lot but no people. Eventually, a group of about 12 rolled in. It became clear pretty quickly that they were both super friendly and super fast. They were all planning on doing 12 which worked out really well. We all took off & I just tried to hold on.
I managed to stick with the two guys above (yes we are walking here to figure out the best route). They were both former college runners and were now in their late 30s. They kept me entertained along the route, and I really felt I got to experience a different side of El Paso (especially considering all I saw Friday was the mall and Olive Garden). I love using running to get to know a city - you totally get to see a different side they you would just doing the tourist things. They pointed out which mountains were New Mexico, and which were Mexico. We stopped about 2 miles from the Mexico boarder and headed back to our cars, which is good because I left my passport at home. Along the way, I saw the house a CPA for a drug cartel spent two years building. Just when I was considering a career change, they informed me that the was killed a month after he moved into it. It is crazy to hear the stories are true!
After the run, they invited me to breakfast which was delicious and gave me a chance to get to know the group. A lot of our conversation was similar to the ones I have with my Team Z teammates. Running/triathlon is such a universal connector.
Due to the early start, I had time to relax before the ceremony, which was wonderfully short for a Catholic wedding. After the ceremony before the reception, some friends and I went to take a tram to the top of a mountain where you can see Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico. It was beautiful! I love good views!
Then it was on to the ceremony to dance the night away!
Great run w/ new friends, great views, and dancing = my perfect day.
Sunday was another long travel day. My flight from Houston was delayed until the passenger I was sitting next to got kicked off the plane (something got messed up with his check in) and then we had to wait 40 minutes for an open gate. Luckily, I bought Born to Run when I got to the airport and finished it right before we got the open gate. It was really interesting to get a glimpse of the ultrarunning community. I could have done without the whole "shoes are evil" spiel but luckily that was a relatively short portion of an otherwise really entertaining book. I would recommend it to anyone who likes running!
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