TIR Trash Talking has begun!

Oh, boy! This is going to be fun!

Waverly and I went to a social that Luke's Locker in The Woodlands put on for a number of individuals in the running community here on the far north side of the area. It was a mixture of a number of different groups and constituencies.

Here's just a sampling of who was there this evening:

+ One of the city's best female veterans runner, Nancy Prejean.
+ Lou Wilson and his wife, two-time Ironman Nora Wilson.
+ The Woodlands Running Club president David Wadsworth and his wife, Jeanette.
+ Husband-and-wife speedsters Buck and Kerry Snyder.
+ TWRC members Carlos Ortegon, Anne Leoni and JoAnn Blakeley.
+ USA Triathlon All-American and Tri One-O-One race director Dana Lyons.
+ Store employees Andrew Perry (and his wife), Tara Wilson and Cathy Steele.
+ Team Timex professional triathlete Kim Hager.
+ Luke's Locker Beat participant Althea Caldwell (and her husband).
+ Montgomery County Quad recipient (on Saturday) and TWRC member Debbie Tripp.
+ Jim Braden's wife, Karen. (Jim is already in Colorado and getting ready for Bolder Boulder 10k on Monday.)

There were many others. (Perhaps Bill will send me an e-mail and I can update this post.)

Thanks to Mike Lucas, Susie Schreiber and the staff for having everyone in the store for a couple of hours after closing time this evening. We really had a great time!

By the way, our team has added its 12th team member. She is Karen Felicidario from The Woodlands, a neighbor of the DirtRunner himself, Rick Cook. (Her signing up to run with all of us shows that Rick has positively rubbed off on her!) That makes Christy Gonzales our first alternate!

I can't disclose the members of Bill's team yet until they are official; however, two of their team members - and speedsters - were at the social this evening and the trash talking has already begun! One of them doesn't like to run in the dark and the other - well, how can I say this - got lost during a trail run in Coldspring this past March.

Once the Texas Independence Relay produces its manual with leg distances and all, we'll have a group outing for both teams! (This will most definitely be after Cassie gets back from Japan.)

One of the items up for discussion is that the TIR will allow teams to mix up the order of the runners as long as everybody runs their appropriate number of legs.

I'm going to lobby heavily - and I think Bill is actually in agreement with me - that we'll follow the traditional methods that the first runner would run legs 1, 13, 25 and 37. The second runner does 2, 14, 26 and 38 and so on. (But I'll check with our team consultant for guidance on that!)

We had a good laugh as I told everyone that we'd be telling our team not to worry about falling behind by 8 or 10 minutes as their two speedsters opened up a lead as we'd just make it up on Bill's leg! (Seriously, though, Bill is doing the Capital of Texas Triathlon on Monday in Austin and we're all pulling for him to do well. I did tell him that he couldn't walk in the water.)

Day trip to Columbus, Ohio tomorrow. Run The Woodlands 5K on Saturday morning and likely, a 12-mile TWRC club run on Sunday morning.