Do you remember the 21st night of September?

I do, because 5 years ago today we got married.

All week long I have been hounded by people to write me recap of Reach the Beach. And I have been able to use the excuse of being sick not to write a recap (because good God have I been sick this week), but this will be my first full day of working this week and I probably should write a recap. You can see my pictures here.

If you read Dave’s post you’ll know that we got seeded too high and had too late of a start time and spent the majority of the race closing the transition areas. It was a very lonely race. We because team number 333, the last team on the course. They didn’t know our team name, Profile Deluxe, but people would say, “Ah team 333. We heard about you.”

During Dave’s second leg which was around 3:30 in the morning, in total darkness with heavy rain, and completely alone, he missed a turn that would have taken him to his transition area. We waited and waited at the transition for him to show up. Brian took the van and started looking for him, came back about 10 minutes later and said he couldn’t find him. I have never felt so sick. We all climbed back into the van, except for Bob who was to run next and went looking for Dave. We went backwards on the course until the last time we had seen Dave and couldn’t find him. It was nerve-wracking to be sitting next to Jim and watching him look out the windows into the ditches and fields. We turned around and went forward on the course and finally found him two miles in the wrong direction but coming back towards us. Luckily Dave had run into another team’s support vehicle who pointed him in the right direction. We picked him up and took him to the correct transition and luckily we didn’t get a penalty since we were already the last team.

The whole situation was very scary. I like to think of myself as completely independent and could do just fine by myself. Most of the time I put myself above others, especially Dave. I am very selfish and I know that. But losing Dave even for the span of 45 minutes scared the living daylights out of me. Maybe I do need him. Maybe I’m not as selfish as I think. Maybe somewhere deep down in this shallow dark hole called a heart, I actually love him more than I can express.

Happy anniversary Dave.