Back in 1947 a local rancher popped out into his back yard and found a large, disc shaped metallic object. He was convinced he'd found evidence of alien life with a UFO sat on his lawn where the geraniums used to be. Or maybe he'd had one too many beers. And so began another of those great American conspiracy theories, sitting alongside the JFK assassination and 9/11. Welcome to Roswell, Team Pocket to Socket.
As expected, Sunday was indeed a day of long runs with P2S clocking 162 miles in the day. Calm down before you get too cock a hoop though. For only the second time in this series, Team Minster Inn have scalped them with 168 miles logged and more examples of what passes as exciting in these days of lockdown.
When I'm logging the miles each morning, I've fallen into a slick routine. Take Lucy to work (believe me, a 5min drive to the hospital each day is now classed as exciting), get back, kettle on, bowl of shreddies. I look first to the YPHers who have emailed their miles in. Mini Inn are always in front after this with a combination of DGB, Di, Mel, Carl and Glynn. Even Danny's regular long contributions for P2S can't stand up to the might of the Mini Inn email crew.
After that it's the Facebook log and this is where P2S tend to hang out. A roar of approval went up this morning and I nearly choked on a shreddie when I came across Rachel's message. A fellow Mini Inner confessing to failure to log miles all week. She's previously been filing big numbers so I knew we were in for a treat. 56 miles, get in team mate. Rachel didn't disclose how many Percy Pigs were harmed in the delivery of these miles. For the curious and/or sceptical, Rachel delivered 14 miles yesterday and the remainder have been spread out over the previous week.
I keep scrolling down and consistently it is the same name who is last on the list of posts each day. The one who consistently records big miles, Emily. Now, she's on the other side and it's the waiting that gets you. You know it's coming and it's always more than 10 miles. Except today when Mini Inn had the last laugh. So I scroll down past Smithey and Flanagan and there I see it coming up next, Emily Burns with 12.5 miles. Cursing I diligently log it into the spreadsheet. But wait, there's more info below so I keep on scrolling. Jon Davies, 13.2 miles. Now he's a Mini Inn boy and for one day only we've had the last laugh. This is what lockdown does for the new normal in terms of excitement.
So, those 168 miles put Mini Inn at the Fort Stanton Snowy River National Conservation Area. Trips off the tongue. Well known for its miles of caves and guess what, its river covered in snow.
Texas and cowboy country is close, maybe today. Have fun folks.