Tales of a 6 am runner

For about a year now, I've been waking up at 5:45 am on Tuesday and Thursday mornings to run with a few of my lady friends. It's been interesting. Here are a few things we've experienced:
-Dog attacks (true story, ask Alyssa.)
-Forgetting shoes (another true story, ask Alyssa again.)
-Bloody noses (that one's all Rebecca... serious nose-bleedage.)
-Pouring rain (Like REALLY pouring. Like, soaking-wet-within-minutes kind of pouring rain.)
-Insane wind (I'm pretty sure we were running in place for over 3 minutes... true story.)
-Flooded trails (I'm talking ankle-deep water all across the trail.)
-Frozen trails (Both of us almost slipped and feel to our death.)
-Pitch black trails (When the sun doesn't show it's pretty little head until after 7:00 am, and there's no moon, and the clouds are covering ANY kind of natural light that may exist, the trail is pretty stinking dark. Even with TWO headlamps. We sufficiently freaked ourselves out... to the point of seeing a homeless man who wasn't really there... at that point, we turned around.)
-23* weather (No joke. We froze.)
-The 5:47 text message... it usually goes something like this "Do you REALLY want to run this morning?" to which a reply can go one of two ways. Either "I'm in. We're doing this" or "NO! There's NO WAY!" Thankfully, the latter response is almost never used.
-Crazy bikers who freak us out.
-Rude fellow runners who yell at us to move our car. (Yep, ask Alyssa.)

We've seen it all. Rain, wind, snow, floods.... crazy dogs, invisible homeless men, psycho cyclists... It's been so much fun, and I'm so thankful for my running buddies. Without which, I'm sure I'd NEVER drag myself out of bed.
So, here's to great times on the trail at 6 am! And to some wonderful, faithful, dedicated running pals!!