There is a wicked-ugly fight brewing that just might tear our friendships asunder about the name for the structure behind us: campanile, carillon or bell tower

We would have had a kickfight deathmatch over it this morning, but we couldn’t move our legs because we’d just run 11 miles.

Oh, yeah: Did I mention that WE RAN 11 MILES!

(Minus about 3/4 miles for walk breaks, but still.)

Some thoughts about this morning’s run:

• The 5.5-mile turnaround on our route is out in the middle of a cornfield and along a lonely highway.
• It seems REALLY FAR.
• Plus NO SHADE.
• Our route also runs under two highways that we think are 30 and 380, but it would be cool for them to be labeled along the route just to quell our curiosities.
• I like the word quell.
• Quell.
• It would also be cool if the lonely country road were labeled to quell the curiosities of people on the trail.
• There’s that word again.
• I’m on a roll!
• Anyway, I have NO idea what highway it might be.
• We saw four hot guys running on the trail with their shirts off.
• I didn’t get any of their numbers.
• But the one in the yellow shorts ...
• Wow.
• (Call me.)
• I have some kind of knee soreness that feels like it might become a bit of a problem over time.
• Stay tuned for updates—I’m sure I’ll bitch about it here ad nauseam if it gets worse.
• I also love the term ad nauseam.
• Though people often misspell it with an -um ending.
• Don’t do that.
• On one of our first long runs on the Cedar River Trail, I swear I noticed an old-timey wooden staircase overgrown with weeds and climbing up a hill from the trail to a dense thicket of woods.
• Which, of course, is evidence of witches.
• I like the word thicket.
• Thicket.
• Rob and Scott didn’t see the staircase, and I was so exhausted and hurting along the run that I truly considered the possibility that I’d hallucinated it.
• Or I’d missed my opportunity to visit Brigadoon.
• We’ve been looking for it on our long runs ever since, with no luck.
• So my money was on Brigadoon instead of witches.
• Anyway, I FOUND IT AGAIN TODAY.
• So maybe I’m a witch.
• It isn’t as old-timey as I remember it, but it definitely climbs from the trail through a bunch of overgrown weeds to the nowhereness of a thicket of woods.
• So it’s definitely witches.
• Thicket.
• Anyway, if you want to see it or you’re looking for a local coven to join, it’s at mile 4.4 on your right as you head south on the trail from its intersection with the Lion Bridge.
• WE RAN 11 MILES, PEOPLE!
• Quell.
• Ad nauseam.
• Thicket.
• Campanile.

One final note: I took all my non-car keys off my car key ring before the run so they wouldn’t bounce and jingle in my pocket for 2.5 hours, and I randomly left them on my bed before I headed off to run. When I came back exhausted and slightly loopy and for some reason holding my glasses in my hand instead of wearing them on my face, I saw the copper-brown lump sitting there and my first thought was that the cat had pooped in my bed.

It’s not that very good a story but I’m still exhausted and loopy from our 11-MILE RUN! and that’s all I got.

Campanile!