~19.7 mi @ ~16.3 min/mi

"Like Fight Club without the hitting!" - "Welcome to the Dark Side!" - "I'm in!" - "We get lost, and we find stuff!" - "Leave no one behind!" - "If you say 'Run', we'll run with you!" K2 and Roadkill brainstorm new mottoes for Dawn Patrol as we circle Clopper Lake. A big whitetail dear dances away through the brush, and suddenly ultra-comrade Anton Struntz materializes! Small world: the last time we saw each other was at the 2015 Marine Corps Marathon when he recited the St Crispin's Day speech from Henry V (see 2015-10-25 - Marine Corps Marathon).

"What do you want to do when you grow up?" Trail talk ranges widely today, existential-philosophical to pizza. (Is there a difference?) Beastie Boys' "No Sleep till Brooklyn" plays in Roadkill's mental jukebox; K2 suggests countering it with CCR's "Run through the Jungle". A long freight train rumbles across the high Seneca Aqueduct and we pause for photos beneath it, and at a dramatic outcropping above the stream. Bright new graffiti decorates the underside of MD-355.

"Oxer - it's a type of horse jump with two rails!", K2 explains, and answers naive questions about equestrianism. We arrive back at Sterman Elementary school DFL or nearly so, having added some bonus mileage within Seneca Creek State Park. A Roadkill dizzy spell is quickly cured by a K2 gift of Strawberry-Kiwi gel. Only one fall along the way - it's all good!

(trackfile) - ^z - 2018-11-01