I now know how toast feels

There is something about making hay.
It's a preparation and a planning for hard times and inclement weather to come.
A laying aside.
It's the value and pleasure that fatigue,sweat, sun, toil, comradeship and laughter can give you on a hot summers day.
That, and I like the smell.
So on Sunday we made hay. It was good hay too. Man sized bales, that were tightly packed and strung tight with green twine. A testament to the honesty and integrity of the man who cut and baled the grass.
It was a pleasure to grunt with the effort of lifting them.
We started at 7am, there were five of us. The air was still cool and the humidity was in the teens. We worked through until 3p.m when it wasn't.
The barn was full with laughter, the smell of beer and fresh hay when I left them. They had money in their pockets and I had hay...one of the greatest exchanges I think that I have made.
I then meet Mike, for the first of my long runs. 15 miles.
I havn't got a lot of time left before this race, but I have had pretty much continous improvement, and only one day off with a cold. My weight has dropped 10lbs and I can maybe wring another couple out of myself before March 7th.
My legs though are a dead weight from the bike with Ant the day before. For the first time, I have made his eyes sink back in his head with fatigue, and made his normally calm facade taut with the effort of climbing the hills... I am biking stronger than he is.
Today however I am paying the price...I learn later that he was too tired to do more than a short ride...while I am out suffering through 15 of foot.
Mike chatters away, he can do this because he is on his mountain bike...while I haul myself up the road through the mile bush grunting monosyllabic replies. I have loaded him up with toilet paper, water bottles, a change of clothes, vaseline, money and cellphone...even though there are no shops or coverage where we are going. I am slow...real slow, but the hours and hours on the bike have given me a residual strength that I find heartening.
The humidity is uncomfortable, and soon I have run out of space to wipe the sweat off myself, so with the bottom of my wet singlet I just spread into a sheen around my face.
At half way I wring it out, and put on a dry one. It is soon as wet as the first.
It's an interesting feeling reducing yourself to a pile of soggy ash in a fraction of the time that it takes upon a bike. In 2hours 20 I am back on Mikes doorstep swilling tea with him. I Didn't use the toilet paper, money or cellphone...but felt security in having Mike and they with me.
I have to say though, that after today, I now know how toast feels.