The weather was a warm 85 degrees, the sun bright. Families sat on front porches, sipping cold drinks and watching children play in the grass.

"Well, that looks like a nice way to spend a springtime Saturday," I thought.

But then again, pretty much anything short of torture could have ranked higher on the pleasant scale than my endeavor: The Texas Independence Relay, a two-day, 40-leg, 203-mile run from Bastrop to the San Jacinto Monument.

My initial decision to participate is fuzzy, but I vaguely recall an early-morning, exercise- and endorphin-influenced assent to join a 12-member relay team for the race.

Several months later, with too-new running shoes and very little training logged, the reality of the situation hit me like a cannon blast.

And quite literally with the blast of a cannon, which signaled our 8:36 a.m. start time on Saturday. After a half-mile ceremonial prologue lap with the rest of the team, I was already winded.

Trials and tribulations

Our 12-person team was split between two 15-passenger vans, with each runner assigned two or three legs — totaling between 16 and 20 miles — spread out over the course of the weekend.

One van would caravan runners while the other drove ahead to the next exchange point, six legs or roughly 40 miles later, where the vans switched active duty. The off-duty van allowed each runner several hours for food and rest between legs.

My first, a 6.41-mile run up the steady inclines leading into Schulenburg, felt unexpectedly easy for the first five miles, but an overbearing afternoon sun, the heat-radiating pavement and two steep hills made the last mile pretty brutal.

As I neared the switch off point, a combination of dehydration and a little too much Spark energy drink, I vomited. And then rallied.

This episode accounted for just one of many adverse effects that inevitably come about after running and trailing other runners for 33-plus straight hours: Blisters, chafing, borderline heat exhaustion, countless Porta-Potty bathroom breaks, sleeping in the van, getting lost, the lack of exercise-appropriate dining options in small towns (I'm looking at you, Columbus).

Come and take it

While I don't want romanticize the challenging, painful experience in retrospect, the race had definite positives.

I discovered that nothing compares to running along a country road through the fog at 3 a.m., smelling the sweet, musky jasmine, hearing crickets and cows and rustling grass, with just a head lamp to light the way.

I found an unbounded camaraderie between runners of vastly different skill levels. I experienced rural and urban Texas in a way I never thought that I would. And I realized that the undertaking was possible.

My second leg — a quiet and flat 4.13-miles in the middle of the night — redeemed the first. And my third, though a hot and hilly five miles through Memorial Park and along the Buffalo Bayou to the Wortham Center, afforded much-needed shade and a familiar, welcoming skyline view.

​Our team's later-than-expected arrival at the finish line meant that the banner and post-race pizza were gone, but with a makeshift finish line and a couple of cold Lone Star tall boys, we didn't need a ceremony.

We finished. That was the ultimate reward.