With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams...

bwaaahhhhaaaaahhhaaaa...... nothing.  nothing at all.

6 miles in the "Harem-Inn" with RAD.  She took me on the "flatest" course and it was too hilly for me.  Can't wait for the "hilly" route.

I love mountains.

I love watching the sun rise in the mornings over the peaks and paint the sky with pinks and oranges.

Life is good.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

 Yesterday, Rachel said, "you see those green water tanks on the hill?  That's High Country."  I was NOT thinking clearly and said, "Well, let's run that tomorrow!" BAD idea.

 We ran from her house, which is 20 yards away from where we were in this pix, and ran up the hill to the houses you see in the background, and up on the side of the mountain.  It was crazy steep.  uphills like I'd never seen before, and when it wasn't super steep, it was super windy.  I'm glad I survived.  It was tough!!

 We saw 4 deer at one house, and another group of them in the brush on the hill.  Then we saw a flock of game birds.  We were almost home when bada-bing, what do you know?  A parade of turkeys!!!

The little rooster in front was cock-a-doodle-doing himself crazy, and the toms and hens were gobble, gobble, gobbling in their crazy turkey voices.  It was the best thing ever.  A Thanksgiving Parade, just for RAD & me!!

When we got home, I told RAD's little boy we saw a Turkey Parade and I showed him the photo.  He asked me, "Did the turkeys throw candy at you?"

Still laughing every time I think about it.  Good times :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!  RAD drove our little band of pirates up to the rec center early in the morning for the race.  This was a hilly route!  And even though it was an out and back, it felt like it was an all up hill route!!  I'll be happy to get back to my flat roads soon!

There sure were a lot of people at this run.  I was glad they had timing mats at the start and end, because it took us 1:30 to get to the start mat.  

I'm not used to "racing" a race (I'm just usually along for the fun) but after a while I figured why not?  What did I have to lose other than my dignity, pride, and ability to walk the next day?  I guess around mile .5 I started seriously running.  My garmin wasn't cooperating so I don't know the first .75 split, but after that, I felt like I did pretty good charging up the hills.

I finished and RAD & JT were both already finished and waiting for me.  We all walked back up the finish hill to run in again with the littlest buccaneer.  She was almost finished!  Very impressive for someone so young.  I couldn't believe how many children were out there running.  I've never seen youth like that at a race out where I live in Babylon.  There certainly is something special about the youth of Zion :-)

As we were approaching the finish line I had to stop and take a photo of the "turkey trotting."

I'm just glad I finished before this guy!

After the race I asked someone to take our pix, and bless his heart, he managed to switch it to video and I can't figure out how to post it to the blog.  RAD has photos on her blog.

After the race, they had raffle drawings for all kinds of goodies and they gave out ribbons for fastest runners and ag up to 5th place.  I almost choked on my spit when I placed 5th in my ag.  I guess all the ladies my age were home cooking dinner like a good wife/mother should be doing.  I've never gotten a ribbon before and certainly not one for 5th place (who knew they even made ribbons that said 5th place?).  So now I have a ribbon and a good story about a scary lady that kicked in the bathroom door while I was using it.  Good times :-)

overall pace was 8:21.  My garmin said my pace for the last 2.35 miles was an 8:01.  Slow start.

What a fun run!!  Great company and great run!!  Perfect running weather :-)  And thank goodness there weren't any crazy hills!

Thank you to everyone who came out for the Dekker Girl's run.  I am sad I left and won't get to run with such a great group again for who knows how long.... the high seas call and I'm off on another voyage.

I loved this run, the river, the port-a-potties, the skunk that I didn't see but I certainly did smell,  and the hidden hot springs at the end with the bathing suit family gathered around the steamy spring.

I also loved Chad's whipped-cream loving little cutie!!  What a doll :-)

Thanks for a great run and awesome memories.  I'll miss you all!!

flew 2000 miles home.  What a wonderful surprise that my daughter had put up all the Christmas decorations and the tree!  She did inform me that I'd be the lucky one to put it all away.  Lucky me!!

Nice to be home with my family again.  I had a nice pillow to rest my head on during the flight home because RAD's little r.a.d. daughter sewed me a pillow to take home with me.  She's an amazing girl, and she'll be running circles around me soon.

I also had my new merrell vibram shoes waiting for me at home.  I wore them around the house for a while and walked 2 miles around the hood in them.  Trying to remember to land on the balls of my feet & not my heels.  Trying.