Happy New Year!

I am so excited to officially start "The Year of Awesome!" I started out this morning running a 5K named "The First on the First" A simple 5K in the rain is a great way to start out the year.

It was great to see so many racers out on this rather warm New Year's Day.  I had two lovely ladies racing with me today, Miss Ashley Stalling (Alice) and Miss Mamie McGuire. These ladies celebrated a bit more than I did last night... This made for some great comments before, during and after the race. This was the first race Alice and I didn't run the entire thing together.  But her and Mamie did just fine, as they were only a few short strides behind me.



Something I am starting to love in about racing is the amount of encouragement that is shared between runners. Sure there are running clubs and neighbors etc, so people know each other, but even more so I love the encouragement from strangers. Twice today we were taking walk breaks and both times strangers encouraged us to keep going. It makes me think the of the time last summer when I was running a 10K with Brecken Farnsworth in Idaho. I was running up this hill, which really wasn't all that bad except for the elevation, but I started to walk. Just as I started to walk, I heard a stranger say, "Come on you got this" I figure she was talking to the man who was wheeling his hand crack wheelchair up this hill. I joined her in encouraging him, but she turned around, pointed at me and said, "I was talking to you... you got this!" Its so crazy have just hearing those simple reminders can really change the outcome of the race. That girl was probably the same age as I was, and that sentence is all I needed to hear to get myself going.




Our new gadgets! I have the Timex, Alice has the Garmin.



While we were walking to the starting line, we heard a woman say, "Hey, that girl has the same shirt as I do." Alice was wearing her COAR shirt, so I had to investigate. :) It turns out this lady and her husband had been at the last Adventure Race we did in October. She said, "Wait, you are the girls on the website"... Of course, this made Alice and I both smile, its nice to be recognized, no doubt. We are going to be the racers spotlight for just a while longer, so check it out.    http://www.race-coar.com/   While you are there, you might as well get out your calendar and decide which adventure race YOU are going to be  doing this year! I have only done one so far, but I am planning on dragging Al to as many as I can.

All smashed into the car after the race!


Once today's race was over, we all headed in doors (which was a huge relief because indoor refreshments hardly ever happen at races) had ourselves each a pork sandwich and continued with our day.

Once I was all done with my race, I headed over to the McCutchen Home to make little Nora a TuTu. This TuTu was promised to her several years ago, as a bribe to get her to stop an annoying habit. She earned the lovely dance wear a while ago, but she just reminded me of my promise this Christmas. I was able to make this adorable   TuTu with an old wedding vail and ribbon. I had a few not so tiny anymore hands helping me out along the way. I am rather proud of my handy work and I have been told Nora has been a dancing queen all evening!

One of the best parts of the day was just sitting around playing apples to apples with some of my high school friends (and a few other bonus people :) )

Overall, it was the perfect way to ring in the New Year! So, here's to the start of "The Year of Awesome"