5 things Friday

1.  My follower list has been hovering at 99 forever.  I can remember having one precious follower.  I hope she appreciates all of the company...I know I do!

2.  I gave in and registered for the crit.  Raise your hand if you're surprised.  As much as I refused to commit to it, once I had the idea in my head it was pretty likely I'd do it.  It helps that several friends will be riding with me.  Or, at least, at the same time as me.  It's way too close to home for me to skip it, but the timing is less than ideal: it's the morning after my 20 year high school reunion, which means I'll be riding on some pretty questionable (if not flat out regrettable) fueling and hydration.

Graduation night.  Incidentally, the girls on either side of me are still two of my closest friends.

Last day of school.  I think this one looks more like I look now than the one above. 
The blonde girl at the left side of the picture is now my sister in law.

 It's really, really hard to believe it's been 20 years since I graduated from high school.  For a long time when I was younger I felt waaaay older than my age, I guess because I had responsibilities way beyond my age.  Then when I remarried and started teaching I felt like the inner me had met up with the age I was supposed to be.  Now I feel younger than that number.



 3.  I am also registered for this with my brother.  I've been excited about Berryman ever since following Patrick and his team in it last year (although he'd be the first to tell you that he and his team were baptized by fire in the 36-hour race while I'm going easy in the 12-hour).  The cool thing about this race is that it's part of the Checkpoint Tracker series and you can actually follow what's going on in the race in real time online and send messages to teams in the field.  (That may or may not have been a hint).  It's as easy as typing a message into a little box, and then the volunteers will read the messages of encouragment or taunting or whatever to racers when they get to their next stop.  You can be sure that you'll be hearing more about this little feature closer to race day. :)

4.  I'm also very excited to have been asked to do two other adventure races this fall: the Checkpoint Tracker Nationals and the Castlewood 8-Hour.  It depends on things falling together with the teams and money, so keep your fingers crossed.  Nationals would be a 24 hour race with the always hilarious Team Virtus, so I could expect a great ab workout laughing and you could expect an epic race report.



5.  You may have noticed that my little running blog has featured very little in the way of running.  The bikes have definitely taken over most of my training time.  I reached a new mileage low in July with a paltry 27 miles.  That's pretty typical for me -- I am way into something for a while until my athlete ADD kicks in and I'm onto something else -- but it occurred to me that I'm not going to be able to just sign up and do something on a whim if I don't have some regular miles on me feet, so I'm going to get back to some regular running and follow my half marathon training plan even if I don't end up doing that particular race.