A Walk In the Woods

 Originally published Nov 14, 2016 As I write this post I am hobbling up and down stairs, aged about 20 years. I completed my first 25K “race” this past Saturday. I say “race” because there were many times there was nobody in front or behind me, which is the nature of trail racing. The longest “race” I had ever done before yesterday was 10 miles at Evansburg State Park in Pennsylvania about 10 years ago. I got back into trail running to heal the pain in my right arch. I also found a great group of women with whom to run. Lastly, I also learned trail running didn’t have to be so messy (I often fell).  I signed up for the  Rough Trail  in hopes I would find a similar group as we moved ourselves from the Northeast to the Bluegrass ( and I did ).  My partner Nancy was down with a migraine and stomach flu. I drove to Red River Gorge with another woman from the group. I met her at her hotel in Lexington and we were on the road at 6:30 am. I learned Kelsey was recruite...

Originally published Sept 24, 2022 I got up at 4:30am on Thursday to shower. I was aiming to depart at 5:30 from the Louisville airport. It was a direct flight through Delta to the Minneapolis airport.  I made a lungo Nespresso that morning. There were no delays to Minneapolis. I met Thom and Marian at the rental car area when I landed. I think I dozed off briefly on the plane with a podcast on MSNBC news from the night before. We rented a Nissan Murano for Lutsen.  We hung out with coffee on Marian's back porch to discuss the drive north. It was a beautiful day in the shade with little humidity. We had decided on an early dinner and then packet pickup. Marian and I exchanged pre-race gifts. She gave me a silver necklace with a pendant in the shape of mountains and a crew shirt she had made. She had on the same necklace. I gave her a zippered pouch with zombie gingerbreads on it. I bought myself one too so we could match.  I met Thom's middle son Elliot that day who would...