I wasn't exactly looking forward to the Tar Heel 10 Miler on Saturday. It's a beautiful run past the highlights of Chapel Hill but gosh is the course agony! I never seem to focus and prepare for it mentally and emotionally: I was preoccupied by training for my spring half marathons last year and this year and didn't properly prep for the hills and do the 10 Miler justice. But all my friends run it, as do coworkers and acquaintances and (almost) family and people I know from college but haven't seen in years and fellow Fleet Feet training program members. And did I mention it's in gorgeous Chapel Hill?!
Remember how my coworkers are awesome and get involved in the community? Yeah, they went and did it again. The Tar Heel 10 Miler was this weekend and somehow we won our company category for the "FITTEST" company award.
Over the holidays I somehow managed to convince my dad that I totally needed a GoPro. I carried the GoPro on the recent Grayson Highlands backpacking trip. I loved the photo results from that post, and I finally got around to playing with some of the video. So, without further ado: here's a video!
Spring is for new beginnings. Cliche, okay, but it's the season whose whole purpose is building and growing, so this weekend I built and planted. My work is sponsoring a house build through Habitat for Humanity of Orange County and as part of the sponsorship several of my coworkers and I volunteered at a build site on Saturday.
What do you do when it's spring and the azaleas are blooming and you've got a bulldog you're trying to photograph running around like crazy all over the front yard? You just keep shooting. And shooting. And shooting. And shooting...
Everyone has a reason for why they do the things they do - why they hike or run or swim or bike or whatever. Some reasons are more simplistic than others: "for my health" or "it's something I can do with my sister" or "to decompress" or whatever easily-defined unique reason there may be. Some are more complicated: "to face the void" or maybe even to slowly untangle the "why" itself. Some reasons are downright agony on your heartstrings.
Duck face. Fish face. Cow-slowly-dying-in-extreme-agony face. I've rocked all these looks during a race, if my race photos are to be believed. Slouchy shoulders, wide open and gasping mouth, and brick-like feet slogging along the pavement: these aren't exactly the looks you want to pay money for and hang next to shiny medals or put on your office desk.
I am terrible at the starting line. Months of training for a half marathon and this was the second time I was late to the starting line. I woke up late, changed clothes, grabbed my gear, got out the door as fast as possible, hoped I wouldn't get stuck at a red light, and drove as fast as was reasonable. Of course being late meant all the parking lots near the starting line were full, so I parked in a garage halfway across town and ran 0.67 miles (I mapped it) to the starting line. I literally had 30 seconds between arriving at the start line and the start...
