How cool is my dog Ryder? He's so cool I taught him to wear sunglasses! It was a struggle, but he wore his American-styled shades just long enough for me to fire off a few photos. In honor of 4th of July this month's photo shoot was all about the red, white, and blue and Ryder never looked so all-American!
127 gators. That's how many alligators I'd seen since I set off from the Suwanee Canal entrance of Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia at 10am on April 14. I know because I kept count.
Do you know what I have *not* been doing? Monthly goals! (Ooooooops!) My last monthly goals post was the beginning of April and I totally dropped the ball on May. For the most part, my April goals could have easily carried forward to May with a couple additions, so I recapped the two months together and came up with a fresh list of goals for June. What are your goals for this month?!
The 10th annual Running of the Bulls 8K in downtown Durham was this past weekend and this was my second time running the race! I took a new approach this year and actually decided to train. (Well, I’m training for a few other crazy races, but fortunately it means I was trained up for an 8K!) I crushed my last race time for this course! Read more for the full race report.
How do I organize a hike that is both interesting for experienced hikers and isn't overwhelming to new hikers? That's a hard balance; I remember being a new hiker when 2-3 miles felt like quite a hike, and I also remembered thinking recently how now my definition of a "hike" is vastly different than what it was a few years ago. How do I reconcile the two and find something that would appeal to everyone?
There was one obvious answer: Hanging Rock.
It was a two-for-one on Saturday in terms of races! (Three-for-one if you count the Kentucky Derby!) In the morning I had Doughman X and in the evening I had the Sinnott Circle Margarita Mile! The Sinnott Circle Circuit (SCC) is an unofficial race series organized just for fun by Fleet Feet friends. It includes ridiculous races like a beer mile, a taco mile, and a milk and cookies mile. The milk and cookies Holiday Mile was the first one I participated in last year, and I was excited about the first SCC race of the year - a Moana-themed Margarita Mile!
I don't remember the last time I did so much running and eating at the same time.
On Saturday morning I raced Doughman, a relay "quadrathlon" self-powered culinary tour of Durham. Heather, Jill, Lauren and I were the "Carbdashians." We went for completely over-the-top outfits: hot pink shirts that said "Keeping up with the Carbdashians" and a graphic I made, sparkle skirts, bling, exaggeratedly bad contour make-up, and wigs.
My knees are skinned, my elbows are scraped, and my face is burned which means you know I had an incredible weekend!
We headed off to Pilot Mountain on Saturday to meet up with a crew of fellow climbers from Triangle Rock Club, organized by a woman named Sami. When one of the guys came to my house to carpool he asked me, "So how do you know Sami?"
"Oh," I said. "I don't. I just saw her posting about this outing in a group I'm in and I asked if I could join. I've wanted to climb outdoors for a while now!"
"So you've never climbed outdoors before, and you've never met anyone in the group before?" Luke mused. "That's ballsy."
I took me a minute to figure out why he'd called me ballsy, but then I realized it hadn't really sunk in that I was going to meet random strangers and do a very dangerous activity I've never done before, all while relying on said strangers.
Well, okay, if you put it that way then maybe it is ballsy.
