I've been a runner since I was in high school. Both my brothers were cross-country runners. My dad started running when he was in his fifties (and was still running up until three weeks before he died at age 85). My sister runs with her group on weekly basis, so I guess you could say that running runs in our family.

The only time I haven't run consistently was during the twenty-something years I was raising my kids. About a year ago, after a broken ankle incident, I started training again. The group I joined started off with a 20 minute run and progressed by 5 minutes a week up until the 5K we were training for. It was called the Turkey Trot and was the first race I had entered since the early 1980's. It was also the first race I've ever medaled, by placing 3rd in my age group (55-59). Wow, age definitely has its advantages. Because I was the youngest in my age group, I now have four more years to move up to first place. HA! we'll see...

The next training group was for a 10K, but I failed to complete the session due to shoulder surgery. bummer.

In the spring I trained with the group for the Wharf-to-Wharf race, which I think is eight miles...not sure. I finished the training but didn't do the race because I had already signed up to be part of a triathlon team at another race the next weekend. Even though I didn't run the W-2-W, I took photos of as many of my group as I could find among the 15,000 runners. That was a lot fun cuz not only did I see my training buddies, but I saw a bunch of other people I knew. It's a huge local race which I hope to do next year.

The Sandman Triathlon, was a great experience for me. My team was made up of Romain (swimmer, who was actually filling in for my friend who couldn't participate at the last minute), my friend Chyrel (cyclist), and me (runner).

We all did better times than we each expected and finished in a respectable 1 hr, 50 min. I had so much adrenaline in me that, while I was waiting for Chyrel to come in on the bike, I thought I was going to pass out. Then I took off so fast that a half-mile into the run I thought I was going to puke. When I realized I was running a pace two minutes faster than I should be, I slowed down a bit and raced responsibly after that.

The best part of the race was when I realized I could catch up with my running buddy, Andrea, who happens to be my son Tommy's girlfriend. We had been training together for the run, although she was also training to participate in the tri all by herself. So, she had already swam and biked and was about 5 minutes ahead of me on the run. She had been keeping an eye on me behind her, but as she approached the finish line she stopped looking back. In that last 100 yards I sprinted up to her, and we crossed the line at the exact same time. That was super sweet.

These days I'm training with my group for the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco in October, just a few weeks away. It's exhilarating to run with such great people for so many miles. You sure get to know each other when you have uninterrupted conversation for 1 - 2 hours. I'd say the average age in our group is maybe...40 years old. I guess I surprised a few people last week when I told them I was turning 56 today. I had to laugh cuz I realized I'm one of the oldest in the group.

I hope I'll always have the chance to surprise people with my age...you know, someday after a hard workout, I want to be able to say something like, oh yes, I'll be 78 next week. I see women in their 70's and even 80's in such incredible shape...I seriously want to be like them when I grow up.

~56, and going strong...thanks to God's grace, loving family, and great friends.

...my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. (Acts 20:24)

I've tried several times to come back to Xanga, in lieu of documenting my life on Facebook, but each time I've gone back. But this time, I don't know... for all it's addicting qualities, I have to say FB is getting too noisy. I mean, do I really need to be fed the details of every one of my friend's comments to people I don't even know?

Now they'll be rolling out a new FB called Timeline which looks cool, but truthfully, I'm not that cool of a person. I don't even have a cell phone. We're still stuck with dial-up and very little (almost zero) cell reception at our house. I don't have an ipad or ipod or kindle or anything even remotely cool like that. As far as I know, Pandora still owns a box that shouldn't be opened and Spotify is what I might do when I get taco sauce on my white blouse. But the new FB will have all these things attached to it in a format that documents our lives in a timeline form. Well, shoot, we've been doing that here on Xanga for years already.

So maybe it's time to quiet things down a bit and get back to my online community roots. I just wish Xanga pages weren't so hard for my connection to load. But like I tell people about our dial up (besides that it's faster than smoke signals), is that it's taught me how to stop and smell the internet roses.