What’s Up With This?

That is not Dor in the pink socks!

Speaking of marathons, my friend Amy is amazing.  She is little but mighty, plays and teaches the violin, has a truck driver’s license, goes to a jumpology trampoline center for fun, is a teacher’s aid, and runs in marathons.  I like to tell people my BigFoot was the result of running in too many marathons (or a skiing accident), but you must know that is a big lie. I have never run in a marathon.  In fact, I don’t think I have run or even fast-walked anywhere since 1995.  

But today my friend Amy is a contestent (with two of her equally mighty sons) in a unique race in Roanoke, Virginia.

Picture running uphill through office buildings,

parking garages and train yards

in a race called, WASUPWIDIS!

Translated that means What’s Up with This, but by the time you run up the first set of stairs you can hardly breathe so the name has been gasped into a shorter version –  “wasUpwidis.”  The event is offered by Roanoke City Parks and Recreation and Mountain Junkies LLC (home of the trail running and mountain biking junkies of the Roanoke Valley) and is noted by both organizations as “one of the most unique races you’ll ever have the chance to run.”

According to reports, nearly 370 people participated last year with even more expected this year. The object is “to run through, up and over a few of Downtown Roanoke’s landmarks, traversing surprisingly difficult elevations in two of the city’s parking garages and finishing with a breathtaking climb and descent in the Wells Fargo Tower.  You may be able to run and you may be able to climb, but can you do both?”

Good luck Amy!

Above details and information about the WasUpWiDis race in Roanoke, Virginia are from  http://mountainjunkies.net/site/wazupwidis/ .

Mountain Junkies L.L.C.  “home of the trail running and mountain biking junkies of the Roanoke Valley.”

And here’s a video too:

 

 

 

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Learning is Growing

Random Five Friday (The Day After-The Day After)

Surprise visitors who came for Bill’s birthday returned to the Wild West.  After all that excitement Bill and I were left in total silence with only  deer for company so we decided  to take one day to recuperate.  Being Super Woman I kept  running  on empty though, and tackled clean-up duty.  I  forgot about the effects of emotional stress the “day after-the day after” and the physical toll from too much laughing.

My Friend Janet Started the Laughter

• Yes,  laughter, especiallya lot of it, can be exhausting  because on the day after-the day after the visitors left all I did was sleep.  Or picture dozing at the sink or in a flat line daze, staring at a wall  with an empty gaze in the middle of changing sheets.  Isn’t it odd how the body simply gets determined to shut down?  The signals were abundantly clear, so much so that I woke up one time on the floor.  I didn’t faint but got down there to stretch and stayed prone in sweet serene slumber for an hour and a half!

 

• Then came work out day at the “Y,” a Book Club meeting, replenish groceries.  I woke up sleepy though, from the lack of sleep perhaps.  Fourteen hours just wasn’t going to cut it.  So scratch the work out.  I was lucky to make it to book club without lapsing back into oblivion (by the way, Factory Girls is a very interesting book).  And groceries? Leftovers maybe.

 

• Finally the old self returned just in time for an early morning departure for an outing with a good friend.  My last blog post was about our unusual lunch at a Thai restaurant in a Victorian Inn.  We also went shopping!  Shopping for true rural dwellers is an exhilarating experience, with all the symptoms of menopause.  Think hot flashes, nervous tics, shortness of breath, unexplained hunger, and the urge to lie down (or was that still lack of sleep?).

 

• And then it was really time to tackle the dirty work.  My little friend Amy came to help.  She is little but she is mighty!  Amy is getting ready to run a 26 mile marathon in Pennsylvania so she said she did a practice run of 26 miles in 4 ½ hours.  It would take me 24 1/2 hours to hobble that far.  Amy is a five foot tall redhead with boundless energy who just got her license to drive a truck.  She is also going to run in a marathon!  Did you know that true marathoners don’t stop to use  portapotties! Huh?  I will leave the rest of that fascinating fact to your imagination.  Using imagination,  I may never watch marathoners in the same way again.

“Learning is growing no matter how old we are.”

~ Another sage quote from Dor.   Happy Weekend!

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