Today I ran my first race since the Army Ten Miler last October, it was the Crossroads 17.75 KM in Quantico, VA. The course was pretty good, lots of hills, through a VA State Park - - Prince William Forest. If you are a Marine-o-phile and put Quantico together with 17.75, this race marks the anniversary of the Marine Corps. Pretty cool race, but I need some serious hill and distance work. I ran the race with MAJ K from work (Snake Eater). It was a smaller race, about 1500 folks entered it, and had a pretty fierce course: There were some good hills in the forest. I really needed to do some work on the sisters, but I have to find some to run up and down.
I have another race in JUL, an 8K, that should be a pretty good one and agreed to run a 20K with MAJ K in August.
Hiking News
Bill O and Charles (Boy Scout buddies from NC) came up on the net and declared they were up for some hiking in JUL, so we are going to hit the Appalachian Trail over the 4th of JUL weekend. I talked them into hiking the part of the trail in NC that kicked my butt two years ago (pre-Iraq): Fontana Dam to Franklin, NC. That will actually complete NC for me, so I will have GA, NC and MD completed. I will talk them into hiking more of VA (I thought I had a lot of VA done, but only have about 150 miles out of 500 or so completed). It should be a good hike, Dave, my hiking buddy in Western NC may be helping us out with rides, which is very cool, half the section hiking battle is figuring out how to get back to where you parked. If we were in a big park we could probably hitchhike, but this will be out in the real world.
Riding News
I have decided to add an extra day in my week for riding, the Metro is ok, but I like having a little more control in my commute. I now have my bike rack so, that makes the ride a little bit easier. I figure I will load up the food and other stuff on Monday, then haul the Tupperware on back on Fridays. I have a bike bud that rides in 4 days a week, he is all for the increase.
The Big News
The Huskers in the Big Ten, very interesting. I gotta be honest, I am pretty happy about this right now. The texas control of the Big 12 was slightly upsetting. I think watching the Big 12 Championship continue to move south - - Dallas and San Antonio - - vs. KC was kind of frustrating, I know most of the population was in texas, but there were 6 teams up north too. Ah well, I do feel bad for Turner Gill and the jayhawks and the isu cyclones; kind of indifferent about ksu and will wait and see on mizzou. I suspect there will be a few more teams moving around, so, stand by on that.
