Livin' the Dream in Lima

No, not Christmas. Not yet. (But only 103 days!) But Cross Country season! I might have mentioned it before, but I help out with my high school's cross country team by running with the girls at practice a couple times a week. Today was their first home meet! The home course conveniently happens to be located at the park literally 3 blocks from my house.  Beautiful! And this course is HILLY. Two 1.5 mile loops. With two major hills in each loop, plus a few more rollers. Don't you just want to sprint up this hill? The pic doesn't even do it justice. It's a lot worse in real life. It's tough. Most of the kids run 2-3 minutes slower on this course than others. I'm not gonna lie, I was glad I wasn't racing today. :) There is a man who organizes all the meets that take place at this park - and he goes all out. American flags and orange cones line the entire course. The whole course is striped with white paint. For just 38 kids who raced today...

Well friends, this is my last Sunday before school starts up again. (Though I have tomorrow off still... gotta ease back into the school year with a short week.) I am excited for fall and football games and big pots of chili. Oh, and pumpkin spice lattes. The start of the school year isn't too bad. The start of the school year also means the start of cross country season. Last week, there was an Open Cross Country Race in a town about 15 miles from here. So of course I participated. How could I not, it was only $2 to enter! Putting my Dirt Divas on... all photos courtesy of my awesome Business Man. The purpose is mostly to give high school teams a chance to have a 'practice meet' before the official season starts. I think there were only 2 or 3 people in the race that were not high school athletes. Heh. But I didn't really care. At the start. The race went well - but I forgot how hard  cross country races really are! It'd been about 2 years s...