Missoula MT — Normally an arid wasteland of roasted dust and tumbleweeds and fiery wind, Missoula has been unusually wet this year. A winter full of snow and ice, a spring full of rain, now a summer full of runoff and rains and just the right amount of humidity. It smells good in the mornings, the air feels good, my hair is all frizzy. You'd almost think there was a lake somewhere around here, but don't be fooled. There isn't. Despite all the rain, Missoula remains as lakeless as it's been these past 12,000 years, and living here in the summer leading a dry and barren life remains the abomination it always has been.
Well. Perhaps I neglected to tell you that I was going to be doing the race last weekend (the half, not the full). Perhaps I've neglected to tell you other things as well. We will get to that later. First, the race.
This year I was in the portaloo when the race started and there wasn't much I could do about it. Thus went this entire running season for me.
The race went fine. I got all teary-eyed numerous times, because of someone's shirt, because of the guy playing the piano, because of this and that. It was an emotional day.
A white rabbit ran across the road in front of me as I rode my bike past the Silver Dollar Bar at 5 a.m. A good sign? No, turned out to be a neutral sign.
I ran/walked and had my slowest half marathon since that race last fall when I got lost three times in the woods. My ankle made its presence known but was fine. Can't wait for next year!
Other things I have neglected to tell you: I have moved to the Westside (I'm not hip enough for the Hip Strip), I've been housesitting again on the Northside (site of Mouse Havoc 2010), I've been stricken with yet another professional opportunity in the field I actually went to school for (goodbye, leisure time), I didn't get sick all spring!
Now I'm all into biking and I've even bought those little shorts with the padding in the butt. This blog will likely become exclusively a biking blog.
Nota bene: I was in the portaloo when the race started not because I was spending a long time in there (please! I am a fine lady!) but because I had neglected to arrive at a fashionable time and had then spent 10 minutes waiting tragically in the wrong stupid line for the porta-potty before I abandoned that for a better line, by which time there was only a minute to go. Next year I will get up when my stupid alarm goes off.
