India Haz Brain; I Get a Trophy

In reverse order of the day's events, above you have India in Monroe County touring its Lake District and acting like a grown up horse who isn't bright green anymore, just slightly tinged veridian around the edges. Which doesn't mean that she might not revert back to chartreuse in the very near future, but I have hope that she's going to turn into a great trail horse with more miles. It seems that somewhere along Hwy 18 this morning she found her brain. What a relief. Many thanks to JoAnna and Starman for pointing India in the right direction. Starman was a rock, a veritable boulder of calm. JoAnna planned a route for us that took us down a lightly used road and India was fascinated by that rush of air that cars make as they pass by. All told, we were passed by five cars and one noisy motorcycle while out for almost two hours and India would flick her ear and she flinched once, but she didn't get her freak on and by the end, they were No Big Deal. I'm a huge fan of the No Big Deal. We also rode back in the woods and India got slapped by branches and vines and didn't lose it, she had to step over a log, and we had a trot, a canter, back down to a trot then back up to a canter and she rated beautifully. I spent a lot of time letting her jog to catch up to Starman and she would pick up the jog when I'd start posting and come down to a walk when I sat deep. Look Ma, no reins! How cool is that? Yeah, that cool. Go, POTU! (Want to see the POTU very large or the trophy? Double click on the picture.)


Like my dashboard accessory? This is proof that if you live long enough, your peers winnow out and quit running and if you live in a medium-small city, when you enter 5k road races, the competition is slim. There was a race at the Ocmulgee Indian Mounds this morning to help fund the Peacemaker's summer camp for kids and I entered. My goal was to finish it all without walking since I was waylaid by a nasty cold three weeks ago that lingered on for almost two weeks, but I didn't quite make that. There was one really ugly hill with nasty switchbacks that I ended up walking the last 50 feet, but other than that, I did run it all. The course was really nice as it used a lot of the trails out at the Mounds and I ran through a swamp and around the large mound and across wooden bridges that bounced as we ran across and then across a small creek and I made a friend just past mile 1 and she and I ran together for the rest of the race. I was really tired at the end and she pulled away the last tenth of a mile, but thankfully for Mark Nash, she wasn't in my age group. *eg* Proving my theory that if you age enough, you get a trophy, she didn't. She is in the 30-34 age group and came in about seventh. Me? Being in the 45-49 age group has its perks because I got second. Whee! Who knows how competitive the 50-54 age group will be, but I'll find out next year.

Peace out and happy trails!