MORE ON THE FUN WESTERN STATES WEEKEND

This will be a quick and dirty summary of the weekend, but I figure there's no need to bore you with the blow by blow. This will be more of a "highlights" type post. Sooooooooooo let's begin with the fact that the RD filled the weekend with activities that kept us busy and made us feel like we were still part of the race. There was packet pickup and the WS Store, run by the uber-cool Zombie Runners , was open for business. I even received my bracelet from Stan Jensen (there's a picture down there somewhere). I was not forced to weigh-in, which was a blessing considering the beer and pizza consumption the previous night.

This picture below is from one of the two nights that we all sat around the "campfire" (fire pit in the fancy Squaw village) and laughed and had a great time.
Here's the picture of Stan Jensen giving me my bracelet.
On Friday a group of us "ran" the first miles of the Western States course. It was pretty tough. Pictured below is Cheryl making her way up the steepest part of the section.
This is the monument at the top. It was bittersweet to be here but mostly sweet. It was a beautiful morning and the "run" (i.e. hike) was exhilirating.

On Saturday, a huge group of folks ran on the Tahoe Rim Trail. Paul Charteris, the funniest coolest Kiwi you'll ever meet, organized the group and we had a blast running the high elevation Tahoe Rim Trail. The field was filled with superstars and pacers and foreigners and I have to say I ran ahead of Nikki and the Abbs for about 20 feet or so :-)

Saturday night Cheryl and I drove to Napa where we had a delicious fancy dinner (fancy by Montana standards) and some wine. Sunday we visited the Berzinger winery, which was pretty cool.


Sunday night we went to Jennifer's party in Sacramento, which was a blast. I had the chance to chat with a lot of new friends, including Nikki Kimball and her aunt Mary who are two of the coolest people you will ever meet. Also, below is Paul and he made us laugh so hard we were crying.


Monday, way too early, Cheryl flew out of Sac and I headed back to the nastiness called Reno. It's only today that I feel like I'm recovering from the weekend.

I registered for Headlands 100 which is August 9-10. It will be more mellow and will probably be a better first 100 mile race than WS would have been. I'm getting geared back up!!!