Unexpected Opportunities

Going into the fall, I had a few races on the schedule; I’d be running with Bruce and Ali at the 12 hour Shag (ended up being Chris and Ali after Bruce came down with a good old case of pneumonia), Bruce and a player to be determined later at the 6 hour GOALS sprint and by myself at my first 24 hour rogaine in November…my first real long, solo event.

Well after our race at the Shag, Chris and I began considering going down to Texas for the USARA national championship; we had qualified and won the sponsorship money earlier in the season, and USARA still was able to offer it to us. Problem was, we couldn’t find a third teammate. Ali wasn’t interested, Abby has a conference, Tracey is passing up on arid flatlands to go run around in some silly place known as the Himalayas, Kathy Hoverman is prepping for a big engineering exam, Kristen Dieffenbach is already racing, Sara from Calleva also has academic obligations, Sara Percy couldn’t make it either, nor could Tamela…we gave up…

And then I saw Jon’s reference to a 26+ km orienteering course tomorrow. After quite a bit of waffling, I signed up yesterday, eager to get in some more racing and looking for some long foot action to prep for the rogaine. But yesterday also brought me a totally unexpected opportunity to go down to Texas. For the first time since I joined GOALS, I will be racing on a different team, but I’m so excited to have a shot to run with Kristen and Tobey from Nature’s Cure. Oddly, top dog Doug Crytzer also came down with pneumonia…one has to wonder what is going on with adventure racers and pneumonia…So, I had come full circle: No nationals, nationals, recruit Kristen, no nationals, Kristen emails me relieving the monotony of a rather forgettable day, and now it looks like I’ll be racing at Nationals after all.

How this crazy world of racing can turn on a dime. I still have some things to resolve before signing on the dotted line, and now I have to avoid the swine flu that is creeping around school, but if all goes well, I’ll be heading down to TX to try to keep up with two people I’ve been curious to race with for some time. It will be strange not racing with GOALS ARA, but I’m so excited for the opportunity!