Driveing back from Canaan Valley

I know you can't really see, but there are 2 bald eagles in this picture. This is only the second time in my life that I have seen a bald eagle in the wild. Manon and I were blessed this time to see a male and female together. We were driving thru some farm land. There were some round bales of hay in a field. I saw the male first sitting on top of a bale, when I stopped the car, I noticed the female on the ground near the male. I was soo excited, and made to much noise and spooked them.

Canaan WV-- Highland Sky

Manon and I went to Canaan last weekend to volunteer at aid station 8 at Highland Sky 40 mile race. The weekend started out really rough, but got better. There was some confusion about where we were going to camp. We finally got that all straightened out just before dark on Friday night. Mark had been working in DC last week and since his family was not at home he came over to Canaan on his way home to hang with us and do some trout fishing. We were planing on running Sunday morning before heading back home.

We got up Saturday morning. Manon and I went to work the AS and Mark went fishing. We had a great day at AS 8, working with Kim. Some racers looked better than others, but all were very gracious. Congrats to all of the finishers !!!!!

We were ready to leave the post race celebration, when Mark called to say he had caught our supper, so I went back to camp and got the fire started while Mark cleaned the fish. Man they were good eating. We were setting around enjoying the fire when it started raining pretty hard so we went to bed and finally got some much needed sleep.

It rained all night long and was still raining when we woke up Sunday morning. I was laying in the tent listening to it rain, when Mark texted "want to go get breakfast" (he was sleeping in his car). I said "no, lets go run. then we will eat". It was obvious Mark didn't want to run in the pouring rain and I wasn't looking forward to it, but I really wanted to run while we were here.

It just so happened that we had camped just a couple of hundred yards from the Allegheny Trail, so we decided to run to Black Water Falls State Park. It was pretty tough going. The rain had turned the trail into a creek and the creeks into rivers, but it was so beautiful and it quit raining not long after we started running. We run to the park and even hiked down into the gorge near the base of the Black Water Falls. While we were at the falls, Mark told me that this was the very spot that he had decided to start his fight with his weight problem. WAY TO GO MARK. you have come a long way. We didn't run very far, but we had already been gone for almost an hour and a half, so we went back. We cleaned up a little and went to town to get lunch.

Mark was going to fish his way back home and we were going to stop at Seneca Rocks. Manon wanted to hike up to the top of the rocks. When we got there, we saw this sign.

Since the trail was closed, we decided to go to Cass. That was cool. We hadn't been to Cass since the kids were small. We didn't ride the train, we just looked at all the stuff we didn't get to see when we were there with the kids.

HOT HOT HOT !!!!!!!!!!

Had a 20 miler scheduled for today. I would have liked to have gotten up early to do it this morning, but we went to the Miners ball game last night. By the time we got home and got ready for bed it was midnight. I would have had to get up at 3 to get the run in and get to church. Well that wasn't going to happen. So I went to bed and slept like a baby. We even over slept and missed Sunday School. Opppps.
I got on the trail at about 1:15 this afternoon, yeh I know, the heat of the day, oh well. I ran from the house, to Lake Stephans, where Manon was to meet me with a gallon of ice water and a cheese burger at the 14.5 mile. I was really thinking about wimping out before I even got there and then I sat in a chair for about 20 minutes, drinking ice water and pouring a little on my head, it felt soooo good. I was really dreading that last 7 miles. I was really thinking about quitting. I have got REALLY tired of quitting !!!!!!!
I told Manon that I was really not wanting to do the rest of the run. She said, get in the car, you have already run 14.5 miles in the heat. You don't need to do the rest. Well that was the perfect thing to say (thanks Manon). I put my camel-bak on and said no. This is a character building day. I will finish this thing even if I have to walk every step.
I didn't walk the whole thing, but I took a few extra walk breaks, but by the grace of God, I finished what I started.
Thank you Lord, for a wonderful day.

8th Annual Lewis McManus 5K

What a great day. Rode my bike to and from the race, my 8th anniversary of running today. The 1st Lewis McManus 5K was my very first foot race ever. It was soooo much fun, and still is. It was a lot easier today, than is was 8 years ago. At the time, I never would have dreamed that I would be where I am at today. Thank you Lord !!!!!!

Thanks to the running community for making races so much fun. I love every minute of it.