In Boise And Awake At Three In The Morning

For the last 17 years the women in my family have held a quilt weekend during which they assemble a quilt while spending quality time together. The "weekend" is usually five days long. It's been a great tradition for the family and they enjoy it very much. The lake place they rented for this year fell through after some tenants damaged the place the repairs we not going to be completed on time. As a result, quilt weekend is being held at my house. Since it's a women-only event, Josh and I were informed we were to be somewhere that was not my house. We came to Boise yesterday to spend these days with my brother-in-law, Chip, and nephew, Zak.

Chip was just going for a run when we pulled up to the house. He lives near Camel's Back Hills Park which has all kinds of trails for walking, running, and cycling. Chip asked if we wanted to go for a run.

Well, of course I did. We threw our bags in the house. I changed clothes and got a drink of water. Then we headed out. He was planning on doing six miles and that sounded good to me.

"There's a little bit of climbing but it's not too bad," he said. The warning bells failed to go off. See, Chip is a cycling animal. I've been trail riding with him a couple of times and he's the guy who's waiting for you at the top of the climb. He's the guy moving away from you during the climb. And he's the guy disappearing in the distance the rest of the time. He took up barefoot/minimalist running a few months ago and he says that has done wonders for his running. His hips don't hurt any more and he feels great when he runs.

So why should there be warning bells? Because what Chip calls "a little bit of climbing" really means the first four of the six miles are uphill. Combine that with the Boise heat at three in the afternoon and I had two strikes against me. I started lagging. Or maybe Chip was getting faster. Regardless, much like our rides, he was headin' off into the distance and then stopping to wait for me. But he's cool with that. It's not a race. He's just running at a comfortable pace. And Chip's a great person. He even came back and shooed away the vultures before they could start picking at me.

So what does is have to do with being awake at three in the morning? Nothing much really. I just thought that since whoever was singing at the top of their lungs somewhere nearby in the neighborhood woke me up I might as well use this time to post something.

And now back to our regularly scheduled REM sleep.