I know, right? As if I didn't already have enough to do...

So, first of all, happy father's day, if it is appropriate to say so...and thanks to all for the condolences on the passing of Mr. Frey. Funeral is Tuesday the 17th, so if you will be near Pittsburgh on that day...

I mentioned last weekend that maybe we'd relax this weekend. Didn't happen of course. Sofia spent the whole weekend competing--thankfully (for her mother and I) this is the last horse show of the year. She'll spend the summer recharging her batteries and reconnecting with the horses without all the pressure of a looming competition. I've been trying to upload video of her shows, but Firefox ("Fox on the world" as Dylan calls it--so cute!) keeps crashing for some reason. The short version is that she did VERY well, and we are so proud of her. She jumped both days, yesterday she went through the whole course but knocked down the very last jump. Today she did a clean round and then competed in the jump off. She ended up knocking down a bar during the jump off, but not too shabby for the youngest competitor in the under-14 year old category, no?

Anyway, this week coming up is shaping up to be a good one too--we sure have been busy lately. We stayed at the horse club until midnight last night (w/o the kiddos) but I still managed to get up early this morning and go for my run. I cut it a bit short this morning, but I felt really, really good around the six mile mark, good enough to pick up the pace by about 90 seconds per mile. I'm not too worried about cutting the distance short though...I run a big loop and I'm never very far from home, so if I need to I can always get back relatively quickly. But the bigger reason I'm not disappointed is that I'm getting ready to start my train-up for my big fall race.

So, in addition to posting to this blog, taking my classes, working, spending quality time with the family, and doing various other things too (I'm going to take Thursday off, for example, and go SCUBA diving...) I'm "organizing" a race...the quotes are there because it's a virtual race. Meaning I don't actually have to "organize" anything. I realized that in order to keep myself motivated, I need to have a goal. So I was talking to a friend of mine who is a veteran marathoner and we came up with a plan. No pressure to do so, but if you like, you are more than welcome to play along too...link to our blog is here: DAS Virtual Marathon. I'll post about my running stuff on this blog from time to time, I suppose, but I'll be posting much more about it over there. You're welcome to come check it out...and even participate (if not the full marathon, there's plenty of stuff for lesser, shorter distances). It's mostly for my own motivation anyway--so far I have about seven people committed in one way or another. See you out on the trail!