123: Color Run!

Lex wasn't so keen on the running part, but the color part he could definitely get on board with.

250: Piglet Plunge!

Gwen and Lex making their way through one of the obstacles

This is such a fun race. I've done it with a big group of friends the past couple years.  The first year it wasn't organized by the big national company that does all the Dirty Dashes--just a local group. It was a far different sort of race (twice as long, up the ski hill with less mud) so it was a different kind of fun than this. The Dirty Dash is totally non-competitive and much more a mud-filled, fun obstacle course than a run.

Unfortunately it's really expensive and this year I couldn't really justify putting $60 on the credit card for an hour or so of my own entertainment when I haven't even had money for food all month. But, I thought it was pretty cool my kids saved their own money to pay their entry fees (the kids' Piglet Plunge costs $20 rather than the $55+ fees for the Dirty Dash). I love that they'd spend their own money on something fun and active like this.

(Lex, although, did not earn much money this summer and would likely not have saved any if he had. He also was not planning to run the race. . . until he suddenly started running the race all by himself. . . typical Lex approach to things. I started following him--because he wasn't interested in running with me at that point--he seemed to have his own agenda. He did pretty quickly catch up to Gwen and the other kids running.)

124: Color Run!

Our family "team" at the color run. . . some of them even ran the race rather than just covering people with color!

188: Missoula Marathon

My friend Erin ran the Missoula marathon this year! Aspen, Brian, Dev and I ran the relay so she had someone to keep her company throughout the morning, and Lisa is sort of just a superstar and came to run the entire second half with her. It was a pretty great day. (Well, minus all that running. . . running is really not my thing, especially running directly into the sun during a very hot day.) Erin hasn't been a big runner for a long time like many others who run the marathon, she just likes to give herself a goal to work toward every summer (she's swam most of the lakes around here, last year she ran the half...) so it was really fun to see her achieve a big goal. All us girls ran the last part with her, and she had a great cheering section lining the road along the bridge as she came across the finish line.

I was also reminded again how well Missoula does community. There were hundreds of official volunteers helping the race run smoothly, but there was also more than 26 miles of nearly continuous support from all sorts of individual people, families, and different organizations. There were tons of homemade signs and posters with encouragement and inspirational quotes along fences and stapled to posts along the entire route. Tons of people had their sprinklers out on the road to help keep runners cool; many also had music playing and some even had drinks. One family was giving out little packages of gummy bears. Another had a record player hooked up to speakers. Many people along the way had their cars parked with their stereos going. They had a few dozen football players from one of the local high schools manning one of the water stations and a dance team doing another. I don't think I ran more than about 20 yards the entire morning without having someone else in the race or alongside the road offer some encouragement. It was kind of fun to be a part of something where everyone involved seemed so excited to see other people accomplish something tough.

Day 363: Diva Run

All girls.

80% of them dressed like this.

Also, crafts.

Apparently this is what it takes to convince Azia to run a 5k with me.