How interesting about the flags and what a good idea to welcome the foreign students. But I'd have had a hard time identifying the various countries' flags. Be honest now, did you have to ask? josh

I knew most of them. The coach had to id the Argentinian flag for me. Also, I forgot to mention that there is a Japanese flag flying. The women's team have a couple of players from Japan who also play for the Japanese womens national team. The school's womens team won the national championship in their NAIA division last year.

Elia, I know you were wore out but i bet it was fun.
When you said stick a fork in me. Did you mean you litrally baked at 103 degrees all afternoon? LOL
vickie

Wasn't Pulaski the birthplace of the KKK? If so, I guess the town has come a long way towards acceptance of people of varied ethnic backgrounds.

Most things I say are what the French call a Double Entendre. If I can say something that can called a triple entendre, I'm in heaven.

'Tis a fine art, to be sure.

Had our first girls hgh school soccer scrimmage. Season starts next week. The dd will be keeper, first time. Our team sucks to put it bluntly. We are always in our 1/2 of the field which means I am extremely tense 'cause it is all on the dd and if anyone says anything bad about the goalie I will have to punch them. I am not cut out to be a sport mother. And don't even get me started on the sports mother's club. Now that is one scary group of people.

I was thinking of you and soccer today and stopped in at the GP and there you are out there on the soccer field. :) Still having fun I see. How's your writing coming? I've been such an occasional lurker, I haven't seen if you've posted about it.

It's nice to hear from you again. The writing is going well enough, when I can find the time.

How's the training coming? Will you be ready for France by the summer?

Pulaski! Martin College is where my first attended. The DixieMaid with it's curly fries only recently (maybe 5 years) closed.

KKK. Sorry to say, it hasn't come as far as it should. It's STILL known for "a particular group whose name I shall not mention" (not KKK, but something also not good) (those who are against races which are not what they are). Good to hear fear doesn't stop those you officated Michael.

Training is great! From April '06 to April '07 I've lost 50 pounds (and 6 sizes), have run a 10K and 2 half marathons, and learned to swim well enough to finish a triathlon on July 28th. That was SO much fun!!! I placed 97th out of 305 women, and while I am a VERY slow swimmer (197th place in the swim), I am now screamin' fast on my bike (21st place on the ride! woo hoo!!). Fast enough on the bike in fact, that on a good day I can very nearly drop my husband on the flats. He used to have to dial it back to make sure I could keep up. This has been a great summer. :) We will definitely be ready for those French mountains by next summer.

I've been spending all my 'puter time on triathlon sites trying to figure out that whole thing. I blog on Beginner Triathlete - it's been really fun finding a whole community of exercising lunatics. Heh!

Speaking of Mad Dogs and Englishmen, I'm running the Hood to Coast Relay this weekend. We run from Mt. Hood to Seaside Oregon - 197 miles - with a HUGE party at the end. There are 12 people on a team, and it will take our team about 27 hours to do it. We start on Mt. Hood at 3:45 pm Friday and arrive in Seaside around 6:30-ish on Saturday evening. We each have 3 legs to run, and mine are 7, 3 and 4 miles. The three mile stretch will be at 4am. I'm glad the moon will be nearly full, though we do carry flashlights. Should be interesting. It is quite the massive race. There are 1,000 12 person teams of runners, 400 8-person walking teams, some high school teams, and 3 volunteers for every team which works out to about 20,000 people. Add vendors, massage people, friends and relatives who show up at the end to cheer, and that's a LOT of people! I'm excited - I've never done this before.

"I've never done this before" has pretty much been the story of this whole year so far. I'm loving it. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Hood To Coast Relay

Super Cool and Congrats on all!!!color>size>

Elia

Super congrats and cool Ell!

What Ell isn't telling you... some team members are for the runner. It is the most grueling race about which I've ever heard. While part of their team is other runners they relay with, they also have team members who aren't running that can administer an IV, or pick the runners up and get them out of the heat. Many runners just plain collapse and never even finish it. Yes, some of it is in the mountains, but some of it is in the desert.

Ell, I have a friend who does this race, and I've always thought he was completely crazy. I just think you're setting a goal for yourself. And with all your work and wits, you'll accomplish it to the end!

Here is a link that might be useful: Hood to Coast Relay Race

I just have to put a couple comments in, I worked overseas in Francophone Sahel for a few years; Mali, Burkina Faso, and in the late 80's when I worked there, everyone had the common sense to go home and take a nap for the 4 or 5 hours of the worst heat of the day. Local custom: start before dawn, stop at 11 - noon, resume when it cools down, say around 5pm, and go past dusk. The exception would be some of the International Consultants, who, on their own schedule, wished to transform the local schedule, which led to many mis-understandings, raw nerves, and so on. At that time, no airconditioning. Often, no electricity. Areas known for the two seasons: mosquito season and fly season.

As my job was often to coordinate these visits, the best explanation I could give was "Only Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun", carefully translating the 'Mad Dogs' as those dogs who have rabies, which was common in the places.

The folks who I was explaining this to, would pause, think, nod, and then go to the necessary meetings. Some guy with a suit and brief case, sitting on a bench swatting flies, with everyone in the audience mentally comparing the guy to a rabid dog.

Oh well. Later on, we'd get everything sorted out and get on with it.

And, as a Soccer Dad with HS kids trying to play in dangerous 100º heat, I've know what you mean.

It is the most grueling race about which I've ever heard.

Oh, this was a walk through the daisies in compared to adventure racing. Those folks are hard core. We did three runs each, and I only ran a total of 2 hours. It was hard - mostly due to lack of sleep, and sitting in the van stiffening up - but it was really fun.

Most of the 2,000 vans were decorated, quite a few teams wore costumes, or had matching shirts. The comaraderie was really great. Everyone cheers for each other. The volunteers were the total best. I can imagine wanting to run and participate, but you've really got to appreciate someone who will voluntarily spend 5 hours directing tired cranky people to the next baton exchange, parking space, porta-potties and road turns.

Our team, and as far as I gathered, most teams, just had runners in their vans. Six runners per van (usually a mini-van), and one runner drove while they weren't running their leg. Maybe the elite teams had staff like Rob says. They've got sponsors too. And WOW were they ever fast. I got passed like I was running backwards by one of the elites. He had to be doing sub-5 minute miles. Probably easy for him - that section was only 3 miles long. Wish I could figure out how to move my feet that fast.

It took our team 27 hours 35 minutes to complete the course. The elites did it in around 17 hours. Like I said, I spent all of about 2 hours running. The rest is all van shuttles, cheering, handing water to our runner, showering at high school locker rooms along the way, sleeping all wadded up in the van, and visiting porta-potties.

There was a BIG party at the end. Music and food and a beer garden. About 20,000 people participate and I think they said 70,000 people go to the party. Next time I want to stay over - lots of teams get houses, condos, motels, whatever for the night. I doubt there was a haystack left to rent in Seaside last night. Great fun.

Sorry about the hijack, Elia.

Not a problem, it's impossible to hijack an un-hijackable type thread.....