The one where my cute husband runs a trail race.

We used to live in Utah. One of my biggest regrets is that we did not fully take advantage of what was offered there. Sure, we camped and hiked and all that jazz. But trail running? Real, nitty gritty mountain biking? Didn't happen.

Upon our return to Kansas, we both got more serious about our activity level. We got more competitive. We trained harder. We wanted to be examples to our children of how fitness can be fun and rewarding. Recently, we were awarded a sponsorship from our local running store, and the husband took advantage of the sponsorship to purchase some trail shoes.

He was so excited.

I love the idea of trail running, but with how many runs I do with the kids, and the lack of trail near our house (unlike Utah, where we would walk out our front door and get to a trail head up a mountain literally two blocks away-- oh, how I miss it!), I've opted to refrain and stick to paved stuff. So after going on a couple trail runs, he eagerly signed up for a trail race.

I brought the kids, and we excitedly showed Daddy off at the start. The race was eight miles, and we were told that we could catch them at one of the loops if we headed down a road near the start and parked our bums by the lake. Turns out, my husband is a bit too fast, and my pace is a bit too slow when I have a toddler walking with me, so we JUST missed him. Instead, we played by the lake, and the toddler climbed and the infant put inappropriate things in his mouth.

After what we thought was an hour, we headed up to the start. We were told the finish was the same place at the start, and when we arrived, there was no one there! Just porta-potties. Hmm... so a gal walked out of the John, and said she was going to head down the road and see if the finish was there. As we walked, up ahead was the husband, tired and sweaty. We missed his finish! We were and adorable, but slightly inadequate cheering squad. Ah, well. The husband made top ten (top nine if you take out the dog-- As the husband said, "It was a sled dog! That isn't even fair!"), and was going on about how much he loved trail running.



That afternoon, though, I got a text message.

"My clothes are full of ticks."

Hoo, boy. The past few days, the husband has been nursing lots of itchy bites from seed ticks. Who knew Benadryl would be part of a recovery regime from a race?