Chock full of SPORTS

Yesterday was a day devoted to sports of all kinds.  We even had Twins tickets and were unable to use them because the schedule was that jam-packed full of sports.  It is good that I love sports.

1) The morning kicked off with the annual Bolder Dash, a 5K and 10K run around Lake Nokomis benefiting Bolder Options, a mentoring program I've written about before.  My mentee and I ran the 5K.  Bolder Options requires kids in the running program to complete three 5Ks per year, and some of the 5Ks around town seem like they would feel a little overwhelming for kids because only a handful of mentor-mentee pairs will enter.  But this race is awesome because practically everyone in the program clears their calendar for the event, so there are dozens of mentor-mentee pairs on the course all at once.  It's great to see pairs in all stages of the program out there, including new pairs running their first 5K. My mentee loves races, so this is something like our eighth or ninth race since we got matched a little over two years ago.

There were signs posted all over the course for encouragement.  My favorite displayed the Bolder Options slogan:

After the race, I dropped off my mentee and headed back to Minneapolis to pick Josh up at work.  We are temporarily a one-car household because of an utter failure on my vehicle's behalf, which will require a less-fun sporting event later today called jumping my car and hoping the battery holds until we reach the repair shop.

2) But that wasn't on my mind yesterday.  Yesterday, in addition to Bolder Dash, was Ring Ceremony Day!  Josh is an assistant coach for a nearby college's baseball team.  They won the conference tournament last spring for the first time in program history!  Everyone was tremendously proud and excited (and rightfully so), so the head coach arranged for the players and coaches to get rings a la World Series rings to commemorate the event.  They are big and flashy and fabulous, but more than that, it was a neat experience to watch the families, players and coaches take a moment at the start of the new season to recognize what a special achievement unfolded last spring.

The head coach told a story about how seeing the look on one of the player's faces after the team made the final out in the conference championship made all of the challenges and low points during the years leading up to the championship worth it.  Because of that, he had the players and coaches open their ring boxes in unison, so he could see their faces again.  He was right: it was great.  They loved their rings.

I think Josh tried to act tough but was really quite pleased:

3) After everyone's rings had been distributed, some of the group went to a local bar.  And not five feet away from my chair, my game was on!  We had the DVR set at home for Tennessee vs. Florida, the season's first conference match-up and a big test for UT, but we decided to watch it at the bar instead.  The crux of this sports story is that I was really into a football game on TV at a sports bar.  This is a new experience for me. UT looked pretty overmatched for most of the game but kept the game close and even provided a few moments that allowed me to pound Josh's back in excitement.  We also had a lovely quiet moment where we sang "Rocky Top" along with the mp3 recording on his cell phone when UT scored a touchdown.  Florida won, 33-23.  But heck!  I really had fun.  My project is going well.

4)  Finally, I have one more thrill to share.  On an impulse whim, I bought a pair of riding boots on ebay last week and my fingers hurt by the time they arrived because I was crossing them so hard for these boots to fit me and my calves.  It was a real and probably irresponsible roll of the dice - on par with buying a pair of random jeans online and guessing on a size - as women with generous calf muscles will understand.  I put them on yesterday and they fit!!!

This counts as part of my sports-themed day because A) they are riding boots, therefore covering the equestrian component (even though most of you know I haven't ridden a horse in more than a decade) and B) the excitement in my heart was on par with crossing the finish line after a good race.  Truth.

The sports-themed weekend continues.  I just finished my last long-long run of the training cycle and will usher in the taper period (i.e. rest - more on this later) on the couch, possibly with a baseball or football game on TV while I make some fall afternoon zzzs.