Sweet Home ... Tennessee

42 is the answer, but what is the question?

Currently, it's: "How many states do I have left to cover?"

Yes, indeedy, I did another race!

Let me tell you a little about Fayetteville, Tennessee: It's the seat of Lincoln County, in Middle Tennessee, established in 1809, 85 miles SSE of Nashville and 25 miles north of Huntsville, AL. Moore County, where one can find Lynchburg and the home of Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey, is the next county over and just a short drive away. Fayetteville's population, according to the abovelinked municipal website: 7007. One of those people is my Aunt Kate.

My dad grew up in Fayetteville, along with his three siblings. Their mom grew up here, too, and her parents. In fact, four of my great-great-grandparents are buried in Rose Hill Cemetary. I've spent school vacations and family trips visiting here throughout my life, and although my "Ole Dad" never missed an opportunity to call me a Yankee, it's safe to say the Elk River metaphorically runs through my veins. (And every time I visit, I make sure some caffeine from the Elk River Coffee Company literally runs through my veins.)

Since retiring back to Fayetteville several years ago, Kate has volunteered her time in a lot of organizations in the community, one of which is the Imagination Library. The original Imagination Library project was started by Dolly Parton, to support early literacy and access to books for children in her home county in East Tennessee. The project has been a great success, and she has shared the model with communities throughout Tennessee and the rest of the country, as well as in the UK and Canada. Each chapter is locally funded, however, which is how we get back to the subject of yesterday's race.

Yesterday was the third annual Imagination Library 5k Run and 1 mi Walk, supporting the Imagination Library of Lincoln County. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, with clear, blue skies and temperatures (at race time) in the upper 60s/low 70s fahrenheit. The start and finish were located in Stone Bridge Park:

The replica bridge was built in June, 2000, according to the plaque.

My sister and I flew down for the weekend, separately, from our respective home bases (she's in Brooklyn). We did our best to coordinate our arrivals into Hunstville International Airport, but to paraphrase what is apparently a Yiddish proverb, when travelers make plans, airlines laugh. Juliet's flight got in a little early of her scheduled 7:30ish p.m. CDT arrival time, and mine was due at 8:35 p.m. Well, long story short, by the time it was 8:35 p.m. CDT, I was still sitting in the US Airways boarding lounge at National, waiting for our crew to come in from somewhere else so that our perfectly ready-and-waiting aircraft could take off and actually go to Huntsville. We finally got in sometime after eleven, and rolled in at Kate's house slightly after midnight. By the time I'd settled in enough to get to bed, I only had 5 1/2 hours before I had to wake up.

All of that considered, I was ready for an underwhelming race performance. It's taken me over half an hour to finish a 5k race before, and if that was to be my fate again, I was resigned to it. But that isn't to say I was going to give up before I started.

In fact, and I couldn't tell you exactly why (except that I'm still getting good returns on Coach Adam's advice), I had a pretty good run! The course was pretty easy, with just a few relatively gentle hills, and we passed right in front of Kate's house around the 1.9 mi mark, which was exactly when I needed to see my cheering section.

1/2 of the non-human portion of my cheering section, photographed before the race.

It was a lot of fun to run around a town I've gotten to know so well, through a lifetime of visits, and by the time I rounded the last corner and saw that I was fixin' to come in under 29 minutes, I was ready to sprint for the finish line!

Many thanks to Tom Wallace for this photo!

I haven't seen the overall standings yet, but I believe I came in 3rd in the female, 35-39, division, with a time of 0:28:55. [Edited: The results are posted here. My time is posted as 0:28:56, for some reason, but I'm not quibbling over one second. Turns out I came in 22nd overall, out of 76, and fifth overall for women!] That's better than my times in Portsmouth, NH, or San Francisco! Not bad, for so little sleep. In fact, not bad, full stop. And more importantly, I'm told the event raised over $3,000 for Imagination Library. That's a lot of books that can now find their way into eager, little hands and minds. Many congratulations to Teresa Brown and the rest of the organizers and volunteers!

Kate and Juliet came and met me at the park, shortly after I crossed the finish line.

We stuck around for part of the post-race prizes, during which I was very kindly presented with a mug from Elk River Coffee Company, just for having come all the way from RI for the race. (At which point I also realized I can honestly claim to have come in first place among runners from New England!) We would have stayed for the whole party, but we had to get to the Lincoln County Humane Society's casserole sale:

I'm told those brownie are "celestial". The gentleman who makes them does not give out the recipe, so that people will be sure and buy them to support the Humane Society. Not being able to eat brownies, I opted instead to get a big bag of locally-grown okra. Also, tater tot casserole is apparently a thing.

After doing our part to help the Humane Society (and support Kate's next-door neighbor, Rhonda, who organized the whole thing and still found time to run out and cheer for me as I ran by her house), we met Kate's friend Eugene for coffee at, you guessed it, Elk River Coffee Company.

The rest of the day was pretty much about napping. And some excellent vegetable biryani for lunch, which Kate had picked up for me the previous night at Sitar in Huntsville, while they were waiting for my flight.

So, my friends, that's eight down, forty-two to go, and I believe I'm done for 2012. But stay tuned, because I'm seriously considering starting off 2013 with a race in Jacksonville on Saturday, January 5 (currently still shows the 2012 date, but their calendar gives the 2013 date).

Oh, did I mention? I'm doing another race!

Wow, late summer/early fall turns out to be a low energy point for me. It's almost as though I had a job that left the summer free for pursuing any activity I wish, and then became madly busy in early September ... oh, wait.

So, I didn't do the Vermont race I'd been planning. This was for two primary reasons: (1) August 25-26 turned out to be move-in weekend for UVM, which I deemed not to be the best time one might choose for visiting Burlington. And (2) I just didn't really wanna. (I went diving twice that weekend, instead. It was lovely. Well, Friday was lovely. Sunday's conditions were sort of lousy, and we ended up with this really long surface swim against the current and ... oh, am I digressing?)

This means I'm still at 7. But not for long!

This coming Saturday, I will be (Lord willing and the creeks don't rise) running the Imagination Library 5k in my dad's hometown of Fayetteville, TN. My sister and I will both be going doing for the weekend, hanging out with our Aunt Kate, and enjoying a little Tennessee air—possibly from the porch swing.

I haven't been great about training lately, but I had a pretty good run this evening, faster than my usual training time. I'm feeling reasonably optimistic about finishing in under 0:30:00; anything shorter than half an hour, and I'm really quite a happy girl.

I'll let y'all know how it goes!