The Road to Farley is Less Traveled

A couple of things happened in the past few days that got me thinking about snow. Don't get me wrong, I have loved loved loved the glorious fall weather we have had for the past month. But, we all know it is there, lurking in the darkness, and I--for one--am ready. First, I was tasked with purchasing items for a "Trim the Tree" gift basket for my work team to donate to our United Way silent auction. Off I went to Hobby Lobby with the loot contributed by my coworkers. Score! All the Christmas items were 40% off, so $125 went a long way in putting together a pretty huge basket of items to deck your tree. As I wandered up and down the aisles checking out all the new Christmas merchandise, still neatly stacked on the shelves and in pristine condition, it made me excited to pull out my own holiday decorations and get the house looking all cozy for the holidays. Yes, yes, I know we still have two major holidays to get through before Christmas is here. But, I can be excited no...

My cousin Tim had a post on Facebook today about a guy who was out riding his Harley with some buddies a while back, and one of the guys' bikes broke down about 5 miles north of Farley. Some Farleyian stopped and put the bike in the back of his pickup and took him into town. Some other Farleyian offered up some tools, and soon, the guys were back on the road. One of the guys was so impressed with the friendly people of Farley he wrote a little tune. Click here to find the song -- scroll down a bit until you see the title "If You Break Down on Your Harley, It's Good to be in Farley." It's actually the 7th song. A catchy little tune. So, yeah, it's good to be in Farley, and it's good to be from Farley.

A week ago, I said I had just one more thing to say about the 5K I participated in last Sunday. OK, I lied. I have one final thing to say about that. Today, on NPR, I heard a story about a woman who gave birth just a few hours after completing the Chicago Marathon? WTF? You can read the full story in the Chicago tribune by clicking here . All I'm saying is that it was bad enough that an 85 year old woman ran a 5K in about half the time it took me to walk it last week. Now, evidently, women who are 39 weeks pregnant are running marathons like it's no big deal. She completed the race in a little over 6 hours. At the pace I walked last week, it would have taken me, oh, about EIGHT HOURS to complete it. Now, I feel even more like a slug!

It is probably fitting, in some bittersweet way, that famed pianist Roger Williams died yesterday at his Encino, California home. Williams, who played for nine presidents starting with Harry Truman, was likely best known for his 1958 hit "Autumn Leaves." The song was the only instrumental to ever reach No. 1 on the Billboard pop charts.  This past week reminds me why autumn is my most favorite time of year. We were blessed with glorious weather for the past 8-9 days...the brilliant blue sky, illuminated by a blazing sun, served as the perfect canvas for the trees that erupted into gorgeous gold and orange and red hues all week. The warm days gave way to cool nights, with a sky brightened by a waxing gibbous moon and every star and planet twinkled in the sky like lights on a Christmas tree. If only this weather could continue until March. I think Mother Nature gives us this little weather nirvana as a consolation for the snow and cold that will be upon us shortly. ...

The official results are in:     Especially For You - 5K "Walk" Results  Even though I signed up for the run, I got lumped in to the results for the walk. I think I must have handed my number to the wrong guy. In any case, it doesn't matter. What this says is that I was 730th overall from all the female walkers (5,130 women) and 91st (out of 514) in my age category (45-49). As I noted yesterday, the time is skewed by 4+ minutes because that's how long it took us to get to the official starting line. The fastest walker completed the course in 31:12. Should I feel bad that the top two finishers in the 80+ age group had a faster time than me? Hmmmm, I think those broads cheated. We saw quite a number of people cutting across the course. Alledgedly, some 85 year old woman claims to have run the course in 29:59. I think she cheated, too. I have to keep telling myself that, or I'll get really depressed that a grandma can run faster than me. Sheesh...I'm ...

No, that is not a prisoner number. It was my number in today's Especially for You  5K run/walk in Cedar Rapids. Nearly 16,000 participants signed up for the event...way more than I had imagined. Needless to say, this event was a bit bigger than my initial foray into the race world -- the Farley Kick-off to Summer 2 mile Run/Walk back in June. There were, maybe, about 60-70 participants in that event. One snafu right off the bat is that they could not find Darcy's registration. Thank God for technology, she had her confirmation on her phone. But, it still seemed a big deal to get her a number and t-shirt. The project manager in the three of us started discussing their implementation planning and contingency planning. Did they adequately assess all of their risks? We think they have some lessons learned. There were still about 50 people in the late registration line with under 15 minutes before race time. After my months of mentally and physically "preparing" for th...