ONE OF MY FAVORITE DAYS OF THE YEAR!

Redemption Day-Catch Up Day-Pay Back Day-The day I have longed for since last April-I GOT MY HOUR BACK! Only the federal government would decide that in the grand "good" of "the people", they would fool around with changing the clocks. So many years ago, in an effort to Save Energy, we began the grand social experiment of -losing an hour every Spring and having it given back to us every Fall. I don't really understand how this helps the energy problem, but I have never been a great scientific mind. I still try to sleep around 8 or so hours-in the dark-every night and the heat and cool are adjusted according to these hours of sleep as well as the lights. Some brilliant scientific mind convinced the powers to be in Washington that this would save us a ton of energy. Now let's review the facts-the factories still operate 24 hours a day, people still sleep the same number of hours, we still eat about 3 meals a day, our house still have to be cooled-heated, etc. etc. As we all know, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to talk the group in Washington into some rash idea. For some strange reason, when one is elected to office, they begin to feel smarter than the rest of us. This means they make decisions for the rest of us and don't think they should have to explain. The truth is somewhere around-they cannot explain and are slightly outraged that we dare to question their decisions. So much for this tirade-just suffice it to say that I am delighted to regain the hour they SO RUDELY took from me last Spring.

The really good thing about this change is that we will not be running in the total dark on our early morning runs. We had gotten to the point that when we finished it still was not daylight, so this will change that and hopefully we will be more visible to the early morning motorist. We ran our cutback run of 11.2 miles yesterday which was wonderful. It is great to finish and think I am not totally drained for the first half of my Saturday. The REALLY GOOD news is that we are now 9 weeks finished out of our 18 weeks of training. Of the remaining 9 weeks, 2 are tapering weeks at the end of the training, so we have 7 more hard weeks. REALLY HARD WEEKS! Larry tried to run with his injury yesterday which was a huge mistake. He is like a kid and will not listen to my better judgement, but he did stop after 2 miles and admit it was not a good idea to finish the run. We had 13 runners yesterday which looks like a parade moving down the road. I would love to know what the early morning drivers think when they pass wave after wave of runner out in the early Saturday morning cool . Probably something like, "Who in the world are all of these nuts?"

I am enjoying the beauty of Fall. There are leaves all around that are turning and in very short order falling-thus the Fall Season of the year. What a gift from God and how wonderful and beautiful are the colors that are floating all around us. We are on our way to the Fall Fling at church as our small group has duty during the festivities. I will enjoy watching all of the little kids playing the games and enjoying theirselves. HAPPY FALL!