So what's been happening since we last talked? Here's my story. It's a long one:

Thursday worked the hill, paying attention to cadence
this round, as opposed to speed. Was suppose to keep it around 30 foot
strikes (you only count one foot, i.e. every left foot strike) in 20
seconds. I was usually around 28. If I went much slower, I'd have
been walking up the hill. The upside - I wasn't exhausted at the end.
Nice!

Saturday Karen and I ran the entire Headwaters Trail and
got to experience a small portion of the redwood grove that was saved.
It was absolutely unbelievable. Stunning. No pictures to show, but
there's no way pictures could have done justice to what we saw anyway.
The entire trail is a trail runner's deam. Quite a bit of uphill with
switched backs, but once you get to the "top," the trail undulates and
bends all over the place. Coming out is a blast 'cause it's mostly
downhill.

We were out there about 2 1/2 hours. Karen's body is
still recovering from her severe food poisoning, it really drained her
stamina, so we kept it nice and slow. We had a great time - until we
got back to the parking lot. We came around the corner and I just
started freaking out. Took Karen a few minutes to grasp the problem.
Someone had smashed out the front and back windows on the driver side
of my car. Oh man, I freaked! All I could think was that
they'd gotten my purse, which I'd stuffed through the back seat into
the trunk. Thankfully, all they ended up with was a really nice tote
bag that was in the back seat with a couple of pairs of gloves, a
scarf, and some teaching material for legal secretaries class my
association is going to do. I didn't realize that until today, though.

Oh
man, all I can say is I'm glad no one else was around 'cause I don't
know if I've ever used so much foul language in my life. It was just
shear, unadulterated anger. Karen, bless her heart, kept a
level head, which helped calm me down. We cleaned out the shards from
the window and were just about to get in and leave when a ranger showed
up. Who, by the way, was oh so very cute . . . but I digress. Some
people who lived nearby had driven into the parking lot to turn around
and saw my car and a van with the windows busted and had called the
sheriff, who called the ranger (the Headwaters is on BLM land). He
took a report and said he'd be coming back over the next couple of
days, hide, and see if whoever it was comes back.

There were two
cars in the parking lot when we arrived around 7:15. Something in the
back of my mind nagged me about it, but I shrugged it off. Never
again. Thankfully, Karen has (1) a big garage and (2) two cars, so my
car is in her garage until it quits raining and I can get it in
somewhere to get fixed, and she's letting me borrow one of her cars so
I don't have to rack up rental car charges to boot. The really crappy
part of this is we absolutely loved that trail, and now I don't
feel safe going back there. And it's ammunition for my husband who
already is fond of telling me that us going out by ourselves is
dangerous. He's out of town this weekend and doesn't get back 'til
tomorrow, so he doesn't know about it yet. ***sigh***