Last Week, Part 1

I'm back, and as promised, here to talk about some of what I was away doing last week when I wasn't writing blog posts.  However, there are no pictures.  While it may have seemed like a good idea to offer this up, in retrospect, I don't care for the idea of posting pictures of people on the internet without their permission.  Especially if a large portion of those people are underage.  I will see what I can do about getting some scenery shots from the camp, though I didn't take any this year, there may be some stored somewhere on my hard drive from previous years.

The week started off with a wedding.  Our friends Mitch and Heather got hitched down in Blacksburg on the Saturday before camp kicked off, so we headed down for drinking, dancing, and celebrating.  Turns out I'm way too white to be dancing.  Luckily, I don't think there are any pictures of that.  While I left the wedding photography to the professionals (read:  people with nice cameras), it was a good opportunity to play with our camera and try out some of the settings that I've never bothered to read the user's manual about.

Then it was up early on Sunday to try to get to camp as quickly as possible.  This was Kim's first year on staff, so it would have been nice to attend at least a little bit of staff training.  Turns out we managed about 5 minutes of that, we just could not get moving quick enough and the drive was too long.

Sunday at camp is a blur.  Kids are showing up for registration and moving into the cabins, we're trying to get all of the information we need for the 300+ attending and get them settled in, get the oriented as much as possible to what is going on, and have the opening council fire for the week.  The campers are organized into 4 tribes for the week (WV 4-H relies on many traditions borrowed from Native Americans), led by a chief - an older camper, for whom it is a great honor chosen as chief, and for those of us who've served in this capacity, it is a very special week.  The staff are organized into the 5th tribe, the Bigfeet.  Typically the chief of the Bigfeet tribe is someone who is new on staff and unfamiliar with what is going on - rather than a great honor, it is more of a trial by fire.

Kim, being new on staff and new to WV 4-H, was the obvious choice for chief!  She spent a lot of the early part of the week completely lost as to what she was doing, but learned a lot about how we do things and had a really great week on staff.  She was a great addition to camp staff, and I'm not just saying that because she's my wife.

Monday was hot.  Ok, every day was hot.  And incredibly humid.  Standing still was enough to make us sweat.  It was so hot at times, my upper lip was sweating.  There are some buildings that have air conditioning (assembly hall, dining hall), and many that don't (cabins).  We had to spend the whole week making sure kids stayed hydrated and took time away from the sun.  Luckily, the camp has a pool.  Unluckily, it is a public pool during the times we don't use it.  Monday morning, before our designated time, some kid pooped in the pool!  You may not know this, but a pooped-in pool requires about a day of shutdown for cleaning, filtering, and to allow a mega-dose of chemicals to be run through the system so that it is safe again.  So we spent the first part of the week in the heat and humidity without the pool - and the rest of the week's humor revolved around poop jokes.

So there you have it.  The first part of the week was full of surprises, both pleasant and unpleasant.  I plan to write a quick post tomorrow (Saturday) about the rest of the week and last weekend, before resuming current events.

As for my training, so far so good this week.  I'm at about 20 miles for the week, with my long run still ahead of me tomorrow morning.  I have to work some this weekend, so I'll definitely want to get my runs in to keep my sanity.  I had a nice 5 mile tempo run at about an 8 minute pace yesterday, which I plan to bump up some each week leading up to the half marathon.  More on the plan in my next post.