16 miles of MOUNTAINS!!!

I took a little spontaneous trip to NC this weekend to visit the family! It's both my Mom and Dad's birthday weekend and I thought it was only fitting to fly home. I say spontaneous because I didn't purchase my Friday plane ticket until Wednesday afternoon! AND ... because it was such an on-the-whim kind of decision, I kept it a surprise.

I landed at 1:30PM and all three of my sisters picked me up at the airport. They held me hostage until 8PM that night for my parents birthday dinner (at Amber's house). It was so much fun! This is how we revealed their birthday surprise!

As soon as they showed up at 8PM, my sisters told them they had a "big" present that they wanted them to open ASAP and that they had to complete a scavenger hunt to find it b/c it was too big to wrap. Here were the clues:

We have a gift

Happy Birthday to you

Go to the couch

And look under Dru's shoe.

I'm sparkly and bright

Just like a star

You're one step closer

If you look in Whitney's car.

I'm old, not quite new

But, you'll still have a thrill

Now go to the porch

And look under the grill.

I'm small, yet I'm big

So no box would quite fit

Now go to the place

Where candles are lit.

When you split something four ways

The price isn't so high

Happy Birthday to you

Now close your eyes!!

**I've tried 10+ times to put a space at the end of each 4 lines, but my computer keeps going back to this .... Sorry!! At the end of each 4 line segment, they went to the place described and found another card**

Then, they closed their eyes and I surprised them! So much fun! One of the best weekends I've had in a very long time! There is nothing better than family!! :)

So ... onto Saturday morning. I had a 16 miler on deck. Did I mention my parents live in the Smoky Mountains?? I had to toss aside all time goals and run for time ... After three miles of up hill and an elevation gain of over 1100 feet (miles 2-4), I had to turn around and head back down the mountain to the flat ground (i.e. rolling mountains).

For all of you number crunchers:

(First #: split, Second #: elevation gain, Third #: elevation loss)

1. 9:00 85 74
2. 9:27 187 34
3. 9:16 167 18
4. 10:36 258 15
5. 9:34 0 230
6. 9:19 0 165
7. 6:55 74 187
8. 8:49 50 89
9. 8:59 13 87
10. 9:07 64 11
11. 9:14 10 78
12. 9:24 64 43
13. 9:01 10 78
14. 9:07 43 0
15. 9:20 57 57
16. 9:19 48 21

2:26ish for 16 miles. Compared to running in flat Florida, this was tough. I never climb more than 5 feet per mile here!! :) Even though we have much worse heat and humidity compared to NC, this now FL girl could not hang with the mountains!! I seriously found the flattest ground/road possible when I got back down off of the mountain at mile 7 and if you look at those numbers, it still wasn't that flat!