It has been quite some time since the far northern contingent of the Striders has ben heard from. Thus, I felt this was a good time to let you know how things are, going up here. It seems like more than 2 years have elapsed since our departure from the Mid-Valley. Cheron and I have tried to keep the exercising going. Last year we did the Seattle 1/2 Marathon and Cheron was llth in her age division and in 1997 came in 3rd in the 5 miler at the Mercer Island 1/2. Needless to say I did not place in any of these events. After the Las Vegas 1/2 Marathon a couple of years ago, PR's seemed to fade and be a thing of the past. In the brain this is known as "long term memory." There was one PR at the Pumpkin Run 10K, but that wasn't a resounding success, either! My running buddy, Oreo, had a bad time of it and has become lazy. The last time I offered to run with him he just looked at me, as to say, "I prefer to ride in the car with Cheron and sit in the car and wait for her - go kill yourself!"

     The Spring of '98 was marked by the London Marathon and that was "fun". At about mile 23 you have to run over the cobble stones in front of the Tower of London and it really hurts your feet! At the time I was thinking how much relief having one's head sliced off might have been! It was a very well organized run and the British are quite amusing as they try to cheer you on. "Jolly well done" and "Buck up young fellow" are phrases that just don't seem to fit with our marathon lingo! Even though quite proper, the crowds were enthusiastic and the race was packed with millions of people.

      This year we went to Vancouver and a couple of weeks later the Capitol City Marathon which, even though was a training run, turned out to be my best of the year. Later I did Newport, but not well. This June I had my foot operated on and it's better but not great-it used to kill me at 8 miles and now about 12! That's progress! So after seeing my times get longer I decided to start over. I'11 plan to do one in the Spring. Cheron says we're going to Australia so I sent in an app. for Sydney! I'm planning to be in shape for it and hope to do well. They have a cut off of 5 hours so I can't loaf!