Yesterday was the 37th Annual Pewaukee River Run. I have no pictures of it because, well, I’m usually the one with the camera and I was busy with a paddle. Lets just say it was cold and rainy, we still managed to have fun and predictably my mom and Donna came in first (8th year in a row) and Stephanie and I came in second (seventh year in a row).

The awards given for placing in your division are about as predictable as where we placed, you get an unvarnished pine board that has a fill in the blank award tacked under Plexiglas to the front of it, and no hanger on the back. A few years ago I was trying to figure out what to do with my pile of pine boards. Not quite fancy enough for the living room, but I didn’t really want to throw them out, after all I paddled hard to get that pile! So this is what I came up with…Steph and I both hung the last seven years worth of our plaques on the wall of my brooder house. It adds a little festivity and gives the chicks something to read… . After I hung the most recent additions up this afternoon I got this questioning look from a chick, I’m pretty sure she, and a good number of other people I might add, wanted to know why we haven’t beaten those “old ladies” (those were the chick’s words not mine!) yet. And chicken (and the rest of you) here is what I have to say about that:

1) I picked the wrong boat for the race. Really wrong, stupid wrong, blaming it on a complete lack of sleep kind of wrong. (Did you know that if you only get 5 hours of sleep for a week it’s like having a blood alcohol level of 0.1 percent? That’s my newest fun fact. I’m not sure how to calculate 6 hours of broken sleep but I think it’s bad. Wait, was I talking about boats?)

2) Those ladies are fast!

And so in the tradition of my very speedy mother I’d like to talk smart while I still can.

We won’t be bringing the slow boat to the rest of the races this year, so those two better watch out, I’m running now after all!