Thick as Theives

Last Thursday my friend Yvonne and I headed up to Tiger for a 5:30am start to a 5 hour ride. We had to be at work by 11:30am and wanted to get in a long ride on Tiger. This meant getting out of bed at 4:30am and starting our first lap with lights. It also meant that the Tiger parking lot was pretty empty and dark.  We were doing ~1 hour loops and landed back at the cars around 6:40ish after a fun/easy lap. The rest of the story is not so fun ...

At first we just noticed my missing backpack ... knowing my ability to be a bit 'spazzy' or 'out of it', i figured i must have left it on the ground (even though that would be a bit weird, even for me) :) ... but when we went to Yvonne's car to search for it we found her window broken and quickly did an assessment of what was stolen. We were pretty obessed with her car ... they took her passports, her backpack (which had a laptop in it), her work papers, and more. Wow!  Then she asked me 'was your door unlocked?' ... um, i don't think so? But i wasn't sure because i had used the clicker to unlock it before trying to open the door. So i checked my console ... yup, purse was gone. And my geekish bag which could have been a laptop bag was gone (it was full of towels) ... and my subaru drivers manual was gone (why????) ... and of course my backpack. Thankfully they left my bike tools and cooler.

I was glad that i'd been too distracted to lock the car ... no smashed window at least. But my poor friend Yvonne got the worst of it! They took her garage clicker and house keys ... and robed her home!!! I am SO glad they were gone by the time she got there ... so scary!  They tried to charge all of our cards so we are working with police to put together a case against them. Craziness!

But in the end, we are safe and sound. Her locks are changed and the police are on the case ...

And yes, i went back to tiger on Friday am ... alone this time. I waited till 6:45am when the sun was out and other bikers were in the lot. I left my car unlocked (didn't have a purse anyway) and took valuables with me ... and i finished my 5 hour ride. I will admit i was a bit nervous going alone ... but in the daylight, with other riders, my nervousness soon went away. You can't let the unknown rule your life ...

Inspriational!

Amazing how many things there are around you ... each and ever day ... that can be inspriational! Here are a few on my list lately:

• A older couple out for an early morning ride
• A man out running with only one arm
• An over-weight person out for an early morning walk/jog
• A young child learning a new sport
• New mothers out doing fitness classes on the trail
• An older person learning a new sport
• A person recovering from an injury, learning to walk, and then to run again
• A friend recovering from cancer and getting back to 'living' again
• The things that a small child finds amazing :)

If you are in need of inspiration I challenge you to open your eyes and take a look around you ... humankind is amazing and absolutely inspriational!  Take a look, you will like what you see :)