Tonight I decided to put my salsa lessons to work. I went out to “On the Rocks” to try their Salsa Thursdays. The entire point of salsa lessons has been to gain confidence when I do go out, so this should have been a good field test.
But like a quality university education, the real world is quite different from class.
Now I have to dance with people who don’t know what to expect. I have to actually Lead. I can’t just do the moves that I know my follow is expecting. And it doesn’t help that I don’t always remember exactly what the moves are.
I saved myself from feeling too discouraged by leaving early. At the next class I’ll have a better idea as to what to work on. Hopefully it will stick for my next field test.

I did the Blackfoot 100km run on Saturday. Here are my thoughts.
It is a 25km loop that I have to do four times. I was not expecting it to be pleasant, due to the weather. I bundled up and was prepared for the worst. But 5km in I abandoned my rain jacket; it was making me too hot and there was no rain; just wet ground. I deposited it at an aid station, and they returned it to the starting area.
While the weather was pleasant enough, conditions were not good on the ground due to the previous rain. Wapiti trail is used by horses, and apparently an ambitious beaver, so it was a mass of mud. I liked it better than the 2.5km mud road through the hilly field immediately after though. I am very glad I had Goretex socks; they saved my feet from all the mud and wet grass. My shoes currently look like a complete disaster.
Half an hour into the third loop, it started to rain. In other words, when I was about three hours away from my rain jacket. But, I’m not made of sugar, and as I like to say “Suck it up, princess!” Luckily, I had a change of clothes waiting for me at the trail head as well.
It was about this time that blisters forming on the bottom of my feet. They weren’t bad enough to slow me down, and only caused pain if I stepped on an errant tree root. The next day though, they are nothing but pain.
Half of the people I know did not make it. One had kidney troubles. Another blew a hip flexor. I was lucky enough to catch up with a fast friend, and we stuck together throughout the race. She did keep trying to lose me at the trailhead, but then, I do take a lot of time at aid stations. I need to work on that.
At the end of the third loop, a girl gave me a meatball shaped snack. She said it had protein. I don’t know what it was, but it gave me a huge burst of energy. I was suddenly feeling good again. I really need to find out what was in that. Or at least, get more protein in my system. Which was good, because when I had made a request from some other volunteers for some of their chicken noodle soup, their first response was to fill the pot up with cold water. I think they thought I was done, and not in a rush.
After it was all over, I got a medal. That was a first for this race; previous years there were none.