September 2009
In the Bitterroot Athlete Valley

Hi All.  Happy Fall.  We had a beautiful September. The best weather in the Bitterroot in my opinion.  Picture to the right is Patrick Chaplin's, photographer of Deb Eckhart's triathlon crash. 

Not a whole lot race-wise for September.  It seems to be the Fall transition into school and other changes.  The Garden City Triathlon came and went quietly early in the month. Looks like Kirk & Lisa Crews and Rachel Matt participated.  Here are the results.

Local Events

September is Fair time.  This was the first time that I saw the parade for the fair opening. People took off work just to come and see this...I did too.   I decided to see what all the hoopla was about.  I could not believe the crowds!   At least 3/4 of the town was there. The parade had a lot of fire trucks, horses, political candidates, and teams. Christophe, Deb, and Sarah were out with their new family member, Emmy.  Deb just delivered her five days prior!

The Fair also means deep fried white-flour batter with cinnamon & sugar...in other words, the annual Swim Team Elephant Ear booth.  We wait all year to eat these waist-expanding "treats"! The Fair was plaqued by major down pours, which put a little damper on sales, but we still enjoyed the annual event.

Saturday Runs

We got another run in at Lake Como.  The lake was low as expected, but great to run around the trail again. I had not run it since the triathlon late July. We started out across the lake bed, beach to dock, but it was very rocky and difficult terrain and had to walk in parts. We were met on the North side by the Darby Cross Country Team running the oppposite way--North to South. They were flying. We could tell Coach Gideon was holding them back to warm up first.   

September 12th was Run Wild Missoula's first Sweathouse Half Marathon and 5-mile Run in Victor. Most of the Saturday runners ran the 5-miler. While the half marathon people said it was a beautiful course and well marked, the five milers enjoyed being a little more creative in our run.   Some of us missed a turn or two and the mileage didn't add up.  Volunteers then said to go down a few blocks to make up missed turns. This still didn't add up to 5 miles and I for one, definitely had to get my five miles in. So as I was running by the finish line and people were calling me in, "Turn here, turn here!!" I said, "I'm only at 4.7 miles!?" So I kept going around another block, and as Dean said later, stopped for coffee, got a doughnut and then came in the back way and made a right angle turn into the finish shoot--5.0 miles. We all laughed as we learned that first, second and third, all discussed and agreed on who officially should be in what place.  They all made up their final route to the finish.

Official pictures show:          Green shirt, Dean, Cory, and Howard. 

The "decided results" show: Cory, Green shirt, Dean, and Howard!

We thought it was a great "make-up-your-own finish race!" We liked it! RESULTS

We also had our last run from the shop on Saturday, July 19th. We ran about one hour and met back at the shop.   Jim and Jamie Woods of the Food Emporium made some delicious gourmet, organic pancakes with a hot maple, berries and butter syrup!  Superb!  Customers started coming while the runners were still visiting.  Amy James-Linton held down the fort so I could get ready and come back to work my last day.  Sales were booming all of September with the price cuts.

New Saturday Runs

These last Saturdays, I have been busy with the Missoula Market, garage sale, a half marathon, and Apple Days, but plan to get back into the Saturday run routine. We would like to propose a "round robin" hosting of the Saturday runs; provide a run route/loop and snack/coffee afterwards.  Send an email to participate &/or get on schedule. See side column on top-left for next two runs. RSVPs will help for planning.  

The Closing Day

The 19th was busy with the last run, the store closing, Matt Guzik and Linda Woods getting married, and Jerry Wessels having their Customer Appreciation BBQ next door to the shop.  It was a busy day, but good for me to keep busy.

Sunday, I packed up and Monday Merchant Movers moved all my fixtures and boxes into my garage.  So now my garage is full and I park outside. I have my fixtures listed on the Missoula and Spokane Craig's List, but maybe I'll have to wait for the market to recover to sell them?? 

The athlete pictures went to Kristen Weese the swimmer, Jeremy Oury the biker, and Matt's I still have since he was off to Italy on his honeymoon.  I have Kristen's smaller swim picture in my spare room, and Matt went to the Missoula market with me and is hanging out in my living room for now.

Thus, still having 9 boxes of clothes left, I headed to the People's Market in Missoula on the 26th.  It was very good.  Then I had so much stuff from my shop in my house that I had to have a garage sale. That was very good.  Especially Friday!  If you have a garage sale, have it on a Friday also!  From there it was off to Boise for a Half Marathon and the following weekend was Apple Days.  The last market is in Missoula where I'll be selling the remaining 5 or 6 boxes...they are still all packed in my car...but that is October's story.

The Final Good Bye Store

It was a great almost 2 years and I will miss all of you.  I am already having people/employment withdrawals.  Thank you for making this athletic store a great chapter in my life.  I hope you get many years of good wear from the athletic clothes you bought. Thank you for all your support, patronage and friendship.

I put a PowerPoint-type Thank you/picture review together for a BBQ/thank you party and I will be posting it on the Antara Sports Home page.  I will send out an email when it goes up.

Have a good month and I will update later for October.

Remember to contact me for run info/location/emails, etc.

P.S. Stop and pet the goats once in a while...(this goat possibly could be adopted? The caretaker said someone dropped him off to be with their other goats [that don't look like him] but he likes people and thinks he's human. Is anyone interested in adopting a cute and friendly people goat? The caregiver is trying to make him believe he is a goat again. :-)