Yeti Hunting with 3/5 of Team Friends

There was never any doubt in my mind that completing a race in Oklahoma meant incorporating some sort of Team Friends reunion.

Team Friends is a really cool name for me and my four best friends from my time in AmeriCorps*NCCC. I'd love to tell you all about it, but that would take another blog. Or book. Or at least picture collage. Just know it was one of the best years of my life, with some of my all time favorite people. I talked a little bit about it before, here. If you or someone you know wants to spend a year in service as a young adult, check it out here.

Anyway, the whole crew couldn't make it for this reunion but Jake and I decided to take a trip to see Kara and her little Team Friend Jr. (my first time meeting her!) in Tulsa.

After the best airport pick-up ever...

Corps, Corps, Nothin' but the Corps!

Okay, that is not an official AmeriCorps cheer, but when my friend Ali's friend Richard heard that AmeriCorps*NCCC has a pledge (not a cheer), he assumed it sounded something like that.

So why the reference to the incorrect cheer that brings me back to my days of glory?

Because, people, it's...

and I've decided to participate. The reason for flashing back to AmeriCorps*NCCC specifically is that this is a running blog, and AmeriCorps is where the love affair began.

I always knew I wanted to do a year of service after graduating college and I was pumped to start AmeriCorps in California. The program is amazing and was absolutely the best year of my life.

However.

I knew that part of the program was PT and to be placed in a group, each corps member would be tested on push-ups, sit-ups, and running a mile and a half. A mile and a half! It may as well have been a million.

The last time I had run a mile was in gym class senior year and I'm sure it took me an embarrassingly long time. I had never run a mile and a half. Running equaled difficulty breathing and humiliation in my life.