HOLY BUTTOCKS!

That pretty much sums it up. Early this morning I woke up before the conference to run the streets of Henderson NV.   And boy....HOLY BUTTOCKS!...
This is the first time I haven't been downtown on the strip for a conference.  This time we're at the Green Valley Ranch (wait....don't be confused. There are no horses, cowboys, or other 'ranch-esque' items) in Henderson.   Instead of cute cowboys, there are weirdo gamblers everywhere - mostly transplanted midwesterners on oxygen tanks who are smoking like a chimney.  Ahhh, gotta love Vegas.  We literally are a few miles from downtown and can look down over the strip from a higher elevation.  It's a pretty unique view of the skyline actually. 

I didn't want to take the shuttle downtown this morning to run the strip since I did do that last fall when I was in Vegas for DBIA.  How can I pass this up again?

So, today I decided to just run local in Henderson.  I guess if you HAVE to live in Vegas (which seriously, I can't even comprehend raising a family here), this is the place.  It really is beautiful! Butt (pun intended), let's get back to the point of this post.

TODAY is my first post-marathon run!  Woo-hoo.  After seeing a few other post-marathon finisher's posts this morning talk about their re-coop runs, I have to admit I was quite jealous and lace up for the first time in 5 days!  So, I woke up early (but still late taking advantage of this fabulous west coast time zone) and stepped out on to Paseo Verde Parkway and headed west along the bike path.  Well, could you believe that somehow to my LUCK (whatever...) I am staying in the one hotel that is at the bottom of a 2 mile hill!  ARGGHHH!  So, I decided I'd climb it, and then run down.  So, I ventured out, pushing 'play' on the iPod again for the first time since Sunday...feeling good - for about the first 2 minutes. 

HOLY BUTTOCKS.  Remember how I mentioned before that I have never run so many hills in the Go! St. Louis Marathon.  Well - now I know the after-affect of that 4+ hours of hill anguish - BEATUP BUTTOCKS.  It took till today when I started running up that first hill since Sunday - that I realized they were even hurting.  I didn't give up....but climbed the two miles relentlessly - and then back home.   I guess I have never really known how to work out my 'glutes' but now I can imagine that J Lo and Kim Kardashian must always have their treadmill on a 10% incline every day!  No thanks - Calgon...take me away and back to Homewood, IL.  Where the hills are flat and my butt can go back to being flabby :)

But, here's some great photos along my early run... These help make the hills all the more acceptable, well partially!

The amazing aromas of roses lined the running path.  Hundreds of bushes.  I don't have allergy problems, but I can only imagine that if Chris was with me, he'd be mandating us re-direct to a different street.  The bushes were 5' tall and each had hundreds of roses.

Ahh.....summer has arrived in Nevada.  It was 81 degrees and cool mist along random places on the route!

Can't pass up the fabulous palm tree shot.... Seriously, why haven't landscape companies found a way to develop a hybrid version that can survive in my yard at home?