Vu-Ja-De

Just a quickie as I am approximately three hours away from heading out of town once again to a very familiar place-Moab-but for something that is going to be a new and unfamiliar experience.

The website Urban Dictionary has the following definition listed for vu-ja-de:

"Opposite of deja vu. (1) It's when you know you have never been there before. (2)An experience nothing like you have seen or felt before. (3)Never have imagined living in the moment.

I'm pretty sure that the 24 Hours of Moab running relay qualifies as vu ja de. I'd wanted to participate in a relay event for a long time, but it's one of those things that is hard to coordinate when multiple people and busy lives are involved. Somehow, though, we've managed to pull together a team from a tri-county area here in Western Colorado, with two of us from Grand Junction, one apiece from Olathe, Montrose and Delta, and the "Pimp Daddy" of the Dirty Girls relay team, Nick (check out his blog here...lots of great random stuff from his wandering and traveling), who lived here at one point but now lives and works at his park interpreter/naturalist/ranger gig in the Tetons of Wyoming.

Our geeked out-ness over the race has built to a frenzy as the week has progressed-lots of chatter with teammates on our Facebook group, and a little bit of fun smack talk with the Mad Dogs, another team going down for the event. None of us has run such a thing before, and we're kind of like little kids on Christmas Eve with our excitement. We're too inexperienced with something like this to have any fear or concerns. This could be very, very awesome, or we could find ourselves asking "What are we doing out here?" at 4 a.m. on Sunday morning. Maybe both.

Either way, I'm stoked. Really stoked. I am actually chomping at the bit to turn in some good laps when it's my turn after my craptacular Canyonlands run. I'm stubborn, and little setbacks just fire me up to come back swinging. I have no idea what I will be reporting after this weekend of totally unfamiliar activity, and after being wide awake for most of the weekend (that could be some funny stuff if I blog right after). I do know that I've got an excellent team-people who really embody the meaning of the word team. Therefore, it's going to be a good time no matter what. Looking forward to this new adventure, and discovering what adventures are in store for us this weekend.