The Day After An Amazing Adventure...

It's always an interesting feeling to wake up after a P.A.C.E. Trek has ended and realize that I don't have to run 30+ miles that day. This morning I "slept in" until 6:30 a.m. and then got ready to go to Fort Greely Middle School in Delta Junction, Alaska to do an assembly. It was a pleasure meeting the students and teachers at the school and I enjoyed my time there. The students asked some good questions and as always it is my hope that they were challenged to think about setting goals and making health and fitness and priority in their lives.

This afternoon my parents and I drove from Delta Junction to their home in Tolsona (which is about 25 miles west of Glennallen, Alaska). I'll be here for the next 4 days... resting, relaxing, enjoying time with my parents, posting some trek pictures into the journal pages of this web site; and, creating the final P.A.C.E. Trek 2009 music slideshow... which many people are waiting to see. It will feature pictures from the Alaska adventure and include pictures of students and teams from around the world that participated in this year's journey. I promise... it will be really cool.

ANNOUNCEMENT: THE WINNER OF THE $500.00 P.A.C.E. HEALTHY SCHOOL AWARD!

Today while I was at Fort Greely Middle School for the assembly, I called up front a young lady out of the attending students. I had put into a hat all of the names of the schools that had at least one team complete 500 miles by 6:00 p.m., PST, on May 12. In all, there were 73 schools that had at least one team report as logging 500 miles. The girl reached into the hat, swirled her hand around in the strips of folded papers containing the school names, and pulled out a winning school. The participating school that was drawn to receive $500.00 from our friends at Youth Runner Magazine to benefit their school's P.E. department is...

HOHENFELS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL of HOHENFELS, GERMANY

You can visit Hohenfels Elementary online. It is a U.S. Department of Defense school nestled in the picturesque, rolling hills of northern Bavaria. The school provides services to students from Pre-K through 6th grade. Hohenfels Elementary has participated in both P.A.C.E. Trek 2008 (Montana) and P.A.C.E. Trek 2009 (Alaska). The P.E. teacher at Hohenfels Elementary is Julie Kerchner and she signed up her team on January 14, 2009 for the Alaska adventure. Their team for this year's trek was called "Hohenfels Tiger Cubs" and had 300 kids. All totaled, their team logged an impressive 3,000 miles during the Alaska adventure. They actually reported the third highest mileage for any team participating in this year's P.A.C.E. Trek. Congratulations Hohenfels Elementary! I'm so very proud of all of you!!

That's all from today's post-trek milepost. Run back here tomorrow for some more information!