Dig the Du, and small apocalyptic micro bursts

Fun race alert!  Off-road duathlon - Dig the Du - is coming next Sunday.  Open Doors is an organization that has provided me with a lot of help and resources for my friend Shii, and they're organizing the race with French Broad River Academy to raise money for scholarships for Open Doors kids.  Good cause!  Fun race!

The race site is on private property adjacent to Dupont Forest, and it's beautiful.  The Citizen Times actually did a story on the race - here's how the blurb showed up when a friend linked to it on Facebook:

I read that, and was all "nooooooo!!!!"  That sounds like I'm actually going to try to win it or something.  If you read the rest of the story, it becomes clear that the heavy artillery is my mom and Sam.  We're doing it as a relay. And the last thing on our minds is winning it.  More like getting finished so we can eat at Cece's food truck.   So if you'd like to read the whole story - click here.  And if you want to come race with us - and it's going to be really fun, both because of the race course and because there's going to be good food, good beer, and good prizes - click here.

In other news, I'm supposed to be at Art in the Park tomorrow.  But I just checked the weather forecast, and here's the part I find most pertinent:

Uh oh.  If anyone would like to see what it looked like the last time I did Art in the Park with those sorts of wind gusts, take a look at the video below.  The woman in the lime green shirt trying to hang on to her tent - that's me.

So, using the theory that we all make mistakes, but we should try not to keep making the same one over and over - I'm bowing out for tomorrow.  I love Pack Square - love it - but it's the windiest place in Asheville.  If the wind is gusting at 40 mph in general, then they'll probably be looking for Toto on Pack Square.  But, for the sake of the artists, I *really* hope I'm wrong, and that the weather is beautiful, they all make lots of money and I end up kicking myself.