Running With Tom

I used to drive down to Girdwood on the weekends to volunteer at Challenge and hang out/ski with Tom..The guy was so much fun and my sanity in the winters. He would arrange it so that I could spend the nights at the Challenge building, that way I could afford to come down often. I'm a runner, and every morning before the mountain opened, I would head out on a 7am pre-ski jog. The funny thing was that it seemed that no matter what time I ended up actually starting (it varied by 1/2 hour), I would always end up running into Tom. He would drive by on his way to drop Lindsay off at the sitters or to grab a cup of coffee. The second he saw me he would always honk his horn, roll down his window and yell something obnoxious at me-God he cracked me up! It got to be such an unplanned routine that we used to joke about that fact that he must be "stalking me"..honestly, it was the best part of my run. Even now, when I run in Girdwood, I can still see him smile through his window of his white toyota and hear him yell "Shouldn't you be going faster, that turtle behind you is gaining on ya!" Since Tom's death, I need very little excuse to drive down to Girdwood for my daily runs..