Beach endeavors

Sunrise at Steelhead, originally uploaded by Tipping Point Photo.

What a long weekend, but what a worthwhile effort to get up at 4:30am. Two days in a row. On a weekend. The second day, for me to race the Rock and Roll Half-Marathon in Chicago. The first day, to watch my amazing superhero friend Elena complete her first half-ironman triathlon.
If there's one thing this summer of training and racing has taught me, though, is that it's always worth getting up early: the quiet of the morning hours, both inside and outside my head, for starters. But the photographer in me says you can't really beat that early morning light, either. Heck, it almost makes 70.3 miles look like the most beautiful thing in the world. Almost.