Keeping Up With The De Oliveiras: November

I don't have a lot of pictures of the end of November - the month flew by and I didn't take my camera (or phone) out as much as I usually do. At the end of the month, I had three big concert and one smaller one with the local concert band. (and I don't know if I mentioned it, but I joined the association that runs the administrative side of things for the group. I'm one of the people responsible for communication, so I deal with all social media outlets, our email address, and other things, such as the programme for concerts, posters etc.) The first was on the Saturday following the Paris attacks, where we played "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables and La Marseillaise. On Sunday the 21st for Saint Cécile Day, we played during Mass at the local church. And finally, on the 28th we had our end-of-the-year concerts. You can see the photo album from the two concerts on Facebook. The photos are not mine so I can't post them here, but normally they are accessible to everyone, even those of you who are not signed up for the site. I love this photo in particular - my trumpet is so shiny! I also recently uploaded a video from the concert of us playing Santana in Concert - check it out here!

The same weekend, I ran my first ever 10K trail race at Biscarrosse Plage. The BiscaTrail race had its tenth edition in 2015, so they added a 10K race (normally it's 18K or 32K). A friend of mine had suggested the race to me at the end of September, and since I didn't think I'd have enough time to really train for an 18K, I thought running the 10 would be fun... especially since the second of the two concerts with the concert band ended at nearly midnight the night before!! You can check out the results here. I'm pretty happy with how I did, though I am determined to do better next year! The path was really nice, though I did get stuck behind someone when the trail was at its narrowest, and I had a bit too much energy at the end, so clearly I didn't do a very good job at pacing myself... oh well. I had a blast, and that's the important part!