Tag Archives: friends

11 Things

10 Feb

I was tagged by Candice from Forever is Composed of Nows for the blog-tagging extravaganza of the year. So here goes:

RULES

1. Post these rules.

2. You must post 11 random things about yourself.

3. Answer the questions set for you in their post.

4. Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.

5. Go to their blog and tell them you’ve tagged them.

6. No stuff in the tagging section about you are tagged if you are reading this. You legitimately have to tag 11 people.

11 random things about myself:

  1. I ice skated for two years and got to skip the “Snowplow” levels because I had awesome skills good balance.
  2. I am horrible at remembering what year or age things happened in my life. The ice skating? Maybe 5th and 6th grade?
  3. I once ate an entire Chipotle burrito and a banana split from DQ in one sitting.
  4. My favorite thing to get at DQ is a Blue Raspberry Mister Misty Float.
  5. I ended up with a bloody foot on my first date with my now-husband (from a rogue flipflop).
  6. I laugh every time they say “Rogue Robots” on Wall-E.
  7. My favorite movie genre is animated.
  8. I refuse to join Pinterest, Daily Mile and Twitter. It’s the principle of the matter.
  9. I refused to join Facebook for 5 years and then caved in 2009. ;(
  10. I still secretly want the outfit matcher Alicia Silverstone had in Clueless.
11. I hated sushi the first several times I ate it, but now I love it.

11 Questions from Forever is Composed of Nows:

1. What is your biggest and/or hardest goal for 2012? Finishing my book? Running a marathon? Getting pregnant? Time will tell…

2. Vegetarian or Meat-eater? Meat-eater but I don’t really like meat and could give it up in a heartbeat. But my hubby’s a hunter and we have a freezer full of meat.

3. Would you rather write something down with pen/paper or on a computer/cell phone, etc? Depends on what I’m writing. I journal and make to-do lists on actual paper, but when I’m actually writing thoughts and need to edit/revise/delete, I will always choose a computer. I hate typing on my phone.

4. Dog or cat person? Dog but I love animals.

5. What is your favorite season and why? Fall – nothing beats a brisk fall day with leaves changing color.

6. If you could live anywhere other than the place you currently live, where would you live?  Minnesota.

7. Do you prefer Facebook over Twitter or vis versa? I don’t have Twitter and only go on Facebook once a week, maybe. So neither?

8. What is the longest run/race/workout you have ever done? 14 mile run, 30 mile bike run (not on the same day)

9. If you could only read one book over and over, which one would it be? The Bible

10. What is the biggest risk you have ever taken? Moving to Denver without a job

11. What motivated you to start blogging? Wanting to get better at writing.

I tag the following: Winners Wear Yellow, Chic Runner, Diary of a Slow Runner, The Runner’s Plate, She Collects, B. in the Know, Butler: Party of 2, True Things, Cow Spots and Tales, Enjoying the Journey, run.around.aroo

My 11 questions:

  1. What do you think is the most annoying blog trend?
  2. What is one thing you wish you liked, but just don’t?
  3. How long were you friends with your best childhood friend?
  4. How many blogs do you read on a consistent basis?
  5. What’s your favorite fro-yo topping?
  6. Did you go to college? If so, where and why that school?
  7. What’s your all-time favorite TV show?
  8. Did you have an invisible friend growing up?
  9. Is there any social media that you refuse to adopt?
  10. What is one thing you see other people doing that makes you say, “You couldn’t pay me enough”?
  11. What is the first thing you do when you get up in the morning?

Remember to tag 11 more people to keep the blog chain going!

Tags: , , ,

Five Randos

13 Jan

1. I had my second physical therapy appointment this morning. I was dreading it because I thought I was going to be get poked with needles (I even had a blog post title of “Pins and Needles” thought up). But luckily, since I told the therapist that my lower back felt fine still, he said he would leave it alone. Woohoo!

But I still had plenty of unpleasantness to deal with. I told him that my upper back between my shoulder blades was still sore/tight so he cracked that area again, along with my neck, and then proceeded to massage/poke/pull my shoulder and upper back tendons as I turned my head to one side, then the other. That hurt. A lot. Not like the sharp pain of a needle but a deep muscle-y pain – like how your tight IT band feels when you massage when it with a foam roller. My shoulders are sore now, which he said might happen.

He also showed me some exercises I could do to strengthen my lower back and hips. I’ll demonstrate and post them soon, since they’re beneficial for all runners/athletes.

What I’ll demonstrate now is how to lower your keyboard:

With a keyboard tray! It took me until this morning to realize I could push the tray in (I just had it installed yesterday). Before, it was sticking out from the desk by about 8 inches. At that rate, I was going to need glasses from squinting.

Anyway, lowering my keyboard will prevent me from shrugging my shoulders so much – your upper arms should be perpendicular to the floor when sitting at your desk.

2. Lots of TV time this weekend. Tomorrow is the Olympic Marathon Trials coverage (2-4 pm MST – we’re the same as central) and the Broncos game. Go Tebow! I might have to go buy a Broncos shirt tonight…

Sunday, I will be watching My Fair Wedding because fellow blogger Danica’s wedding will be on. It’ll be cool to finally see everything she hasn’t been able to show on her blog.

But I’ll balance that TV time out with two runs – my long run of 7 miles on Saturday and my tempo run of 4 miles on Sunday (moved from yesterday because I ate too much for dinner and would have puked if I tried to run…one of those days).

3. I seem to be a running anomaly. I’ve input several times into the McMillan Running Calculator: my half marathon PR back in 2007, my most recent 5K time, and my most-likely-never-to-be-duplicated 5 mile run in the Denver RnR Half Mary Relay. Those times are all over the board and produce quite the varied results.

With the 3 different times, my predicted marathon finish time could be (respectively):

5:17:58

5:20:24

4:54:08

I’ll take the last one, thankyouverymuch.

Also according to the calculator, my long runs should be run at a pace around 12:45 to 13:15 per mile. Lately, I’ve been comfortably running, without challenge, an easy pace of 11:15/mile for my long runs. But apparently, that should be the pace for my tempo intervals, which I’ve been running at a 9:55 or 10:00 pace (those paces aren’t even on the chart).

So I’ve concluded that while the running calculators may give me a ballpark of +/- 30 minutes for my marathon time, I should just use my long runs as a judge for my goals (and obviously the runs that are closer to the marathon distance, not the 8 miler I just did last Saturday). I’m also planning on doing Yasso 800s for my speedwork during Weeks 10-16 of my marathon training plan. It’d be cool if it really works to predict your marathon time (click the link to read more details).

4. I’ve been waiting for Friday all week long. Regardless, when I woke up this morning, I was surprised that it was already Friday. Which means I have to clean my house because we’re having people over for the game tomorrow.

5a. My favorite lunch as of late has been big salads, thanks to my friends leafy romaine lettuce and Caesar croutons. If it weren’t for those two, I wouldn’t be eating salads. They have changed my life. (For some reason, I get sick of spinach every now and again and won’t eat it to save my life…unless it’s in a smoothie.)

Yeah, I scrimped a little too much on the lettuce for that salad… but I also eat the lettuce first and this was halfway through the salad.

5b. We got new dinnerware for Christmas from my parents. The dishes we got for our wedding were really cute ones from Target but since I am a dish-breaker by trade, we only had 4 big plates left and all of our bowls (minus 2) had giant chips out of them. We are really enjoying our new dishes. Thanks Mom and Dad!

They are the Platzgraff Java pattern.

It’s even prettier in person. They’re still on sale at Shopko if you need new dishes!

What’s your favorite thing for lunch? Do the running calculators predict your speeds correctly?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

A Christmas Trifle

28 Dec

I got to start my Christmas weekend early by leaving work at 1:30 on Friday – there was hardly anyone in the office and I had nothing to do. So why stick around?

I stopped by Walgreen’s on my way home to buy ingredients for what I prefer to call Triple Decker Brownies (call me old-fashioned) and happened to see the cutest sparkly pink nail polish (called A Cut Above). So I spent the afternoon watching Lifetime Christmas movies and painting my nails.

That manicure lasted a whole 6 days.

Friday night, we had dinner and played Catch Phrase with our friends D and Doug. D and I dominated Catch Phrase by winning every single round.

For dessert, we had lefsa (a Norwegian tortilla made out of potatoes – we warm up them up and top with butter and sugar) and Chocolate Angel Food Trifle. I had attempted to make Chocolate Rolled Angel Cake… I even took pictures of combining the ingredients (box of angel food cake + cocoa 😉 ) and whipping the angel food batter into a poofy mess with my pretty white Kitchenaid mixer. I had the parchment paper in the pan. I had the baked cake upended onto a towel dusted with powdered sugar and rolled up all pretty. I had my whipping cream whipped, with what I would imagine were stiff peaks.

But then I made my crucial error. I was making this cake the day before we were going to eat it. The recipe said that you could only refrigerator the assembled cake for 6 hours so I decided to wait to assemble it until the next day.

The next afternoon, after I had painted my nails sparkly pink, I unrolled the towel and found that the cake was stuck to it. I tried to gently unpeel it and the innermost curl broke off. No biggie, I thought. I’ll somehow reassemble it. I painted a white stripe of melted whipped cream down the biggest chunk. But it wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t even get the big piece of the cake off the towel.

Ok, on to Plan B. I knew that the combination of the delicious angel food cake (I had sampled it), raspberries and whipped cream was going to be delicious, no matter what way I served it. So I decided to make a trifle instead.

I tore the sticky, gooey angel food cake into bite-sized pieces and placed them at the bottom of a large decorative bowl (I don’t have a trifle dish). Then I sprinkled on half of the raspberries and a layer of cool whip – I had discovered that my whipping cream was more of a liquid at this point than a cream so I used a small tub of cool whip I happened to have on hand. I repeated those layers one time – cake, raspberries, cool whip. And I topped the trifle with a few reserved raspberries. Voila! A Christmas trifle. And it was absolutely delicious, even if it wasn’t was I had initially planned.

Have you ever had a recipe go awry? How did you salvage it?

Tags: , , ,

A White Christmas in Denver!

22 Dec

Well, it definitely snowed! Last night, when I got home from my women’s group, I told Travis that we should go on a walk in the snow. So we did.

I love going for walks in the snow.

So do the pooches.

We were very snowy by the time we got back. It’s still snowing this afternoon and so far, we’ve gotten about a foot. It was a little hairy driving to work today (because CDOT only has 75 plows for the entire Denver metro area!) but we made it! I was sooo tempted to call in because there’s hardly anyone here today (and there will be even fewer tomorrow!) but our VP ordered in lunch from Qdoba for us, which was nice and fun. Tomorrow is going to draaaaggg by though.

…………………………………..

On a brighter note, this weekend is Christmas!

I am so ready for some time to relax, hang out with Travis and friends, and eat delicious food! This is what we have planned so far:

  • Dinner and a movie with friends Friday night (Christmas Eve Eve)
  • Dinner with friends and their family on Christmas Eve
  • Special breakfast and dinner on Christmas day, just the two of us
  • Church on Christmas morning
  • Relaxing on the day after Christmas, before we go back to work

We haven’t decided when we’re going to open presents yet, but my vote is Christmas Eve morning – then we don’t have to wait!

Other than going grocery shopping tonight after work, I’m all ready for Christmas, which has meant a very relaxing, enjoyable week. It’s been so nice to drive home, knowing that I can go lay on the couch the minute I walk in the door, instead of running around doing errands or workouts.

I was just thinking yesterday as I drove home, that taking this week off from training was probably the best decision I could’ve made. Instead of stressing out over how to fit all my workouts in and wondering how I’ll ever manage with marathon training, I’ve been building up excitement and anticipation and will start marathon training ready to tackle the beast of 26.2.

The slower pace has also allowed me time to reflect on the amazing-ness of Christmas and quiet my heart, which is what I’ve been wanting! Come, Lord Jesus!

What are your plans for Christmas? Are you done with preparations?

Tags: , , , , , ,

Christmas Festivities, in Pics

20 Dec

I finally remembered my camera! So here are the pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Christmas Tea

I found these picture holders at Kohl’s for less than $4 each. These were the guest gifts.

Christmas Decorations

Same as last year

Our mini tree

Christmas Carol 5k

Sweet shorts, huh? (Thanks for the pics D!)

About the race…

It was being held in City Park and didn’t start until 9 so we met D and Doug at our house around 7:45. We got down to the race site a little after 8, parked, got our bib and stood around drinking coffee. The temperature was in the high 20s but besides my feet, I wasn’t really cold at all. Ten minutes to 9:00, we did a quick 1/4 mile warm up and stretched – but we didn’t start running until 9:13. Since I went out too fast last year and ended up walking in the middle to catch my breath, my goal for the race was to do negative splits and beat my time from last year (33:40).

Finally, we were off. For the first mile, I focused on maintaining even breathing and even though we had to weave around people, I tried to not be too ambitious. We reached the first mile marker at 11:03. I was a little bummed because it felt like we were running faster than that, but I was happy that if I maintained that pace (which felt doable), I would definitely beat my time.

The second mile started off with a nice little downhill stretch and a run by the Denver Zoo. It ended with a brutal uphill stretch. But because I was running with Travis and D and didn’t want to fall behind, I kept pushing, telling myself that it would be downhill in a bit. We reached mile 2 at 21:15 – a 10:18 pace. So that’s why I feel ready to collapse. Seeing that motivated me to keep pushing, even though I felt completely out of breath.

The third mile was a mental battle. Just like during the Rock n Roll Relay, I keep telling myself that the pride and accomplishment of setting a new PR will be worth the next 10 minutes of agony. Finally, I could see the finish line. We passed the third mile marker around 31:45. As we got within 100 feet of the finish, I actually felt a little dizzy/nauseous. We crossed the finish at 32:52 – a 10:36 pace. Even though my time is still pretty slow, I feel good that I really pushed myself. The only bad part about this PR is that now I have to run even faster to beat it!

We were funneled into a chute, where the race timers were collecting the tags off our bibs. We were a little confused at how they determined the times that way, since there were 2 chutes, but oh well. We grabbed some water and bagels, our goodie bags, stretched a bit and headed over to Denny’s, where I had their new Bread Pudding French Toast. It was pretty good – not as good as real bread pudding, but close.

As for the race itself…

I thought that A Christmas Carol Classic (5k/10k) was a fairly well-organized race for its first year. There were 425 runners in the 5k and 264 in the 10k – impressive for an inaugural event. They had a lot of volunteers telling people where to park, registration/check-in was organized and quick, and they had coffee and pastries for runners before the start. The goodie bags were pretty decent (they included chocolate milk), they had bagels at the finish, and the course was well-marked (though the markings were sometimes hard to see because of the crowd). The race also sponsored the Denver Children’s Home, which I liked.

But I think it would be better if they used chip timing. My official time was 33:43 (40/82 AG, 193/425 overall) but I don’t feel like it took me almost a minute to cross the start line. And because D ducked under the rope into the other finish chute because the line was shorter, her time was recorded as 34:09 even though she crossed at the exact same time as we did (granted it was her fault, but that’s the downfall of bib tag timing!).

Also, even though the website said something about having carolers out on the course, they didn’t. (They did have them at the finish, which was nice.) I wish that we would’ve gotten more race swag for our $30 (like a shirt, towel, medal or something) – you could buy a shirt for $15 but they weren’t that cute. I just hope that most of our race fee went to the charity.

Finally, if I had been doing the 10k, I would have been a little annoyed. They started at the same time as the 5k and just did 2 laps of the same course. So the 5kers were finished and leaving while the 10kers were still running and we were actually walking on the course to get back to our cars.

But overall, I enjoyed the race and would do it again. I like that the course is all in City Park, so you don’t have to worry about traffic or sidewalks.

……………………………..

We’re heading back down to City Park tonight for Zoolights at the Denver Zoo – we’ve never been and apparently, it’s pretty cool!

Have you gone or are going to any holiday lights shows?

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Training Recap: 12/12 – 12/18

19 Dec

Aside from several hours on Saturday spent freaking out and raging on my poor husband, I actually had a very wonderful, relaxing weekend.

Friday, after shopping and partying with my co-workers, I went home at 3 – which was very helpful to my Christmas shopping! I stopped at Massage Envy on my way home to buy a Christmas present and then at Walmart to see if they had tulle that I could use to make a tutu for the race. Instead, I found some sweet-o boxers for both me and Trav – elf for me, Santa for him. (I’m lucky to have a husband willing to dress up with me.) Travis got home from work early too so we got to work wrapping presents and preparing gifts for mailing. We also finally baked our sugar cookies and figured out our race outfits.

Saturday, the race was a lot of fun. I’ll tell more details later… but I will say that I finished in 32:52, which is 48 seconds faster than last year! I will also say that 5K is my least favorite racing distance ever.

The rest of Saturday was spent by me freaking out about all the stuff I had to do: make an elk roast for dinner, go grocery shopping, buy one last present, mail/ship all Christmas presents, clean the house, and take a nap (ha!), all in 5.5 hours. And you know what? I did it. But not in style. Or niceness. Better luck next time.

After a short 30 minute “nap,” we had friends over for dinner, which was very fun and worth cleaning for. Shortly after they left at 8:45, I read for a while and went to bed.

Sunday morning, I read before church – I started Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. Oh.my. I cried reading the first chapter AND have already called back to mind several things I read. I fully expect this to become one of my favorite books.

After church, we came home, ate lunch and napped/watched both the Packers and Broncos lose! Boo! (I am not a Packers fan BUT I will cheer for any team with a perfect record. I am now done cheering for them.) During the Broncos game, we took the dogs to the dog park for a bit and then drove up to Evergreen to get our skate on. I wish we would’ve remembered to bring Trav’s hockey sticks and a puck, but we didn’t. It was still fun skating around – Evergreen is a great place for skating. There’s a ton of ice space so you never feel crowded. But the ice was a little sketchy/ungroomed this time – maybe it’s not thick enough for the zamboni yet?

We ate dinner at The Woodcellar, a local bar/grill. Our food was absolutely delicious – I had the Hot Avocado Melt on Ciabatta bread with sweet potato fries. The fries were amazing. They had a seasoning similar to Arby’s curly fries. Mmmm… (And because Travis would give me crap about taking a picture of my food, you’ll have to use your imagination.)

Then we drove around our neighborhood looking at Christmas lights and what these houses lack in class, they make up for in quantity. The best most decorated house we saw:

It was seriously impressive how much they managed to fit in their yard. When I see houses decorated like this, I have 2 thoughts: Where do they store all that stuff? and How much money did they spend buying all that? 

When we got home, we attempted to watch Elf but weirdly, Travis was falling asleep after 20 minutes (that happens maybe 2 times a year)! So he went to bed and I stayed up for another 45 minutes before I figured I should probably go to bed – as today is Monday and all. Looking forward to two 4-day weeks coming up!

Now, on to the training recap:

Monday: Half mile repeats on track at Rec (4:14, 4:24, 4:30, 4:30) – 2.7 miles total

Lately, I’ve often been noticing that the thing holding me back from running faster is my lungs. That was definitely the case during this workout, as well as the 5k I did. Oh, silly little lungs.

Tuesday: P90X Yoga (1:20:00)

I almost made it all the way through the workout (it’s an hour and a half long), which is very exciting for me. The first time I ever did YogaX, I did the first 30 minutes and turned it off because I was so sore. This time, my shoulders were still a little sore the next day, but not bad at all. This is what I love about all exercise – seeing your body adapt and being able to do things you weren’t able to do before. The next thing I want to master in this workout are the balance poses after Warrior 3 (Standing Splits to Half Moon to Revolved Half Moon) – holy crap they’re hard!

Wednesday: Rest

Thursday: 3.66 mile sleeprun (43:31, 11:53/mile)

Friday: Rest

Saturday: 5k race (32:52, 10:36/mile)

Sunday: 45 min ice skating

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have canceled any formal workouts this week in honor of my mental sanity and a week of relaxation before marathon training starts in a week! I pretty much went straight from my triathlon schedule to my base-building schedule so I just want one week off from having to fit workouts in and then it’s go-time. It also works out that it’s Christmas this week. 😉 Although maybe it’s not so good, since I need exercise more than ever to cancel out all the extra treats I’m eating!

Back with pics tomorrow, I promise hope!

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Christmas Festivities!

10 Dec

I tell ya, even when you try to not get too busy during the holiday season, it happens anyway.

Here’s our December lineup:

Nov 30: Operation Christmas Child (Ok, not December, but it’s related to Christmas!)

Dec 4-5: Minnesota trip

Dec 10: Christmas tea at church (set up in morning, tea in afternoon); baking sugar cookies, putting up Christmas decorations, and watching A Christmas Story (I’ve never seen it!) with Travis

Dec 11: Christmas party after church

Dec 17: Christmas Carol 5K in the AM; Dinner with friends in the PM

Dec 18: Going up to Evergreen as a birthday/Christmas/done-with-grad-classes celebration to go ice skating and have a nice dinner; hoping to watch another Christmas movie I’ve never seen like It’s a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th Street (I know, it really is tragic that I haven’t seen these classics.)

Dec 20: Zoolights at the Denver Zoo after work with friends

And then it’s Christmas! Since we’re not going to be with family, I’m voting for just staying home to do a whole lot of cookie eating, movie watching, and game playing on Christmas instead of going to any big gathering. Relaxing sounds absolutely wonderful right now!

Even though we have lots of fun stuff planned, for some reason, it’s been harder for me to get into the Christmas spirit this year than others. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas and I don’t know why. It’s probably something to do with feeling exhausted from being on the go and also the fact that we still don’t have our Christmas decorations up! I’m really hoping to get that done tomorrow. In the midst of the frenzy, though, I am striving to keep my focus on experiencing and savoring this season, not just viewing it as one giant to-do list.

What fun things are you doing this holiday season? 

Tags: , , , , , ,

Walleyes, Logging Camps and an Eagle Scout

7 Dec

Our trip back to Minnesota last weekend was very enjoyable. I was kind of bummed that there was no snow but I was happy that it was a mild 20 degrees, instead of a frigid negative 20. Seriously, giving up Denver winters is going to the hardest part about moving back (someday)… I never knew what it was like to enjoy being outside in January until I moved to Denver.

Anyway, our flight arrived Thursday night and Travis’ wonderful aunt, Cheryl, picked us up from the airport. We drove over to Nyle’s house (Travis’ uncle) to borrow his pickup and after chatting for 20 minutes and driving to Cheryl’s house, we promptly went to bed – by then it was about 11 pm, Minnesota time.

The next morning, we were planning on getting up at 6:30 but even though I set the time for the alarm on the clock in our bedroom, I didn’t actually turn the alarm on. Whoops. So we ended up getting up at 9:30. We were tired! It was really only 8:30 Denver time, so I didn’t feel quite as lazy and pathetic. I told Travis that was his birthday present from me (it was his birthday that Friday).

We got on the road about 11:00 to make the 3 hr, 15 min drive up to Grand Rapids. I read a Psalm in honor of our Advent calendar, we talked about where we’d like to live when we move back, and listened to Christmas music. And we had to make a stop at the Walleye in Garrison.

It was really windy and I tried balancing the camera on the car trunk but I decided I’d rather not get a picture together than have our camera break.

Finally, we got up to his parents’ house. We ate lunch, toured their finished gazebo (a little too brisk for comfort in December!), and went shopping for a new pair of shoes for Travis – his old ones were so worn that his toe touched the ground and got wet all the time. We also stopped by the liquor store for some beer and wine. We picked up White Truck Chardonnay and Yellow Tail Cabernet Sauvignon. I liked the White Truck, but not so much the Yellow Tail. We had steak and potatoes for dinner and for dessert, we had “strawberry shortcake” (with angel food cake instead of shortbread) for Travis’ birthday – his favorite. He is the big old 2-7. 

Saturday, we got up around 8 and had blueberry sourdough pancakes for breakfast – Travis’ dad has been tending a culture of sourdough bacteria (smells like beer) so he was the cook. They were delicious. Then we all piled into the car and went to the Forest History Center to tour an old logging camp.

These horses were named Bud and Mick – Budweiser and Michelob.

This was the sleigh that the loggers loaded with water to ice down the logging roads.

It was really interesting. I am always amazed by the fortitude and determination of people from the “old days.” They were fighters. On the way home, we stopped to look at Matthew’s Eagle Scout project.

He built a compost shed for the local food shelf. They often received donations of perishable food but couldn’t do anything with it, and then had to pay to have it removed because they couldn’t throw it away by law. So these compost bins save them money, and will provide them with great fertilizer.

Sunday was the day of Matthew’s Eagle Scout ceremony. After breakfast, we all sat around talking, waiting for it to be time to go over to the church. Then the activity of setting everything up commenced. We had a lot of help so everything, including the ceremony and reception, went very well.

I was the designated photographer. I tried my best to get good pictures with the dim lighting, and I think most of them turned out decently well.

Before long, it was time to head back to their house for the family dinner and gift opening. I got to see a lot of relatives from Travis’ dad’s side of the family that I hadn’t seen since our wedding, so that was good – even if it was a bit awkward at times  (because I didn’t remember meeting them in the midst of the wedding day blur). Around 6:30, we left to drive back down to Blaine. I was able to meet up with my best friends, Brittany and Holly, at Perkin’s. It was short but sweet and I loved laughing with them again. I really hope they still live in Minnesota when we move back (you hear that B?).

Monday morning, we flew out bright and early at 6:45. We arrived back in Denver to a temperature of 5 degrees and snow on the ground. Now that’s more like it!

Tags: , , ,

When Friendships Fade

12 Oct

June 2012 marks 10 years since my graduation from high school. It’s crazy how fast time goes! TEN YEARS have passed. A Facebook group for the Mayo High School Class of 2002 has been started and plans for a reunion are getting underway.

I’m not sure I’m going to go. I mean, I guess it would be kind of interesting to see what everyone else is up to now and there are a few people that I wouldn’t mind reconnecting with. But overall? Meh.

It’s not because I had a bad experience in high school — I actually loved those years and I had some really close friends. But I don’t talk to them anymore. None. Not a single person from high school.

When I went to college, I remained really good friends with a few girls. But eventually, those too dropped off, mostly caused by my becoming a Christian and doing a 180 in how I lived, essentially making everything we used to bond over things I no longer did.

Once you lose the commonality of shared interests and hobbies, you lose what inspired the friendship. C.S. Lewis writes this in his book The Four Loves:

Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one’….

I still remember the first night that I realized my old friendships were fading. I was sitting at home alone waiting for my best friend from high school to come to town, only to find out she had arrived quite a while earlier but was  hanging out at one of my friend’s houses with my college roommate – without me.

It felt like a slap in the face. I hung up the phone and sobbed. Matthew 10:39 gave me comfort and reassurance that the pain was worth it – “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” I knew that to follow Christ, I had to let go of my old life – including old friends.

It was hard to watch the friendship fade into nothing, knowing that it was my choice. I was the one who essentially walked away. But what else could I do? Jesus had changed my life – I couldn’t go back.

When you have so much history and so many memories with a person, it’s hard to let that go. It’s hard to not feel like you should stay friends, if only for the sake of old times.

But that didn’t work for me. I tried to stay friends with her, but through a series of events, it became clear that we were very different people. The only thing keeping us together was memories. Little by little, we stopped calling each other. We stopped emailing. We lost touch.

Would I say hi to her if I saw her on the street? Of course! I have no ill will against her, or any of the other friends I’m no longer in touch with. But I have found that it’s hard enough to keep in touch with my good friends from Campus Outreach, who understand and encourage me, and whom I truly love and appreciate. You have to cut your losses at some point.

Out of the 5 bridesmaids in my wedding, I only regularly talk to 2 of them anymore. Even at the time, I knew that I was growing apart from 2 of them. But it felt weird to me to have them at the wedding, but not in the wedding, since they were such a big part of my life at one point or another.

Looking back on that, I’d probably have more of my family in our wedding party instead. After all, I’m still talking to them and will hopefully grow closer to them over the coming years. But those friends? I might never see them again (unless I go to the reunion, huh?).

Just today, I was putzing around on Facebook and noticed that one of those friends had removed herself from being tagged in some of my pictures.

Even though it shouldn’t matter, I was hurt. It brought back that feeling of losing friends. But I can’t say I completely blame her. I was a horrible person before becoming a Christian (so much so that I am amazed she kept being my friend then), and even after I did, I still handled some situations with her very poorly. I’m sorry for the pain I caused her and hope that she forgives me.

A part of life is that people change and move on – friendships come and go throughout the different stages of life. I think the biggest reason why I have lost so many friendships over the years is because I have changed so much – for the better (by God’s grace!).

So do I want to go to my high school reunion just to take a stroll down memory lane? Maybe. Maybe not.

Did you or are you planning to go to your high school reunion? Were you happy with your decision?

Have you ever let a friendship go because you drifted apart?

Tags: ,

Snow and speed.

10 Oct

Saturday morning, we woke up to rain and cold. I normally would’ve been excited, since weather like that is not that common in Denver, but with the race on Sunday, I was a little nervous. Those would be miserable conditions for a race – 35 degrees and rainy. Yuck. We had also planned to drive up to the Winter Park / Fraser area to do some scouting for elk hunting next weekend. One of the main roads that they have used in years past was washed out by abnormally large runoff and hasn’t been rebuilt so Travis wanted to familiarize himself with some other roads.

But first things first – while Travis had the Forge at church Saturday morning, I had coffee with my friend, Cathy. Then Travis and I headed downtown for the race expo and packet pickup. Since this is by far the biggest race I’ve ever done, I really enjoyed the expo. Usually, the expos at the races I do consist of a handful of booths of stuff that I’m not really that interested in. But this expo was different. There had to have been 40-50 booths and almost everyone was giving away free stuff. (Score!) Travis looked at new running shoes and got a 15% coupon for Boulder Running Company – which I can use for buying new shoes too! I bought a new stick of BodyGlide (mine was almost gone). After an hour, we decided to head home.

We ate lunch and loaded up the pooches. As we were leaving Denver, we weren’t sure whether going up into the mountains was a good idea or a bad idea.

This was just the foothills. We decided to play it by ear. If we hit a bunch of traffic or the roads got really bad, we’d turn around and head home. Luckily, the roads were actually almost void of traffic (this is the lull time between tourist season and ski season) and the road conditions weren’t bad – I did tell Travis several times to slow down but that’s pretty much the norm when we’re driving in the mountains. We drove over Berthoud Pass into Winter Park, then turned off after Fraser onto the back country roads. There was a good 6 inches of snow on the ground so while everything was very pretty, the roads were very slick (mud + snow = slippery!).

The aspens stood out against the snow-covered evergreens – very pretty.

As we were driving along, Travis noticed tracks in the snow on the road. He thought they were elk tracks but then we saw this:

A moose!

That was the first moose I’d ever seen so I was pretty pumped!

We drove a little while more until we found a potential camping spot for elk hunting and then we let the pooches out to run around. This was potentially Charlie’s first time ever seeing snow so we were curious to find out if she’d like it.

She did.

I didn’t get many pictures of the dogs – they run so fast that it’s near impossible to catch them in action. But this is a still from one of the videos. It looks like Charlie was whirling up a snowstorm but it was actually Travis kicking snow on her. 🙂

She did really like the snow, though. Here are a few more stills of her and Katy running around (they’re not the greatest quality but it gives you an idea).

 

Katy loves snow too – they’ll be great Minnesotan dogs one day.

Travis was craving a burger and fries so we stopped in Silverthorne to get Wendy’s. I tried their new Caramel Apple Parfait and while it was good (when is ice cream bad?), I think it would be better with yogurt.

We got home around 5:30 and I tried to be productive but I spent about 45 minutes looking for a specific devotional in My Utmost for His Highest until my brain hurt and all I wanted to do was lay down. I wanted to just go to bed but we had to figure out directions and logistics for the next morning, as well as get our race stuff together. Once that was done around 9:45, we went to bed.

My alarm went off at 5:00 am and I pushed my snooze button twice without realizing it. Good thing it’s only 3 minutes long! By the third time my alarm went off, I woke up enough to wonder what I was supposed to be getting up for. Work? Church? What? Oh, the race.

My hair was pretty greasy from not washing it for 3 days so I took a shower. Since it was so cold outside, I figured I’d probably not do my normal thing of putting my hair up half wet so I dried it completely. I wore my 2XU compression pants with shorts over them (just cuz), a long sleeve tech shirt, and a fleece vest. I also wore an ear warmer and stretchy gloves during the race, but ended up taking them off about 3/4 of the way through. After peanut-butter-ing mini bagels for us to eat in the car and doctoring my coffee, we grabbed our stuff and left right on time at 5:45.

It only took us 15 minutes to get downtown, but another 10 to figure out how to get into the darned parking lot the race organizers had told us to park in. That was the only part of the race that was frustrating – they had pretty much every street surrounding the parking lot closed off. Makes it a little hard to get in and out.

Finally, we parked and Travis left to find the shuttle to the start line. He later told me that he waited 20 minutes by himself in the dark for the shuttle and was about ready to run back to the car and have me drive him to the start when the shuttle finally showed up. He got down to the start line with the perfect amount of time to go to the bathroom, check his bag, warmup and jump over the barricade into his corral – he only waited 3 minutes before the race started!

Meanwhile, I was sitting in the warm car checking Facebook and reading my Google Reader feeds on my phone. I got done with that around 7:00, which was when the race started. I was pretty close to the relay transition point so I didn’t need to leave until 7:15 or so to give myself plenty of time before Travis would arrive around 8:04. So to pass the time, I pinned my number on my vest.

I watched a bunch of cars get towed around.

Which made me nervous about getting towed. So I made a sign to put on our windshield.

I took some random pictures of my chip timer…

…and my bored face.

Finally, it was time! I got out of the car and it was COLD! My phone said 35 degrees. Brrrr!! I walked the 5 minutes to the relay transition area and stood around for about 15 minutes before doing a short warmup. Then I stretched, the race organizers explained what would happen, and we stood around some more. Finally, the wheelchair athletes started coming. Then the elite, crazy fast runners. Then the really fast runners. And then the fast runners, which was where Travis came. He was the 15th or so relay person to come in.

I saw him coming around the traffic circle and moved to the front of the crowd, to take some pictures of him coming in. I reached for the car key that I was supposed to hand him too but it wasn’t in my pocket! Oh no! As I heard my bib number called, I had to run back into the crowd to find the key. Luckily, I found it pretty easily and still had time to take a few pics of Travis coming in for the hand off.

He finished his leg in 1:04:36, at a pace of 8:16/mile. He said that the first mile was really crowded and they almost stopped completely after the first 500 yards or so, so we think that he was right on pace for the majority of his run, but that the first mile threw it off.

I handed him the camera and car key, grabbed the drumstick (our relay baton), and off I went. Since I was going to be entering the massive pack of runners way faster than me, I tried to be mindful and run on the very outside of the road, so that people didn’t have to swerve around me. Some still did but oh well. I was glad to be carrying something that showed I was a relay runner. Sorry to be so slow and running with the fast people!

But it was a LOT of fun to run with the fast people. I was in the thick of it – there were tons of runners around. Which probably was mostly to do with the 17,000 runners doing the race. If I had been back with the 11:30 minute/mile people, there probably would’ve been plenty there too. But running with the fast people also inspired me to run fast. My legs felt fantastic. The minute I started running, I felt great.

I pushed it. For the entire race, I toed the line between running my fastest and overdoing it. I started running at mile 7.8 and tried to calculate my pace at mile 9 but came up with an 11:30/mile. Crap! If I was having such a hard time maintaining that slow of a pace, this race was going to suck. I saw mile marker 10. I decided that if my pace really was 11:30, then there was no reason to really push myself like I was. But to my joy, I discovered that I had just done a 10:00 mile. Woohoo!

That gave me the motivation I needed to keep pushing.

Mile 11 – 9:45. Holy crap, I can’t believe it!

Mile 12 – 9:55. I’m actually running sub-10 minute miles!! But holy crap, this is hard. It’s so tempting to slow down. 

Mile 13 – 10:00. Only a mile left – don’t throw away this pace now! Think of how proud you’ll be. Think of how proud Travis will be. Keep pushing!

I picked up the pace for the last .1 when I heard Travis yell “Go Kath!” from the sidelines. I can honestly say that I ran my heart out in this race – so much so, that I almost felt like puking when I was done. That’s when you know you pushed it.

I finished 5.3 miles in 52:57. That is a 9:59 pace.

Yes!

I am still on a high from that race! What an amazing feeling to dig down deep and perform in a way that I didn’t expect. I was aiming for at least an 11:00 pace, wondering if that was even a stretch. And I blew that away!

Final time: 1:58:58

Average pace: 9:05

25/86 co-ed relay teams

I’d like to think that if this had actually been a 10K, I’d have a new PR (the only 10K I’ve run, I did in 62:36). And perhaps, I would. But I’m not sure I could have maintained that pace for even another 9/10 of a mile. I was completely beat. Regardless, this proves to me that I still have some speed in me.

After the race, I found Travis and while he went to get some food (they didn’t have any in the relay transition area), I stretched. We walked around the expo a little, rode the shuttle back to our car and headed home.

About the race itself, I was thoroughly impressed. The Rock ‘n’ Roll peeps have their crap together. I give this event an A++. The registration was easy, the pre-race information was thorough (they thought of everything!), there were tons of volunteers and portapoos (and spectators!) everywhere, the race t-shirt and medal are awesome, and the post-race food was plentiful. They had anything and everything you could want to eat after a race. They also had a family meetup area, a stretching tent and space blankets. I would definitely recommend this race. It is worth every penny.

Anyway, when we got home, we showered, ate a snack, and got back in the car to head to a friend’s birthday party, where Travis played flag football. Football isn’t my thing so I just hung out with pooches and talked to the other people who weren’t playing.

Then we went to their house, where we ate a ton of food, drank margaritas and beer, and watched football. I talked to a lady who had ran the full marathon that morning – it was her 13th full marathon and she had done two half Ironmans this summer. Impressive.

We left the party around 3 and like usual, even though my plan was to plop on the couch the minute I walked in the door, I couldn’t resist being productive. So I did the dishes, did laundry, went to Target and the post office, got gas, and then rested. We watched the movie Bridesmaids, which we had heard was hilarious. Um… no? We actually thought it was depressing and pretty much sucked. I mean, there were a few funny parts. But overall, meh.

Today is a rest day but tomorrow, I start my base building training schedule. I will be taking several rest days during elk hunting – my MIL, Beth, and I will probably hike some but no running (because there will be no showers!). But then, it’s back to it!

Tags: , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →