'09 Race Schedule

At least I don't feel (yet) or act like I'm getting old. You're going to have to tell me if I look it though. Here's my race schedule for next year. Looks like there won't be much downtime in '09.

05/03 Lake Minnetonka 1/2 marathon
05/09 New Prague 1/2 marathon
06/21 Mankato Sprint triathlon
06/27 Seattle marathon
07/18 Lifetime triathlon (not sure if I'll do the Sprint or Olympic distance yet, probably Sprint)
07/26 Chisago City 1/2 iron triathlon*
08/21-22 Ragnar Relay
10/18 Des Moines marathon

*this is the main focus race for the year - 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run.

I think total distance-wise, this is the most ambitious of a schedule I've put together for any given year. Let's hope I survive it all! I just might look my age after I get done with all this, if I don't already!

Strange Boys

"Are you blind or something?"

"Oh, that's a bummer."

Just a couple of new quotes I've heard Devon (5 yrs old) mention the past couple of days. The first one took me by surprise and I couldn't believe what I heard, I just started laughing. I was packing to come home yesterday from up north and I asked him where his hat and mittens were so we wouldn't forget them. He gets off the couch, walks past me in the foyer, around the corner, points, blurts that out and then goes walking past me back to the couch! It was so funny at the time and he threw in the appropriate visuals with his palms up, arms outstretched and a look of disbelief on his face. Perfect use of the phrase at the time, but you probably had to be there to fully appreciate it. He's such a ham!

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So I got my boys to bed tonight, normal time. Nothing unusually there, they're good about going to bed. About 2 hours later I heard a cough, some rustling going on downstairs. Didn't think anything of it. About 10 minutes after that I went to check on things. Get downstairs, notice Conner's bedroom light is on (can't see in the room yet because of the angle) so I head over. I look around the door and see Conner in the middle of the room getting dressed. It's 10 p.m.! He already has a shirt on and pants in hand.

Me: "What are you doing?"
Conner: "Getting ready for school."
M: "Why?"
C: "Because it's time to go to school."
M: "No, it's still night time, jump back in bed."

He looks at the clock, looks at me, looks at the clock again.

C: "Isn't it time for school?"
M: "Nope, not yet."
C: "Okay."

And he crawled back into bed. I'll ask him about it in the morning, but he won't rememer it. He sleep walks every now and then, but this is the first time he's started getting dressed or anything like that. Usually he just comes to find me and sits or lays down next to me. Hmmm, as he gets older I better make sure the car keys are hidden so he doesn't go driving off or something while in one of these trances!

The Diet Starts Friday

Tomorrow is my favorite holiday of the year so don't expect me to hold back! I'm taking my "Joey pants" with me to my parents.

Happy Gobbler everyone!

A Posting Cornucopia

Been awhile since I've done anything but read others' posts so I'll get you up to speed on some minor things the past couple of weeks and throw in a random thought here and there.

No new fraudulent transactions in my bank account so I think those problems are behind me, that's good. Haven't received my new card in the mail yet so it's starting to push the outer limits of the time frame on when it should've been here, that's not so good. My company relocated from Eagan to Bloomington which means crossing the river on my commute every day now, that's really not good!

Went deer hunting with my buddy, Wade, last week/weekend. It turned out to be the least successful hunt we've had in the 8 years we've been doing this together. I only saw 1 deer in the 4.5 days we hunted and got the only shot of the weekend between the 2 of us. He saw more though, but couldn't shoot for one reason or another. Unfortunately mine was more of a desperation shot and I didn't hit the deer (rejoice PETA, but know I'll be back out there next year). Regardless, it was still a nice weekend/vacation just getting away and spending time with him. I've kind of neglected those friendships this year. Neglected might be too strong of a word, but I haven't talked with Wade or some other buddies as much these past few months as I have in the past. It was nice though in that it didn't seem to be an issue and we hung out like we always have and picked things up like there's never been an absence. Nice to have friends you can do that with and not have to worry about hurt feelings or needing to get "caught up". We just picked it up like there was never anything missing. Is that just a guy thing to do though? If so, I'm glad I'm one of 'em!

I did get another shot though while hunting. Friday morning I was sitting in my stand minding my own business when a little red squirrel decided he wanted to climb up one of the trees my stand was built in/on. He'd come up about 5 feet, stop, stare at me, do a little dance on the side of the tree, squeal and then dart back down. This went on for about 10 minutes, each time getting just a little bit closer. I finally got bored with him and actually didn't want him coming all the way up. I didn't want him to get too brave and make it. The last thing I needed was to get attacked by a rabid squirrel with a loaded rifle right there! So, on what turned out to be his last ascent up my tree, I carefully reached for my weapon of choice...slowly got into position...took aim...and BLASTED him with my water bottle. Direct hit! He was soaked and retreated for the day! Of all the trees in the forest he had to pick mine to assault. He was cute to begin with, but he really interfered with my napping time after a minute or two so he had to go! Hey, I have to take my victories where I can get them, it was that kind of a hunting weekend.

The weekend before that, on the 8th, Captain Cartwheel and I had a joint birthday party thrown for us. We share the same bday, but were both out of town on the actual day so Dana put together a fun night out for a small group on the 8th. CC and I started the day/evening off together by both getting tattoos. No, not the same design. I'll post a picture of mine once I get one available. It's at the point now where it's healing (which means scabbing) so it may not be the prettiest thing to show off at the moment.

I treated myself to my first tattoo for a 30th bday present after running the NYC marathon on my actual bday. After finishing the Indy marathon on my 40th I figured I better do the same thing and get another tat. I guess if you're looking for present ideas for my 50th & 60th bdays a safe bet might be a gift certificate to a tattoo shop.

Got home from hunting and had an email waiting for me from the TNT staff. They picked their mentors for the 2009 teams and it turned out I conned them into picking me again for the triathlon team! I guess I fooled the right people into thinking I knew what I was doing last season. ;) I was pleased to see that as I did have fun with it this past summer. Next season will be a little busier for me though as I'll be on 2 teams simultaneously. I'm going to run the Seattle marathon in June so I'll be on that team while mentoring and being on the triathlon team for the July LTF triathlon. Here's your warning now, I'll be actively fundraising this next time around so stay tuned for how you can donate. You can pretty much be guaranteed you'll be hearing from me. If you don't know what TNT is or may possibly want to join in, check out their site here.

I'm In 2 Places At One Time

So I stopped to get some gas last night for a $1.95/gallon. The pay at the pump machine didn't seem to be working so I just pressed the "pay inside" button instead of moving to another pump and filled up. I figured the machine was being overworked with the falling gas prices finally back below $2 so it was no big deal for me to walk a few feet to pay inside.

I finished filling up, went inside to pay with my debit/credit card and was denied there too. Great, I thought. The card is starting to look a little worn so I looked at the strip on the back to see if there were any scratches or worn spots. Visibly it looked alright so the clerk tried it again. Still no go, he was telling me the card was "unauthorized". Yeah, like I don't have authority to use my own card.

I tried it in the ATM quick and got the same message there. WTF?!?! I couldn't even get it to give me just my balance so I could prove to the clerk I had the $$.

Thankfully I was able pay the old fashioned way so I wrote a check and that was that. I thought later that what if he wouldn't have accepted a check? Would I have had to clean the bathrooms until I worked off $30 worth of gas or would I have had to siphon it out? Glad those little pieces of paper are still being accepted somewhere!

So when I got home last night I pulled up my account online. Turns out there were 5 debit card transactions on there from Houston, TX made yesterday. Someone, somehow, somewhere had gotten a hold of my card # and fraudulently made 4 separate purchases at Best Buy and 1 at BeBe's. I'm not sure, but I think BeBe's is a women's department store. I am sure that I wasn't in TX yesterday and if I was I wouldn't be shopping at Best Buy and BeBe's! Thankfully this little inbred didn't wrack up too much in purchases, $283 total, but still....

I went to my credit union this morning to straighten things out and they assured me that should be the last of those transactions. The Visa system, or someone, had noticed these unusually transactions and stopped all electronic payments on my account, hence why I wasn't able to use it at the gas station. It's nice to know that fraud alert system works!

When I was at the credit union and we were going through the transactions for the past couple of days the service rep was asking me about recent purchases in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin that were showing up too. Those were from my marathon weekend trip, but I bet I could've gotten away with telling her those were unauthorized too and I would've been reimbursed. Damn! I guess this is where I'm supposed to say thanks Mom and Dad for raising me to be an honest and forthright individual (yeah yeah, I know some of you are questioning that too).

I Got Faster Overnight

4:13:03 was the gun time. My chip time was 4:10:55.

I like this Daylight Savings Time thing.

I'm Happy!

The marathon is done, Woo Hoo! My birthday isn't so we're moving on to that celebration now. Sitting here sippin' on a Guinness as I write. Ah, doesn't get much better!!

Here's what I know about the marathon (I'll post some pix later):

We went to the "expo" yesterday to pick up my packet and drive part of the course. The "expo" consisted of 6 tables with the race packets and t-shirts - no vendors, no chance to buy race souvenirs. Not exactly comparable to the TCM, but oh well, it's the first year for this race so hopefully for their sake it'll grow.
Got up early this a.m. and made it down to the start line around 6:50ish (8:00 start). Just hung out with Becca (my travel partner from MN who's originally from Indy so she came home for the weekend) and her mom. This marathon was different from many that I've done in that there were just over 3,000 runners total for both the 1/2 marathon and full marathon. Usually I'm used to there being 10,000 at TCM or 20-30,000 at some of these Rock N Roll series races. It was quite nice having the elbow room I'll say!
The weather couldn't have been any better! 47 at the start climbing gradually into the mid 60s by the time I finished, calm and sunny all morning.
The gun went off so we did too. It was actually a pretty uneventful race. I held a decent pace initially, but not too fast. Felt good, relaxed and in control. The first couple of miles were in downtown Indianapolis and then we moved out to some of the residential neighborhoods. The course took us through some "iffy" parts of town, but a mile or two later the view did a 180 and we were looking at some posh houses. I hit the half way point (mile 13.1) at 1:57. There was little time to celebrate because even though that's on pace to finish sub-4 I knew the 2nd half would probably be slower. We wound through Butler Univ., the gardens at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and headed back to downtown. The main road leading us back to the finish area was a 4 mile straightaway covering miles 21 to 25. The unfortunate part of that was the downtown buildings never seemed to get any closer. The bigger they are, the further away you can see them and the longer it takes to get there. Could've been just me at that point too though.
The 2nd half did turn into more of a struggle around mile 18ish, but I tried to keep chugging along. The buildings eventually did get closer, I made a few more turns along the course and finished in 4:13. Although I only got 1 Tier of Happiness (see last previous post) I'm hanging my hat on that it's the fastest marathon I've run this year and my 2nd fastest ever. Not bad for a 40 year old, right? Holy crap, I'm 40 now!!!
This morning was kind of funny. I came down to make my breakfast and Becca wished me a happy birthday. I had to think for a sec because I actually forgot it was my bday, I guess I was too focused on the race.
Becca and her mom were awesome this morning. Not only were they at the start that early with me, but I saw them at 4 other spots along the course as well as at the finish line! And unbeknowst to me Becca made signs too! Thanks ladies!
Even though I didn't hit all my goal times I am content and happy with how things went. I think I need to reevaluate my race day nutrition though because there were some iffy moments along those lines. Physically I felt as good as you can trudging along for 26.2 miles so other than doing a little more strength training I think my training schedule is getting there.

Well, off to get another Guinness. That's my last race of the year so let the off-season and my decade of 40something begin!

Different Tiers of Happiness

I'm not sure I'll have time between now and when I leave so I thought I better write these down and make them known so I hold myself accountable for this upcoming little jaunt I have this weekend. These times might not mean much to you, but pay attention and read along and you might figure out why they mean more to me. For my marathon on Saturday, my different levels of happiness will depend on the time I get. In order from slowest to fastest they are:

4:14 or better (happy): this was my time in Fargo this past May. It would be nice to be able to improve upon this time after a full spring, summer and fall of training and racing.
4:08 or better (happier): this is my current PR set exactly 10 years ago as of this Saturday, on 11/01/98 on my 30th bday.
3:59:59 or better (even happier): if I'm going to beat 4:08 I might as well try to get under 4 hours, right?
3:58 or better (happiest): yes, Wade, you and your PR are still a small reason why I'm running and one I hope to beat someday so I can have bragging rights (it's a guy thing).

This isn't to say that if I bomb on Saturday all hope is lost. It's my birthday so I have to make the most of it. If I don't have a good run let's just hope there's a "water" stop along the way that has some barley and hops in it. I might have to stop for a pint or two and say Happy Birthday!

Marathon recap to follow early next week. Check back to see if it's about my running success or birthday success.

Not My Study, But I Hope It's True!

One of the many reasons why I run. Read this article and then get out there and postpone the need for a cane!

A White Halloween

I didn't carve my pumpkin last night just so it could get covered by snow today! October 26th and it's snowing. Too early! One of the things I like about MN is the change in seasons and the variety they offer. It helps you to appreciate the season you're not currently in. For example, during the heat of July and August I think about winter and how refreshing the cold weather would feel at that moment in July. Now that it's here though, it's too early and will make for a looooooooong winter if it stays like this or gets worse.

Makes me wish I was in Ireland or Indiana.

Boys' Night

Tonight was the night the kids and I look forward to a lot this time of year. We carved our pumpkins! We went to a farm outside of New Prague to pick out the perfect pumpkin for each of us. It's amazing how that farmer can grow my perfect orange sphere each following year after thinking I already had it the preceding year. Devon keeps saying his is the perfect one. Conner claims his is the perfect one. Boys, I've been doing this a lot longer than you have. Mine's the perfect one! :) Of course I tell them theirs are each the perfect ones, but secretly I know better. Shh, don't tell them though.

We started out by Daddy-o cutting the top off of each and every intention was for each person to scoop out the innards in their own pumpkin. That worked for about 2.5 seconds after I got done telling them that was the plan. Devon actually did attempt to. He scooped awhile with the spoon and then did stick his hand in there and yank some out after some coaxing and seeing me do it. Conner...not so much. He just sat there with his spoon daintily taking one or two seeds out at a time, making sure his hand didn't touch the sides or any of the stringy, hairy, slimy innards. After awhile I caved and helped him out. Maybe next year he'll be brave enough to touch it and do it himself.

Conner did get to man the knife all by himself this year though and he did a great job cutting his (pumpkin) face out. No blood anywhere! Devon drew what he wanted on his and then I cut it. Before I cut his though, I confirmed he wanted it cut exactly how it was drawn. It's not the most symmetrical faced pumpkin on the block, but I dare you to look at it and not chuckle. You should have no problem picking out which is whose. We all like them all!

Of course this activity isn't complete until the seeds are roasted so we got that taken care of too. I didn't even burn those this year so the 2008 Pumpkin Season was a success!!

Happy Haunting.

P.S. I know I'm taking a great chance in jinxing things here, but the weather looks perfect so far for the marathon next weekend!

I Love The Taper!

I had my last "long" training run last weekend and it went quite well I think. I had the help of Kimmi and Kris to keep my mind preoccupied and get me through the distance, so thank you very much ladies. I won't say which is which, but one of them ran the first 11 plus miles with me and then went home and partially died even though she's of Ironman caliber and I made the other one entertain me and talk more during the last hour and a half than she probably did the rest of the entire day. If I have a successful race I owe part of that to you two. Wanna come to Indy and do it 1 more time to get me through the race?! :)

Speaking of the race, tomorrow is the day I start to become neurotic about it. Tomorrow marks T -10 and anyone who's ever done any racing knows what that means, don't you? Yup, I get to start checking the weather forecasts multiple times throughout the day! Tomorrow it'll just be a couple of times, but by the time the day or two before the race comes around I'm usually looking at the updates hourly. I know it's so unproductive to do because I can't do anything about changing the weather, but hey, it's just part of the routine now. I'll be taking clothes for all scenarios anyway so why not just watch the weather the night before the race and leave it at that, right? That'd be too easy. I guess I want to know beforehand if the weather is going to be crappy so I can mentally prepare myself.

The Taper Period is weird. You train all season and always look forward to the 2 or 3 weeks before the marathon so you can rest up, but once it gets here you feel like you haven't done enough and want to get out there and do a couple of more training runs. At this point there isn't anything you can do to physically improve other than rest up, but that's the last thing you can make yourself believe. It's a matter of trusting what you did up to this point will help you succeed. So does that mean self-doubt is more prevalent than self-confidence? Ah, that's too deep for something that's just meant to be about running.

I better go find something else to do for the next 10 days.

Thursday Night Date

Had a date tonight. Nope, not another one with my buddy Shawn. This one was with someone more important and a member of the female persuasion even!

I suppose I could try to string you along, but I won't. I took my daughter, Kayli, to the Guthrie to see the musical The Little House on the Prairie.

It was a good show. Beautiful voices, but the songs and a few of the characters didn't really jive. One of the cool things about this musical though (and you had to grow up watching the show 30ish years ago like I'm not too afraid I did to really appreciate this) is that Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls in the tv show back then, is in the performance for this production run. She plays Laura's mom this time around though. I don't think she could've pulled off still being Half Pint.

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I got Booed at work yesterday morning by a coworker. Can you believe it? Don't you wish you worked there? Actually, it's a good/fun thing. It's a secret "Boo" as in Halloween. It's loosely like the secret Santa, chain letter thing. I don't know who started it, but I got to my desk yesterday morning and there was a little decorated Halloween bowl filled with candy sitting on my desk with a Halloween poem and instructions and a Boo sign. I have to leave the sign hanging on my wall to show that I've been Booed and secretly do the same thing to 2 others - leave a little treat/trinket and the instructions and sign - within 24 hours and then each one of them does it 2 people and so on and so on. Eventually if everyone follows the instructions the whole office should have boo signs hanging by everyone's desk. I think I'll take mine down so people think I haven't gotten it yet and maybe that way I'll get more candy.

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Another good run today with a little bit of speed work thrown in. Confidence is gaining heading into these final 2 weeks.

I'm Back (I Hope)!!

Just had to get this down while I'm still feeling 'high' from it - had a great 7 mile run over lunch today! Woo Hoo!! Hopefully Saturday's experience won't repeat itself anymore this training and racing season.

...But comparing Saturday's run to today's has made me wonder if I've become a warm weather training wuss.
Saturday - sunny, low 70s (slightly warm by a runner's standards)
Today - overcast, low to mid 50s (perfect running weather by my standards)
I used to think I did pretty well in the heat...maybe not.

It Was So Bad I Got Passed By A House

Spent the weekend in Rochester with family. I was looking forward to this weekend for many family related reasons:
-I haven't seen my parents for awhile
-haven't seen my sister and her kids for awhile (you too Ken)
-it was my nephew's birthday
-was going to get to watch my nephew in his final football game of the year (in his first year of playing)
-and was going to get Kayli for the weekend and be with her for more than just 10 minutes.

Everything turned out great family-wise. All the kids played wonderfully together (no tears), Thomas liked all his presents (or maybe it was just all the cash) and the football game ended in a tie so there was no pouting by either team. Mom even made some of her awesome vegetable soup from a recipe that's at least 4 generations old now and some apple crisp from apples the kids picked Saturday afternoon. For the most part I ate healthy stuff, it's just the amount I ate that might be called into question.

The only downer to the weekend was my training run. After my nephew's football game Sat. morning I was going to run back to my sister's house. They live about 15 miles outside of the city so I mapped out a route to tack on a few more feet to come up with my 22 miler.

The game ended so I got set to run while the fam took off, planning to see them again in the 3-3:30 hrs it would take me. The first couple of miles started out innocently enough, but early on I could feel that I wasn't getting into "that rhythm" and it felt like more of a struggle than it should've. Then the hills started. I never realized Rochester was as hilly as it is, but then again I've only ever driven through it and never had to do a run like this one.

I knew I was in for a long afternoon when just before mile 9 I already had to stop at a Kwik Trip for a mental break more than anything and to top off my water bottle. Not a good sign. I struggled through the next couple of miles and came upon a semi that was pulled over to change a flat tire. It was an oversized load as they were hauling a pre-fab house addition. My new goal was to get to my next turn a few more miles down the road before they got that fixed and passed me back. That goal was shot down. I was running so slow I eventually got passed by a house. I just chuckled...it was just that type of run.

Long story short...Mom and Dad took all the kids to the apple orchard after they left the football game. On their way home from there they decided to check on me. They came across me at about mile 13 and with the way things were going I opted to end the run and jump in the van. I decided it was better to cut my losses rather than beat myself up over another 9 miles. I've already done one 20 miler and knew I had another coming up again this next weekend so I just chalked this one up to it being a bad day and I'll try it again.

It does put a little chink in the armor though and cause a few doubts to creep in. Hopefully this final long training run will go well and put those doubts to rest. My silver lining to the failed run is that I planned properly by putting in multiple 20s so if the first 1 or 2 do go bad I have another crack at it. I'm also trying to convince myself that I didn't want all these long runs to go well. I didn't want to peak too early and then bomb during the actually marathon. This way, my bad run is now behind me and shouldn't happen on race day.

Yeah...just like I planned it! ;)

GRRRR!!!!

This day went south in a hurry. Can't salvage anything from it so I'm going to bed.

And They Paid To Do This?!

Yesterday was the Twin Cities Marathon. I've run this one 3 times and now that I'm on the "50 marathons in 50 different states" quest I doubt I'll run it again anytime soon. This year I opted to cheer on some TNT family members (i.e. teammates), a coworker and another friend. For a couple of them it was going to be their first marathon each. As with many things, your first time is a memorable one. I still remember #1 better than #2, 3 and 5 and just as well as #4, 6, 7 and 8.

This wasn't going to be just a casual spectating day. They were going to be out there for 26.2 miles. I wasn't going to take it easy and just cheer for them once at one spot and that be it. I made plans with Amy to spend Saturday night at her house as she lives in S. Mpls and close to the course (you may remember her from previous posts when I took over her house during my triathlon weekend. I might have to start paying her some rent. Her place has become Race Central for me.). Amy and I have done a couple of marathons together so we know what it's like to be the runners so we wanted to use that knowledge on the other side of the ropes and spectate.

We got up early to watch the early 10 mile race that was also being conducted with a start time an hour earlier than the full marathon. This race drew interest because it was the Women's National Championship for that distance so that meant the best runners in the nation at that distance were going to be racing. There was a lot of local buildup for this race because 2 of the potential winners had strong MN roots. Amy and I drove to the 2.5 mile spot on this course because it was close to her house and watched and cheered from there. When the leaders came by they were flying! Their race pace is probably not much slower than my 100 yard, 100% effort sprint and they seemed to be doing it with ease. We stayed for awhile and watched most of the other 5,000 people running the 10 miler and saw many familiar faces.

It soon became time to go though as we wanted to get into our first position along the marathon course at mile 7 before those runners came by. We initially were going to ride our bikes from Amy's house to this mark, but since we stayed and cheered longer than we thought for the 10ers we opted to drive to there instead. Turned out to be the best decision we made all day! We got there in plenty of time, but as soon as we did it started to rain. No worries though, we were prepared and had our umbrellas.

As we waited it started to rain harder...and then a little harder...and then a little harder. There were even a couple of lightning flashes and thunder claps. I've lucked out in my 8 marathons and have never had to run in the rain. The only thing I could think of while standing there was thank God I'm turning 40 in a few weeks and am training for another marathon on that day otherwise I might've been out there doing this one with my friends!

The runners started coming by, the leaders, then gradually bigger packs and then before we knew it the road was packed with the 11,000 runners who signed up for the race. I'm sure there were some who didn't even start when they saw what the weather was going to be like, but not our girls! They're sweet, but they don't melt when they get a little wet.

First came Dana and Kris right on cue at the pace they should be, smiling and actually looking like they were enjoying themselves! Luckily they saw me first and yelled out otherwise I may have been standing there all morning waiting to spot them. Shawna came by a few minutes later, gave her an extra ring of the cowbell and then looked for my final personal runner I was cheering for (all the while cheering for everyone else who was going by). This last one was Suni, my coworker. She was probably the one I was most nervous for so as more and more runners went by and I didn't see her I became more and more nervous and anxious. Did she already drop? Did she even start because of the rain? It came to the point when we couldn't wait around any longer if we wanted to get to our next spot and catch those who had already gone by so we left. Sorry I missed you Suni.

We drove back to Amy's house to get some cheer supplies and the rain was starting to let up. I opted to jump on my bike at this point, regardless of what the weather was going to do the rest of the day. I figured with my familiarity with the course and the way traffic would be right around the course, biking would be quickest and allow for multiple stopping points. I put on my rain pants, grabbed my Spiderman backpack I was using for the day (thanks Conner!) stocked full of baggies of fruit, pretzels, umbrellas, cowbell and homemade posters and was off!

I cruised down to Mile 14 and waited for my girls to come by (funny, for some reason my main focus was on a handful of female runners. Hmmm...:)). I figured I had some time so I whipped out the posters and held them up, one for each of my peeps. Being of obnoxious (but effective) neon colors with big block letters I hoped they would see them from a distance and get a charge out of them. The one I made for Kris just had her last name on it - MIELKE is Amazing! A few minutes before they came by some guy ran by and said "hey, thanks". Not thinking anything of it other than that was kinda weird I just replied "sure, you bet". After the race was over I looked up their results and saw that there were 2 other runners with the last name Mielke so apparently one of them thought the sign was for him too. Sir, if it helped you at all at that point, then yes, the sign was for you too!

Kris and Dana came by right on pace target, got a good smile out of both of them and they kept truckin' along! After they went by, I just flipped the signs over and had one ready for Shawna and Suni (hopefully I'd see her this time). Shawna came by next at about the same interval as back at mile 7 so she was right on target too. I threw her a bag of fruit without her breaking stride and she motored on. Now it was Suni's turn. Where are you Suni? Another minute or two went by and all of a sudden I see this blur come shooting over to me from the side. It was Suni! Yeah, she did make it and was doing great! I got a quick sweaty hug and she was back on her way.

My next spot was just before Mile 22, after the last major hill and right before Summit Ave, a long, seemingly-never-ending, 4 mile straightaway that has a slight incline to it that seems like you're trekking up Mt. Everest at that point in the race. D & K maintained their front-running status and were first upon me. They were both still looking strong! Kris was one of the rookies coming into this marathon so every step she took after the 20 mile mark was a personal record and new distance for her. She looked like she had done this before! Check out her blog and marathon recap here. She grabbed a bag of pretzels at this point to replenish some sodium and like the Energizer bunnies they just kept on going! Suni and Shawna came by separately so I was able to attend to each one individually and run with them for a few paces to assess their well-being. There was no quit in anyone and they knew the finish was getting nearer!

After having done this marathon 3 times I knew Summit Ave was more about the mental toughness than the physical aspect at that point. I cruised down a couple of miles and positioned myself for 1 last cheer spot to hopefully give my girls a little boost to help carry them through. I got out the posters one last time and knew this time if they were looking up and ahead at all and not down at their feet they'd see and recognize them from quite a ways away. They all gave me a smile and/or a thumbs up so there was no doubt they were going to finish.

The matter of finishing was never really an option or thought for any of them. The thing that amazed me though about each of them was that they were still right on target or faster despite running in the rain the first 10 miles! Earlier in the day I thought that was going to slow everyone down. Not these amazing runners though!

Unfortunately I didn't make it to the Finish Line to see any of them cross as the crowd got thicker the closer I got and I had to weave and eventually walk my bike through the pack and around. I was able to meet up with Dana and Kris though and their perma-grins. We had someone snap this picture of us. I laughed when I got it emailed to me from Kris today because of the rip in my rain pants. Yes, that's a rip, my fly isn't open. I had shorts on underneath. Getting on and off my bike all day and swinging my leg up and over I ripped 'em at some point and didn't even know it until Dana pointed it out after the picture was taken. Thanks for waiting to tell me! :)

Also, notice the blue sky after they're done racing! Murphy's Law.

The night ended appropriately with a group dinner with 9 of us, mostly runners from the day celebrating their accomplishment. Big meals, a couple of drinks and most definitely some dessert. The only thing missing was a little dancing to see how the legs felt at that point. After your Ironman, Dana and Kris, we're definitely going out dancing!

After watching these ladies, and everyone else, it has fired me up a little more for my marathon coming up. I wanted to be out there running with them! That's a good sign and hopefully I'll be able to do as well as they all did!

Pity Party - Get Over It!

Spent last night in the doldrums of solitude. I guess it was about that time, I go through that on occasion. Not too often, but every now and then I do wish/want/need someone to come home to.

I’m a grown-up. I make my own decisions. I’ve made the decision lately to not be dating or at least to not actively pursue those options, but last night on the drive home I wanted to be going home to someone…not to an empty, quiet house. I tried to stay busy once I got home, but that didn’t last long. Cleaned one of my bikes, but spent most of the night sitting in front of my computer playing spades, hearts and backgammon online. Yup, that’s my exciting life down in Lonsdale.

Wasn’t even really looking forward to crawling into bed because I knew my body pillow just wouldn’t snuggle back the way I wanted it to.

I asked myself why I’m not dating. Others have asked why too. My answer to them has been I don’t have time. With all the running I’m doing lately and the demands of a marathon I feel like I don’t have the time or the little time I do have should be set aside for more training. I think that’s a cop-out answer. Truth be told, I think a more appropriate answer is that I’m a chicken (not too far removed from my turkey pals I’ve been meeting lately on my runs).

Dating back before my marriage was hard, stressful enough. Especially for someone who’s quiet and reserved. Throw onto that dating resume now the terms divorcee and single parent and that immediately minimizes the dating pool. Not knowing how someone feels about those 2 big issues I now carry with me makes me even more skittish to take the initiative, along with still being quiet and reserved. I’m the kind of person who usually likes to gather the facts before making a decision. I just can’t go up to a woman and say “hey, let’s go out” without knowing first if she’s interested in me and knows what baggage* I bring. That’s just the way I operate I guess, but it does make this part of my life harder.

I think people do need others in their life romantically, we shouldn’t go through life alone. Studies have shown that (I’m not going to take the time to quote or find ‘em though so you’ll just have to trust me). When I’m out in public or at social gatherings I notice other couples and their interaction and wish I was with someone too. I do want that romantic partner again, but am too chicken to do anything about it.

Oh well, that’s my sob story for tonight. Don’t feel sorry for me, that wasn’t the purpose of the post. I’ve made my own decisions and will continue to do so.

Maybe I’m PMSing.

*Baggage is just an easy term to use. It in no way should imply my kids are an encumbrance or anything negative.

3 Little Einsteins, 1 Big....

The kids' conferences went well. Started out with Devon's yesterday and he's doing great in Kindergarten. Slightly ahead in pretty much every area of where they like to see their incoming students.

Kayli's was next today, but I missed that one as I couldn't find the school. Oops! I looked it up on mapquest yesterday and thought I knew where it was, but obviously didn't pay close enough attention to the details. Gonna have to go back and remap it before my next attempt to get there! Kayli had mentioned a couple of weeks ago that she was bored in math class because what they were teaching was stuff she had already gone over last year in 5th grade in New Prague. They're beyond refreshing and reviewing what the students learned last year and dusting off the cobwebs from summer and it's still pretty familiar to her so she's going to get bumped up into the accelerated math group! She's excited for that as am I. It's actually kind of ironic. She says that math isn't (wasn't) her favorite class and I remember struggling with her the last couple of years to get her homework done because she didn't understand it, but she continually brought home good test scores. I'm glad she spoke up and wants to be challenged rather than just coasting through the subject.

Conner's was shortly after Kayli's and in a different part of town (they're in different school buildings) so I just headed over there once I knew I'd be too late to try to find Kayli's. Conner's went well as well. Found out his 1 main weakness we were informed of last year in 2nd grade has carried over to 3rd grade and the new school - he's chatty! I think it's pretty safe to say he gets that from his mother's side. It may be affecting his test scores somewhat because apparently he sometimes misses the instructions because he's gabbing and doesn't test as high as he probably should. He got a good math grade, but not as high as we think he's capable of. It's not a major concern though and I'm sure his teacher will keep things in check. His teacher doesn't see any issues or concerns with his social life and fitting in (he voiced he wasn't making any friends and missed his old school) so that was our main concern. He remains a positive in the classroom and he's reading a ton! Just keep him reading and he won't talk. Problem solved!

Lindsay went back to being Lindsay today. She sent me a doozy of an email today that just got my goat. It started out very harmlessly with her asking about some dates/weekends we're switching the kids around and then suddenly took a drastic left turn out to nowhere. I wanted to chuck my monitor across the office when I read it! Thankfully we have a workout room at the office so I went and lifted some weights for about 15 minutes and that seemed to settle me down. After I had time to think about it I think what got to me the most was that I let what she said get to me. I'm a little upset at myself for that. It's been awhile since we haven't seen eye to eye on something and I forgot how she thinks and processes info. Once I remembered those factors I was able to let it slide a little easier. That's not to say I agree with her, just that she's going to think what she thinks because that's the way she is. She's caused enough of my hairs to go gray (those that she didn't cause to fall out), no more though dagnabit!!

Let's All Do The Turkey Trot

Training report: I ran today.

End of report.

Actually, it was a pretty good run. It was my first 20 miler this training cycle. I've scheduled myself to do 2 more - a backdown run next weekend (12-15 miles) and then the following weekends will be a 22, 20 and then a 2 week taper before my marathon. I actually wanted to do more training miles leading up to this marathon. I'm thinking that might be part of my problem in bonking when I have my last few marathons. Well, maybe just in Fargo this past Spring. The 2 prior to that there were extenuating circumstances that I'll chalk those runs up to (yes, I'm fully aware some of you will read "extenuating circumstances" as "excuses"). For Fargo's I was kind of banking (i.e. hoping/wishing) my triathlon training would carry me through that one. I found out the hard way that triathlon training does not substitute fully for marathon training unless you're training for an Ironman.

Knowing I wasn't going to be able to con someone into running the whole 20 miles with me I set out trying to find someone to do part of it with me. Even we introverts can get bored when it's just ourselves on a long run. Kris bit at the opportunity and we set the plans to meet this morning.

I got to the neighborhood where we were going to meet and found out there was a 10 mile race in progress so they had all the roads closed in the area which made getting to the meeting spot cumbersome. Needless to say, we didn't meet up through no fault of her's, just a matter of unforeseen circumstances. That meant I had to run alone...by myself...solo...party of 1...for 20 miles...105,600 feet. There was a nanosecond there when I just thought, "ah, skip the run, you don't want to run that far by yourself." Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at things) I was able to push that thought aside, sucked it up and told myself it'll be a good mental workout too getting through it - needing to rely on just myself to make it and not lean on someone else to pull me along.

I laced up the running clogs and was off.

I won't take you through every mile, but in conclusion the first 17 went well and I was feeling good physically. The last 3 were noticeably slower and there was some competition going on between my physical and mental beings. I had to resort to some tricks and play games between the two, they both got their fair share of wins, but in the end we all came out stronger after getting through it so this first 20 miler was a success in my book.

My route today was along the Mississippi River and the last 10 miles of the TCM marathon. I love this time of year with the leaves starting to change. The colors aren't there fully yet, but the river banks were still nice to look at and were a pleasant distraction. Next weekend is that marathon so I'm sure they'll be even more apparent. At that point in the route if you can take your mind off how you're feeling and look around hopefully you're able to appreciate the beauty of nature. You can sometimes forget that you're in a metropolitan area which is a nice reprieve.

So I went for a run with a bunch of turkeys on Thursday, literally. I was able to sneak out during lunch for a quick 5 miles. My route in Eagan takes me from my office, down along the pedestrian path along 494 and across the MN River. As I turned the corner to get on the path and head down to the river there were a bunch of wild turkeys standing there, some on the path, some eating in the brush off to the side. I'll admit they scared the crap out of me a little! What is a group of turkeys called - flock, gaggle, group, bunch? Anyway, I wasn't sure if they were going to move or what and thought I remembered hearing they can be somewhat aggressive. I kept running towards them hoping they would part and leave me alone. Some snuck back into the woods off to the left, some kept eating off to the right and some started sauntering down the path in front of me. Have you ever seen a turkey saunter? You should. Those in front picked up their pace a little and I kept with them stride for stride (only 2 or 3) before they darted off into the woods too. After getting past them I did look back a couple of times just to make sure none of them got brave and started chasing me. That would've made for a good speed workout I suppose. Thankfully they weren't there on my way back about 20 minutes later.

Well, that's it for my training report. Seriously this time.

We have conferences for the kids this week. Farmington is on the 4 quarters system, not trimesters like we're used to with New Prague, so it'll be nice to meet the teachers we haven't yet and get the synopsis from them on how the kids are doing and adjusting. There have been some minor transition pains, but I think all 3 of them are enjoying themselves by now and fitting in.

I think Kayli's used to her short hair by now, but I still do a double take when I see her. She says the biggest difference is just in washing her hair because it goes so quick now. It's strange not having her around here anymore. I have to cram our time together into the 5-10 minutes I see her when I pick up the boys. Kinda weird. I do have Guthrie tickets for her and me to see a show in a couple of weeks though so I'm looking forward to that.

Well, I think that's about it for tonight. You're all caught up so I'm gonna sign off.

There's a post-ironman party on Wednesday hosted by the 2 we went to watch. Hopefully they'll let loose a little now that everything is behind them so there may be a story or two to tell from that evening. Stay tuned.

This, That and The Other Things

Just an odds 'n ends posting tonight.

Had a date last night. You're going to have to read this whole thing though to get the details (no skipping right to the end).

Training has (had) been progressing somewhat well for my next marathon. I had a couple of good runs (the jogging kind, not the sit down in the bathroom kind) early in the week, but on Thursday night's run I felt my right hip flexor(s) weren't fully cooperating. I was scheduled to do an 18 mile run on Saturday, but I scaled that down to just 10 so as to not overdo it and cause unnecessary damage. It felt about the same after Saturday's run as it did on Thursday so hopefully it was just feeling tired and not injured. I'll monitor it for a couple of more days and then hopefully get back on schedule. Maybe a 20 this coming weekend if everything feels fine (and I can finagle it into the family schedule).

After my run on Saturday I was scheduled to volunteer at the packet pick-up portion for a duathlon in Bloomington. That was a good time. Met a couple of other volunteers who are Iron(wo)men. One girl just completed IM WI that my friends were in and another gentleman is doing IM AZ in November (he's also done others). I also found out he's on the Leukemia Society's board of directors so we talked briefly about TNT. He also pulls some weight in the MN triathlon community (not quite sure to what extent, but apparently enough) and he says they're trying to get Ironman to have a race in MN. Possibly by 2010 or sometime soon thereafter. Stay tuned for further details. Quick disclaimer though, I highly doubt I would end up doing that one though. I've already run a marathon in MN so WI is looking like the more likely scenario once that race situation comes around.

The date included a movie.

Today was the actual duathlon race. During my volunteer shift yesterday I ran into a lot of friends who had signed up for the race. Some I knew were already doing it, others I didn't know until I saw them yesterday. They were all from past TNT teams, marathon and/or triathlon. It was fun to catch up with them and great to see that they're still being active.

Seeing as how I knew so many people participating I went to watch today as well. It's fun being on that side of the ropes on occasion - don't have to worry about dinner the night before, prerace jitters, getting up early, etc. I like to think I've become a borderline "expert" spectator. I try to think about what I would like spectators (and anyone there to specifically watch me) do and where I'd like them to be and then that's what I try to do. I purposely get away from the main crowds to offer the racers another cheerer at another spot along the route and so when I call out their name hopefully they'll hear that and get a little boost. They all did great! Way to go Amy, Angela, Anna, Caroline, Carrie, Dana, Elizabeth, Grace, Jen, Julie, Kris, Spring, Stephanie (I think (hope) that's everyone I knew, sorry if I missed listing you if not. Plus, it's alphabetically so as to not show any favoritism, I know how you women can get. ;) hehehe).

There will more than likely be more dates down the road, but nothing has been planned as of yet.

Oh, get this - yesterday when I was working handing out packets a racer came by to pick her's up. She also knew a couple of other volunteers working there so she was standing around talking to them for a few minutes. She looked at me a few times and finally asked if she knew me from somewhere. I didn't recognize her at all so said probably not, just one of those faces I guess. She couldn't place it either from where, if anywhere, so she finished her chat with her friends and left. Fast forward to today. I was standing alone along the run course cheering and she came walking by after she was done. She said, "you used to be a student manager at the Pub." Quickly putting the pieces together I asked, "are you talking about St. Mary's?" Turns out she was. St. Mary's was where we both went to college and the Pub was the on-campus student union - pizza/burger/pool/beer joint. I was a senior in '90/'91 and she was a sophomore and apparently I did such a great job of making an impression on her as a student manager that she remembers me from that role 18 years later! I still couldn't remember her though, but that was kind of funny to hear and be remembered for that. Funny to me anyway.

After this Indy marathon in Nov. I'm going to have to think about my race schedule for '09. I found out today that TNT is dropping the Alaska marathon from their lineup, but replacing it with the new Rock N Roll marathon in Seattle! Next year (June) will be the first year for that marathon so it would be fun to do the inaugural running of that, plus the Rock N Roll Series is very well organized and supported. Signing up for that team though could be an issue because I'd want to do the triathlon team again, but the scheduling could be an issue because they train at the same times, but separately. The LTF tri is 2 weeks after the Seattle marathon and then 2 weeks after that is the Chisago Lakes 1/2 iron triathlon I was toying with doing. That would be a lot of racing miles in a 4 week period! Hmmm, I'll have to put more thought into that.

Okay, it wasn't really a "date" date, but it was still an organized night out with only 1 other person. It just happened to be with my buddy Shawn. We talked about getting together for dinner and whatever. We ended up going to a movie (Burn After Reading. I'd give it a thumbs up) and dinner consisted of a bag of popcorn and licorice (pretty nutritious, huh?). He's single too so we joked about it being a date. I should've told him he asked me out so he would've had to pay. Damn, missed that opportunity. I can't remember if I've ever gone to a movie with just 1 other guy. Maybe back in high school.

Maybe I should pursue Dana's "Sara(h?) attempt" instead.

My Daughter Aged Overnight

I guess technically we all do. We age with every passing second for that matter.

She called me last night to tell me she was getting her hair cut. She's 11. She's had it cut before, no big deal, right? This time she was getting it cut cut though!

She was with her mom at the time, but I was told the conversation went something like this-

Kayli (daughter): I want to get my hair cut.
Lindsay (her mom): Okay, how much?
K: Just trimmed. I want it to grow longer so I can donate it to Locks of Love.
L: Your hair is long enough to do that now.
K: Oh, okay, I want to get it cut short then.

I stopped over at Lindsay's tonight to see it and she went from my little girl to a little lady. Okay, there have been 2 other "bumpy" developments that have been taking shape the past few months that have also contributed to that metamorphosis, but this one change made her look 5 years older instantly!

She likes her new look and for that matter so do I.

That's her in my profile picture taken just 2 months ago. You can see how long her hair was. It's not even touching her shoulders now, she has a neck! I'm more proud of her than anything though. It was her thought and idea to donate her hair. Unprovoked she wanted to do that. It gives me a warm fuzzy knowing my kids think along those lines.

The funny thing is, we just got her school pictures back last week and now they're outdated. Maybe we should get retakes?

What A Difference A Week Makes

I mentioned last post that I was a bit puzzled about how I felt about the ironman and I think I've been able to clear things up within my simple little mind finally.

First and foremost, I was going there to watch and support my friends. On a personal level though, I was also hoping it would help motivate me in my own athletic endeavors. It didn't. Nor should it have.

What did motivate me was having a good week of running capped off by a 17 miler yesterday that, dare I say, felt easy (knocking on wood right now). During that 17 miles there was plenty of time to ponder and I came up with a theory. I think I am, or maybe have become, the type of person that has to experience something or what it takes to get there in order for it to really sink in and mean something to me.

I do want to do an IM someday, but not now. With not having put myself through the rigors of training for one or financially signing up for it, I don't have the personal connection and can't get motivated by it. I was trying to use the IM and compare that with my personal long-term goal of running a marathon in all 50 states. It's apples and oranges. I have run multiple marathons and am in the meat and potatoes portion of training for another so I know the feelings associated with and am still motivated by that. I haven't done the IM so I can't draw on that non-experience.

Make sense? If so, sit down for this shocker - I'm going to apply this same line of thinking to something outside of my athletic life and to my personal life! Can I blog about something non-sports related?! Let's find out.

Just last week I had multiple people, all of who have never asked about my romantic life, ask if I was dating anyone or what I wanted in that regard. Dating and remarriage for me is a cross between doing the ironman and another marathon. I do want to get remarried someday, but like the ironman, not now. I've gone through the highs of marriage and lows of divorce so I've experienced the whole gamut, and like the marathons, I want to do it again. Unlike the marathons, I don't want to do it 2 or 3 times per year though or in all 50 states!

Having the divorce behind me and as hard as it was, I know it was the right thing to do. I've experienced it and it motivates me to make sure it doesn't happen again. The next Mrs. Jon McCarthy is going to be lucky based on the fact that I learned my lessons.

Yesterday's run was a little different for me because it was so active mentally. Usually I try to shut down the brain and zone out and just run. I guess I had a few things to think about. I wonder what my 20 milers coming up are going to be like?!

Incredible Athletes

After watching the Ironman in person this past weekend I'm still trying to process what it all means on a personal level. I'm somewhat perplexed by my thoughts/views about it and what I'm doing, or trying to do, athletically. I'll post more on that later once I wrap my head around it all, but speaking strictly as a spectator though, it was frickin' awesome!

The 2 participants we were there to watch did fabulous! They both finished with nary a worry and ear to ear smiles every time we saw them on the course. I won't give you a play by play recap of the whole race (I'm sure you can get that from Kimmi and Rachel in the next day or so once they've recovered and have had time to post them), but just some thoughts from a spectator's point of view.

Our morning started out early at 5 a.m. in order to drive the 7 miles downtown, park and find the rest of our crew. We were able to see K and R and wish them good luck 1 final time. They both seemed calm and ready to go. Once we left them I headed down to the swim start with others. This start is unlike most in that it's one big mass wave start, but with the participants already in the water about 50 yards out, not starting on the beach with them running in.

Once the cannon went off at 7:00 a.m. signaling the start the calm, bluegray waters became an instant froth of seemingly chaos and flailing arms. Unless you were in the lead or purposely lagging behind I would think it'd be akin to a sock going through the heavy duty wash cycle.

There was a 2 hr 20 minute cutoff for this portion of the race meaning that if you weren't done swimming within 2:20 you were done, not allowed to continue. Watching these cutoffs get closer and closer knowing there are still racers out there is some of the most nerve-wracking minutes in this sport for a spectator. You want so bad for everyone to make it, but you know not everyone will and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. As 5 minutes became 4...and then 3...and then 2...and then 1...and then seconds, there were 2 swimmers that were about 30 yards out. By this time the announcer has the crowd fully into it cheering for these 2 to get in under the cutoff, the music blaring, everyone's screaming and cheering knowing it's going to be close. 10...9...8...the volunteers that are there to help people out of the water are standing out in the water, waist deep, waiting to get their hands on these 2...7...6...5...the first of the 2 takes his final stroke and the volunteers grab both arms and simultaneously drag him in further and stand him up, he made it! ...4...3...2...the other one does the same!! At the buzzer she finishes her swim and is allowed to continue on to the bike portion. The crowd is just in a tizzy, going wild. I'd be willing to bet these 2 got the loudest cheers of the day and their smiles told the whole story!!

On the flip side of this whole uplifting moment though, 30 seconds later the next swimmer comes in and he has to be stopped from running through the chute and told his day is done, he didn't make it under the cutoff. How much would that suck? You've trained for months and months and months and find out your Ironman dream has vanished because you were 30 seconds too slow. It's over before it gets started. This was tough to watch and I'll admit to getting a little teary-eyed. There were a few others out in the water yet who were in the same boat (no pun intended).

On to the bike portion. This part isn't quite as dramatic as watching the bike portion is harder and you only see any 1 racer for just a few blurry seconds. We took the shuttle out to the popular spectator spot on the course and waited for our 2 to come around. They had to do this loop of the route twice so we knew we'd see them both times at miles 56 and 97. Waiting for them to come through and noticing all the other bikers the majority looked fresh and energized. We were able to spot R and K in enough time to make plenty of noise and hopefully get them re-energized. Watching the riders come through the 2nd time, I was visibly able to notice a difference on quite a few faces that the physicality of everything was starting to take its toll. There were some more pained expressions, not grimacing in pain, but more like a worn down look. Not our girls though! They both came through with their cheshire cat grins and back to the transition they headed.

We jumped back on the shuttle buses to get back downtown to watch the run. We first positioned ourselves at about the 1/2 mile mark on the run so we could cheer for them right away on this final leg of the race. I'm still not sure what I think of the run route. It's an out-and-back that you have to do twice. The turn-around at the halfway point is 1 block from the finish line and every runner can see the finish line as they come to the halfway point knowing they can't yet head to the finish. I'm sure it makes the feeling that much better the 2nd time by, but what a big tease that 1st time! The layout is great for spectating though because it was easy for our group to get to multiple spots to cheer them on elsewhere after our runners passed.

For a majority of the run I watched near this 1/2 way turnaround for the 1st lappers and the finishing block for those who had done their 2 laps. Once again there was agony and ecstasy at this juncture. For those finishing and coming around that final corner, it was pure joy and belief that they were now ironmen. A few of them were crying as they headed in, a lot of them were happier than a kid at Christmas. The agony could be seen at the 1/2 way point turnaround though. There was also a cutoff for this portion of the race at 9:00 p.m. If you weren't at the 1/2 point on the run by 9, you weren't allowed to continue. A handful of people had made it to this point before 9 and had voluntarily elected to call it quits for whatever reason. As the deadline approached, those going through were warned that they were dangerously close to the cutoff and that they'd need to be cognizant of this on the 2nd half if they wanted to finish by midnight (the overall cutoff at 17 hours). The final guy I saw make it up to this point didn't make it in time. He had to be told by race officials that he was past the cutoff and wouldn't be allowed to continue. Not only would this suck for those not making it fast enough in the swim portion, but this guy had already swam 2.4 miles, biked 112 and ran 13.1. He was only 13.1 miles away from the total 140.6 he had to do, but he would have to try it again some other day!

After Rach (just under 14 hrs) and Kimmi (just over 15 hours) finished and midnight approached, I stuck around the finish line to see the last of the finishers come in. The announcers did a great job giving us updates on the remaining runners still out on the course as the minutes ticked off and got closer to midnight. At 11:53, with 7 minutes to go, he called out to the pacer/official who was with the very last person about 1/2 mile out and told them they had 7 minutes to go to get in. The person's response back was that they only needed 5! Awesome, everyone on the course was going to finish! As midnight approached that 5 minutes came and went. They were down to 2...and then 1...and then we saw them turn the last corner and head the last 1 1/2 blocks to the finish line. Once again, those who stuck around to cheer were just going wild, urging these final few to make it in under the wire. With a 17 hour cutoff, the last person to cross the line did it with 4 seconds to spare, 16:59:56!! Truly amazing! Despite having been up for the previous 19 hours I had a hard time falling asleep that night because I was so jazzed up by the whole finish line experience and atmosphere.

The next day, Dana, Kris, Becca and Sean, all TNT teammates, signed up to do this Ironman in '09. Looks like I get to go watch another one!

It's All Relative

Q: Since when is running 15 miles no big deal?
A: Tomorrow morning.

My marathon training schedule calls for a 15 miler in the a.m. (I better make this a short post so I can get to bed), but it's going to feel slightly inferior and inadequate to the rest of the weekend. Dare I say I'll be embarrassed if I tell people this weekend that's all I did? Here's why - after my run with Dana and Kris we're heading down to Madison for the ultimate in athletic endurance. Kimmi and Rachel will be conquering the Ironman Triathlon on Sunday and we're going to cheer them on! Being around 2,000 Ironman-caliber triathletes will put my 15 miler to shame. It's going to be a great spectacle to watch and hopefully provide some more motivation to continue down this athletic path.

I don't think an Ironman is in my future within the next 3-5 years, but maybe someday. I'll either A. have to get married again so I have a spouse to take care of the kids while I'm training 4-6 hours per day on top of a full time job or B. wait until the kids are older and more independent so I can somewhat justify the 4-6 hours of training. B is a safer bet on the more likely scenario.

The last quarter of the marathon is what I'm most interested in watching. I hope K and R don't read the rest of this - Ladies, if you are reading this, log off now. Okay, now that we've gotten rid of them, have you ever seen the end of an endurance race where someone's body just starts to shut down, they start to weave and stumble and just get all zombie-ish? During Ragnar we were waiting for our 3rd runner to come in. It was the longest leg of the entire race, 9.5 miles, and it was starting to get pretty hot and humid, right around noon. A couple of times on this portion we saw a runner that was looking great - long, smooth, effortless strides, and fast - passing other runners one after the other - a few people were commenting on how good she looked. Near the end of this leg was a short, but steep hill. We were waiting at the exchange for Becky (our teammate) to come in when I saw this good runner crest the hill. Both the girl standing next to me and I commented on how impressed we were with her. Just then she faltered. She stopped running, arms were straight down (okay, maybe not zombie-ish since theirs are usually straight out), slouched over, started stumbling and almost fell. A couple of us ran out to grab her to help her in. She had pretty obviously ran too hard given the conditions and dehydrated and overheated. That was my first time witnessing that in person and it was kinda freaky. The weather will be cooler on Sunday for the triathlon, but with how far (140.3 miles) these triathletes will travel and how long (the pros will finish in just over 8 hours while some amatuers will be out there for 17) they'll be continuously pushing their bodies, there's bound to be some racers majorly hitting the wall. I'm certainly not wishing for it to happen, but it'll be interesting to watch.
Since I know you didn't heed my warning Kimmi and Rachel and still read this, I know it won't happen to you 2 though. You've done everything right to get here (not counting a certain bike crash early in the season) and are out there to enjoy the experience. The things some people will do for a little fun in their life!

Good luck girls, and everyone else doing any racing this weekend!

Now, off to bed so I can rest up for my lazy-ass 15 mile run. :)

Ragnar Recap

Spidey died. More on that later.

The relay run was a lot of fun! If you're any sort of runner and get the opportunity to do this relay I'd highly recommend it. I won't take you through every mile, but the following is a recap of how our 205 fun run adventure went.

We drove down to La Crosse Thursday afternoon, the last half in the rain so thankfully we hadn't decorated the van yet. After dinner the rain had stopped so we decided to write some stuff on our van windows that night and finished decorating the next morning before heading to the Start line. Being that our team name was The Babes & The Boys we had previously decided to decorate with bras and boxers. See the connection? Here's what we came up with-

Friday started out perfect, overcast with a breeze from the south (we were running north), but eventually that changed to hot and humid. The first few runners did well and we got a feel for how this whole thing operated. We'd drop off our next runner at their exchange (where the previous runner ended and the next one started), drive down the road a couple of miles, cheer on our runner along with all the others, jump back in the van and drive another couple of miles and just leapfrog our way up to the next exchange.

By the time it got to me, being runner #6, it was around 3:00 in the afternoon and hot and humid, the car thermometer was in the 90s. I had a 6.8 mile first leg staring at me, but I knew we'd have a 5-6 hour rest after I got done so off I went. The run sucked because of the conditions, but I eventually made it. A few hundred yards from where I finished I had my vanmates meet me so I could throw on a different hat and coming running in hopefully to a few smiles/laughs. This is how I looked:

I found out after the fact that they had modified the course slightly and added an extra mile to that leg so in fact I ran 7.8. Glad I found out after rather than before!





After passing off the slap wrist bracelet to our Van #2 teammates we had some much deserved downtime. I brought a grill so we were able to picnic and have a nice, hot meal (chicken boob sandwiches, baked beans, veggies, fruit). We rested, tried to clean up a bit and aired out our shoes. Knowing we had to run 2 more times each we just "bathed" with some wet wipes so we wouldn't get too raunchy confined in the van.

After eating and resting a bit, we packed up and hit the road to find the 2nd half of our team, cheer them on for their remaining runs and get to our next exchange.

Along the way we threw in an attempt at some spy games. We had pulled into a gas station to get some ice for the coolers. Lo and behold there was another van there decorated in underwear too, Team U.N.D.Y. (Unfortunately Not Dead Yet). We said our's was better, they said their's was better. They got us on a technicality in that they had Spiderman underwear and we only had Curious George. Spidey could whoop George's ass if it came down to it.

Well, after about an hour or two and a few miles down the road after seeing them again we devised a plan. At the next exchange we secretly stole their Spidey underwear off their van and left them a ransom note, obviously not saying it was from us. We instructed them that if they wanted to see Spidey alive again when we both got to a designated exchange further up the route they were to leave 2 other pieces of undergarments under their tire, vacate the area and then the switch would take place. They were told not to hide in the hopes that they would catch us and that if anything was amiss Spidey would get it. We made it to that exchange before they did, saw them come driving down the road and were able to follow them on foot undetected to where they parked.

The sly bastards picked a deserted nook off the main street so I was unable to ascertain whether or not they were following the instructions. I saw they all left the van and followed them down the block. Being a man of my word, I went back to the van to get Spidey to make the exchange. I was about to head back up the block to where they parked when I noticed them walking back to their van. I followed and was within earshot when I heard them talking about it and heard one of them say they thought it was "that Babes and Boys team".

I camped out for a few minutes in the hopes they would leave their van again. Sure enough, they did so I did a casual walk-by, but there weren't any underwears to exchange with! Apparently they didn't love Spidey so ultimately he met his demise.

I wonder if they put the clothes out there when they first left, saw that they were there when they came back and then picked them up so that was our 1 chance? Oh well, we never saw them again during the race after that so we didn't get a chance to ask. We would've come clean at the end had we run into them again, just tryin' to have some fun with another team.

Okay, back to the race.

Our 2nd stint running for van #1 started about 10:00 Friday night. It had downpoured a couple of hours earlier and was still pretty humid so the air was thick. It stayed that way until about midnight and then got gorgeous for running. By the time my shift came around it was 3 a.m. and there wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was cool, probably had dropped into the 50s. Perfect!

Those with running shifts during the night had to wear reflective vests and headlamps for the obvious safety concerns. I had mine on of course for this 7.5 mile run. A couple of times out on this run though I just turned off my lamp and ran in the complete darkness of nature, only illuminated by the 1/2 moon and countless stars. It was the most fun I've had running since I can remember. I think that's because it isn't anything I've ever done before - run in the middle of the night. For the lack of putting it into better words, it was pretty cool.

I finished up this portion and our van got to rest again. This stopping point was Prescott High School. They opened up their building to the racers and had a pasta feed, hot showers and mats on the gym floor for sleeping - all this for only $10! The best ten bucks I spent all weekend!! The pasta tasted like school food, the wrestling mates on the gym floor didn't exactly promote deep slumber, but the hot shower was divine.

1 thing I did notice when trying to sleep for an hour in the gym was that I didn't notice anyone snoring! There must've been 300 people in that gym, but I didn't hear 1 human bodily nose - snoring nor farting (some people have a tendency to do that when sleeping). I thought that was pretty amazing. People were either really tired and passed out beyond the point of snoring or were just laying there pretending to be comfortable like I was. I could hear the cricket across the gym though.

After that pit stop we hit the road again at 7:00 a.m. to get in place for our final run. We met up with our teammates currently running just before the last exchange of their stint, cheered them on and then got ready ourselves.

Not a whole lot to report on this final segment. It was physically tough, legs felt a little rubbery, but thankfully it was my shortest segment at only 5 miles. This whole leg though I ran wearing my phone hat, got some more laughs and comments so it was fun. The last 1/2 mile I caught up to a girl in front of me and we finished up the segment together. I told her I'd give her my number, but my phone had been disconnected. She made my day and got a good laugh out of that. It was stupid, little things like that - the hats, costumes, stealing underwear - doing them and seeing others do them - that made this run so much fun, unlike any other races I've done.

After my van was done with our 3 runs we cracked open a beer, washed up and waited for our teammates in the other van to finish things up. We waited for them at the Finish Line in downtown Mpls and all 12 of us ran across the line together, a true team effort.

Doing it again next year, the date's already been set for 8/21-22/09. Now that I know what it's like, I can hardly wait to make it even crazier!! Who's in with me?

An Easy 205 Miler

Off to La Crosse tomorrow for the Ragnar Relay which starts Friday morn. Things got off to a hectic start for the team this week. On Sunday, one of our runners opted to go water skiing 5 days before this event. Well, she wiped out, the ski smacked her in the knee, and now she's at home nursing a fractured kneecap for the next 3 to 6 weeks. I don't know if one truly tapers for an event like this, but I don't think water skiing should necessarily be on the agenda either.

After some scrambling we found a replacement runner so we're all good there. Thought I was going to have to pick up some extra miles, whew!!

Gonna keep this one short, gotta hit the hay. Dream of me running my 8 mile leg at 2:00 a.m. Saturday morn. while you're snoring away!

Race recap sometime next week once I wake up and have recovered.

I Still Feel Like I'm 4

How did he do that?! How did he win when it looked like it was a lost cause with only 2 meters to go, hell, with only 2 inches to go?! Michael Phelps is unreal. Those have been some historic races leading to his first 7 golds. The kids were forced to sit through his first few races with me, but now even they know who he is, what he's trying to accomplish and get excited when he's about to race. It's one of those "once in a lifetime" athletes that comes through and we're able to watch it.

I'm sure that's what some spectators think when they see me getting ready to race. I mentioned to one of my tri teammates that with a few more workouts I could be at Phelps' caliber. The response back was something like change everything about me physically - height, wing span - and eliminate beer from my diet and within a few years I might be able to be his towel boy. I was all for it until I read that no beer part. You can take the swimmer out of Ireland, but you can't take the Irish out of the swimmer! Thanks for the words of encouragement though Kimmi, appreciate it. ;)

Speaking of the Irish, I haven't seen them win any golds yet, or any medals for that fact. Are we even represented in these games? If they have pubs or taverns in the Olympic Village there might be some no shows at their events. Hmmm....

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Life this week was somewhat on the downer side. The kids start school on the 25th so this was my last week to have them before they go back to the classroom. As you (should) know from previous posts they're transferring to a new district. With Kayli starting middle school now she starts an hour earlier than the boys. Because of the logistics with where Lindsay and I live in relation to each other (and thus the schools) Kayli will be living with Lindsay pretty much full time now during the school year. I agreed to this because it makes life a lot easier for Kayli time-wise, but I feel like I'm losing a child.

I know that's not the case, but it's going to feel weird not having her around here. I'll still get to see her when I pick up the boys during my weeks, but it won't be the same just having those brief conversations with her versus having her actually live here. It's going to take a more concerted effort to maintain my position in her life, but I'll make sure to do it. Just she and I went out to lunch yesterday to get some final summer bonding and talked about her "moving out". She'll come back to Lonsdale every so often on the weekends or when they have days off from school when it's my week. I got tickets for just her and me to see Little House on the Prairie at the Guthrie so that'll be a nice daddy/daughter event. Shhh, she doesn't know about it though so make sure to keep it that way!

These next few years are going to be interesting as she becomes a teenager and more and more independent. Kayli has already shown she has her mother in her so there could be some head-buttin' going on in that house. It might not be such a bad thing for her to have these other roofs to live under if she needs a breather every now and then.

Conner is warming up to the idea of transferring schools so that's less of an issue. Lindsay took the boys to their school to walk around when Kayli and I were at lunch so now that he's seen it (and likes it) he's becoming more comfortable with the transition.

Devon's just excited to start kindergarten so he could be going to Iowa or Wisconsin and he'd still be alright with it and say "let's go". He had another Devonism today. We were outside and he asked when he could ride his bike on the street by himself. I told him when he turns 6 I'll think about it. His response - "I'm 5 now so on my next birfday (that's his "th" sound) I'll be 6, but I still feel like I'm 4 now." Maybe you had to be here to fully appreciate it, but it was just too cute!

With Kayli quasi-moving out, we're playing musical bedrooms here now. In order to keep the boys in separate bedrooms during the school year Devon is going to move downstairs. Conner doesn't like to sleep down there alone so Kayli is going to move up here, Conner chose to move into Kayli's room so that leaves Devon to move into Conner's room. I'm gonna have to paint Kayli's current room though because there's no way Conner wants a pink room! He's already picked out the shade of blue he wants so I'll have to try to get that done next week.

Next week...gonna be a fun one (something's wrong with my "b" key, doesn't always type when I hit it, so if you see it missing anywhere just mentally insert it. At least it isn't too popular of a letter. Poor b.) Sorry about that, got off track. Oh yeah, next week. Ragnar is next weekend! Festivities for that starts on Wednesday night with our van decorating and then 1/2 our team leaves for La Crosse on Thursday for the race start Friday morning. With the order our team is set up right now, being Runner #6 (out of 12) my 3 approximate run times are 2:00 p.m. Friday, 2:00 a.m. Saturday and Noonish Saturday, or something like that. As crazy as it sounds I'm looking forward to that 2nd run, 2:00 in the morning, the most. I've never run in the middle of the night (at least during a race) before so it'll be interesting to see how that is (especially being tired). I just hope it isn't raining. If we could order another weekend of weather like the one we're currently having that would be perfect! The extended forecast does have some pictures of clouds and t-storms in it though so hopefully that'll change within the next 6 days.

Wednesday is my work department's group outing that afternoon. My boss is planning it and keeping it a secret so who knows what she'll come up with. 2 years ago we did the L. Minnetonka 4 hr cruise and last year it was the paddleboat on the Mississippi, both of which were nice, but I hope we're staying off the water this year just for something different. Regardless, it should be better this year because with some of the restructuring that's gone on we've dropped some staff that just weren't fun to socialize with (let alone work with). She was taking suggestions for ideas, but she didn't really like mine of having everyone come to Lonsdale to help me clean my house. I thought everyone could pick a room, clean for a couple of hours and then I'd supply the tap water and plastic lounge chairs. A great team bonding exercise, right?!

The biggest event next week though that I'm going to feel guilty missing is Wade's 40th! Holy crap, you're 40!! I know mine's right around the corner, but your's is in 1 week. Happy early birthday big guy!!

Feels Just Like Being At A Race

I know you're all just captivated by this subject so I thought I'd give you today's update regarding the biffy situation here at Pearson:

Last night they were able to locate the clog 180' feet out into the sewer line. This morning they brought in a backhoe to dig up and replace that section. They've been at it all day. Because of that the bathrooms have remained closed and they had to shut off ALL the water to the building. 3 POPs were brought in last night and are available to use. This wasn't good enough for some folks and they cried enough and were allowed to go home early today. Apparently these people haven't done any triathlons or marathons and don't appreciate how clean these biffys are compared to those at race sites! Oh well, that's fine with me, shorter lines than what I'm used to when usually waiting to use one of these fine toilets.

What are the odds things will be back to normal around here by Monday? Taking bets now.

Other things to do here

I know you could spend all day reading and re-reading my posts, but if by some strange reason you don't there are other things you can check out from this site. You'll see over on the left-hand side I have some links set up to some other friends' blogs that I read. Some good stuff. In fact, Kris just posted a good blog on why we "race" or don't, depending on your perspective and Kimmi has a great sense of humor come through on her writings, despite training for the Ironman.

There are also some links to other websites I frequent. Chainlove and SteepandCheap have some great deals, for the athlete and non-athlete.

Look for more as I add them along the way.

I'm Weed and Insect Free

Had another good run tonight although there might be an issue a-brewin'. Gonna have to keep an eye on my shins, I think some splints are coming on. This happened earlier this year too around March when I was training for Fargo. I can't nail down what it's from though, the shoes or the training. I have right around 200 miles on my current pair of runners which is right around where I was with the previous pair when I got shin splints. BUT, in both cases I was ramping up my distances too. 200 miles is on the low end of how soon shoes wear down so I decided to run through the discomfort and get my money's worth out of the sneakers. The shin splints went away after a week or two and I ended up just under 500 miles with that pair before I bought my current pair. This time around I might buy another pair sooner and see how the shins react before drawing any conclusions. It would kinda suck if it's the shoes' fault because I really like these kind (Pearl Izumi), but it isn't reasonable to be forking out $100 every 200 miles.

Tonight's route was different than last night's. Wanted to keep it flatter to give the thighs some rest after last night and to do some speed work. I had a farmer unbeknownst to him help me out with the speed part. My first warmup mile was along the edge of town and then I turned left and headed out into the countryside. Nothing like long, straight, never-ending country roads to get you motivated to run (he said with a sarcastic tone)!

About a 1/2 mile down the road I came upon a soybean field and the farmer was out in his tractor spraying his crops. He timed it perfectly to end up as close to the road as he could get right as I was coming by. I'm sure it was planned, I'm sure he just sits and waits for runners to come by on August Thursday nights. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal since he would turn right around and weave his way back to the opposite end.

Nope, he didn't.

He took a 90 degree turn and headed in the same direction I was. Super, I thought, I get to suck pesticides for the length of the this field! Well, no better time to start my tempo runs so I picked it up a couple of notches and dusted that farmer while he dusted his crops! (I can talk like I'm fast when I'm running by myself)

I continued on my route out and only hoped he'd be done by the time I turned around and headed back. He was, but with it being such a gorgeous night there wasn't a breeze and the spray was still lingering in the air when I came by again! I would have to say it was worse coming through the 2nd time. I could taste and smell it with every inhale so I pulled my shirt up over my mouth and nose until I got beyond that field. I wonder if that's what it's like in Beijing? Well, at least I won't have weeds growing on me anytime soon.

Speaking of the Olympics, KARE 11 News (the Mpls NBC affiliate) sent Eric Perkins over there to cover them for the next 2 weeks. I love Perk, he's hilarious! Tonight's episode was about some of the food choices street vendors had. Kind of had a Fear Factor feel to it, not some things I would necessarily eat. I highly recommend tuning in to Perk's stories. On assignments like this he usually offers the not so obvious, off the hidden path type of stories that can help you get to know something/somewhere beyond the normal touristy things.

Speaking of NBC (don't you just love my segues?), is anyone watching America's Got Talent? Well, even if you're not, do this - one of the acts they put throught to the semi-finals had to drop out due to injury so they're letting the public vote for 1 act they previously cut to take their place. Vote for Victoria Jacobs (I think that's her name). She's a little, 12 yr old contortionist. The things those people can do to their bodies and the way they make them bend is next to unreal! I think it's the type of act that show needs, not some other dancers or singers. There are already other shows for those. Oh, and she's an adopted Chinese. Kinda ties all my stories together, doesn't it? :)

Speaking of other nationalities (I promise this is my last segue), the Irish Fair is this weekend in St. Paul. I'm embarrassed to say I've yet to go to it in all the previous years, but I have every intention of making it this year! I'm going to pick up my boys for the afternoon on Saturday and take them to it. I figure they just spent a week getting to know their Korean side, I better get them exposed to their other side before they want to move to Seoul. We'll go hang out with my brethren for a few hours, maybe the 3 of us will tip back a pint or two, do a jig, kiss the blarney. Should be fun.

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And on a final note, the bathrooms got closed again today after being open only a couple of hours late yesterday and this morning. Apparently Roto only partially unclogged things and they got backed up again. Might be time to call in a real plumber. Know of a good one Jack?