Vacations Suck

I can’t wait to get back to my cubicle.

Jessica and her ‘callipitter’ that I brought back from my run

Happy Father’s Day

Freightliner circa 1979

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there. Nothing beats being a dad. I am reminded of that every day when I come home from work to my wonderful family. The cares of the world get left behind for a few precious moments while a reunion takes place and we get to catch up with each other’s day.

My own dad spent many years as a long-haul truck driver. Swapping driving shifts with a partner and keeping the wheels turning for days at a time. Talk about endurance! I am amazed at the experiences he lived through such as getting flipped over in a Wyoming blizzard, and losing the brakes on a steep descent in Southern Utah. Whatever work ethic, mechanical ability, determination and toughness I may have - I owe to him. Words were many times wasted on deaf teenage ears, but what I saw with my eyes has stayed with me. Thank you for your great example, Dad. It hasn’t been forgotten.

And to my kiddos… Thanks for making life great. Your dad loves you very much. I’m so proud of each of you and of how well you (mostly!) get along. You are always so willing to help out with everything, it has made some of the challenging times we’ve had to go through a little bit easier. Our family is stronger as a result, and what you’ve learned will serve you well throughout your lives. Keep being who you are!

Malcolm, Natalie, Jessica, and Lindsey

My New Running Buddy

Today I took Jessica with me on my training run up Waterton Canyon.  It was my first time running with the new stroller we bought, it worked great!   We had a hard time finding one, most jogging-type strollers are built for kids half her size.  Since she is almost 5, we were definitely coming to it late in the game.  I bought a $uper nice one from REI and brought it home thinking I was ok because she was well within the weight limit spec.  When I assembled it and we tried it out, the fit wasn’t even close.  Back it went.

We finally happened to find one at Sports Authority that was large enough to do the job.  It may only last us a year or so, but the price wasn’t too bad and I’m sure we’ll get some great use out of it.  We already put it to the test at the zoo last week, today it was 8 miles of dirt road.

Jessica and baby Kelsea

The morning was on the cool side, but within half a mile I was shedding layers like crazy.  I put out some heat pushing that load!  There were tons of runners coming and going, I couldn’t believe all of the friendly greetings.  Everyone would have a huge smile on their face as they waved at Jessica.  It was a little funny when we would pass someone huffing and puffing their way up the road while we were carrying on a conversation about butterflies, or worms, or clouds, or whatever her 4 year old mind could come up with.

The highlight for Jessica was stopping at our turnaround to have our ‘Clif Bar Picnic’.  I gave her and Elizabeth a Christmas present consisting of all different flavors of Clif Bars so they could try them out on their walks together.  Jessica loves choosing a new one for each outing.

Today it was Cool Mint Chocolate!

We should have traded glasses!

Going down the canyon was fun.  Most of the time was spent racing a bunch of worms underground that we could only see with a special machine…  They were fast!  We stopped about half way down and looked at some HUGE bighorn sheep.  Lucky for us, they’re pretty docile.

Sheep ya later!

It turned out to be a great run and will definitely be something we do more of in the future.

Say Cheese!

Got Dog?

Kelsea on our first trail run together.

This is Kelsea, the newest member of our family. She’s a 2 1/2 year old lab/hound mix we adopted from the shelter last week. The angle of the picture is a little misleading, she bigger than it looks (~60 pounds) - and can rip your arm out of its socket when she catches a scent of a rabbit to chase.

This is our first dog, so we’re going through an adjustment period, but it has been a lot of fun. The kids all love her and she is very gentle with them.

She’s a remarkably well behaved dog, and is very eager to please. We’re mainly working on getting her to stop pulling on the leash when walking, and calming her down when other dogs bark at her. Aside from that, she loves her kennel and goes to it on command, and is very well housebroken. She fits in great with our family and we look forward to having lots of fun together!

Race Report: Rescue Run 10k

Happy 2008! I got up at 6:30 so I could drive down to Colorado Springs and run a 10k race with several hundred other crazy people to kick off the new year. Normally, I wouldn’t bother to go through all the trouble for that kind of race, but this is one that I had wanted to do last year and couldn’t due to injury. I wanted to check it off the list, plus the money goes to support the El Paso County Search and Rescue organization.

The day turned out great. It was sunny and clear, with a little breeze. 16 degrees at the start - I decided to skip the tights and just go with shorts. I also broke out the running shirt I had designed as an offshoot to my cycling team gear. I planned on running hard as a good way to get an extended speed session under my belt. I had just done 30 miles on Friday, then took Saturday and Sunday off, and put in a medium tempo 10 miles with hills yesterday. I definitely wasn’t going into this race rested, but that was ok. I needed to push the speed with a little fatigue in the legs.

I knew the course started out uphill, but wow was I shocked at the climb in the first mile! It was pretty stout, and pitched up to 9% for the final 1/4 mile to the top. Coming back down, I hit 15mph on this section. Fun!

I was hoping to maintain something under a 7:30 pace. I thought that would be a fair challenge given the state I was in and the difficulty of the course. I had done a solo time trial on a 10k course near my house back on November 3 and came up with a 47:25. I really wanted to break 45 minutes, but would need a 7:14 pace to do that. Seemed like a stretch.

The start was pretty crowded, over 700 people were lined up to do the 5k or 10k which started at the same time. After a flat 1/4 mile start on a smaller path, we were dumped onto a road at the base of the climb so it was pretty easy to find room to pass.

I abandoned my conservative strategy and started passing dozens of people immediately. I ended up giving 3-4 spots back by the end, but I think it was the right thing to do. My legs never complained at all, I felt like they had plenty to give. My lungs were another story. They just seemed to be limiting me for some reason (several in the family have colds, and I’ve had some symptoms).

I ended up 26th out of 310 overall male (was passed by one girl), and 7/44 in my age group. My time was 43:14, which works out to a 6:58 pace. I was thrilled! For me to run sub-7 on a course like that, contending with the hills and snow, and having all those miles in my legs was fantastic. I was really, really pleased. I bogged down a bit during miles 3 and 4, paying for the faster start, but then rallied and finished strongly (the downhill helped, too!).

Sled Time!

After I got home, we took off to go sledding. Littleton has a dedicated sledding park with a big hill that is very wide and can accommodate a LOT of people. There were tons of people there since it was nice weather + a holiday. Talk about the Darwin Awards on steroids. This place was nuts! There weren’t really any defined paths to take back up the hill, so people were randomly walking everywhere. We saw so many collisions and near misses. I can’t believe they didn’t have a fleet of ambulances waiting at the bottom with doors open. The first place we set our sleds down had a nice patch of fresh blood decorating the snow…

One guy was at the bottom of the hill with his back turned to the slope (duh). I yelled ‘heads up!’ as loud as I could as a girl on a huge tube was gunning right for him. He turned and saw her a millisecond before impact, jumped as high as he could, and she clipped his feet and sent him flipping over backwards onto the hard-as-ice snow. Ouch. We saw another guy jump out of the way of an oncoming sled only to realize that his little girl was right behind him. She was a centimeter from being knocked into orbit. She ended up getting sideswiped which spun her around in a 720 and flung her mitten several feet away. We saw another little kid his legs taken out which slammed his face into the ice, blood and tears were everywhere.

We survived for about 90 minutes, then considered ourselves lucky to still be in one piece and headed out. The kids had a blast, even if the parents were a little worried at times.

Piano Recital

Lindsey and Natalie have been taking piano lessons for the past few months. Tonight they were part of a Christmas recital to show off their new skills. The purpose of the recital was to give the kids experience playing their song while an audience was singing along with them. A very daunting task! They both did great and we were very proud of them.

Lindsey playing Jingle Bells:

Natlie playing Frosty the Snowman:

Castle Rock Turkey Trot 5k

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today we got up early and drove down to Castle Rock to run in a 5k race.  It was cold!!!  I think 18-19 degrees at the start.  The route was all on a bike path with lots of twists and hills.  Elizabeth pushed Jessica in the stroller with Natalie by her side, Malcolm and Lindsey stuck together, and I gave it a go towards the front.  There were about 700 people that participated raising around $12,000 for our county food bank.  It was a lot of fun, and now we all have matching shirts!

   

Trick or Treat!

Fun Saturday

I met my cycling team for a ride this morning, it was kind of a shake-out event for some new recruits. We had a good turnout with a group of almost 30 rolling out in the cold, damp air. My head wasn’t in the ride at all, and I was regretting my decision to even go for about the first 20 minutes. Then I broke out of my shell a bit (not always the easiest thing for me) and started making conversation with some new faces. Turned my whole day around. Ended up having really good conversation, and by the time we hit the hills I was feeling great and climbing comfortably with the front group. Over the top and down a long descent I sped up to let the leaders know which way to turn ahead, then dropped back and yelled at a couple of stragglers to get on my wheel. I thought I would make short work of towing them back up to the group, but it became a very long grind. I sat in the wind for miles dangling 100 yards off the group with a couple of guys counting on me to get them up there. I felt like I could make a huge push and get on myself, but it would pop the riders off my wheel to do so. Man, that was tough duty for a while. One of the guys with me finally took a pull and my legs were relieved to have the break.

We got lucky when the group of 11 ahead got confused about a turn and slowed just enough for us to latch on. Then we hit some really tough climbs and I was happy - it was every man for himself now. I dug super deep and went over the top in the front group of 4. We finally pulled over and waited several minutes for everyone to show up, then rode back into town. It was great, I was really glad to have gone. I met some cool guys and had my best ride in months.

After that, it was lunch time with the family. We did some shopping, picked up some videos and pizza, and then Malcolm and I went for a 5 mile run just as the rain that had been threatening all day began to fall. We ran a really fun trail that parallels the South Platte River through a state park near our house. I shot some video with my cell phone just for fun.