Great River Ragnar Relay

Great River Ragnar Relay 2010
Wow now that was an experience!  Last weekend Mark and I participated in the Ragnar Relay with our team "Java Junkies"   If you want to read more about what the relay is, here's the Webpage, I won't write it all out for you other than it's a 12 person relay team, split into two vans of 6 people running from Winona, MN to Minneapolis, MN.   Our van consisted of the two of us, my friend Mandy, Mark's friend Steve, Mark's brother Michael and his wife Cari.

The Girls

The Boys

While it was a bit like herding cats for me to get the team going when we got to the start area, our van 2 saw our first runner Brady take off and then we had about a 5-6 hour wait until we started.   Luckily we found this cute restaurant with awesome food and awesome service in Alma, WI called "Kate and Gracie's".  I highly recommend you give this one a try.  It's in an old building right on the main drag through town (don't blink, you'll miss it) but the service was fantastic and the food was great.   Not just a little greasy spoon bar type place like you normally find in these area.

I was the first runner in our van and started out around 5pm or so on Friday.  Unfortunately the sun showed up right about that time and it go thick and hot!  My run was 6.2 miles with about mile 2-3 being straight up!  Good lord I was nearly crawling to crest this damn thing!  I was so happy to see my van at the top and get some food/drink.  

The next mile was all a decent slope downhill in the shade.  WEEE!!!! I was flying down that part!  It felt great!  Last mile and a half or so flattened out and was in the wide open sun so I was toast by time I got done and sweating enough for the whole team.   I think that's my first time finishing a run and slamming and entire bottle of water in about 10 seconds.

6.2 Miles 4:50pm Friday - Very Hard - 1:03:06 HR - 184)

My second leg was at 3:40am.   Mark and I got about 3 hours of sleep on a blanket in the grass before I had to get ready to run again.   Running at night was weird!  Especially considering some spots of my 3.2 miles was dense fog!  Made for an interesting halo around me from my headlamp :-P   This run was relatively flat but the thick air made breathing a litte moe labored but all and all this was the best leg since it was the flattest and coolest!

3.2 Miles 3:40am Saturday - Easy - 27:06 (HR - 178)

My third and final leg was about noon on Saturday and luckily for me the clouds were still holding back the hot sun.  It was great that we got to spend a few hours at the exchange area which was at a Lifetime Fitness so Mark and I went in, got soak in the hot tub, showered and rolled out our legs before my last run.  I wanted to push a little on this one since it was my last leg but lack of sleep was definitely playing a part in how well I was running.  Plus we were in the heart of Woodbury and I actually had to stop for 4 different stop lights during my course.   The hardest part of this leg was around the halfway point when I was running up this gradual hill through a boring business park/industrial type area and instead of just going straight up the road, we were moved onto the winding path which made the stretch longer to get to the top of the hill.

3.7 miles 12:00pm Saturday - Moderate - 30:36 (HR-174)

I feel like I did ok overall.  Always wish I was faster but oh well.   We had a great time and I give a lot of credit to Steve and Cari, our final two runners for making it through some seriously hot sun and hilly terrain to finish up the race :)  

Back to front, left to right:
Cari, Michael, Dawn, Dan, Melissa, Rich, Mandy
Mark, Myself, Steve (missing is Lance and Brady)

A good number of our team are already talking about plans to race next year in the Madison to Chicago Ragnar on June 3-4th.   We would also make it a birthday trip for me since I turn 30 on June 7th (bleh!!)

Healthy eating?
Yeah that has gone out the window lately.  I've felt kinda sluggish lately because I've been consciously eating a lot of crap.  Crappy foods just taste better but I hate feeling weighed down and fat.   So yeah, still trying to kick my own arse into a different rhythm.  

Going to the State Fair this Saturday probably isn't going to help on that front but I am excited to go every year.   We will be going over to Leinie's Lodge to see Tonic-Sol-Fa perform.  They are one of my favorite groups and very entertaining.  Then we have to get through packet pick-up for the Duathlon on Sunday and then go to our first pre-season home game for the Vikings in the evening.  Yes folks, it's time for football again!! :)

The Mpls Duathlon
is on Sunday and as of right now that will be our last multi-sport race of the season.   We haven't been on our bikes nearly enough but I'll survive.   We've had the greatest of intentions to get out more for BRicks but seems like the evenings get filled up so quickly and we've been too comfy to get out of bed in the early AM.  I love working out in the cool mornings but it's also the best time to have the windows open curled up in bed!

Wedding planning? 
Well we are working on reserving our rooms at the hotel and hope to gather the money to book our flights soon as well.   Keep in mind we need to fly and hotel ourselves and our film guys so it's a little more expensive but definitely worth it to have them there to capture our wedding.  Actually through blogging and the wedding contest, I have met a few different couples that I am looking forward to meeting out in Vegas.  Our blogger friends, Team Baby Dinosaur will be out there running the half marathon and also a trail running couple that voted for us and I've been emailing with is doing their first road marathon. It's fun that the social media can introduce us to new people and we will get a chance to meet on our wedding day :) My next project is working on finding a place to get our visors embroidered and get the vail figured out.  

Anyone have any cute ideas for attaching a veil to my SweatVac visor?  I'll be wearing it for the whole marathon.

Geocachers
If you are reading this blog, be sure to check out our #Geocache365 on our Life More Complete Blog or follow us on Twitter.  We started the cache a day for 365 days challenge :)

Winter Waddle (or more like Struggle...)

Ok so the holidays have been eating up a lot of our spare time the past few days so I'm a few days late in posting a few updates.

1) Mark and I went to the Tonic Sol Fa Chrismas concert last Monday.  Those guys are incredible and seriously funny!   Greg...you and the plastic snowman had me in tears I was laughing so hard!

2) We also went to see A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie Theatre on Wednesday.  That was by far the best production we've seen there so far in my opinion.  

3) Saturday we went out for a geocaching event in Waconia and also saw the Holidazzle parade in the evening (post-Winter Waddle).  You can catch the recap of those on our other blog

4) But the main reason for writing today is to recap on the Winter Waddle 5k.  Mark and I have been completely sloughing off on our workouts and enjoying a break from it all.  Although once we get past the holidays I need to get back into some sort of routine.  Feeling fat and lazy!!   And wow did that 5k kick my arse!  Granted these were very different conditions than I was expecting.  
Here's the starting line:

It was 20 something degrees I think and the race was at 4pm.   The run route was actually on a golf course AND I was not prepared to be running through spots of up to 6 inches of snow!   You can tell they went through and groomed the trail but the loose snow and breaking through the top layer as you were running made it pretty much impossible to get up any kind of speed.  

Mark managed to run backwards for a few seconds for me to get this picture.  I would have fallen flat had I tried that manuver

After about 1/2 mile, a lot of people had to stop and walk.   I managed to keep moving but only because I had Mark to pull me along and after about 1.5 miles we figured out (along with pretty much everyone else) that it was WAY better footing to run in a single file line and follow the tracks of the person in front of you.  

I wish my heart monitor battery wasn't dead.  I would have liked to know what my average was for that race.   At the end I estimated somewhere in the 180s.  Ugh....yeah that was tough!  Quite the experience, likely to not be repeated :)

Here is the sheet showing our final times.   WAY slower than what my "in shape" times but like I said, the super soft footing took a toll on everyone.  For reference, most of the 5ks I've been too, the winners come in around 15:30 - 17:00 total time.  At this race, the winner came in with a final time of 21:23.

The past two nights Mark and I have been gift wrapping for donations at the Barnes and Noble at the Galleria.  We donated the money to Home for Life.  I think our final total on the two nights was $193 so I was very happy about that.  Likely we will be volunteering with them again on Saturday this weekend at the Mall of America.

Next up.....the ALARC Ice Dive!  Yes I have committed to freezing my entire body in the name of fun and insanity on Jan 1st.   Mark and I will be jumping with my friend Jessica's husband Andy.  He is a newby diver too so it should be fun.   Jess gets out of it with the excuse that she's pregnant :-P

Hopefully I'll have a post-Christmas update this weekend and also start updating my race list on the right-hand side of my blog for the tentative 2010 races.

Merry Christmas!!

Learning Curve (pictures!)

OK here are the pictures that go along with my previous post:

A few more random notes:

Maverick, being upset with me as I'm taking his picture and then running out the door to work, leaving him and Neo home alone

Tonic Sol Fa concert from Monday night.  We brought our picture that we got with the guys this past summer at the State Fair and had them sign it.  Framing it and it's going on the wall :)

Home for Life - Mall of America.  Mark with one last hug for Dodi before she was on her way back home to the Santuary.

Deb and Lily at the MN vs Cincinnati game.  Lily's first professional football game and she had a blast!  So did Deb :)

And some random cuteness of my Maverick as he insisted on finding a way for me to pet him and work on my laptop at the same time.

Til next time.....

Learning Curve

So I have a few minutes here at the end of my day and thought I would take the opportunity to update the ol' blog.
The new job is going fantastic.  I am getting the hang of things and enjoying getting involved in some of the new development projects.   Surprisingly even with a few crappy snowy days the past week or so, I'm not getting too stressed about the commute. 
I'm so excited for Christmas this year.  Well 90% excited.   I've 'bah-hum bugged' my way through the past few Christmases since life was a little stressful and emotional.   But this year I am very excited to spend time with Mark and his family and have him spend time with mine as well.  The reason for the 90% as I'm still bummed out about not having much of any funds to spend on Christmas.   I have to give these small gifts to everyone and I hate that.  I love shopping and wrapping (and having the cats tear my wrapping!) and having piles of gifts for everyone to open.  But this year is definitely slim and for that my 100% goes down to 90% but that's still about 85% more excitement than the past few Christmases :)
I'm still trying to figure out out to motivate myself back into the gym.  Mark and I have both found that we've fallen into that winter "rut" that so many people do and just lack the enthusiasm to find a way to work it into the already short days.  It is eating at me more and more that I feel "bleh" and need to get back into a routine of lifting and cardio so I feel better about myself.
Sort of along that lines, Mark and I have also been in many discussions trying to figure out how to be the best support system for each other when it comes to racing.   We both are very supportive of each other and we both (well a little more on my side) have lingering issues of jealousy when one of us is doing an event and the other one isn't.   I think most all athletes have a hard time being a spectator to some degree.  It's hard to watch anything and not want to be participating.  I've been a gumble bum about feeling like I have to sign up for everything he does and that does two things 1) doesn't give him me supporting him along the course and 2) sometimes puts me into a race I am not excited about doing, just so I can say "I did it too".   Part of me thinks that if I'm standing around as a spectator, other spectators don't think I'm an athlete and that reflects negatively on me.  I look like just a lazy spectator.  (yeah, yeah i know it's insane but maybe some of you other athletes out there can relate). 
For any of my readers, please drop me a line or comment if you have any feedback on this issue.
For now we are really looking forward to racing together this next year but we are also going to be careful to add in a few events that we don't do together.   I think it may just be a learning curve where we get used to the fact that we don't have to do everything the other one does.  I think it will also make the races we do together that much more special.
A few more random notes:
- The cats are doing well although it's very obvious that Maverick doesn't like me not being home all day now.  Some nights when we are at my place he is very needy and needs me to hold him all the time.
- We were at the Tonic Sol Fa holiday concert last night and, as always, it was fantastic!
- We have tickets to go see Christmas Carol at the Guthrie tomorrow night.
- It's fun that Mark and I both enjoy going to shows, musicals, concerts together and we have been getting some great deals at the Guthrie. 
- I actually finished another book!   I know, I know...can you believe it?   I've become a reader!  Since Mark and I have been together, I've finished "It's All About the Bike", "Dewey", "All Creatures Great and Small" (audiobook I listened too on my commute) and am currently reading "The Man Who Swam the Amazon".   I've definitely found that right now I prefer non-fiction where Mark is more of a fiction reader.    He's got this monstrosity of a book he's reading right now "Under the Dome"  That thing is like weight lifting!
- We helped Michael and Cari (Mark's brother and sister-in-law) move into their new house last weekend.  That was a long time coming for them
- Last weekend we also volunteered for Home for Life at the Mall of America and might be going again on Sunday the 20th.  Waiting to hear back if they need us and it's possible Lisa might bring Olive for me to hang out with and show off next time (yay!!!)  And she also said she'd be willing to bring one of the Dobermans for Mark to handle.  Haven't gotten a response yet but my guess is she'll say she wants our help.

So tonight it's off to Target to pick up a few necessities and maybe one 'want'.  I honestly can't afford any 'want' items right now.  Even groceries puts me in the red on a monthly basis.  But thankfully the new job should help resolve that a little.  Plus Mark offered to buy groceries if I make him meals.   DEAL!!!  Especially since most mornings I can get away with putting a bowl of cereal in front of him :-P  But I'm more partial to bagel sandwiches.

I've got a bunch of pictures from some of the items I mentioned above but I'll try to post those tonight in a follow up entry.