Running Much?

Why yes, yes I have. I started running with some friends in November in an attempt to get back into shape, and train for a half marathon. Well, that training for the half marathon quickly turned into training for a half and the Wasatch Back Ragnar relay.

Now, here we are, 8 months, 400 miles, and two races later, and I'm addicted. I've been an on again, off again, fair weather runner for a long time, but I never ventured into many races. But now my eyes have been opened. The races make the running and training fun and meaningful. And besides that, they are full of energy and rewarding.

So, enough of the sentimentality, on to the race recap. My first race was the Ogden Half Marathon on May 15. It started in Eden, up Ogden canyon, went around the north and east sides of Pineview Dam, then through Ogden Canyon, and into downtown Ogden. It was a beautiful run. The scenery was gorgeous, the weather was perfect, and it was an all around great time. My friends really pushed me, and I was able to hold about an 8 minute mile pace for just over half of the run. Then I ran out of steam and sent my friends on their way, running the last part primarily by myself. That made it harder, but I was still able to finish at a pretty descent time. 13.1 miles from the start, I crossed the finish line in 1 hour 53 minutes, and 32 seconds. I'm told that's really great for a first half. My goal was to finish under 2 hours, so I was pretty pleased. Here is a picture of me and the two ladies that pushed me in training and on the course, after the race. They are two of the best runners and greatest friends. I am so spoiled to have them to run with, they are such a blessing in my life. (The pink shirts were completely accidental. They were not planned, we're just cool like that)



My second race is the very definition of insanity. It was the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay. It is a 188 mile relay race from Logan to Park City on the back side of the Wasatch mountains. Each regular team is made up of 12 runners who each run 3 times in a 36 hour period. The team is split into 2 vans with 6 runners in each. My first run was 7.4 miles up the Avon pass at 4:00 in the afternoon. It was HOT and hard, but I managed to keep a descent pace considering, and finished the run in an hour and 20 minutes. My second run was 4.2 miles out of Morgan, and through Richville (don't worry, I'd never heard of that town either). I ran that leg in 38 minutes at 1:40 in the morning. My last run was another afternoon run. At 2:45 in the afternoon, I ran 3 miles in 29 minutes and completed my portion of the race by running into Heber. My team started the race at 11:30am on Friday, June 18, and we all crossed the finish line at 9:45pm on Saturday, June 19. We weren't the fastest team, but we were the greatest team (at least in my opinion).

It was the craziest 34 hours of my life, and some of the most tiring. I'm not sure I really slept at all in that time, but I did close my eyes for about 2 hours. When it was all over, I felt physically great, but it took me a few days, and some extra naps to catch up my sleep and really feel normal again. It was crazy, but so much fun, and I am looking forward to next year. Here is a picture of my team at the end of the race, and me holding my medal. I have pictures of me running, but I don't like how I look when I run, so you're not going to get any of those.




There you go. I'm sorry for the long and rambling post, but now you know what I've been up to lately. I still have a bit of a love / hate relationship with running, and I'm not sure I consider myself a runner yet, but I'm loving it now. (I'm already signed up for another half in August this year.)

Bradley Backpacking Trip

I had a camp out scheduled with the scouts this weekend but due to another activity conflicting with it I was only going to have two scouts come. So the other leader and I decided to bring our 3 year -olds. It wasn't very far from the cars to the camp spot so we thought they would enjoy it. For the most part they really did. Bradley had a lot of fun. Here are a few pictures of our adventure.

Bradley, contemplating life at three...

Trying out the trekking poles

When I found him like this I figured it was a hint that it was about time for bed.

Sleeping soundly

What a beautiful morning. It was a little windy during the night but didn't rain. It also stayed pretty warm. The low for the night was only 50 F.

Waking up slowly and warming up in front of the fire.

Our view from camp.

Bradley checking that he had all of his toy cars before heading out for a hike.

"Pack-Pack" checked and in hiking position.

Heading out for the hike.

The trail we were going on wasn't matching the map we had so rather than getting lost we decided to turn back.

Blogging Rut

Both Lesa and I have wanted to blog, well maybe that isn't true. We kept saying to each other that we should blog but just didn't feel like it. So I thought maybe one way to break out of our rut is to just go ahead and post some pictures. So here are some recent pictures we have taken, enjoy:

Thursday before the start of the Memorial Day weekend we decided to go camping. We drove up Highway 39 and stopped in most of the campgrounds. We kept going farther up the canyon trying to find one that we liked. We finally stayed an the Upper Meadows Campground. We liked it most because it wasn't near the road and the river was also quite a walk from where we stayed. It was a lot of fun even though we got some rain.



I just can't get enough of these three!



I have been going on a lot of night hikes lately. I really need to get in shape but just can't seem to catch the running bug Lesa has. I do enjoy hiking but due to work and wanting to play with the kids after work I don't usually get to leave until just before sunset. This first picture was taken about 1,000 feet above Ogden at 10 PM.


I went on another hike tonight. I got home about an hour ago which explains why I am still up. This was taken near the same spot as the one above but looking up the canyon this time around 11 PM.


This is a stairway in one of the twin Boston Buildings downtown Salt Lake. I am getting to design the lighting on a couple of the floors and just thought this stairway was amazing. This is from the bottom looking up.



I have been helping a lot of the cities in Utah to change out their old street lights to LED fixtures. Here is an example of what they look like at night. The main thing that is obviously different is the color temperature of the light. The most amazing thing about it though is that the older (yellow) light behind the LED fixture uses 450 Watts while this LED one uses only 55 Watts. The biggest difference I see is how badly the older lights shine light into the windows of the houses while the LED doesn't waste all that light. I could go on about these all day but don't want to kill anyone by boring you to death so I will stop...


This was just a test picture while I was trying to get the camera setup before heading out later that night to take the street lighting picture above. It turned out so well with Daniel smiling I had to keep it.


Daniel likes to grab my glasses and so I decided to let him wear them for a few minutes. He thought it was pretty fun.


That's it! I am falling asleep now so goodnight.

Fun Outside

Since it is raining right now, I thought I would do a quick post with some pictures of Bradley and Daniel having fun OUTSIDE! We are so happy for nicer weather, with the exception of right now that is. Bradley asks everyday to play outside. Here are the boys actually playing together last Thursday.

The Story

On Friday last week, the boys and I played in their room in the morning. Bradley was practicing sitting on his potty, and I was encouraging and entertaining. Because he was not exactly fully dressed, we had the space heater in their room running. At lunch time, we left the room and I noticed that the house felt kind of chilly. I thought it was because I was so warm from the space heater or was getting a cold, so I ignored it and went on with the day.

Then Saturday rolled around. After my morning run, I sat down at the table to eat breakfast and again felt chilly. This is not unusual, I often feel chilly in the time between my run and showering, but this time it seemed exaggerated. I glanced at the thermostat on the wall near our table and noticed that our house was 61 degrees. I asked Brian if he had played with the schedule of our thermostat, but he had not. We had another problem. Our furnace was out. Brian called his dad and they tried to diagnose and fix the problem. Unfortunately, it was not what they were hoping. So, Brian pulled out his volt meter and tried to trace the electricity, but that proved to be more of a puzzle than anything.

Now that brings us to this picture.


The little heater hiding behind the chairs was our main source of heat for the weekend. We looked into calling a heating company, but weekends are considered emergency trips, making them more expensive. That little gas stove, with our space heater, sweaters, and blankets kept us warm-ish this weekend. We were just fortunate that it's March and not terribly cold. Our house hovered right around 60 degrees all weekend, which I found uncomfortably chilly.

The chairs in the picture? Well, that was Brian's solution for keeping the boys from getting too close to the heater and getting burnt. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.

So, there you have it. Brian's MacGyver tendency was to keep the boys away from the heater. Not because of too many toys going into it, but because it was working hard and very hot.

A Quiz

This weekend Brian channeled his inner MacGyver. Can you guess what problem prompted this solution?


Oh, and thanks to my brother Kyle for the lashings tutorial last summer. I'll post the story in a day or two, but in the meantime, guess!

(P.S. I have no idea why our camera decided to change Bradley into a ghost. He's a pale kid, but not that radiant.)

Today I'm Grateful for . . .

. . . fine motor skills!


While Brian was making snow caves with the scouts, I cut and punched, then tied and tied and tied and tied and tied and tied and tied and tied and strung up the hearts on the ceiling. Then blew and tied, blew and tied, blew and tied, got a little light headed and took a break, then blew and tied, blew and tied, blew - marveled at how the balloons made my hands smell like tuna fish - and tied, blew and tied, and blew and tied balloons. And Ta Da!

Happy Valentine's Day!