July 2014 Races

We did some races last month!  I kept putting off posting about them, but no more.

First, on the 19th we joined in the Pound the Pavement For Parenthood crowd in Orem.  We heard about this race through Groupon or some such, and hadn't ever run it before, but it was fun and a pretty good, level course, and maybe we'll do it again next year.  What cause could be better than helping young couples who are hoping and praying and trying to add a wee young human to their family?  The boys did the 5K, and The Wife decided to go for the 10K this time.  There were quite a few runners for the 5K, but the 10 didn't have quite as many as we expected, and it was hot but not miserable.  I did pretty well at about 23:54 (7:25/mile), not my fastest, but pretty good for pushing a stroller, and it was 3.2 miles too, coming in apparently 2nd overall (they only gave awards for first place, and evidently the guy ahead of me was also pushing a stroller.  Fitting for a family-themed race, eh?), and then I backtracked on the 10K route and we all finished Julie's race together.  Then during the awards they actually gave away several IVF cycles to some lucky raffle-winners, which may or may not have made certain parties cry just a bit.

Then, on Pioneer Day of all days, we went from Temple...

... to Temple!

Mom and Dad joined us for our fun Pioneer Day race.  We were a little late getting started (so we parked farther away, thinking there would be no parking up at the temple, of which there turned out to be plenty...), which was kind of frustrating, since we were at the back of the pack from the very start, which meant that we were basically running into hundreds of street-wide walls of thousands of moseying people the entire time.  Still, we weaved our way through and made it to the end, and I had to get over my racing instinct of trying to go as fast as I possibly could, since it just wasn't going to happen.

Thanks for coming, Mom and Dad!

Baby's a lot bigger than he was at this race last year.

Ahahaha, his first [running] bib.

Yay for summer races!  (Though I always look forward to the fall ones more.)

Summer 2013 Races

(I started this post over a month ago on 8 August, but things happened and other posts and such, and then I decided to put them all together in the same post, so here they are at last, and the draft will finally not be sitting there forlornly looking at me whenever I post something.)

We had some races over the summer!  They were varied in length and style, but I'm (FINALLY) going to blog about them all at once, so here goes.

We heard that on 24 July there was going to be a Pioneer Day Temple To Temple 5K, starting at the old Provo Temple and ending at the construction/re-construction site of the Provo Tabernacle temple.  Julie thought this was good timing for her to try to get back into running and racing after having The Boy, so she signed up for it (along with, apparently, no less than FIVE THOUSAND OTHER PEOPLE...), and when we realized that there was this issue with transportation (how are the runners supposed to get back to their cars if they park at the starting point?!?), we decided I would just drop her off and then meet her with the little one to cheer her on as she crossed the finish line.  So The Boy and I dropped her off at the top of the hill, then drove home, and then picked up some race prizes for mum, and then had a short run from our house to the finish line downtown.

Here she is!  At a much quicker finish time than expected!

The Bobo was on hand to give flowers and encouragement.

A runner again!  Yay!

Showing great progress in the jumping picture department.

Mommy's little cheerleader.

We were both evidently very worn out after our little run (and also a peek at the temple construction).

She did so great!  She opted for the free registration (along with MANY THOUSANDS of others), so she wasn't included in the chip timing or get her official results on the printout or anything, but it was her first post-pregnancy run, and she ran it like a champ.  It sounded like a fun (downhill!) course, so maybe I'll join next year if they do it again, though the logistics do present a problem.

Next up came the Provo Pioneer Day (in name but not in actual date) Classic, the following weekend  Julie decided to sit this one out, satisfied with the accomplishment of having just completed her own race just a few days before.  For some reason (called peer pressure) I decided to do the 10K, which I haven't done in a while, and which I've never done for this race.  As it turned out, the peer pressure wasn't even true, since most of our party did the 5K, and it also turned out to be a terrible time to give in to it.  The prevailing attitude as I crossed the finish line, and for pretty much every step leading up to it, was NEVER AGAIN.  A 10K is one thing, but that 10K is quite another, and there is NO REASON to put runners through that torture during the first mile.  I had to drive Julie along the course on the way home because there's just no way to describe or imagine that monster slope, aptly named Goliath.  No.  I'll be just fine with the 5K next year if we do this one again.  It was also considerably less runners than previous years, but probably because most of them did the one a few days before, which was FREE, and didn't have a ridiculous hill.

Trying not to die.

Can you fix my feet, free massage dude?!?

I placed anyway!

Bobo woke up shortly after I finished.

There was a dance contest for prizes, but none of the judges seemed to appreciate this boy's already impressive moves.

Athletic supporters.

Everyone who ran placed!  It was fun that Emily was in town and could join us for this one.

I did all right, coming in at 45:31 (goal of 45, close enough), 7:20 min/mile, 14th overall, 9th in men, and 3rd in my age division.  I set a lap at the halfway point to see if the second half would be significantly faster due to no hill, and it was, but just by a couple of minutes.  It was tough recoup.  It should also probably be noted that at the finish line I BAREly measured six miles.  I mean, I was fine with a little bit of an early finish (though I ran it out to make a full 10K anyway), but come on!  How many years has this course been a quarter-mile short??

And then, as we sometimes do, we joined a bunch of kin to run the Alpine Days 5K in August.  For this one, we decided to run it all three of us together, including, for the first time (on the outside), The Boy.  I pushed him in the running stroller (thanks for the loan, Melody!), and it was fun to start and finish all at the same time (36:47ish).  CAG seemed to enjoy his first race, and Julie and I had fun running together.  I didn't keep close track of my placement, but it seems that even at my not-so-usual pace I placed in the top 10 of my division (maybe #7?).  That goes to show that there weren't too many people in my category.

Fun races!  We're glad you're back in the game, Wife!  I'm sure you are too.

Summer 2012 5Ks

(This post has been a long time coming.  I meant to post it in June after the first race, but then it took forever to get pictures, and then I was going to post about the two in July, but then it was only a couple of weeks until the August race, so I thought I would consolidate.  Anyway, I don't want to weigh you down with too much exposition, so...)

Running!  We like to do running.  It's fun in the spring and fall and I even like it in the winter, but the summertime always has some fun running events.  We had one each month this year!  Here they are:

23 June:

The American Fork Canyon (Half Marathon and) 5K!  We did this for its inaugural race last year, and we all enjoyed it so much we decided to do it again.  The course changed a little to accommodate for some construction, but it worked out all right (there's a hill either way, so it's pretty much a given).  I placed 1st in my division and 5th overall, which came as a surprise to me -- I couldn't quite see the people ahead of me, so I wasn't even sure I was in the top 10!  But I was.  (21:10, 6:49/mile, so a little faster than last year.)  Julie opted out of this one last year, but was ready to go this year, and she did great!  Top ten in her age group (7th) and just about at her goal time.

They have poster stuff!  I made one for Julie while I waited a couple minutes for her to finish.

Yay for us.  Everyone who placed came in first!  The others didn't place came in first in our hearts.

Just standing around forever waiting for stuff to happen.  There were some logistical issues this year.

21 July:

Then on July we had the sometimes-traditional Pioneer Day Classic in Provo, one of our favorites.  We usually get a few out to this one, though it's a tad expensive.  In researching times for this, I have discovered that the same guy who beat me in the AF race also came in a few places ahead of me in this one.  We even have the same first name, though not quite the same pace, HA.  It was a pretty rough race for me for whatever reason, but I still did pretty well, a little faster than the June race (21:00 even [gun-time of 21:04], 6:46/mile, 11th overall [so close to top 10!], 4th in my division).  Julie had a slightly faster time than her June race, and also placed 6th in her division!  She's a top-10 runner!  Way to go, love o' mine.  This race usually has good shirts and treats, though they took their sweet time with the awards (I guess most do).

Woot.

I don't know.

11 August:

And then just last Saturday we all met up for the annual Alpine Days 5K.  It's always a low-key (and inexpensive) event, and we always enjoy it, and this year the weather was wonderful and cool.  The course and the crowd are pretty fun, though there seemed to be a LOT more runners this year.  The more the merrier, I guess!  There were so many runners that I was quite surprised to learn that I came in 2nd in my division (21:45 [though it should be noted the race was .10 over 5K length], 6:50/mile, 2nd in my division, maybe top 10 overall. *shrug*), after Jonny of course, ha.  Perhaps the most notable thing to mention regarding this race is that in preparation of this race Julie and I filled out the names on everyone's bibs and we wrote Melody and Jonny's last name phonetically so that the race peeps would have no trouble pronouncing them when they undoubtedly would have to in order to call them up for their awards (and the guy was still so proud of himself for "getting it right this year," ha ha...  little did he know!).  They even gave out medals in gold, silver and bronze for each of the places.  It was all very Olympicsish.

Wait wait wait, I take back what I said before, the most notable thing about this race is that Julie had a GREAT time, and a new PR!  It was amazing!  I was just running back after I was finished to do the last bit with her like I sometimes do, and she surprised me by being much closer than I expected.  She was well under her goal at 28:28 (and don't forget it was about 3.2 miles), about 7:53/mile.  She placed 5th in her division, which meant she unfortunately didn't get a medal, but she may as well have, I was ever so proud.  Way to go again, love o' mine!

The kids ran their own little Toddler Trot too and had a great time, especially when they were handed suckers at the end.

Cami, Melody and Mom doing their Olympics thing.  Don't worry, Cami, bronze is still a winner!

Yeah, again, I don't know.  we just want to do different things in these pictures nowadays.

Running!  We have a few races planned for the fall, but we've sort of fallen out of our one-5K-a-month habit.  We figure we can do our own 5K with our morning run and save the cash for when an exciting run comes up instead of just finding random ones just for the sake of doing them.  I can almost feel fall in the air when we have our morning runs now!  XD

Hurrah for Utah-Only Holidays!

(To be fair and accurate, I remember the wards in Wisconsin having festive activities for this holiday too, though I guess no one had work off or anything...)

We had Pioneer Day a couple weeks ago!  It was great fun to have a long weekend.  My work doesn't recognize Pioneer Day as a paid holiday of course (or even as a holiday at all), but I do get one "Personal Holiday" each year, and it seemed like the very day to use it, especially since The Wife had work off.  We had a lot of festivities with family and friends, so I will now outline them in bulleted fashion!

•  On Friday night we were lucky enough to have great seats in the Conference Center to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square perform their Pioneer Day commemoration concert, with special guests Brian Stokes Mitchell (who I never get enough of) and Linda Eder (who I have been waiting to appear with the Choir for years).  It was stirring and thrilling and inspiring and all of those things!  I look forward to Linda joining them as their Christmas concert guest in the next year or two.  Then we stopped at the new Culver's in Midvale on the way home for some frozen custard and deep-fried cheese curds.  Ooohhhh, I have missed Culver's.

•  Then on Saturday morning we had a great 5K right here in Provo.  We have run the Provo Pioneer Day Classic once before, two years ago, but this time we were actually *ahem* registered (though it was a bummer because we barely missed the deadline for cheaper registration fees), and we planned to meet up with a bunch of kin there.  Julie and I arrived at the very last moment and had a good run.  The course is pretty tough with a few good uphill slopes, but we did all right.  I was this close to placing (less than 20 seconds behind third place in my age group, as well as top 10 overall), but I still feel good about finishing at 21:04 (about 6:48/mile).  Who could complain?  Besides, I don't think I could have pushed myself any harder in that last half mile.  Oy.  Melody followed right behind me and tried really hard to pass me up.  I never thought I would be considered a fast runner.  Several of our group placed in their age group, and were fortunate enough to end up with bonus t-shirts and fabulous prizes.

I mean, seriously, don't I look like a champion?  Oh, and I hope the powers that be don't mind that I borrowed this image without actually buying it.  I figure I left the URL in the graphic, so I'm advertising for them, and the picture quality is sufficient for blog needs.

Not pictured is Amber.  She might have taken off early, along with baby-sitter Katy, but maybe she opted out of the photo since she ran bandit.

Jonny was away when they called his name to collect his medal, so I picked it up for him.  Don't tell, I'm not really Jonny Rej-ho-lec!

•  We hurried home so we could conduct a business transaction at our place.  Some of you may know we've been looking into getting new furniture for quite some time.  We have liked having Mom's old couches, but we always thought it would be nice to be furniture that's just ours and that we pick out and buy together as soon as the time and situation was right.  We've also been looking into moving into a bigger place, perhaps slightly more outside of Student Town, but then we realized that we don't really have a very good reason to move yet, so we should just stick it out for now and save the extra cash.  Then we thought a good way to feel like we moved without really moving is to rearrange our apartment's setup and finally get that new living room set (which would be better to buy now than when we're taking a hike in rent anyway).  So I advertised on Facebook and almost immediately had a taker in one of my friends from the MTC.  We met him at our apartment after the race, vacuumed the couches out, said our goodbyes and then sent them off in the U-Haul truck to live with their new family.

They are comfy, and I have many fond memories of Sunday afternoon naps on them!  Also notable memories were when Cami used to wake me up by running and jumping through the air to land upon me.

Bye, couch!

Bye, love seat!  You served us well for just about two years.

Later in the day we stopped at RC Willey to make our purchase, and bought a set on sale that we had seen a couple weeks earlier and liked (they evidently met all of Julie's couch requirements), though we knew that they would take a day or two to come down from Salt Lake City, and thus began our weekend of sitting on the floor to watch TV.

•  For the rest of that day we relaxed, watching TV and having a picnic on the floor, shopping at IKEA and buying a few other new additions to our living situation, and seeing Captain America with some friends later in the evening, which seemed a fittingly patriotic movie for the time of year.  We also had delicious frozen treats after the movie at Sub-Zero, which we liked very much.  We'll probably go back so Julie can get that peach cobbler concoction again...  As for me, I wouldn't turn down the chocolate peanut butter option.

•  On Sunday I led the choir in a very festive performance of "They, the Builders of the Nation."  Those who have spoken with me on the subject of this ward choir (or who has any kind of experience leading probably any ward choir) will know that it's been quite a struggle to get devoted choir members at rehearsal, especially in a student area in the summertime.  So, imagine my surpreeze when record numbers walked up to the stand and joined in the musical number!  It was quite remarkable, and it really sounded like even more singers than we had.  It was interesting to hear the ward choir sing the same piece that opened Friday night's concert in Salt Lake City...  We didn't have 200 singers of a world-famous choir or a full orchestra or a 21,000-seat venue, but I tell you, I had the same feeling listening to my stalwart little group of singers as I had on Friday night.  That Mack knows how to arrange a hymn.

•  On Monday our couches came into town, and we made ready for them by cleaning the carpets (with our weeks-old vacuum and even a rented Rug Doctor) and basically deep-cleaning the entire place.  We even rearranged our bedroom furniture, so the light from the window is finally out of our eyes when we sleep.

Can you believe this all came out of our carpet?  And that's after vacuuming twice!  Nasty!!!

But then it looked like this.  It made me feel like I shouldn't walk on it.  Ever again.

Then, despite all my most valiant efforts at securing use of a truck owned by any nearby friend, we ended up hauling both pieces the three-and-a-half blocks from RC Willey to our apartment.  (This is very reminiscent of a time when Cami and I carried a love seat from the same RC Willey to her and Jake's apartment).  On the one hand, it's a good thing that we live so close, but on the other hand, they were still really heavy, and seriously, NO ONE around Provo had a truck we can use??  It almost put our poor helpful next-door neighbor in the ER for overexertion and underhydration.  But the couches are here and they are new and they are ours!  We love them and wanted to just sit and snuggle on them for a long, long time.

New couches!

Some assembly required.  I like when the need arises to break out the ol' tool set.  It makes me feel manly.  Which manliness you can clearly see in my expression.

We rearranged things a little too.  Don't they change the whole look and feel of the place?  Too bad the pillows they came with are sort of hideous and scratchy.  They may or may not be replaced soon.  The rug was a recent IKEA acquisition.

Interestingly, we stopped by our old apartment recently and found that at least the outside has had a major facelift, including completely new paint from top to bottom.  It almost looks liveable!  There are even window AC units, which was a thing unheard of back when we lived there.  It's still tiny, and I'm sure the nasty bugs will be there forever, but they probably raised the price when they painted the outside anyway.

•  The rest of the holiday was spent running many errands (getting fitted for new suits I bought on MAJOR sale a couple of months ago which finally arrived, and checking out the going-out-of-business sales at a favorite Borders) and then having a delicious dinner with Mom and Dad.

We didn't want to go back to work the next day, but at least it would mean there was a short work week.  It seemed like there should have been something more to our activities, maybe something I was forgetting, but now that I type it all out, it seems like we had quite a busy weekend after all.  Hurrah for Utah-only holidays!  Thanks, pioneers!  I feel like there's a little bit of hero worship in the Church, but they did some pretty impressive things.  I should know, because I went on a youth trek when I was like 14.  My cousin had a tick, and it seemed so gross to me.  (My pioneer ancestors would probably smack me for being so flippant about all of this, but oh well.)

Say, I guess I never blogged about my poor sick computer and her triumphant return...  That will have to wait.  *reminds self*