Wild Thing Summer Fling Marathon

In short - it was a blast! Jenny, Margaret and I spent the night at the condo in Seattle, drove up early this morning (leaving at 5:00 am), and getting home around 8:30 tonight. The race was at my favorite place to run in Bellingham - 2.62 miles on a wide gravel path around Lake Padden. Gorgeous lake, most of it wooded and cool. The weather was perfect - brilliantly sunny, low 70s, constant cool breeze off the lake. Everyone (men included) wore dresses for the first lap, and lovely headbands, and we had to accomplish a specific task after each lap as follows:

Lap 1: three cartwheels (or reasonable facsimiles)
Lap 2: 15 mountain climbers per leg
Lap 3: Give a piggyback ride the length of the covered area or jump rope for a count of 25 (I piggybacked a little girl)
Lap 4: 25 squats
Lap 5: 15 Frog leaps
Lap 6: Lay in the grass for 60 seconds (my personal favorite)
Lap 7: 10 push-ups (had to be on your toes)
Lap 8: Hula Hoop for 30 seconds (I did it twice)
Lap 9: 10 Lunges
Lap 10: 25 Jumping Jacks

They accepted a reasonable attempt at anything, and they loved a goofy attempt - like me singing "I'm a little teapot" while doing squats. There are hills on the back side of the lake that aren't too bad when you are doing two laps, but become progressively more difficult when you do ten. We decided this day was all about fun and not about time. We finished in 6:30 and best of all, we had a great day! Here are pictures of the day from Jenny: (first ones are from the night before at the condo)


Over the top of the cheaters, with double chins...


Jenny ran a 27 mile trail marathon Saturday, making this a double marathon weekend. Soaking sore feet at the condo.


A princess pose.




















(photo by Matt Hagen)

Playing Catch Up

It's halfway through the day and I'm barely beginning to catch up! I'm behind in reading blogs, in facebook, in email (both work and home), in laundry, house keeping and our cupboards are bare. How did this happen? We were only gone four days!

We spent a fun weekend camping with my parents up in Birch Bay. Not so much the kind of camping we usually do, but the luxurious-laze-about type my parents do. We were in a private campground, staying in their 35 foot motor home with slide-outs -much like a very nice and small apartment. We were parked right behind the building that used to house the drive-in where I was working as a carhop when I met Eric (at age 16). It was a lot of fun running, driving and walking through our old haunts, reliving memories of our youthful summers. Eric grew up just down the bay, and I spent three summers working out there.

My sister, her husband and one of my nieces visited on Saturday, and on Sunday my other sister and an aunt and uncle spent the afternoon with us. We also got to go to a mini-reunion with some of Eric's old high school friends. Four girls from my high school class (including me) married guys from Eric's class, and two of them were there, plus a girl I worked with at the Beach Boy (as carhops), and a guy from my class who married into one of the families from Eric's class! Small towns...

I had to laugh at my elderly aunt - she says Eric and I are too skinny and that we look like "death warmed over", and after she saw me eat a veggie burger and a dixie cup of carrot sticks, she told me she couldn't believe I "ate all that crap!" It made me laugh out loud. She thinks I should be eating meat and potatoes and pies and cookies and ice cream - "normal stuff". My uncle ran four marathons back in the day, and he whispered to me "can you imagine what it was like to train for a marathon while married to her?" I think Eric and I got him all excited about marathons, especially when we told him we know many people in their 70s still running them.

We had dinner plans last night near Seattle so we spent a very leisurely day travelling home. We toured my hometown (grown by leaps and bounds!), drove through the neighborhood we lived in from the time I was three till age eight and visited Eric's brother. We got to our dinner spot early, took a nap in the car and walked through town. Then we had great pizza with a group of runners before finally heading for home. It was a long and late day, but wonderful.

I'm going to slip this little bit of information in here at the end, and then hold my breath and bow my head whilst receiving my well-deserved lectures (I guess I'll find out how many of you read to the end this way!). I'm running a marathon this weekend. What's that you say? I'm not supposed to run summer marathons? I promised? You are totally right, I did say that. When will I learn? I was tempted beyond all endurance, really I was...Jenny and Margaret are running it, it's at one of my very favorite places to run, it's a silly and free event, and...I just want to! We have plans to deal with the heat (if there is any) - the majority of the course is under canopy, plus I can always dive into the lake... Check it out here. Okay, let me have it!

A Good Weekend

Just to shake things up a bit, I ran a 5K on the Fourth. Eric was on the race committee for this new race sponsored by our Y. He helped will all aspects, answering questions and making suggestions based on race experience. However, I'd say his main focus was working out the route. Eric and I worked on packet stuffing Thursday, Eric worked on course marking most of the morning on Friday, then that evening we worked at packet pick-up, Saturday we were at the Y at 5:00 am to ferry supplies to the fairgrounds, help with day of race registration and packet pick up, and final course marking. It was a fun and busy couple of days.

I haven't run a 5K in about three years, and I really didn't plan to run this one. I thought I'd volunteer at the event instead. However, when we were stuffing packets on Thursday, Phil, the executive director, talked me into running the race. I'm really glad I did!

We had 600 participants in this first-year race. Pretty good, huh? A local church was co-sponsoring with the Y and the city to put on an all day event. The day started with the race, and was followed by a festival in the fairgrounds, with fireworks that night. Race entry included a technical shirt and entrance to the fireworks. They are hoping that this becomes an annual community event - my guess is it will, as it seemed to be a big hit.

Riley signed up to run it a while back, and come race morning, decided to run it with me. We started off with Jessica and Barb, and it wasn't long till Riley had us all laughing. He displayed the same Mad Monkey tendencies of his Dad - running here and there, leaping hydrants, hiding behind parked cars and popping out, and generally being silly. I think it generated some sympathy for me, once Jessica and Barb realized that I live with those goofball antics all the time, and not just from Eric, but from Riley too!

Riley was encouraging me to run faster and I kept picking up my pace. There's one short steep hill in the otherwise flat course, and once we reached it, I told him I was "pulling out my marathon card" - in other words, using last Saturday's marathon as an excuse to walk the hill. Once we reached the top, we picked up the pace again. As we entered the fairgrounds for the last mile, Riley said that we should sprint. I had to break it to him that I already was sprinting. He responded by announcing that he would be my rabbit, running just ahead of me and forcing me to keep up. We decided to skip the last walk break since we could see the finish line - giving me a last mile pace of 9:14. Our overall time was 31:48 - a PR for me. And it was good enough to net me 3rd in my age group!

Upon reflection, what I really took away from the day was a sense of pride and satisfaction. But not for what you might think. It wasn't for running the race or gaining a PR. Instead, it was for the young man I spent the morning with. I thought it was simply wonderful that he wanted to hang out with me both before and after the race, and that he wanted to run it with me. Imagine, a 20 year old wanting to hang with Mom! He is growing up, and we have a great relationship, and it is a pleasure to spend time with him. What more could I ask? I also want to mention here that Cat had the same experience with her son. We are two lucky Moms.

Then to top off my weekend, we got a phone call from Web. He's been really good about calling us every week or so. Life is sweet...