I hadn't been doing much of anything. But then I got an early Christmas present of a pair of snowshoes. In the week and a half since I've had them, I have gone up in the mountains four times. And I'm going again tomorrow. I love my snowshoes. Here are a few photos of my snowshoeing expeditions.
David and Camille on David's birthday.
I love my snowshoes!
so, now that I've been more active, I have more motivation. I started looking at the Wasatch 100 mile endurance run. I've been thinking of applying. It is in September and I would need to register by next week. I would have enough time to work up to 100 miles. Anyway, should I sign up for a 100 mile race? or is that too crazy. It would take a lot of work, but I think it would be worth it.
So, I had a temporary job for the summer and the day after it came to an end Amanda and I were talking and trying to figure out how things were going to work. I could get a job, even if it was just a minimum wage job, and we could stay put for four or five months before my job starts, or we could move almost a thousand miles away and live rent-free in my in-law's basement. We decided on the latter. I still haven't decided if I want to find a job or not. I don't really need one, it would just give me something to do. I think I will be content, getting Ella ready and off to school. I'll also take care of Alex and do laundry and other stuff to give Amanda more time to work.
Ella was in Kindergarten for two weeks before we pulled her out of school to move. Now she has been three days here. She loves going to school. She has so much fun and gets so excited about it. She especially loves riding the bus. This week when she was at school, I took Alex to story time at the library. i think that will become a regular thing. He just sat there when everyone else was singing and dancing, but I think he'll warm up to it.
On another note, now that we are moved and settled in here, Amanda and I get to go on our cruise. We leave in two days. The only thing that is concerning me is Tropical Storm Olaf that is looming off the Mexican coast where we will be. It will weaken, so it shouldn't be too bad, but it will still be raining, more than likely. I hope the seas won't be too rough. I'll have to let you all know how it is next week after we come back. Maybe I'll even have some pictures to put up.
Hey, I just decided to put some photos on here. These ones are from back in March. Enjoy.
I didn't realize how blurry these photos were. The kids were really running fast. The only good photo is the one Amanda took. This was at a waterfall. The overlook hung out off the cliff just a little bit. It was pretty cool.
I normally only write about running, but hey it is my blog and I can write whatever the heck I want. If you have never heard or heard of Collective Soul then you are really missing out. Just a couple weeks ago they came out with a new album. I believe it is their tenth or eleventh album. I can honestly say that I really enjoy every one of their songs. I just bought this latest self titled album. I thought was a little wierd, this is their second self titled album. There are a couple of really good songs on it.
I went to a Collective Soul concert once and really enjoyed it. I almost went to one of their concerts about a year and a half ago in Alabama. If I had more money then I would go to their Seattle show that is in about two weeks. I think it would be a really good show. I guess I'll just have to wait until the next time they tour the country.
Well you should go to their site and check out their music.
So, the other day I was reading through some blogs that I follow and I read about some minimalist running. there are some people out there that don't believe in shoes, or they do but only to protect your feet from getting cut up on the rocks and stuff on trails. Specifically I was reading about a shoe that I think I want to get. It is called the Vibram Fivefinger. It is basically a protective rubber on the bottom of your foot.
Anyway, I was motivated to try a little minimalist running myself. I went out on Friday afternoon for a short three mile jog with no shoes on. Now, this probably would have been a very enjoyable experience had I driven to a park and ran the three miles in the grass. I didn't to that however. There is a course that I run a lot. about 90% of my running lately has been on this same route. I didn't realized though how much I didn't really know the course. with bare feet I reallized that well over half is paved, and of that pavement about half is pretty rough while the other half is pretty smooth. the part that I ran on the trail was not as nice as I had expected either. There were a lot more rocks than I ever rememberd there being. Don't get me wrong, this was not a bad experience. My feet were not bleeding (although there was one spot where I had to dodge some glass). I am glad I tried it, but I think next time I will run in a grass field and build up to true minimalist running. There is this one guy I read about who runs on average of five or six miles daily with no shoes on. That is on top of his 20-60 miles a day with shoes.
We'll just have to wait to see if there are any prolonged negative effects of this barefoot run. I feel fine though and it has been three days. Fun Fun.
I did the Whidbey Island Triathlon a few weeks ago. It was lots of fun. check out Amanda's blog to read about it and see photos, or go to my facebook page.
As of today I have ridden my bicycle over 500 miles this year. If I keep this up, I could easily top out over 1000 by the end of the year. Who knows maybe I'll do a ride some time in the near future.
I have been riding my bicycle to work every day and today I took a new route home. It was about twenty miles and it was mostly a very nice ride. I found an awesome hill that went down to the river. I love trying to see how fast I can get going. I started pedalling hard and looked at my speedometer. I pedaled hard until it got to 45, then because it was such a big, steep hill, I kept accelerating even after I stopped pedalling. I watched the speedometer, 47, 48, 49, 49.2, 49.9, then finally 50.0. By that time I felt like I was going a little too fast for comfort. As I slowed up coming to the bottom of the hill I realized that if for some reason I were to crash, I could get hurt really badly. The rush was totally exhilarating. Next time I'll try for 51 or 52, maybe.
So, I really like keeping track of how for I run, bike and walk or whatever else I do. I've been walking to school every day, and at the beginning of the year, I started logging those walks which is about two miles each day. I probably to a bit more than that, but I log usually only two miles per day. So far this year I have walked 208 miles. And that is just what I have logged.
I have also started to ride my bike recently. I really enjoy riding the trails around here. I rode about only about five miles or so today, but it was really fun and I can't wait to get out there and do it again. So far this year I have ridden my bike ten times to total 140 miles.
My running has been pretty sporadic as of late. I went for a week without running, then I did a 17 mile run, and then since my knee was hurting after that I have only ran once or twice a week since then. And those have been short, very easy runs of only about three miles. My running has totaled 382 miles so far this year. More than a quarter of the total was done in February and another quarter was done in March in preparation for the Marathon I did on April 4th.
Anyway, I think this numbers are cool. maybe by the end of the year I can cycle 1000 miles and run 1500 miles and walk/hike 500 miles. Probably not though, because now that school is getting out I will probably not be walking two miles every day. I might increase my running and biking though, so those numbers are somewhat realistic.
I need to go to bed now, My mind is just rushing, so I probably won't sleep, but it is past midnight, so I'll go now. More later.
Since my knee has been bothering me, I've decided to start riding my bike a bit more. I've been riding several times. Today, I decided to go for a 40 mile ride. There is a nice paved trail near here called the interurban trail. It is pretty nice because there is no traffic. It took me just less than three hours, averaging 15 mph. I'm pretty tired now, I think I'll go wash up.
yesterday when I got home from school, I decided to go for a run. It had been over a week since I had run at all, and a month or more since I had done anything this long. I ended up running 17 miles. It felt great except for the last two or three miles when my right knee started to hurt a little bit. It still hurts today. I hope I didn't really hurt it. I'll probably be able to still run on it, I'll just need to take it easy.
Here is a little video that I put together of Ella's ballet a few weeks ago. She was so cute. The video is about 13 minutes long. It is really low quality, so I hope you will be able to see it alright.
Yesterday morning I decided to go for a bike ride before school. It was pretty darn cold. I think the temperature was 39 degrees. I looked up a wind chill chart and 35 degrees and 30 mph winds (my max speed was 39mph) the wind chill is 22. At 40 degrees and 30 mph the wind chill is 28. Anyway, I guess my point is that it was cold. Especially since I was only wearing fingerless gloves. I should have worn sunglasses too, because my eyes were watering most of the ride. It was a 12 mile ride. The first two miles were down hill, that is why I got so cold so fast. Also, the last two miles were up hill, so I slowed way down and worked harder. I was warmed up a bit by the time I got home. Well, I took some photos, so here they are.
All but this last one were taken while I was riding. I didn't want to stop because I didn't have much time and I wanted to ride as far as I could.
This ride and a ride on Tuesday were the first time I had ridden my bike since almost a year ago. It feels good. I've been thinking about doing a longer, organized bike ride. The Tour deWhidbey is a ride that my dad had done a few times. There are a variety of distances including a 100 mile version. I think it would be fun to do that. I've also been thinking about doing a triathlon. I've wanted to do one for some time, and I might actually be able to do one this summer. I really just need to find one and do it. The one I am looking at swims in a warm lake, so I wouldn't need a wet suit. anyway, that is just me rambling on again.
I use runnersworld.com to log all of my running. Since I started keeping track of my running on their website back in October 2007, I have totaled 1957 miles in 290 hours. I have also logged 259 miles in 20 hours of biking. Just this year I started keeping track of some of the walking I've been doing. Mostly this consists of walking to and from school every day, 143 miles in 39 hours.
One of the things I like about the runnersworld running log is that I can graph my mileage and a number of other things. This first one is my weekly totals from the past 52 weeks. I've ranged from zero all the way up to 50 miles in one week.
This next one is my monthly totals since I started keeping this log. It ranges from about 10 miles up to just over 200 miles per month. I seem to do well when I log about 100 miles per month. Maybe I should make that my goal. If I can run 100 miles per month then I could run 1200 miles in a year. Anyway, I just thought my loyal readers were getting frustrated with the lack of blogging on this blog, so I decided to blog.
It is not very often that I get something in the mail that is not a bill. So, I was a bit surprised to see an envelope for me. I opened it and found this.
In case you can't read it, it says "Yakima River Canyon Marathon fourth place 2009." That's right, I got fourth place in my age group out of 12. I also got 70th overall out of 441 finishers. that puts me in the top 16%. I didn't realize I did that well. I thought I was more like 150th place or something. anyway, hurray for 4th place. You can see all of the results if you care here.
Okay, I finally get to write about my marathon.I was a little worried because I hadn’t been getting enough sleep the last few days.I came home from school on Friday morning and took a nap.I slept for about three hours.I’m glad I did too.Friday night I finally got to sleep about midnight.We got up at five on Saturday morning and left at 5:30.The kids were quickly back asleep.The drive was uneventful.We arrived at the starting line in Ellensburg right at the perfect time.I had about 45-50 minutes to get my packet and warm up a little bit.I needed warming up because it was less than 30 degrees.Amanda thought that I was crazy for not starting out with long sleeves on or even gloves.I think the gloves would have been very helpful for the first mile or two, but after that I would have thrown them to the side of the road.By the end of the race it was in the mid 50’s, perfect running weather, not a cloud in the sky.
The race started right at eight o’clock.There was a countdown and then a big truck blasted its horn for the starting “gun.”That was a little different but cool.The national anthem that was sung before the start was not so cool, the lady didn’t do a great job and it was rather quiet.I was glad for the race to finally start.It had been a long time coming.I started about mid pack, which was probably a good thing.Even being mid pack, I still ran an eight minute first mile.That was perfect, not too fast, and not too slow.Amanda was waiting to take pictures with the kids about two to three hundred yards from the starting line.She snapped a few photos and Ella tried to take a video of me (which didn’t work, I guess she turned it off right after Amanda turned it on).That was it.I didn’t see them again until the finish line.
I had decided to run with my iPod since I have done a lot of my running with it.I figured I might get a little bored without it.I was pleased with my pace for the whole thing.During the first few miles I stayed behind a few guys who seemed to be going about the right pace.I felt like I could easily pass them, but I also felt like I really didn’t want to go out too fast and totally burn out for the last few miles.I resisted the urge to pass them, at least for a few miles.
It was really a pretty run.I really love the natural beauty of the great northwest and how green it is, but these desert hills were very pretty.There were several times when I turned off my music just to enjoy the natural beauty of the place.The road we ran on was closed except for support staff and emergency vehicles.There were no cross roads to the course either.It was in a very serene canyon that paralleled the main freeway.
The volunteers were very helpful and courteous.Overall I was very impressed with this marathon.Along the course at one point I saw a bald eagle soaring overhead.It was a good thing there was no traffic because I probably would have been hit by a car.I was jogging out into the middle of the road because my head was turned upward.
I kept track of every mile.They had markers at every mile and I got my split at every one.I stopped really briefly at about mile four or five, then again at mile nine or ten.Other than that I ran the whole way.I felt fantastic.There was one point about mile fifteen where there was a pretty big hill.This hill climbed up the side of a curving cliff so that the top of the hill was visible from almost a mile away.At the top, there was someone with a couple of really big speakers blasting upbeat music that made me want to run fast.I could hear it from almost a mile away.I thought that was pretty cool.It helped me out.I passed four or five people going up that hill.I didn’t feel like I was pushing hard, but I wasn’t about to walk up that little hill.
There was another hill at mile 22.This one was a bit larger.There were more people cheering us up it.Instead of the one set of big speakers at the top, there were three or four smaller boomboxes that you could only hear from a few hundred yards away.Just before I got to that hill, I realized that I only had about five miles to go and I was still feeling fantastic.I decided to pick up the pace.At mile marker 22 I called Amanda and told her where I was and that I was feeling great.I also told her that I would probably be there in about thirty minutes.Mile 22 was 8:10.Mile 23 was 8:50 that included a big hill and about 15 seconds for me to call Amanda while I was walking.Mile 24 was 7:18.I looked at my watch and thought to myself “holy cow!”I was still feeling great and I only had 2.2 miles to go.Mile 25 was 7:25.I slowed down a little bit, but that was still a great time considering it was mile 25.Mile 26 I was determined to drain my energy.I really hit it hard.This whole section was a nice gradual down hill into the finish area.I did mile 26 in 6:40.I felt great still.Was it true?I really ran my last mile of the marathon in less than seven minutes.My last mile was by far my fastest of the whole race.For the last .2 miles my time was 1:41.That comes out to be a 7:12 per mile pace for my last 3.2 miles.My overall pace for the race was 8:17.My slowest mile was almost ten minutes which included a quick bathroom stop.I think I probably passed ten or more people in the last mile or two.There was one point where I got a little emotional and a sense of overwhelming accomplishment came over me, but then I realized that I still had a mile or two to go.I got back into the game and finished strong.
Coming down that last hill during that last mile, Mount Adams off in the distance several hundred miles away, came into view.I thought that was totally awesome and thought to myself “what a way to end a great run.”It was really good.
When I got close to the finish line, I could hear Amanda cheering for me.That made me run even faster.I really appreciate my family for supporting me, even if I did make them get up at five am and drive a couple of hours.I was so grateful to have Amanda and the kids there to support me.I was so tired I didn’t notice if Ella and Alex were yelling for me.I’m sure they were.
I think I will run another marathon in a couple of months and keep running like I have been doing.I’ll probably even start doing more speed workouts and do more regular long runs.I was thinking that I would also start riding my bike.I might be able to get my dad’s old bike to ride on the paved bike paths around here.It will be some great cross training.Anyway, I guess this is long enough.
One more thing, on our way back from the marathon we ran into some traffic.Even though it was sunny and warm, they closed the mountain pass.They were doing avalanche control and so we ended up coming to a dead standstill on the freeway for about 45 minutes.We eventually hopped out of the car and let the kids play in the snow on the side of the road.They had fun doing that and were upset when we had to leave.We saw cars moving and so we quickly grabbed the kids and shoved them in the car, normally we can give more warning, but hey, we were on the freeway.What fun.
All in all, I’d say it was a really good day.I was really tired though.And even though it is two days later, I’m still tired and quite sore.My quads are the worst.I am fine except for going down stairs.I should probably have gone for a little run today.Oh well.
There, I’m really done now.Enjoy.
Okay, I'll share a few photos. This first one is right at the beginning. I was actually a bit cold.
Here I am coming into the finish line.
You can see by this photo that my "official" time was 3:37:10.
After the finish. I feel great
These last two is to prove to you about the traffic over the mountain pass.
Well, I guess that doesn't really prove anything. They could just be really close together. This is really how we were though for about 45 minutes. and here are the kids playing in the snow.
I have just one week before my Marathon. To be honest, I could have trained more for it. I am ready, and I won't die at the end of it like I did for the last one I ran a year ago. At least I hope I'll be okay. I ran this morning for ten miles in the rain and it felt great. I even got totally soaked by that car that drove through the puddle. I think that is the first time that has happened to me. I had to laugh when it happened because I thought it was funny. I bet it was funny to see too. 39 degrees. raining. windy. a poor guy in shorts and a long sleeve tee shirt. all you need to make it a funny sight is a big puddle on the road and a car to drive through it... anyway, enough about that. I was pretty much soaked through anyway. It was toward the end of my run.
I ran 34 miles this week. I felt like it was perfect for the week before a marathon. This next week I'll probably run two or three times and keep them pretty short runs. I'll probably even do a short tempo run on Tuesday or Wednesday.
I guess I'm a pretty bad planner. I called up the other day to a campground to get a cabin for the night before the marathon. They just happened to be closed this weekend. We could camp at the local KOA campground, but it is supposed to get down to about 35 degrees. If it is windy, we wouldn't get much sleep with the equipment we have. We could get a hotel, but that would be like 80 bucks. I think we will just leave on Saturday morning. I figure if I get up at five and leave by five thirty, we'll get there with enough time to pick up my packet and warm up and be ready to run. I get up at five for school anyway. It shouldn't be that bad, except for my family who are used to getting up closer to eight. Maybe I can convince my Amanda to let us go camping. Then we would only have to get up at like 6:30. We'll see. However we end up getting there I am excited for the race. I think it will be a pretty run. I guess for the most part it is slightly downhill. There is one uphill about mile 20, but overall I guess there is several hundred feet of vertical loss, maybe even a thousand. If you really care, you can go look up the course profile and map on their web site.
Oh yeah, a few days ago I celebrated my birthday. I'm not old at all. Amanda and I went downtown and wandered around the market. It was nice to be able to ditch the kids. We grabbed some Russian Piroshky for lunch. I got some cool gifts including, itunes music, an inside/outside thermometer, toffee from English Toffee Anytime (check out the link on the side of my blog), and a flashlight that clips on my running hat for my night time running. Thanks everyone for all of those things. I bought myself some root beer. mmmmmmmmm. I love root beer but don't drink it very often because it is really not good for my, all that sugar and stuff. Amanda made me a great coconut cake too. That was scrumptious. She also made buffalo chicken for dinner. Overall it was a fantastic day. I wish it could be my birthday everyday. oh well.
I guess that's it for now. I'll give you a report about my Marathon next week.
This morning I got up at 5:00 to go for a 20 mile run so that I could be back by nine to go and help someone move. It was a perfect morning for running. It was a little cold, but it felt great. I was a bit slow for the first eight miles or so because it was dark and I was running on trails. I think the greatest thing about my run this morning, watching the dark, starlit sky lighten up as the dawn approached. When I first saw Mount Rainier this morning I could just barely make out its silhouette. It was awesome. Then gradually as the horizon started to get lighter, it became a more defined silhouette. Finally I could actually see the mountain and make out features on it. Then the sun hit the top of the mountain and then slowly climbed down the mountain. That was just so cool to see. Maybe I should have had my camera to take pictures. Oh well. Sometimes you just need to enjoy the moment. The run went well. When it was dark I averaged about 9:30 per mile, then it lightened up and I averaged about 8:30-8:40 miles. My overall pace was 8:58. Maybe it wasn't the dark that caused me to go so slow, but the breathtaking views of Mount Rainier. By the time I was finished with my run the mountain was covered in clouds. It was good while it lasted.
I have just five weeks until the Yakima River Canyon Marathon. I just signed up for it today. I'm definetly doing it. There is no way that I would pay 65 dollars then back out at the last moment. I am excited. I think it will be a great run. Maybe we'll go up the night before and go camping or something, otherwise we'll have to leave here by about five in the morning.
My brother posted this thing on his blog. I figured something made by my brother could be really cool. If you want something made by me, it is easy. Just follow the instructions below.
Well, all you have to do is be one of the first five people to comment on this post and offer the same thing on your blog! Easy, right? Well, of course there are rules.
1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! 2- What I create will be just for you. 3- It'll be done this year. 4- You have no clue what it's going to be. 5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
The catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!
Last weekend I mentioned that I was sick. This week I am feeling much better. It has actually been a pretty good week. I ran 33 miles this week. This morning was a 16 mile run. I felt great. The weather has been cooperating very well too. It has been sunny and clear all week. It was in the 50's most days. It is starting to rain right now though, and will continue to rain throughout the week. What? Rain? Never! Oh, yeah, I live in the Pacific Northwest. It is bound to rain at some point. Actually I enjoy the rain. A nice run in the rain is refreshing. As long as the run isn't too long. Then it could get miserable. I just have six weeks until the Yakima River Canyon Marathon. I just looked at the website and realized that I need to register for the race this week. Next Saturday the price goes from $65 to $80. I need to do what I can to save money, so I will register this week. Maybe I should just save the 65 dollars and not enter the race. I could just run 26 miles on my own, or something. No, I want to run in an organized event and get a race t-shirt and finishers medal and all that.
This week we got an ad in the mail from a local chiropractor. He was doing a special intro rate of 35 dollars for all the x-rays and other exams plus the first adjustment. Amanda love the chiropractor, and I had never been to one, so I called up and scheduled an appointment for Amanda. I went the next day. It was interesting to see the x-rays of my spine. A couple minutes after my adjustment, I got light headed and felt like I was going to pass out. It was pretty weird. He said that was very unusual. I had to sit down and drink some cold water. I felt better after 20 minutes or so. If I had more money, I would probably go more often, but I don't have a job right now, so I just won't go very often. I'll probably go back in a month or so, but I'll have to review my finances and see if I can afford to go regularly. Maybe we can afford to send Amanda once a month.
Yes, it is true. I am still alive. It has been a few weeks since I have written anything on here, so I figured I'd better satisfy my viewing public. Here you go:
for the last few weeks I have done very well at keeping up with my running. Last week I did a 14 mile run. I am building up too. I was going to do a 16 mile run tomorrow, but since I got sick yesterday, I am not going to run that far. I will see how I feel, but I will probably only do 6 or 8 miles. Being sick is no fun and it has interfered with my marathon training. I'll still be alright for this race though. I've been running strong.
School has been going very well lately. I have been getting a lot of practice time on the computer simulators for the Air Traffic Control classes that I am taking.
Well I really don't have much else to write about, so I guess I'll leave you with a photo or two.
Well, I don't really have much more to say about the marathon goal I now have, but I'll just write some random things here and see how it ends up.
I only ran four times in December and I have now gone running twice in January. I felt like I needed to set some sort of goal (i.e. find some race to run) in order to get me out and working out again. So, Sunday evening I was sitting at the computer and looking up some random stuff. I could do the Whidbey Island Marathon, which I would like to do, but they run it on a Sunday and I don't do races on the Sabbath. Maybe I could do it just this once... well then I found a marathon just the following weekend near Yakima. That one was on a Saturday, so I decided I would go for the one in Yakima. It also gives me another week to be ready for a 26.2 mile run. It is also closer to where I live.
I got onto runnersworld.com and used their smart coach tool to help me get a training plan. I printed out what they had and I might add in or adjust the workouts here and there to make them work for me. The main thing is my Friday or Saturday long run that need to be building up each week. I'm starting out this week with ten miles. I know it sounds like a bit much since I haven't been running, but I think I'll be alright. I ran 5.5 yesterday, tomorrow I will to about 6, then I'll do about five again the next day. I think I will be ready for ten on Friday or Saturday.
I have been walking to and from school every day this month. I like the nice, fresh, crisp, cool air in the morning. It helps wake me up in the morning and I feel more ready for class. It is about a mile and it takes me about 15 minutes. It got me thinking about hiking up in the mountains. Last saturday I got up early and went for a 3.2 mile walk (acording to my GPS) down on the trails by the college. It took nearly an hour. If I figure that I can walk 3.2 miles per hour, then I could walk the 93 miles around the Wonderland Trail in 29 hours. If I jogged even just 10-15 minutes per hour I could easily do it (at least I think so) in less than 24 hours. The trick would be to pace myself. I have wanted to do the Wonderland trail ever since I first heard about it. This trail circumnavigates Mount Rainier. Lots of people do this as a multi day (5-7) day hike, but I really want to try to do it in one go. I would need someone to be my support while I do it.
But my mind has wandered off really far. Before I did that I would do the White River 50. The Yakima River Valley Marathon would be my warm up trainin run for the White River 50 and the WR50 would be my warm up training run for the Wonderland Trail. I really wanted to do the WR50 last year, but I couldn't get up here in time, and I ended up doing the Bartlett Park Ultra near Memphis last summer. I'm glad I did it, but I don't think I ever want to run in the heat like that again. Unless I get really crazy and try to go for the Badwater Ultramarathon. I would have to be really really crazy though to do that. I have thought about trying to go for it, but It would take years of preperation. Maybe sometime in the future.
Well, for now I'll stick to the 5-6 mile runs with weekend runs starting at 10 miles. I like running long. It gives my time to myself to think about something, nothing, or whatever the heck I feel like thinking.
I think you've heard about enough from me for now. I'll try to keep you updated on how my running is going.
oh, by the way, I did some looking back at the logs and in 2008 I ran about 1385 miles. That far surpassed my goal of 1000 miles. In 2007 I logged about 250 miles. I know for sure I ran at least 50-100 miles more than I logged, because I didn't start logging my running until about September or October. Maybe my new goal should be 1500 miles in 2009. no, I'll just run. If I get there I get there. I should be able to get there if I keep runing often.
Here is a photo of me on January first snowshoeing up American Fork Canyon with my cousin. It was pretty fun. That was the first time I had ever gone snowshoeing. Maybe I'll have to get myself some.
And I just had to throw in this video of Alex. Yesterday at dinner, out of the blue, he started doing this. Apparently he was trying to eat really fast, so that he could beat Ella. I think Ella ended up eating faster. I guess this is just not the way to eat really fast. I laughed so hard at this. Awesome!!!
I have been a bit of a slacker lately, so I decided I needed to stop slacking off. In order to help me be motivated, I decided to run a marathon on April 4th. It is the Yakima River Valley Marathon. It sounds like it will be a good one. I'll be ready for it. It will also help me be ready for the White river 50 in July.
David and Camille on David's birthday. 
I love my snowshoes!
