Raingutter Regatta

A few weeks ago was Tyler's Raingutter Regata for Scouts.    They had a tasting table there with foods that you might not usually taste like: passion fruit, kumquat, papaya and some hot sauces.  There were a bunch more, but I can't remember.

Tyler dared to try the hot sauce.

He was so grateful for that drinking fountain!

Tyler and his dad worked on the boat the night before and I finished it up with him the next day. He was excited to race his boat called "Prepare for Doom"  He even drew himself and his dad on the boat. <--So Sweet! My heart melted- like literally.  Too bad the directions weren't clearer about gluing the sail to the mast at the bottom...They had a teeny-tiny arrow pointing to the bottom and no indication about this step whatsoever in the written directions! Arrrgghh... His sail kept rotating and his wasn't the only one that did it either. I didn't figure out why until it was too late.  I guess we will know better next time, but I felt bad that he didn't do as well as he could've because of badly written directions(probably from China) and stupid parent error.

Tyler up against the overall winner.

The leaders took a turn at the end and blew them all out of the water!  Hey, I didn't know we were allowed to use blow dryers and leaf blowers! :D

Each family brought something to add to the trail mix pot and it turned out to be the BEST TRAIL MIX EVER! 

Tyler did his best, got a patch and even won "BEST NAME" at his first raingutter regatta.  I can't wait to do this again so I we can use my our experience to show those little scouts the true captain of the seas. Mwahahahaha!

Color Me Rad

 Why haven't I blogged about this?! It must be because I washed all the radness off after the race... 

 If you read my last New Years Resolution Update you know that I have started regular exercise again and prompted by a friend's recent story of a scary encounter with a creepy guy when she was running by herself, I started looking for a running partner. 

 I enjoy running with others and their conversation.  The runs always seem to go faster than when it's just me and my music, but I never felt a strong enough need before to do anything about it. My running schedule and course was never super rigid and I run along streets with a good number of cars that pass by.  That makes me feel like the opportunity for creepers to try anything is lower, but I guess her story freaked me out enough that when I saw on The Facebook that Celeste, my friend who lives a few blocks away, was running regularly, I asked her if I could join her.  She was glad to have someone else to motivate her runs and together we keep a better schedule than alone. 

After one week of running together, she contacted me wondering if I wanted take her sister in law's place in the Color Me Rad race they were supposed to run together the next day.  Unfortunately, her SiL's travel plans hadn't worked out and she was willing to hand her prepaid entrance spot, including sunglasses and a shirt, over to me.  So Nice for me!  I was glad that I was able to squeeze this Saturday morning race with my new running partner into my crazy day.

BEFORE:

"We too rad for this race.  This 5k won't know what hit it."

 In my "still waking up brain fog", I went with a festive side pony tail, but ended up hating it later.  Bad placement or something.  We left plenty early for the drive to UVU, but still barely made it on time due to huge congestion at our freeway exit.  Guess when you are going where the party is, that's the type of stuff that happens.  Found parking and then briskly walked across campus to get there before it was our turn to start.  There are several different starting times, but really once we got there and assessed the situation, there are no timing chips, no one keeping track of who is who and pretty much you could start whenever you want.  Celeste really had to use the honeybuckets and they were all the way down, right passed the start line. #stupid  So we started with the group before us and veered off to the line of port-a-potties.  Came out just before they started our actual group so we were sorta in between the two times, which really didn't even matter (I just wasted both of our times) Because at the first color station there was HUGE backup and we ran around it.  We were like, "We are not stopping to wait for color. We'll get in on the next one."  And we did.  You still had to walk through the color stations, which was lame, but none of the rest of them were as crowded.  A lot of people were taking their time with this race event and those "walkers" (not the zombie ones) frequently got in the way of the ones who actually wanted to run it (that was us).  We still had fun dodging all the obstacles, remembering to keep our mouths closed, eyes covered and making sure that we were getting colored as rad as possible.

AFTER:

  This was such a super, easy going, happy race with only one casualty- one of Celeste's contacts got slammed with color right at the finish line when she thought it was safe to take off her glasses.  (That dood had better watch his back...)  It was tearfully painful, but she survived and was even able to still drive home. 

I had always wanted to do one of those get colors all over yourself things and to combine it with a race was perfect for me!  I feel so lucky I got to participate. I'd do it again  tomorrow and the next day.

 

 They had some after race fruit and water and a chance to throw your own bag of color into the air with the whole group too.

 They also threw some shirts and other prizes down to the masses.  We hung around and watched probably a little bit too long since I had to be home in time to get Cassidy ready for her dance pictures, but everything still worked out, thank goodness.  It was hard to leave such a fun atmosphere. :)

 At one point during the race, Celeste mentioned it would be fun to do this with our kids next year, but all I could picture were kids crying because they got color in their eyes or someone sprayed their face, yada yada yada...Then I realized what a bad attitude that was.  I mean I could have fun with my kids at an event like this, if I went into it with the right mind set aka a positive one.  So I'm not gonna totally rule it out like I initially did, but it was fun to get away and do this for me this time.

 

 Assessing the damage on the ride home. Ear filled with color-check; hands covered-check; side pony tail dipped in blue-check; color off of teeth and now making its way down my esophagus and stomach-check. #mmmmmcoloredcornstarchforlunch

Made Danielle take a back shot when I got home.  

It's for posterity's sake.

Everything washed off quite easily.  Except some color somehow got infused with the underarm sweat marks of my shirt...it's like the fairy godmother left me my own little glass slipper, but with sweat.

Scenes From the Weekend

 This isn't even everything we did this weekend (Thursday-Saturday). The rest was mostly just cleaning and driving around and selling our crib and stuff.  However, this was also the first week of my exercise for 50 days challenge. No wonder I was so exhausted this weekend with multiple headaches.  

Totally worth it though.

 At one point on Thursday Josh and I had 9 kids over at the house.  My 2 nieces and 2 neighbors.  The neighbor girl had her angry bird shirt and I couldn't resist a pic with Benjamin who was also wearing one of his 2- which is low in comparison with her claim of 100 angry bird shirts. ;)

 

 That night the whole family (minus Samuel who stayed at his Aunt's) got to drive to Lehi to eat lots of concession candy see two of my talented nieces and nephews in their high school musical "Pippin."  Oh, and my cousin's daughter was in it too, so we got to see some of the Beck family there also.

 

 Josh is growing some of his facial hair out. It is starting to make an upward turn and has a reddish tint.  In a few months I picture him looking like Yosemite Sam.  Which could be kinda hot.

 The people in blue were true stand outs in the show. With Victoria as a fabulous featured dancer and Bryson even doing a back flip on stage.   You guys, the stage was unbelievably painted! It was pretty much amazing.  It was cool to see the actual man who designed and painted it when they honored him after the show that night. For a High School, Lehi does a great job on their shows.

 I let Benjamin and Cassidy climb all over this statue in the LHS  lobby. 

 There was no sign saying they couldn't so...

Oh my you guys!  It was total down pour when the show got out.  Made for a more tense journey home.

Much to our friend's dismay the weather stayed cool into the next day. 

  They hosted a birthday party at Murray park.   The kids stayed pretty warm running around. Maybe adults could take notes from kids sometimes because really is standing/sitting around talking really more fun than kicking a ball or rolling down a hill?  Conversation is so overrated. 

We braved the cold for a bit, but when the even cooler wind started up we migrated to their home for the cake. 

someday I will remember not to talk or laugh when I'm recording.  HA! sorry.

My handsome Samuel.

Birthday Girl!

 

Next morning woke up early to be awesome as a last minute replacement in the Color Me Rad 5k.  More on that in the future.

Got home just in time to do Cassidy's hair so Josh could drive her to dance pictures. Then I picked up my two youngest boys from another cousin's birthday party and took Danielle and friends all the way to Draper to audition for a Brandon Mull book trailer (think movie trailer).

Sasha and friends.

That Saturday night I then drove to the Avenues for another birthday party for my dear friend Sasha's 16th Birthday!  Sasha and her family always make me feel so welcomed and loved. I love them!

And I love weekends like this, but I'm pretty sure I we went over on my the gas budget this month....

Amazing

   

 So yeah, I totes got 3rd place out of the females in this 1 mile race!  It was to raise funds for my friend's sister's medical bills.  I'm NOT going to mention the fact that there were only about 20 female runners and two of them were 10 years old....

ah crap.

Danielle ran the race with her friend too. I loved having Danielle there with me.

I'm so blessed to have her in my life.

This race was on a pathway in field with a large hill in the middle and it kicked. my. trash. It was awesome. Except for the cough I had the rest of day.  It was a combo of the wind, weeds and oh yeah, the fact that I inhaled the whole 9 minutes  through my mouth instead of my nose.   #shootiwasnotgoingtotellyoumytimeeither  *face palm*

On another amazing note:  That guy on the left is my husband, Josh.  He does an outstanding job at his place of employment and gets picked for awards for things other than his table tennis skillz. Amazing! Even if they are lame awards, they are still awards and he deserves them and more. So blessed to have him in my life too!

Utah Valley 5k and Steeple2Steeple Chase

When picking up my racing packet for the half marathon the Utah Valley Marathon was recruiting people to sign up for their races in June.  I thought, "what the heck.", and signed up for their 5k.  I need to keep running and future races are the perfect goal.   I was planning on running it by myself and had been trying hard to improve my 3.2 mile time.   Then a week or so before the race my sweet sister, Jennifer, decided she wanted to run it with me.  I think she caught a bit of the running bug from the 5 mile steeple to steeple chase we ran together on Memorial day. She hasn't done those types of distances for years.   More about that later...

So we ran a two times together to get her ready.  I was so impressed with how she kept up with me on these runs.  She is completely a natural and that was confirmed when on the race day she came in only a minute and a half after me. Dang her long legs and stride!  :)

Oh yeah and she just had a baby.

Another fun thing about this race is we "ran" into some old neighbors from Snowflake! The Langston Sisters!  Amy and Rachel.  So cool! sing it with me:  "It's a Small World After All..."

Jennifer and I started the race off together for about 2 miles and then I wanted to really push it so I picked up my speed.  It was awesome.  I was even passing guys and feeling good.   By the time I crossed the finish line, got my timing chip removed and grabbed a creamscicle Jennifer was crossing the finish line!  She is amazing!  I finished 40th in my age group ( I think that will improve since I am in an older age bracket now) and Jennifer finished 20th in hers.
My overall stats were: 
31:14 minutes
average of 10:03 per mile
140/429 for females
241/621 overall

To see some finish line pictures, click link and put in 251 as the bib number.  :)
http://www.brightroom.com/view_event.asp?EVENTID=63501&PWD=

Not too bad.  I'm happy and excited to keep improving.  I just know I can get these short legs to go faster!

So my niece, Kaylee, likes to edit pictures and I think she does a great job until she calls us old and draws canes into our before the race picture....haha.  :D  (I srsly laughed a whole day over that picture.  too perfect.)

Now back to the Steeple2Steeple Chase.  It is 5miles from the Oquirrh Mountain temple to the Jordan River Temple.  Steeple to Steeple.  :)   They did one last year that I didn't know about, and to prepare for the 2nd annual steeple chase in Sept., they had a practice run on Memorial day morning.  Jennifer told me about it.    Some of our cousins kids were in town and so Jenn invited them to do it too.

My daughter, Danielle, wanted to run it with her cousins also. Before the race I was surprised to see my Mother in law show up to walk the 5miles with her friends.   I stuck with Jennifer for the first 3ish miles.  She had the stroller and several of her kids walk/running with her , but it was fun to hang out with her and I was her birthday too.  When I couldn't take it anymore, I  booked it the rest of the way to the finish line.  So fun to see so many people I knew along the way AND I got to run on a pedestrian bridge over Bangerter Hwy!!  I have always wanted go on one of those things.  So with the slow start I finished in about 60 mins.  Not too shabby.

All the family that participated.

And they gave medals leftover from last year.  I'm pretty much obsessed with getting medals now.  The UV 5k didn't give them out.  :(   I will now look for races that do.  :)

My HALF Marathon (HoneyBuckets)*new pics*

In the fall of '09, I heard of a friend that was going to run a half marathon.  After 3+ years of sitting around on my tush doing nothing and my whole quarter-life crisis thing, I had been looking for some motivation.  I thought to myself, "I could do that.  I am going to do that." So, after cross-training for about 5 months, running in the cold, snowy, winter mornings, 3 week break due to knee issues, slaving away on making matching racing shirts, watching my food intake, finding out I had strep throat, stuck in bed 2 days before the race,  the day finally arrived of the Salt Lake Half Marathon!   I was so upset that few days before when I wasn't sure that after all the training I might not be able to run.   Thank heavens for fast-acting antibiotics!   I was feeling pretty good the day before and so I went ahead and decided to run in the race.

Early the morning of the race I met up with Amy R. (my running partner/friend) at her house and then drove on downtown to the trax station to hitch a free ride up to the Olympic Bridge by the U.   The trax were SO full of people that it kept scraping the bottom!  They even had to stop it for a few minutes to shift everyone's weight around and we still leaned significantly to the side on the turns.  It actually felt like a Lagoon ride.  Would've been more fun if the lives of thousands of athletes didn't hang in the balance. =)  So we get there and there are massive amounts of people.  Like Whoa.  Got in very long line to use the "HoneyBucket" port-a-potties, but it was totally worth it because by the time I got up to the HoneyBuckets, I needed to go and there was no way I would want to stop during the race to use the ones along the way, if I didn't have to, and believe it or not, there were long lines out in front of those HoneyBuckets too. (HoneyBuckets! is my new favorite fake swear word.)

  We were given a chip to wear to record our time, so it didn't matter when you started, which was good because we were waiting in line for the HoneyBuckets when the race officially "started".   We started out great and the first 6 miles just flew by.

I even got to see my Danielle, my niece Kaylee, and my friend Becky and her family helping at one of the hydration stations. That was a welcome sight! The water and the familiar faces. =) 

Then, I started to feel more tired than usual and I'm sure it was because I wasn't fully recovered from the strep throat.  At mile seven, I let Amy R. go on ahead and kick butt on her own accord.   It was sad, but we had decided to not hold each other back on race day and I had promised my Mom I wouldn't over do it since I had been in bed all week.   It did give me a chance to listen to my new ipod shuffle and some super, ultra, mega, platinum (SUMP)songs my friend put together for me.   But I have never walked/ran so much in training as I did in that last 4 miles. On the surface it was disappointing, but deep down I knew I was doing my best for my situation and I knew I was at least going to finish.

I met some new people along the way that were looking to chat to pass the time, so that was nice.  Hi Stephanie, Bill and other lady, I forgot your name sorry!  :)  I call them my angels, because I get delirious when I've been running that long and they were sweet and really did help pass the time. One of the best things about doing this race was all the people I met while waiting in lines for race packets, on the trax and during the race. If you ever run the SL half marathon there is a long hill going north on State Street up to South Temple.  It is a killer and most of the people around me were walking up it.  That made me feel a bit better. =)  Finally made it to the Gateway where the finish line was and I welcomed my second wind like a piece of cheesecake.  Ugh, felt so good!  I yelled to Bill, "Let's Push It!" Came around the corner and saw my family waving and cheering.  It was a great feeling seeing them there!  I look like a doofus in the pics Josh took.  Maybe my Mom got some better ones....

Just about a block away from this was the finish line.   Crossing it was heaven, I almost died from relief.  As I stumbled over to pick up my medal I started to fall into the lady handing them out.  She quickly asked if I was okay and I replied,"As soon as you give me one of those I will be."  =)  (Zero verbal filter at that point too.) And I actually did feel pretty good from there on out. I figure that's because I didn't/couldn't push myself as much as let's say Amy R.   She finished 7 minutes before me.  That could have been me.  Natch!   Next time I am going to push myself.  Yes, there will probably be a next time.  I didn't think I would do another one, but I know I can do better. So maybe in a year or so.  ;)  Til then, it's going to be 5 and 10k.  I have really enjoyed running, being back out in nature and the feeling of accomplishment.  I am so thankful I was able to do this and for all the support from family and friends.

The "back" stretch.

My good friend Amy R.  (Amy #1) decided she wanted to run one also and kindly joined me as a running partner.  We live far enough away that we could only run the long runs on the weekends together.   This was a HUGE help to me.  Originally, I thought I would be training on my own, but seeing how difficult it was, I honestly don't know if I could have done it without someone.  Especially those 8,9,10,11,12 mile weekend runs.  Thank you SO much Amy #1 for all your encouragement and positivity and laughs.  Love you, girl!

We slaved over our matching t shirts.  Would've given up on getting the iron-on transfers to work if we didn't have so much fun being together.

We got dozens of comments on them and that made the race just that much more fun!  Except it wasn't as funny when I was actually walking when they would run by and say they liked it.  =)  HoneyBuckets!

Amy #2 and Amy #1  We. Rule.

My medal.  Always wanted one of those.  They never tell you in high school that if you don't get one there you can get them in city races just for finishing. =)

The Family that came to support.  That's my niece Kaylee in the back and I loved that my Mom got to come and watch.  Josh's mom, Nana, was there too.  She said she was in some other pictures on my Mom's camera.  That better be right.  I want proof she was there.  She was a huge help!  So glad it's over!
 Click for more pictures taken by photogs: Just put in my race number:4378 and select Salt Lake Marathon 2010


 I'm in some of these pictures too

# of finishers-

4378

MyTime-

2:38:30

Average Min per Mile-12:05

Age Div. Place- 532 / 623

Overall Place-3908 /4632

Female Place-2297 /2886