Saturday, April 25, 2009

Spring time means...BaSeBaLL



For some reason spring time and baseball just seem to go hand in hand. Maybe because of spring training and all of the fun spring training games we went to in Arizona. We have traded games to the Mariners for games to the Tigers...no not the Detroit TIgers but the Buchanan Tigers!!! Zack decided to play Cal Ripken for Buchanan instead of Riverpark this year. He has done a great job at catcher. His batting has improved and he is enjoying it. His good friend Tyler in on his team. He also has some other good friends on other teams. Hopefully next year we can get them all on the same team. Go Tigers!!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The Great Race!






A few months ago my running buddies and I decided we needed a race to train for. We thought it would be nice to find a Saturday race and was pretty close to home so we started our search. We soon found The Great Race of Agoura Hills. After some very brief research we discovered that Agoura Hills was about 3 1/2 hours south of here so we all payed our entry fee and signed up. About a month later I was beginning to wonder a bit more about the race. I got online and started to do a bit more research regarding the race. I quickly found out that the race was VERY hilly ( is that even a word???). I began to panic. I am not a huge fan of running hills. While running in Michigan (were there are a ton of hills) my hill running mantra was "I LOVE HILLS" to help me make it up the hills. Well, there are not very many hills to train on here but we had already signed up so we kept training.

I kept reading online about the race. I found discussions about the hills and began to worry even more!! On person posted that there was one hill he couldn't even get his car up. Knowing this...we still pressed forward. The day before the race we drove to Agoura Hills and Jer asked if I wanted to drive the course. I declined...I believe that ignorance is bliss!! I woke up the next morning, ran through my pre-race routine and headed off to the starting line. We started the race (after freezing for about 40 minutes) and soon after we started we came to our first of MANY hills. We ran hill after hill after hill. It was CraZy!!!! Em and I ran all of the way together and made it up all the hills to the finish.

We made it in 2:18. Normally I wouldn't be too proud of this time but with all of the hills we ran I was so happy with our time. It was a Great Race and I was so very grateful for 2 cortisone shots (one in each of my hips) to get me through! I honestly think that it was mentally as challenging as a marathon!! Speaking of marathons...our running group is signed up and waiting to see if we get into the St George Marathon in the Fall. Wish us luck....:-)