Ok Go Dance Party

Seth Eating His Words

The Women in My Family

Seth and His Friend Riding in Missouri The Boys and Their Bikes

Me with 2 extraordinary women

Pictures of My Life

Botanical Garden in Oregon
Riding

Me - Sister

My Cute Mom

MS 150 Ride Logan, Utah

Charlotte and I taking a Break from Riding in Oregon

Himalyas

The Lost Coast Century Ride

Seth doing Yoga

Backpacking in Utah with Friends and Puppies
Prayer Flags

Biking in Nor-Cal

4th of July with my Younger Bigger BrotherSister - Mom - Me

Seth on the Tibeto-Indian Border

Pictures from this Past Year

Kiowa waiting patiently for Seth to come home.Seth giving a child a health exam.
My Sister and I on a ride in Northern California.

Duner again

So you may be checking to find out which mile at completely bonked at...I applaud your interest. At mile 6 I decided to do the entire marathon, I was feeling really good all my joints and muscles felt great...I was pretty excited. So I passed the half marathon turn off without a doubt that the full marathon was for me...don't get me wrong it was the right choice. I would have felt cheated if I only did the half. I HAD to do the full. I felt great until mile 13...uhhh...yeah I still had 13 more miles to run. Every mile was torture and I don't think it was my lack of training or my injuries that made this race hard...the hills made this bad boy a beast of a thing. They kept taking us to parks with hills...we were going out of our way to run hills. It was a cruel and mean race. I don't think I have ever inflicted that much pain on myself since my teenage years and that was just emotional pain. This was some serious physical pain. My quads were tore up...I was tore up...my mind was fried, and then I finally crossed the finish line to my relief...my time was 4:25:25...So I give a shout out to my Mom who knew I would be too proud to quit.

I was 100 yards from the finish...I was toast by this point.



I am taking an ice bath in hopes that I will be able to walk again.

DNF - Did NOT Finish

I am afraid my worse fear has been realized...a DNF on a race record. Well I am going to get my first one this weekend. I am not very happy with that...actually I think my heart is breaking a little bit. My right quad is pretty pissed at me at the moment and I don't know what kind of propaganda she is telling the rest of my body - but whatever she is saying it's working. My ankle won't heal from the sprain that happened a 1.5 months ago. Also my hips are all jacked up...they're all super tight and not in a 'Man that girls got tight hips' kind of way, if you know what I'm saying. My knee hurts because of the stupid quad and her big mouth. Well my brain is the only one really on my side...she thinks we can do the marathon on our own and we don't need the rest of the body to agree. I am going to hate to inform that brain of mine that we in fact have to have a unanimous vote on if we are or aren't going to run that blasted marathon together or not. We can't really do it on our own. But I think we are still going to try are ‘darndest’ to do it. It’s just a stupid running race…it’s really a fake sport anyway.

I am still going to start the race and watch the train wreck happen…oh wait I am going to be the train wreck…this totally sucks! I’m not used to having my body reject my racing plans completely…my real big concern is that I have a half iron man to do in 5 or 6 weeks and I can’t be out of commission to too long before that race.

I think we should have a pool on which mile I will quit at. So put in your guess and if you are correct you will get a shout out on the page.

I hate running.

It's Not Going to be Pretty

(Deep Breath) It's a good thing I am not catholic...I can barely handle confessing on my blog about my training sins, let alone worldly sins. So it has been a long time since my last confession/post...where do I begin? Lets see...it has been 1 month since my last long run of 18 miles. Yeah...I wish I could tell you I did a lot of short runs instead, but I didn't because I am over running. I'm just done...put a fork in me. Last Saturday I strained my quad...it was pretty painful so I stayed off if it for the last week (it was pretty easy to stay off of it since I was barely using it in the first place). I was able to bike and swim just fine...I even put in a 140 miles on the bike and my leg felt great...but I just went out for my first run since I strained my quad. Hmmmm....It wasn't awwwful, but it sure wasn't great...it was really tight and that was just after 3 miles. I have no idea what will happen at the marathon on Saturday. At this point I would be pleasantly surprised if I complete it and especially if I do it under 5 hours. I am having a mild panic attack.



Also, this is a picture of me taking first place at a duathlon in Lawrence, KS...it was pretty awesome.

Apocalypse Now

I never really understood what Apocalypse meant until now. Apparently it means the end of the world and right about now that is exactly how I feel...I take that back I feel that I am standing on the edge of a canyon watching the end of the world coming my way...in slow motion...and no, the theme song for Chariots of Fire is not playing. Actually in my world the theme song for Darth Vader is playing it is full of darkness and doom...it plays every time I think about the marathon. I am running a 26.2 mile race that I have not trained for...yeah if that doesn't scare ya I don't know what will....because I am going to die. During my last marathon I would pass medical tents and see them packed full of suckers who tried to run the marathon but couldn't. This year that is going to be me. The worse part is that it is too late for me to even pretend to train. I am a dead woman...shhh what’s that sound...is that Darth Vader’s theme music playing? Which I now dub as my own. I think I am getting an ulcer. However I will have a game plan by the start of the race...I'm not sure what that plan will include but I am hoping to keep heavy narcotics out of it.

Swimming like a Mermaid....Who Just Got Caught in an Exxon Oil Spill

I am trying to swim more consistently...well I want to swim a lot before my half iron man. Whenever I do the swim portion of any triathlon I always think to myself - 'You idiot why didn't you just train for the swim. You know you hate the swim, so you'd think you would have trained just to make this moment in you life a little more bearable.' Well Miss. Split Personality I am training to make my swim more bearable and perhaps a little less pathetic. However my swim coach has made no such promise. So today I went swimming and I think I may have made some serious improvements on my stroke. My coach said it look beautiful. Now lets just hope it will beautiful when I am in open water with 300 other swimmers fighting for dear life. I have no doubt that I will resort to a panicked look and very ugly swim/float/try not to die stroke. Yes I know, I keep my expectation bar pretty high.

Mountain Biking - Best Biking Friend Forever or Foe

I'm not going to lie to you Mountain Biking and I have had a very rocky relationship. You could say it has been a love/hate relationship with a whole lot of hate and a little bit of love. I think I loved the idea of mountain biking. I loved to think that I was tough...however I hated the fact that I wasn't tough, but more so I hated that I sucked. But, I kept trying to mountain bike and that resulted in physical and emotion scarring. Then I walked away from mountain biking. Years later this last fall to be exact my husband thought it was time to get me my very own mountain bike...a nice one...one that I could really connect with and build a lasting relationship with. I like to call it my therapy bike...it was going to have to be patient, understanding, and yet it would still have to challenge me. Basically it had to be all of these things while I was tearing it up. For real I got on that bike and I was out of control. It was so much fun, all these years I have been riding on crappy mountain bikes...I think that hindered my growth and love of the sport. Since the fall I have been riding in the Midwest. The Midwest has been good for my mountain biking skills, but everyone know the real fun stuff is in Moab. Two weeks ago I had my first meeting with Moab on a bike. I will admit I was a little nervous...I didn't know if Moab was going to be cool with me or all up in my face. I will cut the suspense. Moab was way cool to me. We totally got along. I rode Slick Rock for the first time...I loved it. It was different than the Midwest of course, yes there could have been moments on the trail when I was convinced I was going to crash hard and die in the middle of the desert and have vultures make a meal of my sorry trash. To my surprise and delight I didn't die. I actually had a great time. I look forward to going back and trying more trails. I think my therapy bike has nearly cured me of my fears. So to answer my own question mountain Biking is defiantly a friend, maybe even BBFF.

33 Days Until my Demise

I have 33 days left until my marathon...which I now need to start rationalizing my potential marathon time. I thought it would be great if I could run it in 4:15 but now I am rethinking my time. This last weekend I ran my first long run, 18 miles. It was awful! My body just hurt...I don't like running very much. I no heart running. Since I don't like to run I will run 20 miles later this week. I am very excited.

Kirksville - Lawrence - Denver - Salt Lake City - Moab

We are on our spring break trip, and we are having a blast. Yesterday Seth and I competed in a duathalon in Lawrence, KS both Seth and I did very well and we had a great time doing it. It was a 2 mile trail run, 10 mile mountain bike, 2 mile trail run. It was so much fun. We both got hurt I sprained my ankle and Seth tweeked his knee. Other than that it was perfect weather, great trails, nice people and most of all it was just great to get out and play.

Today we stopped in SLC for a family dinner because it was my birthday - happy birthday to me. It was a great party with great people and great food.

Tomorrow we head down to Moab where I will be riding on slick rock for the very first time. I have heard so much about mountain biking in Moab I feel as if we already going to be BFF or BBF (best biking friends). I will let you know how it goes...chance are I will come home with stiches or road rash.

American SuperStar!

I have been feeling like such a lazy loaf of cinnamon raisin bread. This whole time I have been blaming myself because of my lack of motivation, drive, determination, and overall health. Well I’m done blaming myself! I am an American! I can blame other people for my shortcomings…and that is exactly what I am going to do. Starting with Mother Nature, man I don’t know what’s happened to this woman is past relationships with Mr. Spring, but she is pissed at him…how do I know this? Well obviously she is showing off all the marvelous things she can do with Mr. Winter…like freeze entire towns in ice like a mutant would in X-Man. She is being all crazy like telling Mr. Spring to come hang out for like a day then she and Mr. Winter will show up and ruin the party for everyone by kicking Mr. Spring out and freezing everyone out for weeks after that. You know what they say ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’. That and she is all super needy with Mr. Winter making sure he never leaves her and all that junk…so typical. Well he better leave her because -it’s freezing – it’s March and I have a race to train for and I don’t run/bike indoors. My advice to Mother Nature; Get over it, lose the boyfriend and give Spring another chance.
I also blame work. Don’t get me wrong I don’t work a lot, but once I am really ready to go train – I realize it’s time to go to work. Work you are just a distraction. I need to get sponsored soon so I can train year round without having to go to a ‘day job’. Sheez!

Hmmm…whom else can I blame? This should be like an Oscar thank you speech. I want to blame my 10th grade soccer coach for never believing in me, and the runner who flew passed my on a steep uphill teaching me the lesson to give up, stop trying because the man will keep you down. Most of all I want to blame the Republicans. Nothing personal to the Republican Party, It’s just the only group I can blame and still have the whole country on my side.

That’s all – I’m just the victim.

My shame has kept me away

Sorry that I was gone for so long. I have a lot of things that are coming up and I didn't want to talk about them... mainly because my training has been ugly - beyond ugly - sweet spirit kind of ugly. Let me fill you in on the upcoming race.

Louisville, KY Marathon
Q. Do I run at least 3 days during the week?
A. No
Q. Have I been running my long runs on the weekends?
A. No
Q. Have I been running at all!
A. No, not really
Q. Am I panicking about the race that is 9 weeks away?
A. Most definitely!
Q. Do I have anything to say in my defense?
A. Not like it matters, but I was sick 3 times in the last 8 weeks, the weather has been awful, I have been out of town over a few weekend, and I get depressed and lazy during the winter...none of this matters because April 28th will be the day of truth and no matter what I say I will still have to run 26.2 miles all the while those excuses will be running through my head and I will hope that my body will have some sympathy on me and spare me much pain and agony. However I consider that doubtful.

Do you see why I have been avoiding this topic?

I am committing myself again to get back on my running schedule and get psyched and pumped about the marathon.

Next time I will talk about how my triathlon training is going…prep yourselves it is going to be a sob story.

Freezing Rain

We just had a freezing rain storm this week. Freezing rain is awful! It is so dangerous and crippling to the communities it affects. However there is a hidden beauty to freezing rain, when the sun finally comes out of hidding everything covered in ice lights up. It's magical. This picture was the best one I had that exhibited the sparkling features that I love so much.