The marathon family

We are back from our big weekend in Seattle. It was amazing, and I can't believe it, but I can't wait to run another 1/2 marathon. The picture above is of 2 friends and me after the marathon. More pictures will be coming soon.

I took things a little slower than my usual pace for the first 10 miles, because I had no idea what I was going to have to pull out for the last 3. I had to stop and stretch my IT band at mile 11 for a few minutes, and then I kicked it in for the last 2 miles. My time was 2:22:40. I had no idea what my time could be, and my only goal was to not walk. I now know I was a big, fat wimp and I've got a time to beat. I wasn't even stiff or sore afterward. I should have pushed myself much harder. But it is actually good I didn't--because the rest of the fam needed a caretaker after the race.

Mark--that foxy, buff, athletic, 40-year-old husband of mine, had a goal. He ran the LA Marathon 17 years ago with a 4:22:30 time. He wanted to beat that time and beat it big. He trained very hard, and he was able to knock off almost 40 minutes, finishing in 3:44:50--faster than 88% of the other marathoners. Now his sights are set on Boston. He has to get 3:20:59 to qualify. We are going to Las Vegas in december to run the Rock N Roll there. I know I can easily knock off 22 minutes from mine, and I know that Mark will substantially improve his time as well.

Abram was amazing. He was there at the family reunion area waiting for me, and he had been there about a half hour. His 1/2 marathon time was 1:52:40--also in the top 12%. What a kid! He spent 2 months of training out with patellar tendonitis. He only 1 month ago was able to start running again. He's got some talent for sure. And lots of willpower like his daddy.

Jake did really well. He finished about 1/2 hour after I did, and I was so relieved to see him coming through. I felt like such an irresponsible mother leaving him in Tukwila, Washington to find his corral at the start line, just hoping I would find him a few hours later in downtown Seattle. He made it in about 2:54-ish.

My sister Nancy ran the full marathon, but we ran the first 9 miles together. It flew by so fast as we sang with the bands, laughed at some crazy people, and she worked the spectators for high-fives. It was so fun to have her with us for the weekend, and I can't believe she finished her 2nd marathon in 2 months.

Now we're on to Las Vegas December 6th. Mark is shooting for a more Boston-qualifying time, and I want to finish the 1/2 in under 2 hours. This week is rest and recovery, but starting next week, it will all start again.

Mark's brother Josh took some great pics of us the morning after the marathon. I will post those as soon as I have them. I didn't know we were having a photo shoot, or I would have at least brushed my hair or washed my face that morning. But they look fantastic and I can't wait to post them.

The traveler has returned

Excuse the lengthiness of this post. I'm catching up from being gone for a while.

School ended on June 11th, and I picked up the kids and we hit the road. We drove that night to Boise where we stayed at Mark's brother's house. The kids love David and Michelle's fun house and backyard.

We made it to Salt Lake the next afternoon. It was so fun to see my family again. I especially loved to see my dad all healthy and hairy again. The last time I saw him was in November in the middle of his chemo. The kids loved listening to his stories and playing around outside with Grandpa.

Saturday I went to a baby shower for a cousin and saw many cousins and aunts that I rarely get to see. Such a fun family. My Grandmpa B is the cutest, though. I love her and want to be her when I grow up. Sunday we went to my parent's church. It is strange that while my parents are all young and hip-looking, most of the other people whom I knew as a child look ancient--seriously senior citizens. A few of my parent's friends still look the same, but I was stunned with how OLD many of them looked. I haven't aged a day.........

Monday we went to visit grandparents. First it was the Bradleys, where the kids headed to the basement to play while I visited with them. Joel made the rounds through their house to count all 148 of their paintings, and 18 candle sticks. Then we all squished into my van for lunch at McDonald's. I hadn't eaten at that McDonald's in 20 years--since sneaking away from Skyline during Journalism for french fries with Elaina. After lunch we went to visit my G&G Breinholt. The kids love their yard, and played Jarts--yes, those fun and dangerous lawn darts from 30 years ago. Nobody got hurt--at least with the lawn darts. The fun came when the little kids got out the croquet set. Savanna and her cousin Truman were innocently playing croquet, when Truman lifted the mallet for his backswing and popped Savanna right in the mouth. When she pulled her hands away from her face, there was a lot of blood--and a missing tooth. Truman was horrified and ran to hide under the picnic table. Savanna calmed down quickly when we found her tooth in the grass. It was very loose and would have come out in a couple of weeks. I told Truman that I owed him money for the extraction. Then it was swimming time at Grandma Jean's. We were all shaking our heads in amazement when we were leaving Jean's to go back to my mom's house and Zack said, "No. First I need a Rice Krispie treat." He was ONE YEAR OLD last summer when were last there. Jean always has Rice Krispie treats in her pantry for the kids. I said, "OK, Zack, where are they?" He walked right over and opened the cupboard that had the treats in it. I knew he was a smart boy, but this was unbelievable that he remembered this from a year ago when he was one!!!

Monday evening Noah became very lethargic. He didn't want to eat or move or talk. His fever suddenly spiked, and by the time I got him to the urgent care, it was nearing 104! His oxygen was way down, and he was one sick boy. It ended up that he had strep throat (despite not having a sore throat). Amoxacillin and albuterol helped him to a quick recovery by Wednesday, but Tuesday we just hung around my mom's with the sickie.

Wednesday we went to Lagoon--the kids very favorite thing to do in Utah. It was a very rainy morning, which didn't phase us at all. But it did scare most other people from braving Lagoon that day. By 12:30, the rain had stopped and the park was pretty much empty. The kids spent all day running onto rides over and over. No lines at all--ever! It was a great day.

Thursday we went to lunch at Hires, then Lyon and Healy for harp music, and then back to grandma's to swim and play outside. Friday morning I took the kids to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. It was fun to take them inside a temple. They have always wanted to see inside, and they loved it. Afterward, there were cookies for everyone, and I was relieved when the kids all told me as they choked down their cookies that my cookies were WAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than the temple cookies. But we were all starving, so we ate them anyway.

Friday night my whole family met up Millcreek Canyon for a cookout. It was fun to see everyone all together. We stayed as long as we could until we were all freezing, and then we headed home smelling like a campfire.

Saturday morning I spent packing up all our stuff and getting ready to hit the road. But first I gave haircuts to 2 nieces, one nephew and Zack. And then the traditional lunch at Artic Circle with my family before we headed back to town. It's always sad to say goodbye to them.

And as always, it was great to walk in the door of our house. We all missed Mark so much, and after driving 800 miles with 7 kids, I was very glad to be home.

Ankle trouble

Why do I run? I keep having trouble with different parts of my body. I keep telling myself that once I get really efficient with my biomechanics and fast with my pace these problems will go away. I still think they will. I'm not getting old or anything.

At first it was my right IT band. I couldn't go 2 miles without extreme pain on the outside of my kneecap. Then that resolved itself and I suddenly began having IT band problems with my left knee. Very severe problems, coupled with a cramping gluteus medius.

Physical therapy and ice helped the IT band situation. I strengthened muscles in my hips that help the IT band stay in place, and now it doesn't bother me at all.

Now it's my left ankle.

I don't know what I did. The theory is that this is not related to running at all, and that somehow I tripped and strained something without knowing it. If you know me at all, I am a huge klutz, and I trip over things (and over nothing) several times a day. Anyway, 2 1/2 weeks ago as I was running, after about 1 mile I started to hear a strange rhythm with my pace. It sounded like a horse. My left foot was making a normal motion and sound, but my right foot was flat. Every time it hit the ground it was flat--no heel to toe at all. When I got to the top of the hill, I sat down to see what was going on. I discovered that I could not rotate my ankle at all and it had locked up at 90 degrees.

I stretched a bit, and sat down again and was able to move my ankle in circles. I did that for about 5 minutes, and then stretched my calves again, and I finished my run without a problem. The same thing has happened every morning for the past 2 1/2 weeks.

I went to the doctor for an x-ray, and nothing was stress-fractured. He sent me to the PT last week, who noticed that my right ankle is significantly weaker than the left one. He gave me some exercises to help strengthen and stretch things out, along with an electro-cortisone patch. That seems to be helping a bit, but I needed something more.

Today I went to see if a massage therapist could help work out whatever the problem was. She worked my foot and ankle over quite well, but she did a couple of unusual things; first, she pulled out a huge tuning fork, hit it on the table and touched the end of it on different parts of my foot. It felt kind of strange to have those vibrations going into my foot, but kind of cool at the same time. She said that it was "vibration therapy--it is the future." OK. Then she pulled out some Chinese Snake Oil Linament. She rubbed it into my foot and told me the herbs would penetrate my skin and help to heal things in my ankle. I don't know about that, but it sure was stinky.

I actually think my ankle feels better, but I can't say that I attribute it to the vibration therapy or snake oil. Just the good, old, working the big knot out of the bottom of my foot. I had angry, angry muscles all over my foot and lower leg.

We'll find out tomorrow morning when I run if I need to buy some tuning forks.

Huh?

Maybe I shouldn't post this. I'll probably get some hate-mail. But this post has been brewing in my head all week.

Maybe I am just too old-fashioned, or intolerant, or hate-filled. But there are just some things that really I don't understand or appreciate as much as apparently I should. I consider myself a very loving, accepting, friendly person. I love having friends from all different places, opinions and walks of life. I do not mean to offend anyone reading this who may fall into one of the following descriptions--it's just something that is way beyond what I think is cool. But I like Leave It To Beaver, baking cookies, and running in the wee hours of the morning--maybe it is ME who is not cool.

Anyway.....

There was a time when I was little that Scott and I would raid the National Geographic issues at my grandma's house to see crazy pictures of Africans with stretched out necks, facial piercings, big hoops inside their earlobes and nothing on their bodies. It was a little disturbing, but our curiosity always got the best of us. We would stare at the pictures and laugh and be very grateful for our normal lives. And then we would go steal some jello powder from grandma's kitchen drawer and eat it. Life was good.

I could have never imagined that when I was a mom I would be able to see these same sorts of disturbing sights at my local grocery store or school. The piercings all over are just not something I can anyhow appreciate. However, I should be grateful to people who pierce their tongues. We have made plenty of money from people who cracked a tooth on their tongue piercing--crown anyone? Gaged ears? Are you kidding me? Do people really think that makes them more attractive? It's just sad to me. Somehow, when it was the Africans in National Geographic with gaged earlobes, it was OK, and I figured that it was some important cultural display of power of beauty. But here? Today? What is it proving? I just don't get it.

Now, I admit, I was a little slow on the piercing bandwagon. I didn't get my ears pierced until I was 27, and even now I think the biggest earrings I wear are about 1/2 inch in diameter. But my earlobes are my one perfect feature, and I like to show them off. I understand the ear piercing--just not the mutilation of gaging.

When I was in 9th grade, Ms. Daniels/Dustman/Star/Star-Hart/Now just Star again, had us read The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. It is a collection of freaky/sci-fi/futurish/thought-provoking short stories. The Illustrated Man of said book is covered head to toe in tattoos of stories that come to life, and he wanders around sharing these moving tattoos. The cover of this book gave me nightmares. It still does. Only at the time, I thought it was just an artist's rendering of something that could never be. I could never have imagined that I would actually someday see an illustrated man.

Tattoos don't bother me. I would never get one myself, but I know that people do, and that a tattoo can be a work of art. Our neighbor has the cutest one on his arm with his wife's name on it that he got when he was in the army 50 years ago. Other people I know get them to signify certain events or places they have been. I can get that. Go for it. Sleeves--whatever. That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking extreme.

What I'm talking about is the full-face tattoo. I have seen a few of these--and not just on commercials on TLC. One man I saw had a checkerboard tattooed all over his face and bald head and neck. Seriously--all over. I saw someone else with tiger stripes all over his head and face.

Please don't hate me. I totally understand that each of us is just doing what we can to get through life. I have just been thinking this week about how crazy it is that these sights I used to see only in pictures as a child are now just part of what is considered normal.

I'll get back to watching Leave It To Beaver now.