My race in pictures

The Ogden Half Marathon course is amazingly beautiful.  I loved this race.

The race started in Eden, Utah on the far side of the reservoir.  It was a beautiful run around the reservoir and across the dam.  I was feeling good and stayed on pace.

After we crossed the dam we headed down Ogden Canyon.  If you know me, you know I LOVE rivers, and I absolutely loved running along the river looking at how I would run the river in a kayak if I ever had the chance.  I also kept looking up at the rock formations of the canyon and it made me think about my dad--the whole time!  My dad taught me to love geology.  He taught me about how canyons were formed, what the different rock strata told about the formations, how glaciers can carve a canyon, where fossils will likely be found, where you might discover some hieroglyphics under a rocky ledge and everything you can imagine about rockhounding.  He taught me to love rocks and to try to learn from the rocks and formations around me.  So I thought a lot about my cute dad while I ran, and this made the time go very fast down the canyon.  I was hot and tired but it was great.

I  knew the hardest part of the race was going to be the last 3 miles.  After 10 miles of a generally downhill course, I knew that when my legs hit the flat part of the course in Ogden it was going to be difficult to keep my legs going.  And it was!  I slowed down to about a 10-minute-mile pace for miles 10-12, but that is all my legs had in them.  And then we turned the corner onto Grant Ave and I could see the finish banner over the street a mile ahead of me.  So I turned on my turbo boost.

Once this sign was in my sights I ran much faster.  I ran the last mile in about 8 minutes, and I was so happy to finally step over that mat at the finish line.  I couldn't believe that I had not hurt my knee in this race!  It was exhilarating, and I cried knowing that I had just run my fastest race.

 I posed for a picture with my medal in the finishers area.  It was easy to give a big smile because the day had been so great.  So was it my new shoes, my new headband, or the fact that this was my first race where my hair was long enough for one ponytail that made the difference?  I may never know.

Next up:  Seattle Rock and Roll half on June 23rd!

An exciting week

Monday we spent the entire day cleaning the garage and hanging bikes.  The older kids spent several hours outside with the backpack sprayers killing weeds, I cleaned out my car (but apparently not thoroughly enough...read on), and we had a fun dinner together.  Mark and the boys were in charge of getting the entire flag route for their boy scout fundraiser, which took about 4 hours of the day--with 2 separate cars going and placing and then collecting the flags.  I really don't like Monday holidays, because after all the business you still have to get kids in bed and things cleaned up and ready for a day of work and school the next morning.

Yesterday I had the craziest thing happen.  I had just gone out to lunch with one of my YW who is graduating from high school, and as we drove away from the restaurant she noticed something crazy... And weird... And creepy.

There was a tiny spider web going from my center console up to the dashboard, and on that tiny little tightrope there were about 200 baby spiders climbing around!!!  They were bright yellow and sooo small.  Then we looked and they were all over the front seat and the center console.  We screamed a little and I said, "I think we should pull over."  So I pulled over into the first parking lot we came to and we madly flung hundreds of baby spiders out of my car.  After we calmed ourselves down we continued our journey to our shopping destination.  We had to kill about 5 more spiders on the way, but then we didn't see any more of them.  But I found one when I drove the kids to school this morning.  That was freaky and hopefully it is over.

Yesterday morning I noticed that Noah's cheeks were all red.  This is nothing new, because Noah is usually running around doing something crazy.  But then I realized he had just rolled out of bed and taken a shower, so they shouldn't have been red from anything he had been doing.  He felt great and I took him to school.

When I picked him up at school I noticed the red cheeks were still bright red, and that his neck looked a bit red as well.  As soon as we got home and I got a good look at him I realized that his red cheeks were not from his exertion at his recess at the end of the day, but rather he had somehow contracted Fifth Disease.  I was 98% sure this was the case, but I gave him Benadryl just in case it was an allergic reaction to something.  The rash didn't stop and has not made its way all over his belly and onto the tops of his arms.  It's a virus that causes pretty much only this crazy rash, but it is highly contagious.  So Noah is in quarantine again...but this time all alone.  This year has been crazy for how many days my kids have missed school from being sick.  Normally it just a few, but for Noah I think this was 12!

Next year everyone will be at a new school...hopefully not as germy as this charter school has been for my little guys.

Today I was dropping Joel off at school and Mark called in a panic because all of the office computers except for his office one were not working at all.  I figured that they were blowing something simple out of proportion (as usual), but when I arrived I found that indeed only the server and Mark's computer could see each other...nobody else was on the network.

I have no idea what is going on, but somehow all of the computers except for the server and Mark's had been kicked off of the network and their ip address erased.  And the network will not assign any automatic IPs.  So I manually assigned the 10 computers an IP for now, and everyone can see each other, use Dentrix and take x-rays now.  I will have to go tonight and figure out what is really going on.   It's all crazy and I really don't know what I am doing, but hopefully it will become apparent what I need to do tonight.

So that has been my exciting week so far... And it's only Wednesday!

The race

 Mark took this picture of me the night before the race after we got or bibs pinned on.  The bib pinning is a huge tradition.  I helped Stephen get his bib pinned on in just the right place.

 After the bibs are pinned, then we have to swish our arms to make sure that the bibs are not pinned in a place that our arm swinging will catch.

I had the best race of my life.  Actually, even though it was my 7th half-marathon, it was my first race.  By this I mean that in all previous attempts at the distance, my knee has gone out on me and I had to stop and stretch and walk parts of the race.  It always made me so sad to never have a chance to just run as fast as I could.  This race was my day.  Considering the training I did (after taking much of the winter off because I was too wimpy) I am super happy with my time.  I finished the race in 2:06:39!  My goal going in was to keep around a 9:30 pace, and I did it.  Even when I was coming down the canyon and it was so easy to go fast I made myself slow down because I knew once we hit flat ground in town it was going to be hard to finish that last 3 miles.  And it WAS hard.  Miles 12-13 were tough for me, but once the finish line was in sight I took off and finished fast.  It was so fun, and of course I cried at the finish line.

 Mark's race didn't quite go as he had planned.  His goal is to run a sub-3-hour marathon.   He had trained for it, but this was not his day.  At mile 13 had slowed way down from his needed pace and he pulled out of the race knowing that if he killed himself to finish the race it would just beat up his body for 13 miles for no reason.  When you race a marathon all-out you have to spend 5 weeks recovering, and then another 4 weeks building back up.  Rather than going through that, he made the decision to stop the race and spend the next 9 weeks in additional training for 2 half marathons and  the fall marathon.  Some people run marathons  just to complete them (which is great), but Mark runs for a time goal.
Stephen's race wasn't as great as he had hoped for either.  But he decided to tough it out and finished in 3:27, about 12 minutes slower than he had trained for.  He was a little bummed about it, but I was proud of him.  That's still a great time!

 It was a great day for me, though!  I'll never forget it.

Ready to race

Tomorrow is the big day.  I have not done a half marathon since last summer, and I really hurt my knee last time I did this.  I have not had any knee pain at all since July, though, so I am hopeful that my IT-band race curse will not strike tomorrow.  I just want a chance to race with my heart and give it all I've got.  I've never been able to do that in the 6 times I have tried this before.  Always my dang knee gets me--not in training, just in the race.  But I'm feeling good about tomorrow.

My long runs have all been great, and I worked myself up slowly and steadily to do this distance. The weather looks perfect for a race tomorrow, and I bought this new headband at the race expo so I can be really cute for my pictures.

This trip has been fun.  Stephen is running the full marathon with Mark, and it is always fun to be on vacation with Stephen.  And watching Stephen and Mark interact is the best.  They are the cutest brothers.

Today we had french toast at Kneader's for breakfast, picked up our bibs at the race expo, and then went back to Kneaders for soup and sandwiches (and cookies) for lunch.  Then I took a drive out to visit my parents for a short time, and headed back to beat the Davis County rush-hour traffic in time to get take-out spaghetti from a restaurant down the road.

The three of us had a fancy dinner in the hotel room, and then Mark and Stephen got serious about making their hydration plans for the race and figuring out all kinds of stuff that I don't care about...  But they are serious racers, and I'm here for the party.

Then it came time for the traditional outfit trying-on, bib-pinning and arm-swishing, and this time we got it all documented with photos.  Now all the stuff is laid out, our race bags are packed and we are ready.

I can't wait to hop on the bus in the morning and head up the canyon.  It is going to be a beautiful day, and I am so excited to race!

Sick house

All of our kids have been sick this week.  7 out of 7.  Zack was the first to come down with a really bad cold and a fever that wouldn't leave about 10 days ago.  He got better, and then Tuesday morning Joel was telling me he had a headache and was not feeling great, but he didn't have a fever and hadn't vomited, so I sent him to school.  By 11:00 I had to pick him up because he did have a fever.  I banished him to the basement (which is actually a pretty sweet place to be banished) and hoped he was the only sick kid we had.  But then on Wednesday Savanna came home from school and went right up to her bed to sleep--for the night!  By Wednesday night, Noah was also feeling yucky, and he had that look in his eye.  You know when you are a mom "that look."  It's "that look" that cannot be faked by a kid who just doesn't want to go to school.  It's the sick look, and Noah had it.  So Savanna and Noah joined Joel in the basement.  We named it "The Leper Colony."  They weren't allowed to come up the stairs, and if they needed anything I would go drop it off on the bottom step and they would come get it.

Abram's 18th birthday was Wednesday, and by the evening I started to see "the look" in his eye, and sure enough, Thursday  morning he had the bug as well.  But Abram couldn't stay home from school because he had the AP Lit test that morning, and also AP European History on Friday.  But he was sick, sick, sick.

So 4 out of the 7 kids spent the weekend in the Leper Colony.  They had TV.  They had a wii, a bathroom, air hockey, and a table to eat or play games at.  But mostly they just laid down and slept.

We let Savanna and Noah and Joel out of their exile yesterday, and then last night Aubrey and Jacob started in with the fever and "the look."  Now they are home from school enjoying all that the basement has to offer.  Aubrey has 2 AP tests coming up this week, though so she needs to beat the bug fast!

Now, banishing them to the basement may sound cruel.  But I don't want to be sick, and neither does Mark.  We have the Odgen Marathon (and half) this weekend, and we really can't get sick!  Miraculously I have been able to take care of all the sickies without catching the bug myself--yet.  I think I will hold off sterilizing the basement until after we return home from the race, just to make sure I don't catch this bug.  Luckily there has been no barfing.  Just fevers, headaches and stuffy noses.  Still, I don't want to try to run a half marathon with a fever, headache or stuffy nose, so I'm keeping my distance.

My precious

When Savanna was a baby we gave her the nickname Precious. This was because we finally had another girl to join our 4 boys, and also she had a gravelly, low voice that reminded us of Gollum.
She still answers to "Precious." And she really, really IS precious. I love her spunk and her big brain. She is one-of-a-kind.
I found this note on the counter today.
Splendor
Artistic
Valuable
Advanced
Noble
Nice
Awesome
!

I survived 3D!

Yesterday was pretty exciting.  I spent the entire day in the car.

First, I drove to Salem to get re-fingerprinted.  Fortunately, the regular fingerprint guy was at work and was super friendly and nice.  He profusely apologized for the idiot lady who had done my fingerprints the first time.  He told me that he almost hates taking days off because he has to come back to hear stories about how poorly people have been treated in his absence.  Apparently the women who have to get off their butts and do fingerprints while he is gone absolutely hate doing it.  Yes, it is part of their job description, but they take it out on the public when they have to do it, and then they take it out on this nice guy when he gets back from a day off.  This guy pointed out the irony of my situation.  The same idiot lady who did my fingerprints wrong is also the one who rejected them because they were wrong when they came for analysis...

Anyway, I dropped off my fingerprint card at the state teacher licensing place and drove 80 miles back home.  And then began the usual Thursday marathon of picking kids up, taking some to piano, going to pick up another kid and drop him off at piano while picking up the 2 kids, taking the 2 kids to the church for scouts and activity days, then to pick up Abram from high school because he had stayed after, then back to get the piano kid, then to the church to pick up 2 kids.

And then the fun began.  The Acura dealership had given me 9 tickets to see The Avengers at an early screening yesterday.  Not the midnight show, but a 7pm show.  So I drove the kids across town to see The Avengers.  When we arrived, I realized it was in 3D.  I nearly ran for the car.  I was very afraid.

I have a sensitive head.  I get motion-sick easily.  Amusement parks are not amusing to me, and anything 3D just really hurts my brain.  When I was 15 my family took a trip to Orlando.  While at Epcot Center, we had the privilege of watching Captain E.O. in 3D.

I have never recovered.  25 years later and I am still scarred from Captain E.O.  Perhaps it was the whole story in the first place, but I know it was really the stupid 3D.  I wanted to like it.  It was all the rage, and everyone said how cool it was.  But it wasn't cool.  It was nauseating.  Like ruin-the-rest-of-your-day-at-Epcot kind of nauseating.

And I swore off 3D for the rest of my life.  But then The Avengers came to town.

As the movie started, I placed the glasses on the tip of my nose so I could look through them if I wanted to, or just watch a blurry-ish version of the movie without them if necessary.  Within 5 minutes I was watching full-time through the glasses.  It was cool!  I didn't get sick at all.

When we stood up to leave, I was a little dizzy for about 5 minutes, but then I was fine.

I don't know if I will ever voluntarily go to a Real 3D again.  It was cool and all, but I think the movie would have been just as enjoyable without it.

I never dreamed that I would watch a 3D movie without barfing.  Will miracles never cease?

FBI Reject

I am an FBI reject.

A few weeks ago in anticipation of a teacher strike, I busted out my expired Nebraska teaching license and drove to the state capital to get things in the works for obtaining a current teaching license in my state.  Part of this process was going to the state police and getting fingerprinted.

Let's just say that the woman who took my fingerprints was the epitome of a state employee.  Lazy, rude, put-out that I had actually shown up and made her get her butt off of her chair.  She didn't talk to me.  She rolled her eyes.  She went through the motions of putting my fingers on the scanner.

Now, I'm not a trained fingerprinter, but I am bright enough to see that when the screen is saying to scan the person's index right index finger, you probably should be scanning the index finger and NOT the thumb.  What do I know?

At least three times during this process (only 10 fingers, right?) the woman was scanning a finger other than what the screen said she should be scanning.  After the third time she told me to shut up and not tell her how to do her job.  Against all evidence, I tried to tell myself that this person did indeed know what she was doing and would switch the images around as necessary before printing them.

I was wrong.

In the mail yesterday I received a new fingerprint card and instructions to go get fingerprinted again.  Stamped in big letters over a copy of my original fingerprints were the words FBI REJECT.

That always makes your day, right?

In the notes on the paper it says that they had scanned TWO right thumbprints and NO right index fingerprint.  Shocker, I know.

So now I am driving back today to make them take my fingerprints again--at no charge.  What do you think the odds are that they will admit their mistake and do it for free?

Running....a rant and a life lesson

Every morning somebody tries to kill me.

I run on the side of the road facing traffic.  I stop at red lights.  I watch out for cars.  I wear very, very bright clothing.  I do not run in "ninja mode."  You know, black tights, black shirt, black cap like a lot of runners.  I wear a super bright shirt.  I wear shoes that light up the daytime.  Like shirts and shoes so bright that it almost hurts your eyes to look at them.  And if it is dark, I wear lights.  I am careful and aware.

But many drivers are not.

I'm not talking about the drivers who are already on the road where I am running.  They are generally considerate and  pull over to give me extra space.  The people who try to kill me are the ones who are turning right onto the road where I am running.

It happens EVERY morning.  This morning it happened 3 times.  Someone pulls up to a red light or a stop sign, intending to turn right onto the main road.  But that driver does not stop.  I am pretty sure that everyone knows you are supposed to stop for red lights and stop signs.  But most people turning right do NOT stop at red lights or stop signs.  They pull up enough to glance to the left and see if a car is coming.  If there is no car coming from the left, the drivers zip around the corner without even looking to their right.  Not even a slight glance.  They just plow on around without stopping.  They run the red light or roll on through the stop sign and nearly hit me, even though I have the right-of-way AND am running on the side of the street going into traffic.  They WOULD hit me if I had not learned by now that these people are not going to stop and that I need to stop to avoid getting hit.

When the driver finally notices me I get one of two reactions:  either the driver gives me a dirty look, the finger, and yells at me for being on the road, or the driver grimaces and mouths "sorry" as he or she realizes what would have just happened if I had not stopped--even though I had the right of way.  If I get the first reaction, I hit their car as they drive by.  If I get the latter, then I smile and wave and hope that the next time that driver comes to that stop sign, he or she will stop and look both ways.

So next time you need to turn right onto a road, go ahead and look to the left to make sure you can pull out safely. But also, STOP at the red light or stop sign and please turn your head and glance to your right to see if some crazy mom is out there running and doing her best to make it home alive to feed her kids breakfast and drive them to school.

And now the life lesson I used in a talk to the Young Women at church:
Running in ninja mode is not safe.  Wearing all black on a dark morning run is just asking for trouble.   When you run like Mark, with 4 red bike lights around your waist, reflective tape sewn all over your clothes and a headlamp lighting up the night, that is safe.  Sure, there are some idiot drivers who will still not see you, but they would not see you no matter what.  And there will be sometimes an idiot bus driver who does see you and purposely tries to hit you and then yells at you because you are running in the bike lane and you have no right to be in the bike lane....  But for the most part, being bright and shining out in the darkness keeps you safe while running.  Light keeps you safe.  Running in the dark dressed like a ninja, trying to go unnoticed, is a recipe for disaster.  Sure, running like a Christmas tree can be embarrassing--especially to your kids.  Sometimes middle school kids at the bus stop might laugh at you when you run by in all your blinking brightness.  But being alive and a little embarrassed is better than looking like a cool ninja and being dead.

If we go through life, school, work, etc., brightly shining with who we are, what we believe, what our standards are, and making it clear what we do and will not do, then that keeps us safe.  People will notice us.  People will notice we are different.  People will notice what we believe and that we are true to it, and that will keep us safe.  You will light up the world around you.

The apostle Paul said, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ."  We, likewise, cannot be ashamed of it, either.  We are told to "Arise and shine forth."

If you are the only girl at the prom who is NOT wearing a dress that resembles a bath towel, you will stand out.  People will notice.  They will know you are different, and they will respect you.  It might feel a little embarrassing to be the one who says, "No, I'm not going to that party," or, "I cannot watch that movie."  But people will see you light up, and they will back off and leave you alone because they respect you.  If you are the only kid at school who doesn't cheat, drink, or smoke pot, people will notice.  You might get laughed at or teased a bit, but you will stay safe.  However, when you "arise and shine forth" by standing up for what you believe, others will respect you and stay out of your way just as drivers who notice a runner's flashy lights let him run in safety.  Sure, there will be a crazy person now and then who purposely tries to get the Mormon kid to drop his or her standards.  But those people will more likely go after an easy target--they will pick on a kid going to school in ninja-mode.  These are the kids who try to not let anyone know who they really are or what they believe.  They are afraid to stand up for what they know is right.  That is just as dangerous as running in the dark wearing  all black.

Even if it is a little embarrassing to stand out like a Christmas tree in a school or office full of ninjas, it is much safer and you will bring light into the lives of others as they look to you for an example.

In the book of Matthew it says, "Ye are the light of the world.  A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."