The Eugene Half

Since Joe caught us up on an entire year's worth of posts, I thought I should chip in this time and do my part to keep us from a similar situation.  Here's a brief recap of events that will lead us to the half marathon from which we are now recovering.

March was actually a fairly calm month, which we definitely needed.  We spent a relaxing weekend with my wonderful Grandma Marion in Eugene, with a stop for dinner with my dad and his wife, whipped the yard back into shape, and headed up to Washington to spend St. Patrick's day with the Evans side of the family and celebrate Elizabeth's birthday (corned beef was amazing as usual, Auntie M was surprised, and our birthday stamina was possibly not what it should have been, but we all seemed to have fun).  With a few more quiet weekends we ran straight into April, which brought Joe's birthday.  He's got dibs on that post, so you'll have to hear about that later.  Of course there was Easter  as well.  We went to the service at the church I grew up in, which was great, and then headed to my mom's for a delicious dinner with Nancy, Scott, and Grandma Marion.  It was lovely.

As I think about it, March and April have felt fairly crazy despite the empty weekends.  We've also been planning for a vacation we're taking in May with our Alaska friends Meg and Neil. Can't wait!  But this blog's not about that.

So, the half marathon.

You may remember that at this time last year we attempted the Eugene Half Marathon.  We had run the Corvallis Half only two weeks before with a PR and I was having knee trouble.  Only 3.5 miles into the Eugene Half, I had to throw in the towel to save my knee.  Not being one to be bested, Joe and I planned to give it a go again in 2012 and finally conquer the race.  If we had finished the 2011 Eugene Half, it would have been our fourth half in a year and then we took a full year break (I still can't believe tat for some reason.  Am I forgetting something?).  During that time we went Paleo/Primal and our health has improved incredibly.  I'm no longer cold and tired all the time and Joe's joints don't hurt.  As part of that change we've been focusing more on lower heart rate cardio (walking-slow jogging) and really picking up our high intensity interval training along with more serious strength workouts.  We were pretty down on half marathon style cardio (and frankly I'm not sure it's the healthiest option), but I still had the Eugene Half to conquer.  We planned for it to be our last half.

So yesterday we headed down to Eugene to stay the night at my Grandmas.  It also happened to be my Dad's 60th birthday, so 2 sets of Aunts and Uncles and my cousin and her gentleman friend were there too.  We ate our own paleo dinner and went to bed fairly early, but nerves, warmth, and good hydration kept us both from sleeping well.  Luckily, we'd both slept well the night before, which is the night that counts.  I was doubly trepidacious though because my taper week recovery hadn't felt like recovery at all, with lots of muscle aches.  But none of that mattered.  We were just running to finish, not for time.

After a breakfast of eggs, yams with coconut oil, and avocado, we were out the door.  I chatted with a first time marathoner on the shuttle in, we dropped our bags and headed for the porta potties.  There we encountered enormous lines.  Despite being 20 minutes early, we still stood in line to the national anthem and hoped the fence into our corral as it took off.  We were just in time.  A few moments later and we would have been dodging walkers to get to folks who ran a similar pace.

It was a great day for a race.  Though the day ended with sun, the whole race was overcast and about 50.  We plugged along slowly for the first few miles, but slowly realized that our pace was increasing.  We ran faster and faster and faster.  We actually ran negative splits for the first nine miles and stayed well under our average pace for the last four (Perhaps we should have gone out faster).  My mom came to the race to cheer us on, which I appreciate so much.  While everyone else is abandoning gear on the side of the road in the first few miles, I love being able to toss my long sleeve shirt to my mom at mile 2.  But more than a shirt catcher, she's just a great fan.  She's always cultivated her fandom for me by learning more about whatever sport I played, coming to away games if it was even remotely reasonable, and cheering.  You don't get to see much of your athlete in a half marathon, so she really is an especially good sport to come and enjoy watching.  When Joe and I got together, she immediately set out to become a fan for Joe too, and that's just cool.

The race went by quickly (and well.  My only complaints were the water station at mile 10, which was a total bottleneck, and that the bag check was so far away from the finish!  So much for post race photos and being able to put on your warm things so you could hang out!) and before we knew it we were done, chugging chocolate milk, and hoping on our bus to go back to South Eugene and meet my mom for breakfast.

I must say that in the past I've felt like death when I finished halves, almost to the point that I wondered if it was healthy for me to run halves.  I was thinking that it might be an electrolyte issue, so we made homemade chicken broth and had it hot in thermoses in our drop bags at the end of the race.  We also had bananas and nuts.  Much to my surprise, I didn't need any of them!  We just drank the milk and had some water (didn't fuel differently during the race) and were able to wait for breakfast.  I actually attribute that to paleo.  My muscles are sore, but I don't feel sick, tired, or anything I used to feel.  I feel amazing for having run 13.1 hard miles.

My mom waited for us at The Glenwood Restaurant where we had fabulous breakfast skillets courtesy of Mom.  It was the perfect way to wrap up a race.

The rest of the day included running to Men's Warehouse to fix a suit debacle for Joe, grabbing some romaine, and heading back to Grandma's to celebrate my dad's birthday!  We were both pleased to have so much energy left for more frivolity.

I must say though, that only a few hours after our final half, we've been thinking about which to do next.  Hmm...we may have the bug.

2012

See! I told you that we would be better bloggers! We've had some good snow so far this year and even as I write this (note the date) there is still a little snow in the yard from last night's dusting.

Kerry looking fetching in her new hat:
Edward the Snowman, who tends to visit whenever it snows:
One of us about to speed down a hill at Mary's Peak for our sledding and snowshoeing expedition:

Almost a year in review...

So, since our last post was from...well...May of last year, we felt it important to provide at least a quick review of the sundry activities of our lives over the past year. So here it is; a brief look at what we've been up to recently:

This is a picture of us at our friends' wedding in Hood River in July. This fantastic shebang was preceded by a 4-day rafting trip down the Deschutes and followed up with a huge party at their farm a week later. Speaking of said huge party. This is a picture of the lights that we setup for the party in their barn:

Coincidentally their wedding was on our anniversary--yes this year we celebrated our 6th anniversary. Here's a picture of our belated celebration:

It was too long after this that we then were at our friends' farm again to harvest their 80 basil plants, which when combined with 25lbs of Parmesan, a load of cashews, and olive oil you get a ton of pesto--yum.
This last summer we also went camping in Tillamook with Kerry's mom--ask us about the rabbits...

This summer also brought the 40th wedding anniversary of my parents. We threw them a party on the deck of my sister's house in Seattle.


Kerry and I also took a trip to the Japanese Garden in Portland:
And as if we didn't have enough Americana in our lives we also went back to the farm to press some cider...40ish gallons of it!
This fall also brought Kerry's 29th birthday celebration. Here we are with her childhood friends, one joining us via satellite from Atlanta:
Also to celebrate her day, we made a trip to a zipline and climbing course near Portland:
We had a fantastic dinner out as well:
And Kerry was amenable to sharing her mashed potatoes--she really was!

Kerry also finished up her quilt which was a Christmas present for my sister:
Speaking of Christmas...
On the 23rd we decorated cookies in Portland. On the 24th we celebrated in Eugene. On the 25th we celebrated in Puyallup. On the 26th we celebrated in Albany. On the 28th we celebrated in Sun River! Finally, on the 30th we celebrated with just the two of us! It was a haul, but we loved that we got to see everybody!

Kerry, her cousin Kate and their grandma, Marion:
Kerry and Kate:


Joel, Ben, Sarah, Virginia, Marg, Kathryn, Kerry, Joe:
The cookies:
While we don't necessarily subscribe to resolutions for the New Year, we will try to be better bloggers this year!