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!

Green Eggs and...meat

This April I turned 28, and while the year itself is not an especially significant milestone, my reaching it was celebrated with great...well...greatness! As a birthday should be, mine was celebrated in several stages: drinks and snacketizers with friends and coworkers; a wonderful day and dinner at Big River with Kerry; a day with Kerry and her mom, and taco salads and strawberry shortcake, and presents; well wishes via Facebook, the postal service, and email; and a final installment at a recent Derby party with the half of the family that I brought to the marriage. Yes, I realize that I have mis/overused the conjunction, and. But it really was so great, and thoughtful, and fun, and surprising, and...and...and!

Now, what's with the title of this post? Anybody I've talked to since my birthday has probably heard about the Big Green Egg (reverent silence) at least five or six dozen times. The Big Green Egg was this year's big green gift made possible by the contrification (see v. contrive) of Kerry, and her accomplices, the Grandparents Mac, Kris, and Jim and Sue.

This grill/oven/smoker/roaster is truly indicative of the holy spirit, present in the lives of those who work with clay and fire. It is truly how God intended meat and fire to join for the sustenance of human life. I think you get the idea of how I truly feel. In the five or six times that I have used it I have not once been disappointed, and I have made beer-can chicken, pork tenderloin, pizza, another beer-can chicken, another pizza, and other delicious treats.

The presentation of the BGE was perfect as well. Since the body of it is 2" ceramic it weighs in at 140lbs. For that reason I got to help pick it up (literally) from the store. Well done, Kerry, Kris, Mac and Marion, Jim, and Sue! To give you a preview: Thanksgiving will never be the same!

I've been enjoying the various accoutrements that go with this grill as well. I've also started reading for pleasure thanks to the Kindle Mom and Dad gave me. There are so many books that I've thought I should read that I am now getting into. Incidentally if anyone would like to discuss the social commentary H.G. Wells presents through The Time Machine, I feel well-equipped to do so.

It was a great birthday and I felt well loved and appreciated by all!

Sunday Short: Wicked and Food!

Though life is still busy as always, it feels like these last few weeks have had a sense of normalcy to them. It may be because we aren't running as far (not because we aren't supposed to be, or don't want to, but because we can't. Injury issues. We'll see how the Eugene half goes), but regardless of why, it feels good.

I haven't got much to report, but I'll go through some highlights. Last week we were able to help two of our friends move and then watch one of them, and two of his friends, in a sprint triathlon the next morning. Those athletes are impressive. I don't know if we'll ever do a tri, but I'd like to at least be able to do each of the sports in a triathlon competently all at the same time.

On Tuesday of this week we discovered a new restaurant, which prompted me to make a list of everywhere we haven't eaten, but have meant to. We tend to go back to the known places, even though our spirits are more adventurous than that. This place is a Vietnamese Sandwich shop, which is quite tasty. I had a ginger beef sandwich and Joe had BBQ pork. We also split a bao. It was all delicious.

On Friday Joe took me to Wicked. The show was excellent, the company fabulous, and the dinner was tasty (though a bit hurried thanks to restaurant foible). It was so nice to get to go out out and get dressed up.

Yesterday we had an early Mother's day with my mom. She came over early and helped me with some alterations. We made her chocolate cherry cupcakes, asparagus, baked beans, salad, and chicken. Just how we made those things you will learn soon enough, but it really was quite tasty and nice to hang out with my mom.

The Inagural Corvallis Half Marathon

Last weekend (please note the timeliness of this post!) Joe and I ran our third half marathon. When we initially heard about the Corvallis Half, we'd already set our sights on the Eugene Half (May 1) and didn't think that we could do both. We hmmed and we hawed. Corvallis is where we started running. We ran some in Alaska, but we really started running a few months after we moved to Corvallis. We started on the Bald Hill path, and the Corvallis Half was going to retrace those footsteps. After much thought, we decided that we would make the Corvallis Half a training run for Eugene (watch for the Eugene post in May!).

Our long run the week before the half was a 10 miler and at mile 4.97 of our out-and-back, my knee quit via my IT band. There was no warning, no "gosh maybe you should think about turning around before you get as far as possible from home;" it just quit. I stretched and hobbled back a quarter mile, and repeated that process twice. All the while I was thinking of friends nearby who could come pick us up. I gave it one last stretch before I gave up entirely and that stretch carried me three miles. We made it home with one last stretch. It wasn't looking good for the race though. I gave it a good break, ice, NSAIDS, and tried another 5 miler during the week that went about as well. So, we were officially not running for the next four days in hopes of recovering. Now, since Corvallis was supposed to be a training run, this set us up for it poorly. All of a sudden we were tapering in the middle of our training instead of breaking ourselves down. With a good taper in, a knee that couldn't be counted on (now or for Eugene necessarily), good health (also something you can't count on, see Columbia Gorge Half),and a nice flat race, we were flumuxed. The training run for that day should have been a 15k pace. We decided to run our 9.3 miles at pace (assuming we made it that far), and then see how we felt. If we felt good, we'd maintain and shoot to meet our goal. If we didn't, we'd back off and see what we could do in Eugene.

Sunday morning we got up at 6:45 for a superb race start time of 9:30, had our oatmeal and tea and coffee, and headed out to meet my Mom at Gill Coluseum, near the race start where the marching band was playing. Fifteen minutes before the race, we headed to the porta potties, and found an enormous line. With a little luck we found ourselves peeing to the national anthem, and slipping into the group moments before the start. But it wasn't quite that smooth. Runners line up according to expected pace and shortly before the start they all compress together. We made it into line after that compression and the person I asked about the pace had no idea what I was talking about. We just had to hope that we were in the right area. We were shooting for a sub two hour finish, so we were hoping to find our high 8, low 9 minute pace folks. But with the gun, we were off! They played Fanfare for a Common Man, which was awesome and fairly appropriate. Also, we discovered that not only was my mom there to cheer us on, but "the cousins" were too! "The cousins" are officially Joe's cousins, and I have had the pleasure of acquiring them as mine too. They consist of a good number of cousins, but also an aunt and an uncle. Emilie was running the half too, which we didn't know until the day before the race. This was a lucky situation, because not only did we get to cheer Emilie on, we got her cheering section for us too! So, we had lots of cheering to send us on our way.

The first few miles went through OSU's campus, and were fairly easy. The only trouble here was the camber of the road, which was a serious threat to my IT band and knee. We solved that by running straight down the middle of the road-so much for race etiquette. In that section the counsins were there to cheer us on, not once, but twice!

After we roamed through campus proper, we headed out to the trail that runs through the fields and barns, and underneath the covered bridge out to the fairgrounds and the base of Bald Hill. My mom was waiting to cheer us on and catch my extra clothing after we crossed 53rd. We felt excellent as we headed into and along Bald Hill and remembered when those rolling hills had been such a challenge. It was an amazing feeling to run our third half marathon in the place that we had started by run-walking.

Bald Hill lead us out to the extension of Harrison, and this is where I thought I was done. Up until that point my knee had only made brief and light commentary-the sort of thing that would be standard on a normal run to the point that I wouldn't notice it--and I'd been able to baby it by running on the flat portions of the road. On Harrison we had to run on the shoulder in the bike lane. The camber was bad and my knee was pissed. I figured I'd stop to stretch as we turned onto 53rd, and see if I could make it from there, or if I'd have to be responsible (which I hate) and stop. But as we rounded onto 53rd and I looked for a good stretch spot, my knee reported that it was fine, and we went on without a stretch.

We climbed 53rd at a solid pace considering the false zero and were releaved to reach the aid station at the top of the slow hill, and the sharp downhill following. After gluggling our Ultima, we cruised down the hill. At the bottom the cousins drove by and we got another good cheer. Earlier in the race we actually had a fellow runner as us if we'd hired them. :)

From there we hooked into a little neighborhood, paused for a brief stretch, and soon after hit our 9.3 mile mark. Both feeling good, and having maintained an incredibly solid pace, we decided to go for our sub 2 hour goal and keep on keeping on. We then turned right, which marked our return to the finish.

I don't know what it is about mile 10, but it seems that it all feels great (excluding the Columbia River Gorge sick run) until that point. At 10 miles we always wonder what on earth we were thinking. It seemed that the aid station frequency increased in this section though, which helped a whole lot. Before we knew it we could see Reser (the finish) and.....we turned right, away from it. After about a half mile more of plodding, we could hear the announcer and we knew we were headed in.

We navigated the sharp hill into the stadium (killer when your stabilizer muscles have quit), rounded the final corner, and headed for the 50 yard line with the clock reading 1:54! We were thrilled! We cruised over the finish line with a chip time of 1:54:04, and beat our previous PR by just over 6 minutes. A volunteer I knew cheered us on, they took off our chips, handed us water, and we quickly headed over to my mom who had our warm things ready. I've had kind of a rough time lately with getting really badly cold after long runs, so I stripped off my wet things and slammed on my warm clothes. It helped a whole lot. Then we headed up, got our chicken noodle soup and bananas! Next stop was with my mom at the spectator section of the finish. She congratulated us, gave us hugs, and headed back home to run errands. It was so nice to have her there.

Usually we head home after races to stretch and recover, but this race was different. We knew tons of people who were running it, and for many of them it was their first half. It was brutal on our tired legs, but we wanted to stick around to cheer them on. Shortly, my friend Kathryn, who had intended to see the finish (we were faster than I thought) joined us in the stadium with...get this...mexican hot chocolate made with rice milk for us. Excellent race support. The counsins soon joined us and we cheered on finishers. Kathryn headed back home, but promised to meet us for lunch and a beer once we were done.

We watched for a long time, and saw Chris, Emilie, Gail, and Shelley finish, but sadly missed Teresa, Gordon, and Ben. Perhaps they went by in disguise. That's why we stayed so long. We were waiting for people who had already finished! We finally gave up (good thing too) and called Ben and Kathryn to meet us at Block 15 for BBQ burgers (Oh- yes) and our half-weizens (Block 15 gave dollar pints to finishers!). It was fabulous.

We trundled home, showered and watched a movie. It was deliciously relaxing. At 6, finding ourselves lacking the energy to make dinner, we drove to Market of Choice, bought 2 pepperoni strombolis and a piece of white and black cake, then back to the couch we went. It was really a fabulous race. Fabulous! We were so proud and it was great to have other people we knew run too. We also found that we knew many of the fans along the course, and that made the experience even cooler.

Splits:
1-8:51
2-8:42
3-8:45
4-8:53
5-8:53
6-8:38
7-8:54
8-9:15
9-9:08
10-8:47
11-9:00
12-9:21
13-6:53

I do think the course was a bit short, because my garmin only logged 12.75 miles. It could be my Garmin, or it could be the course. I feel alright though because even with another .35 miles, I know we could have made it well under 2 hours.

Postlude: I had noticed after the race that my face was quite swollen. My cheeks were so puffy they pinched my eyes, but I didn't think much of it until the next day when I found myself 3 lbs heavier than the day before. No biggy in the long run, but in one day, that's a huge load of water. My thighs were visibly swollen, and pants that usually went over my bum didn't even make it past my mid thigh. Dressing for work was a challenge, but I pulled it off for 3 bloated days. I'm happy to report that I have returned to my original size. If nothing else, it was definintely a new experience!

Sunday Not-so-Short: Tales of Woe and Spring!

Wow, it's been quite a two week period. I guess it was mostly just the first week that was difficult, but we spent the second week catching up and recovering.

On Monday, after our last oh-so-relaxing week, I learned that I hadn't gotten the job I had really hoped for with our local hospital. The news came in a one line email: the position has been cancelled. I don't know about you, but I like to know more than that. I called for more information, but didn't get a call until that Friday. When I finally did get the call I learned that through the interview process, the team had figured out that what they thought of as a Wellness Coordinator, was a whole lot less than what it could be. They realized that the position they advertised as a Wellness Coordinator position was really much less, and had to rework the PD to accurately reflect that. I think they would have offered me the job because the director said, "I so enjoyed listening to your interview, and I wished that we'd had you five years ago because the position would be so much different today." Wonderful, and ouch. Really, I would have done just about anything for the pay they were offering and it had so many other wonderful things about it that I could have forgiven the job for being uninteresting. Oh well, such is life. At least I know I'm good--I guess.

Tuesday I started the day by burning my hair with....my hair dryer. Now, this takes special talent. Many people accomplish it with curling irons, but I exceeded all standards and used indirect heat. Tip: Make sure to clean out your hair dryer's lint filter. The motor over heats if it doesn't get enough air. Luckily, I only burnt a section, so I just whipped out my best small sewing scissors, chopped off the offensive looking smelly bits of hair and feathered the edges.

That night when we got home, my mom called at let us know that my Grandma was in the ER. We're not sure what happened, but my mom had called her when she got home from work and didn't get an answer. Mom went over and found her fully conscious on the ground, unable to get up, but not too upset about that. They called the paramedics and were off to the ER. We spent Tuesday night watching the exciting scenes of the ER-seriously-and went to dinner with Mom at 11. Grandma had no broken bones, and no bruises, but seemed to have some issue with her leg. The next day I spent the afternoon at Grandma's getting things together with Mom and Nancy (her earthly angel points increase by the day) then Joe and I went out with Mom again for some incredible pizza. Grandma's all settled in the nursing home and doing better it seems, and Mom's working hard at figuring out the next steps.

Add to that one crazy work week and havoc in lives all around us, and we were pretty much spent by the end of the week. We tried to get lots of sleep on the weekend, and have a relaxing go of it, but sleep was not bountiful. Monday night we went to bed at 9:15 with visions of sleeping the whole night through, but at 11:00 our smoke detectors went off. I'm not sure what brand of smoke detector we have, but they are not the "you need to leave the house quickly and with purpose now" variety; they prefer to take the "THE WORLD IS ENDING AND ALL HELL IS DESCENDING UPON YOU" approach, which is actually more paralyzing that motivating. The house was in fine condition, but our nerves were shot. An adrenaline flood in the middle of a deep sleep is rather agonizing. An hour later we were able to consider sleep again.

Luckily, we've had a break in the action since then and have been soaking up the glories of life and spring. I feel like a lot of years, I let the early signs of spring slip by me and miss the anticipation they bring. All of a sudden-poof-it's spring, which is great, but I like savoring the progress. This year we've been doing much better. On our walks and runs I've been pointing out swelling buds, blossoms beginning, daffodils in all their varieties and all kinds of things. The warmer weather is perfect for running and that combined with a great fitness bump we've gotten from our training (local half-marathons) has made running a delight. Our speed work on Wednesday had both of us feeling like we could go faster and longer than ever, and our long run today felt great! Often in training we just feel tired and only catch up to our efforts at the end. It's nice to feel those benefits now, though we'll be getting into the breakdown stage again soon. We also spruced up our yard a bit and it's looking good. We've got hyacinth and daffodils making an appearance, and I think the tulips and a few other things are on their way. I've also been plugging away at my quilt project and making some real progress. Finally, and I'll sign off with this random thought, Joe made the best fish tacos ever last night. I'm completely ruined for all restaurant fish tacos now, but that's okay, because we can have his whenever we want them.

Here's hoping next week continues the upward trend!