The Pressure is On....

Yesterday I got a phone call from a friend in the neighborhood that is also a fellow runner, although he is a lot more dedicated than I have been. This past winter has been so harsh and never ending, that Jody and I have talked ourselves out of running outdoors and into Pilate's, cardio camp and yoga indoors. It's been a nice break, but now that the sun is out and the flowers are blooming I am ready to run outside again. It's been a pretty sad affair as I try to lumber my extra winter weight down the road and up the hills. The farthest I have run at any one time since the St. George Marathon back in October (2007) is five miles. Yikes! Anyway, my friend Stuart Schultz called to invite me to be on the Strong & Hanni Ragnar Relay Team. The Ragnar Relay (or the Wasatch Back as it is originally called) is a 178 mile course up and over the Wasatch Mountains. You run it as a relay with a team of 12 people, each taking three different chunks out of the whole distance. Last year Jody, her husband Toby, and I ran it with a team from her neighborhood, and it was the funnest yet craziest race ever. A lot of teams will deck out their support vehicles with wacked out decorations and the team mates will even dress up in outrageous outfits to run in. One outdoor equipment company had their team members run with different equipment--for example, one of the runners was pulling a KAYAK (yes, that's right, a kayak!) behind him while he ran. I ran next to a girl that had mountain climbing equipment looped around her shoulders (ropes and caribeaners) and carrying a pick ax in one of her hands while she ran. It looked heavy and cumbersome and very uncomfortable. It took our team last year about 29 hours to complete the course, so you pretty much run, eat, sleep (?), repeat--just as it says in the Ragnar brochure.

Now that I have said yes to being on the team, the pressure is on to get my lazy butt back into shape so that I am not the sorry weak link of the team. I pulled up the training schedule, and according to the date, I am supposed to run the following distances this week: Monday-5 miles, Tuesday-8 miles w/hills, Wednesday-5 miles, Thursday-9 miles, Friday-5 miles, Sat. 16 miles. Yikes! I had a huge panic moment when I pulled the schedule up, but I think that I will just do a modified schedule using the novice and intermediate schedule. It is a good motivator to get myself back out hitting the pavement, and hopefully I can get enough miles in to not only be ready for Ragnar in June, but Pioneer Trek two weeks later.

Maiden Voyage

Well, it's not really a voyage, but I am embarking on something new. I had so much fun reporting on my trip to the Holy Land with Steve back in November (2007), and I have had even more fun reading other people's blogs that I thought it would be amusing to start one of my own. I am not really sure where I will go with this--whether it will become an online journal, a rant page, a reporting of our family doings, or just a bunch a random thoughts. Actually, that is probably EXACTLY what this will become--a bunch a random thoughts, a look into the chaos that is my brain...I can just see my daughter, Madi, shuddering in complete humiliation at the thought of the contents inside of my head being unleashed upon the unsuspecting masses, but hey....isn't that REALLY my purpose in life during her teenage years? If I can embarrass Madi in some way at least once a day, than I consider myself a success as a hands-on mother.

We watched a movie the other day (Mr. Magoriums Wonder Emporium) and it was full a marvelous one-liners, but my favorite was: "Life is an occasion--Rise to it!" Isn't that awesome? I would love to put that on one of my walls in vinyl lettering, but my kids tell me that I have plenty of words on my walls already. They are right, but I just LOVE words, especially inspirational words, cool one-liners that make you sit back and think.

Today is Tax Day--April 15, 2008. As I was sitting here at work, I remembered something that happened on tax day about 19 years ago when Steve a I were brand new parents. At the time, we were hanging out with our good friends, Steve and Kathy Wilson (who were also brand new parents) and because we were living the good life of poor college students, we had to find our amusements any way we could, for the least amount of money. Usually we sat around watching and laughing at the antics of our precious babies, or playing cards and board games, but on this particular night we were working on tax forms together. The boys needed a certain form and so Kathy and I ran to the post office to grab them one. It was pretty late at night, and as we walked into the crowded post office, past the long line of filers, waiting their turn to post their taxes, Kathy and I started grabbing at random forms and saying really loud, "Now, which forms do we need?" like we were just barely getting started with the whole tax preparation process. I don't know why we thought it was so funny, but Kathy and I just busted out laughing, and we still bring it up and laugh about it. In fact, when I remembered that today is tax day, I picked up the phone to call Kathy and say, "Now which forms do we need?" just to hear her laugh. I love that girl!

Have a happy tax day, and find something to laugh about--it will make today less painful.