neighborhood 5k

This weekend I got to participate in my neighbor, Spencer Zimmerman's eagle project.

It was a 5k race to raise money for the Cerebral Palsy Foundation.

It was a perfect Saturday morning activity!

If you need a good cry - watch this video about my amazing neighbors:

Dayton's Legs

Here are a few pictures from Dayton's Dash.

Some taken by Amy Fraughton Photography and others by Lindsay Brummer Photography!

Glad these fabulous photographers were there to get photos of this fun event!

Spencer pushing Dayton at the start of the race.

(lindsay brummer photography)

Crossing the finish line.

(lindsay brummer photography)

Hugs from my family.

As soon as I finish a race I'm immediately looking for Dave and the kiddos.

The race isn't complete until I see them!!

(amy fraughton photography)

My cheerleaders.

Cutest cheering section I've ever seen.

(amy fraughton photography)

Thanks Spencer for a great activity!

What a great idea for an Eagle Project.

He raised over $2300 for the foundation!

turning a corner

I'm probably jinxing myself just talking about this, but Benson has had some GOOD nights lately.

Last night in particular, he ate at 9:30 . . .

squirmed at 3:30 so I stuck his binky in . . .

**At this point I was feeling so rested from 5 completely uninterrupted hours of sleep, I was tempted to go run laps around the neighborhood**

. . .and didn't eat until 5:30.

What a stud.

I'm so glad that he's chunking out.

That way I don't have to feel bad for sticking his binky in, instead of feeding him.

Here is a picture from this morning.

He was getting tired.

Lily asked to cuddle him.

He was out within seconds.

He loves that girl and she loves him.

In other news, I ran my first post-baby race this weekend.

It felt good.

Gave me a little boost.

I'm contemplating training for another marathon.

Utah Valley - June 11, 2011.

Dave says do it.

I'm still on the fence.

Lily sat down next to me on the couch today while I was nursing Benson.

She told me she couldn't wait to get older so she could get a cell phone.

And so it begins . . .

Yes I did.

This past weekend I was able to run the Ragnar Del Sol relay race!

I haven't run on a "relay team" since high school.

I forgot how much fun running can be when it's a team sport!

Here's a quick idea of how this race works from a teammate's blog, she describes it perfectly!

If I had to describe this event in one word, I'd try and choose from: amazing, adventerous, grueling, ridiculous, exhausting, exhilarating, crazy fun. Any one of those words would work. In case you're not familiar with the Ragnar Race I'll give you a brief run down: Basically its a super long relay race that goes non-stop for a day a night and a day. Each team has 12 members (unless you're a crazy ultra runner team, then you have only 6) and the Del Sol race started in Prescott AZ and ended at Tempe Market Place--204 miles later--the next day. You divide up into two vans and pass your "baton" (think 80's slap bracelet) all along the route from runner # 1 down to runner # 12, repeated 3 times until you finally arrive at the finish line. Did you catch that each runner runs 3 legs? Or that you run through the night without sleeping? Or that you're crammed into a mini van for two days? All this is true, and yet its an awesome bonding experience!

And here's the rundown from my end . . .

Right when I found out I was pregnant this cute girl Christy:

called me and asked me to join her Ragnar relay team. At the time I was thinking . . .

a) I don't get sick when I'm pregnant

b) I'll only be like 12 weeks when we're racing

c) I REALLY want to do a Ragnar

d) All of the above

You guessed it!

All of the above.

And my super supportive husband was like - go for it!

So, I signed up.

Little did I know, I actually can get sick when I'm pregnant.

Like TWENTY-FOUR hours a day nausea.

Thank heavens I wasn't puking (most of the time).

I had read on some mommy-blog that exercise can help with pregnancy nausea, and so I kept running.

Lo and behold - it does help with the nausea.

When I was running I would feel fine and I'd feel good for about 1/2 hour - 1 hour afterwards.

Now, if only nausea had been the only thing I had to contend with!

I had two stomach-flu's, strep-throat, a sinus infection, and my first-ever migraine in those 12 weeks.

It was really fun.

And one of the stomach-flu's came 5 days before the race, and the migraine lasted for a day and a half and ended only one day before the race.

So, I'm really starting to sound like a whiner here, but I'm just documenting so I don't forget how crazy my first 12 weeks of pregnancy was with this third baby!

So many times I wanted to quit, but I haven't been on a team forever and I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY didn't want to let my teammates down!

Miracle of all miracles I woke up early Friday morning to meet the girls to head up to our starting point and I was feeling fine.

I was so happy, and so grateful!

Here is a picture of me running my first leg, a 7-miler along some dirt road near Kirkland, AZ.

During the whole run I just kept saying thank-you prayers.

I was just so elated to be feeling good and doing what I love!

All of the team vans were decorated so fun.

We had our leg numbers on the back of our van and we would cross off each leg once we finished it.

Here I am crossing off my first leg!

Courtney, our team-captain had stocked our van up with great running treats/food to keep us going over the two-day event.

My favorite was the amazing pasta-salad she made.

A perfect pick-me-up.

Since we were van #2 we were the ones running through the middle of the night.

We started our second set of legs at about midnight.

I was scheduled to run 6.2 miles along the Carefree Highway at about 3:00 am.

At about 1:30 our second runner was out on at 8+ mile leg and there was a bad accident on the highway.

A participant (who wasn't running at the time) was crossing the highway to give water to one of his runners and he was hit by a car.

With all the chaos, ambulances, lifeflight, etc. they ended up cancelling four legs of the race, and picking back up in the morning with the 24th leg of the race.

So, I didn't get to run my middle of the night leg.

I was kind of disappointed because I feel like I didn't truly do "ragnar".

Unfortunately the guy who was hit by the car passed away today. So sad.

My third and final leg was an easy three-miler through Mesa (which is flat as a pancake).

Here are a few of my "van-mates" during our last stretch.*

And finally, here is a picture of our entire team at the finish line at Tempe Marketplace!

So much fun and I'd do it again in a heartbeat, and next time I'll hopefully run all three legs!

The best part of the whole weekend was getting to know the fun girls in my van.

The only one I knew previous to race-day was Christy.

The girls were amazing, and I can't wait to stay in touch with them!

And, a BIG thanks to my BIGGEST fan.

He knows how much running means to me and he lets me do these crazy things.

Thanks to Mimi too, for watching the kiddos on Friday morning!

*these are the first pictures I have taken since I got braces (for the second time in my life).

Not loving the look, but I'm sure I'll love the end result.

running.

We had family pictures a couple of weeks ago with my sister-in-law, Kristi.

This is one of my favorites for the following reasons:

1) Cannon's mid-air, down-hill, sprint.

2) Dave's face (pretty much he's thinking about having to fix Cannon's mouth when he face plants).

3) My action stance, which sort of looks like a cheerleading pose.

I wonder why he gets injured so much?

As you can see, despite his daring ways, I'm still completely enamored with him.

Oh how I love you Cannon.

More family pics may or may not be posted.

I gotta keep a few pictures under wraps for our card.

I still can't decide if I'm doing a Christmas Card, I might wait and do a New Year's or Valentine card.

So if you don't get a card from us for Christmas don't be offended.

You'll get one later.

I promise.

a good day

Ran the turkey trot.

It's great to be active along with 3000 other people, before stuffing our faces.

We got a fresh turkey as a gift from East Valley Periodontics.

Therefore, I cooked my first bird at Mimi's house.

Thank you Dr. Smith for the meat and the experience.

It turned out pretty good . . . even though I cooked it upside-down.

We enjoyed Daddy being around.

And, teeter-totters in Aunt LaNell's yard before dinner.

(those oranges in the background are looking oh-so-yummy, they're almost ripe!)

It was fun to get together with family.

Love these kids.

Hope your day was wonderful.

We've been missing . . .

(my sis-in-law Kristi sent me a link to these posters, how cool are these?)

Which is why we decided to do this:

(Click to link to the Rock'n'Roll website)

No kids. 5 days in Seattle. Seeing old friends. Enjoying old restaurants. LOTS of running to LOTS of bands.

Yeah!!

I'm an Iron Girl

Good times to be had on Saturday.
YES, I seriously wore those socks for TEN miles.
How could I not? Kara is OH SO convincing.
If I had her legs, I wouldn't be afraid of knee high santa socks either.

It went well! I ALMOST made my goal time . . . ALMOST.

Who's in for next year?

Lots of you have been asking about the Iron Girl race I mentioned in my last post. There are about 15 of us right now that have committed to doing it. We're doing the 10-miler and are planning on all getting a matching shirt to race in. There is a 5k option too!

Click on the logo above for race details, and read the quote below from the Iron Girls website - it's about the mission of the Iron Girls organization!

Iron Girl’s mission is to empower women toward a healthy lifestyle!

Grace, also the name of the symbol used within the Iron Girl logo, is within us all.
It's what makes women heroic, charming and limitless.
Grace is with us in difficult times and happy times, silly times and sad times.
Grace is with us physically, mentally and emotionally.
Grace is what makes women special, unique and strong.
Grace acts with truth, beauty and spirit.
Grace is within you, and you are Grace.

The "coolest" half-marathon in Arizona.

Yep - that's the actual name of the half-marathon that Caralee and I ran on Saturday in Flagstaff. It was a trail race at 8500 ft. elevation. I was prepared, so finishing wasn't an issue, but man-oh-man, the "trail" was tough! I'm not sure what we ran on can even be constituted as a trail! It was a "cross country ski trail", which basically means they chopped down some trees so that when the ground has three feet of snow on it in mid-December, you can ski. Translation - we were running on craggly lava rocks, tree roots, and branches!! It was crazy. Poor Caralee fell about 800 meters in, but she didn't let it phase her. She got right up and ran the rest of the race with a bloody knee! I must say I saw LOTS of bloody knees at the end of the race, so Caralee wasn't the only one who fell! I almost biffed on several occasions. You really couldn't even begin to enjoy the beautiful scenery because you were so focused on the ground in front of you the entire race.

All in all - I'm grateful that Caralee encouraged me to do this, I needed to get back in shape. However that is definitely the first and last "trail" race I'll ever do! It's just too risky! I love my knees too much to risk blowing one out.

I'm definitely doing the Mesa Turkey Trot and the Iron Girl 10-mile race in December. The 10-mile race is one that a bunch of girls are doing so if anyone is interested in running it with us - start training!!

We won the lottery!!!

Not the Washington State Lottery, but the St. George Marathon lottery! We signed up to run the St. George Marathon a few weeks ago, and just found out earlier this week that our names were drawn, so we're going to busy on October 6th, running 26.2 miles.


They only let 8,000 runners run in the race, and there are usually quite a few more people that want to run it than that, so you have to get drawn to run it.

I'm not sure that I will actually be able to work, train, and take care of my adorable daughter, so we'll see if I actually do it, but I'm going to train like I am, and Dave is definitely going to do it. We'll keep you posted on how everything is going.