The Expo and RBF meet-ups!

Hey guys!! I've got about a million pictures from this past Country Music Marathon race weekend, so I'm probably going to break my post down into three segments a) Da Expo & Carb Loading B) The Logistical nightmare of getting to the race & the easy part (aka running)/how the collapsed guy cost me the 23 seconds I'm short of for breaking 1:50 and C) Cheering for the Marathoners/Why Brent and I should be professional cheerleaders/hecklers. It takes me forever to put all my pics in so if I tried to do this all in one post it would be too long for anyone to read and would take me FOREVER!

So, Friday morning we headed in to work. We took a half a day off and let me tell you - working 4 hours is SO much nicer than 8! It was great!! All day people kept asking me if I was running the marathon this weekend. Most people know I ran a marathon in January, so now they assume EVERY race I run is a full marathon. It gets really confusing explaining to them that we were "only" doing the half, they all want to know why I wasn't doing the full. I don't think they understand the training and time commitment of this stuff! The BEST comment was from my boss. He said "You know, if you could still register I might go down there and sign up for the whole thing. I'd really like to do a marathon one day and I think the only way I'd do it is if I just signed up for it and ran it. There's no way my body could take all the pounding of months of training." HAAAAAAAAAAA! So, like any supportive person I said "Oh, it's not too late to sign up. You can register in person at the Expo until 7 pm tonight. You should TOTALLY do it! It would be great." Of course I got lots of stammering and backpeddling. Dumb comments like that fly all over me. People just don't get the serious amount of time and dedication we put in to reach goals like running a marathon.

We headed out of work full of excitement! We stopped for a good lunch of burritos (I swear my body mass is 60% water 40% burrito) and dropped by home to take Pippin out and pick up our race registration cards. I got a call from Triathamom that they were having a great time at the Expo and were going to head back to their hotel before meeting us for dinner. I could already tell she was going to be so nice and a ton of fun!

We headed downtown and were soon part of the throngs of Expo go-ers. CMM has a great Expo, definitely the largest of any of the races I've done. I think ING puts on a better themed race expo, though. In Miami we got tons of really cool freebies with Miami Marathon all over them (like sunglasses, signs, free pictures of us, etc.). We walked around and got our race numbers and then started browsing the booths. We popped into the end of an open panel that the Penguin was moderating. We only got to hear a couple of Q's though. From there we started making our way through all the booths and getting some freebies. We stopped at the Nashville Striders booth to check out any new race brochures and talked with the "head Strider" for a few minutes. He just ran Boston so we talked about that for a few minutes. Then we saw the Miami Marathon booth so of course we had to stop there! I grabbed a 2007 brochure and mentioned to the guy that I ran it this year. That was when we should've walked away!!! He was the medical director and said only 4 people ended up needing attention, even though it was hot. I said 'yeah, it was pretty warm but I drank a lot of water and also splashed quite a bit on my head and face'. To which he replied "Well, really what you should do in those cases is put water in your arm pits and also in your crotch area." Oh dear god. He went on for several minutes about where in the crotch you should be putting water and it was very uncomfortable. Just at that moment we spotted a friend from college (who we haven't seen in YEARS) so we ran away!! If anyone from CMM signs up for Miami after talking with him it will be a miracle! We chatted with B for a few minutes, told her how she was an angel sent to rescue us from crazy Miami man, and continued on our way. Next we stopped at the Fleet Feet booth and chatted with the owner Jill who informed us we were now celebrities. As if we didn't know! She took us over to the I Run for the Party 5K booth - and there we were in life size, full color glory! We had already noticed we're on the front page of the website (2nd picture down - I'm in bright blue and Brent's in white making a crazy face). This same pic was all over their booth AND on the postcards they were giving out!!!! Along with another pic of us where we're front and center!!! How funny. Yup, we do get out from time to time. So there's no telling how many people now have a postcard with two pics of us on it. We chatted with Emmit, the race director, for a few minutes. The trophies for this year's race are SUPER cool and the shirts are really cute, too. Then we stopped in to listen to the Pace Group Clinic and ran into a coworker and someone else we know (the 1:30 half pacer). We couldn't believe we saw so many familiar faces in a packed expo! Anyway, the expo was a lot of fun and Brent even bought a pair of the now discontinued Asics 2100.

But the real excitement was just beginning! It was time for an RBF dinner. I love meeting fellow RBF-ers. We haven't had a bad meet-up yet. When you already know so much about the other people conversation flows so easily. I think we could ALL talk about running all night! We headed over to Tangredi's and right on time Triathamom (A), Marathong Mom (J) - who does NOT have a blog, and two more of their Chattanooga friends came in. I just want to say I think I am THE shortest member of the RBF. Are there any other 5ft2-ers out there????? If so, let's plan a race together! I always look like the shrimp in all the pics. Anyway, we instantly were chatting like old friends. I love it! All the ladies were so sweet and funny, time passed like gangbusters. We talked about running, different race memories we have, all of you fellow bloggers and just shared the craziness of our lives. It was great. No doubt we could've talked all night but someone who will remain nameless was pretty amped about the Daytime Emmys that night. Another world class meet-up!! As Brent and I headed back home they were setting up Centennial Park for the race. This was about the closest I really ever got to the portajohns, if only I had known we should've gotten in the line THEN. This was also the only time I ever saw the "athletes village" where it appears they gave out water and other snacks. Luckily 3/4 of the 23,000 runners were in the portapotty lines at all times so I doubt they had to give out very many of them!

We went to bed at 9:15 and set the alarm for 3:45. Yeah, we live the lives of some wild, crazy 20-somethings. Hard core partying here!!

Part 2 to come tomorrow!! We did an easy 3 mile recovery run tonight, I've found 3 easy miles after a hard race or long run really helps me work the kinks out. We ran "naked" - no mp3 players, Fuel Belts or anything high tech (except my watch). It was nice!!

Have as great a Monday as possible everyone!!!

Rachel

Exercise-
Fri- 1 mile am walk with Pips
Sat-13.1 mile race, 2 hours of cheerleading!!
Sun-3 mile easy run & lots of housecleaning

Sometimes getting to the start is the hardest part....

Hey guys! Just a quick post while I'm waiting for Brent to pop out of the shower. What a day!!!!!!!! We had an awesome dinner last night with Triathamom and the Chattanooga group!!!

This morning.....not so fabulous! We got up at 3:45 am (ugh). We headed out right at 4:42, exactly on time. Our car did not sound right....at all. One mile down the road the Service Engine Soon light came on and we knew we were screwed. We got off on the next exit and headed back for home, changed gear out and hopped in the Jeep. Blah!! So, about 4:55 we were back on our way. We made it to downtown where traffic was completely stopped. We were stuck for at least a half an hour just trying to get off the interstate and over to the Coliseum. The entire Coliseum lot was full, so we parked in a lot across the street. And it started raining. We grabbed our gear (and trash bags!) and headed for the shuttles. That didn't take TOO long and we got off the bus right at 6 and immediately got in a portapotty line. It was already enormous. We were in this line for over FIFTY minutes - we literally ran to the start and made it into our corral as the gun went off for the wheelchair start. We missed the national anthem and meeting up with the RBF-ers! I was so ready to pee behind a bush. Hey Elite Racing - how about getting some more m-fing portapotties??????????????? We were in line for an HOUR! Ridiculous. We were exhausted by the time we started.

But, I pushed it as hard as I could for the whole way....and ended up at 1:50:22 (unofficial) - a new PR!!! Hopefully my timing will be a little off and I broke 1:50, but I doubt it! Brent set a new PR of 1:55-something. A great day for both of us!

Afterwards we cheered at mile 21.5/25 for about an hour and a half until we were both hoarse and totally exhausted! (But not as exhausted as anyone who ran the full!!! I'm not complaining!!) We saw Michele, David and two of my coworkers, so it was a success!

Anyway, shower and NAP time!! Details and pics from race weekend to come!

Two more days!!

Hey guys!! It's almost time to run with country music blaring in the background! I can't believe it's Country Music Marathon weekend again already! I remember this time last year I was FREAKING out. We were two days before my very first half marathon, and I had no clue how it would turn out. I had had a crazy idea back in January that I'd like to try a half. I'd only done a few 5Ks and never run further than 4 miles. My, what a difference a year makes!!! I feel like I've been doing this forever now, and still have so far to go. This time last year I had spent ages trying to figure out what I was going to wear, this time I haven't really thought much about it! (Except I think I'm going to wear a pink Nike shirt and blue Nike shorts - the same thing I wore for the Miami Marathon). I also remember how proud Brent was of me when I crossed that finish line, and how I thought there was NO WAY I'd ever be able to run a full marathon. Ha!!

I'm really excited! Tomorrow we're working a half day and then heading to the expo. We're meeting up with Triathamom and Marathong Mom for some carboloading dinner. (If anyone else wants to join us we're meeting at Tangredi's on Elliston place at 5 pm. The more the merrier! Your families and friends are more than welcome too!) If anyone else wants to meet-up before the race Brent and I will be by Corral #6 around 6:30-6:50, on the Centennial Park side. Afterwards we may try to get over towards mile 21/25, we'll just have to see what roads we can maneuver!

Good luck to everyone racing Saturday! The weather forecast is a little iffy right now. The latest I've heard is that the rain should hold off until later in the day. Cross your fingers! David, Lana and Michele will be running the full marathon and Brent, myself, Steve, Triathamom, Marathong Mom (I think she has a blog but I can't find it....), & Olivia will be running the half. Pop over and wish them all luck!

We're not the only race in this country this weekend. Make sure you send Kim and Richard some marathon well wishes, too!

Today was Bring your Kids to work day, and our company goes all out for it. To the point of sheer insanity where fights erupt over the T-shirt design, deflated balloons cause panic and sheer insanity invades the office. I ended up helping with the carnival this afternoon because one of the ppl from my department who was supposed to help had a boob job last week so she had to go for her follow-up this afternoon. I haven't mentioned this boob job because I'm so sick of hearing all about it at work ALL the time. How stupid. To me, she just looks idiotic now. So anyway, I'd post some pics from Kid day but they all have people's kids in them and that's just wrong. The best thing about kids day is that you really don't do much work! Yeah! Once you get past kids flashing gang signs in pictures, stealing toys they didn't win and 8 yr old singing "I ain't no Hollaback Girl" during kareoke time I'd say it was a success. Did I mention the line dancing that broke out? Oh wait, that was all adult employees from our company. Yeah, it was an interesting day!

Well, I need to work on my playlist for Saturday's half! This weekend Country Music, next weekend the Flying Pig!!

Rachel

Exercise-
Wed - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 40 minutes dance dance revolution with Brent
Thurs - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 4.2 mile run with Brent

Come on down! You know you want to!

Hey guys! Before I forget to mention it, if you've ever wondered what Pippin might look like in pants.....click here. Yup, that's right - Target has swimwear for dogs now! I love Target!!

Today is a very exciting day - registration for the 1st ever Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon has opened! I am so excited! This is the marathon that's been discussed on our local running board for a while now and is going to be kick ass! I love the way they describe it: "We will time and measure the distance, but the course will not be certified, we will not use timing chips, and it will not be a Boston qualifying event. There will be no bands, cheerleaders, wave starts or crowds. We promise no marathon Personal Records, but we guarantee every runner a PR - a Permanent Remembrance of a well-earned marathon finish." I love it! It seems like every big race now is about having some sort of massive, overwhelming experience - this one is all going to be about kick ass running. "From the moment you start "the 11.2", as the locals call it, you know you are in for a treat. A challenging one. As you wind your way through the tree-shaded Park, you endure over 1,100 feet of elevation gain and loss, encountering grades of up to 10-12% at times. Mercifully, you will also pass an occasional long, flat stretch around open fields and densely-forested glades. " Sweet!!! The 11.2 (plus some added on miles) is where Brent and I have been training for the Pig, and it's is so tough but an awesome feeling of accomplishment when you hit the bottom. And on November 19th we get to do the loop TWICE! Here's the elevation map:

Fun! So are you with me?? Brent and I are registering tonight, the field is pretty limited (100 runners!) and all the locals are really excited. Register here! Now!

Tonight we ran an easy 5 miles (right below a 9min pace) as part of our taper. We were supposed to have loads of rain but instead it was bright and sunny, not a cloud in the sky! There were a lot of people out enjoying the sunshine, the park was packed with kids playing ball. For the first 3 miles my stupid right leg was bothering me, my form was crap. I knew it would happen because I wore some really cute new strappy slingback shoes with my cute gaucho pants today (or grouchy pants as Brent calls them) and of course they didn't do good things to my feet. My hammies were really tight so my form was all kinds of crazy. I finally got it together in the last 2 miles so it's all boring flats for me the rest of this week and next week. Other than that it was a pretty vanilla run.

Last night I worked out with a new DVD I bought. I bought 3 DVDs off Ebay almost 3 weeks ago, and just got the first two yesterday. I am SO angry at the seller, and I think I'm through with Ebay for good. I only buy from people with loads of good feedback, but it seems they're all still jerks anyway. I'm not sure what they don't get about buy it NOW. My items weren't even in stock and one of them is still on backorder???!! For $11 shipping I expect some service. I only bought from Ebay vs Amazon to save about $5-6 bucks, if I had known how slow they would be I would've bought from Amazon. ANYWAY, they'll get appropriate feedback from me!

So, I did Crunch: Ab Attack last night. It's OK, I'm a little disappointed. It's only 30 minutes long, and I really like an hour workout. The first part is a standing cardio/ab section that's a little hard to follow. She's pretty dancy and doesn't do the best job explaining. I broke a light sweat but wasn't really out of breath. Then we moved to the floor and did a million types of crunches and some other stuff. None of it was particularly hard and I never had to quit. Then it was over! I think next time I'll do it twice. None of the moves are particularly innovative and I HATED how she danced with all the other class members as the credits rolled. SO CHEESY! Today my abs are definitely NOT sore AT ALL (bummer), but they do feel stronger in some weird way. So, the jury is still out and I'm going to give it a go again soon.

Take care everybody!

Rachel

Exercise-
Mon-1 mile am walk with Pippin, 30 mins Crunch Abs, 20 mins toning (arms)
Tues - 1 mile am walk with Pips, 5 mile run with Brent

No pickin' but there will be some grinnin'

Hey guys! I just wanted to see if any of the RBF-ers running Country Music on Saturday wanted to meet up this weekend. Drop me a line and let me know if you'd like to have an early dinner Friday or meet up somewhere before the race Saturday morning (maybe by one of the corrals). I think Tangredi's over near Centennial Park would be great for dinner Friday. It's close to the start area and convenient for anyone staying downtown.

We're planning to go to the expo Friday afternoon, we're working a half day Friday. Clinic schedules are up on the main race website. John Bingham and his wife will be speaking again along with some others.

Also, if any of the marathoners need any 2nd half race support just let us know and we can meet you at one of the later miles and supply more water, gu's or run along and provide some company on some of your later miles! I know how great it was for me to have Brent run 16-23 with me, it gave me something to look forward to and some great support!

And things were going so well....

I'm really not sure what's up with Blogger! For some reason it never would publish my post last night, so we copied it over and tried again. Somehow it ended up posting twice, and won't let me delete one of them. To top it off one of them won't let you leave a comment, and the other one shows 0 comments, even though there are some - which it refuses to email to me! Grrrr! Go figure. Oh well, what do you get for free???

Men rule!

Hey guys! I can't believe the weekend is almost over, again! We had a great weekend, super busy, but nice.

Fri night we vegged out. The rest of the weekend we're usually all over the place so we've gotten used to relaxing on Friday nights. Brent wanted to eat at Jim n Nicks, a BBQ place about a mile from our house. We ended up waiting 40 minutes for our food. People who came in after us were already leaving before we got our food. He had chicken fried chicken and I went with a healthy smoked turkey. I think we decided they had to go and find a wild turkey to make our dinner. I don't get it, but it's just another reason we hate chain restaurants (and that's all we have in our cookie cutter 'burb). I greatly prefer a nice ethnic restaurant any day of the week, we just sadly don't have them out here. Anyway, we're not going back, not that they would care. Later that night Brent surprised me with this new "artwork". It scared Pippin so much he started barking at it! Ha!

Saturday am we got up early (7:30) to do our 8-miler. With massage appointments across town at noon we needed to be showered and out the door at 11:15. We headed out around 8:30 and the nice fog that had been there an hour earlier had been replaced by the bright sun. It wasn't terribly hot, but some clouds would've been nice! We did pretty much the same 6 mile route I did Thurs night but added two of the 1.2 mile laps through a neighboring hilly subdivision. Things started out boring enough, with the only excitement being some mud and puddles to avoid. We weren't going terribly fast, my goal was to run 9's since we're saving our legs for next Saturday. Things were going fine until we got to the top of the hilly subdivision, tired and hot, and a stupid German shepherd and Chihahua were loose in their yard and decided they wanted a piece of us. I had completely forgotten the Dazer! We yelled and of course their irresponsible owners were nowhere around. Even though we turned around to go the other way they wanted to follow us, so Brent ended up throwing some construction stuff from the home being built next door to them to get them to leave us alone. I hate people like that. No worries, I'm reporting them this week. There are too many kids in our neighborhoods who can't defend themselves for people like that to disregard the rest of us who pay our taxes as well. We continued on and the rage we have for crappy people like that fueled us to do the second lap in that hilly neighborhood quite a bit faster (we stopped right before we got to the dog house and turned back around). Then we ran through a different subdivision and over to the neighborhood park where a fellow runner was enjoying the misting station. It's this tall green pipe thingie with a bunch of various nozzles that mist water. Brent and I ran through it twice and it felt SO refreshing! I'm so glad all the water fountains and water features are turned back on!! From there it was just a trip past the cows and we were home! We turned it up a notch on the final mile back and passed two Indian women out walking. All I could think of was "I wonder where they live and if they have any yummy Indian food leftovers in their fridge!" We ended up with an average pace of 8:59, which includes some time spent during our dog attack (I forgot to stop my watch since I was a little busy not being a Milkbone).

From there we got cleaned up and headed over for our massages!!! For the first time ever Brent and I both ended up with guys! I usually have the same woman, but the spa has gotten so busy you need to call waaay in advance to get particular people. I really didn't mind having a guy, but I had told them Brent prob wouldn't want a guy (they asked when I booked). Anyway, we both had an awesome massage. My guy had some massive muscles and he pretty much beat me up - which is what I needed. At one point he was sort of jerking my leg to stretch it various ways and pulled me halfway down the table! I think I was a 120-pound rag doll to him. I think I really do prefer a guy now! They're much stronger so they can really put more pressure and strength into the massage. Brent's guy ended up being a former RN and is really into therapeutic massage. His neck is still hurting him (from when he pulled it right before Miami) and the guy spent a LOT of time working on his neck. He also told him he was in amazing shape, which Brent loved! We walked out of there absolutely giddy! (And quite a bit lighter in the wallet, but hey....)

From there we grabbed some lunch and wandered around the mall. We also did some shopping and looked at bikes at REI. We'd like to get some bikes soon, so we've been doing some shopping. I think we're pretty settled on getting some Treks. Once we got home we took Pippin for a nice 3 mile walk to see all the water in the creek that runs outside our subdivision following all the rain we had Thurs & Fri. It was pretty warm so when we made it to the little park I turned on the misting thing for Pippin and he loved it! Dogs and runners both give the misting fountain a thumbs up this weekend!

Today we did an early morning run over at a "natural area" part of the greenway prob 5-6 miles from our house. It's a really pretty area to run, there's a lake and also some wetlands. We saw a couple of wild turkeys, some Canadian geese, a rabbit or two and a couple of other runners. We greeted the turkeys with a "gobble gobble" (he was not amused, the other one ran away) and told the Canadian goose how much we really liked Canada, especially their flag. The rabbit was too fast to really talk to. This was just a 5 mile recovery run, and I wanted to keep it slow. The first 2.5 miles were pretty muggy, then the rain started and it felt SO good! It was incredibly refreshing and we just enjoyed it. We went faster in the rain just because it was such a nice feeling, much better than the humidity we had for the first half of the run. My Garmin kept going in and out so I think our pace ended up being around 9:10 for the run.

The rest of the day ended up being nice and sunny so we worked in the yard and got a ton done. We trimmed trees (Pippin loved chewing the branches!) and cleaned all the weeds out of flowerbeds, it's time to start planting flowers here! We got a lot done out there and then took a bunch of crap over to Goodwill and did some grocery shopping. I think it was around 8 oclock tonight before we ever got to sit down and relax today! As always there are still a few things we didn't get around to this weekend, I wouldn't know what to do if I ever crossed everything off of my to-do list!

Anyway, I hope you all had great weekends and I can't wait to read all about them!

Rae

Exercise-
Sat - 8 mile run, 3 mile walk with Pippin
Sun - 5 mile run, lots of yardwork!

Aaahhhh taper!

Hey guys!! TGIF! Yeehaw!! We've had a lot of rain the past two days, so our temps have cooled down a little, yeah!

It rained off and on Thursday and by the time we got home it was 72, a great improvement over the mid-upper 80's from earlier in the week! The plan was to run right after work.....except Brent had forgotten and left the lights on in the car all afternoon so the battery was dead. Blah. Long story short we both finally made it home and were tired but determined to get our run in. We started out and in short order Brent's foot was bothering him. With two big races coming up he called it quits and headed back home. I trudged on alone. I went through one hilly subdivision and managed to pick off one guy running. I think it bothered his manhood as he looked back at me quickly approaching a million times and then tried to pick up his pace when I approached. As if! =) He was toast and I kept on. As I headed out of that subdivision and towards the middle school I saw a familiar sight - Brent! He had gotten in the car and driven ahead of me with his camera. If I knew his foot was going to bother him and the session was going to turn into a photoshoot I would've worn my black shorts. They're so much more flattering! He took a few action shots and then I was off through a new subdivision. A minute or two later he was there, too! I was still pretty warm but trying not to look TOO dead kept me moving. I looped back past him and headed for the neighborhood park where a family of five was completely blocking the sidewalk. GRRR! The woman looked at me at LEAST 5 times but waited to tell her husband, who was totally putzing around on his bike, to move over right when I was on them. Shocked that anyone might be trying to move rapidly he was like a deer caught in headlights and ended up blocking the whole sidewalk. Moron. I changed direction quickly and gave them death looks as I kept moving towards their two boys on bikes. One of them matched my speed and I thought about sticking my foot out to knock him over. The other one was really nice and stopped completely - causing his smart ass brother to slam into him. Pile up! I told the other kid "thank you" really loudly and kept moving....only to meet Brent one last time! He took some pics of me running past the lone farmhouse left in suburbia (they could sell and make SO much money!). Finally I was headed back home! I was tired and hot and ready for dinner! I managed to pick up the pace and had a final full mile of 8.18, which I was really happy about! Overall I covered 6.4 miles at an avg pace of 8.32. I was pretty happy with that, esp since I did the same course two weeks ago at an average of 8.45. Not a huge difference but I'll take it.

Tomorrow we're just doing 8 miles (yeah taper!). I'm not sure what the weather will be like, probably rainy. It's been raining all day and we even took an after dinner walk in the rain. It started storming at 4 am this morning and kept us up until 5 so there was no way I was taking Pippin this morning, plus it was still storming at 5:30. All we had was thunder, lightning and massive rain, but Pippin's little purple pool is nearly half full! After tomorrow's 8-miler we're having massages. Perfect! We haven't been since December and it's SO overdue! It will be nice to get all the niggles out before Country Music Half next weekend.

That's all the news around here. Have a great weekend and good luck to anyone racing!

Rachel

Exercise-
Mon - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 50 minutes Crunch Burn n Firm Pilates
Tues - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 6.3 mile run
Wed - 2/3 mile am walk with Pippin (storms!), 50 mins toning/stretching
Thurs - 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 6.4 mile run
Fri - 1 mile evening walk with Brent and Pips

Can someone please turn the heat off?

Well, I guess I better make this quick! Looks like Blogger is going down in half an hour.

So, how are things?? I had so much fun tracking all the people running in Boston on Monday! How cool is that? I think I was totally worthless at work that morning/early afternoon! Modern technology is so cool. I can't wait until I QUALIFY and run Boston, probably 2008 or 2009! I wouldn't want to run it any other way. As fast an elite marathon as it is there's no way I'd want to be the slow one finishing last!

Anyway, it's hotter than hell here. All sorts of records have been broken. When I headed out last night for my run at 5:30 it was 86 degrees! GEEZ! I swear this is still April, but you wouldn't know. I had gotten so used to running in the cool weather, and now it's such a drastic change. I tried to start out slow but ended up with a Mile 1 of 7:55. So I slowed it down a bit for mile 2. I'm also drinking a lot more, and even carried a frozen Fuel Belt bottle with me yesterday. It was completely melted by Mile 4! I did the big loop at the hospital and was headed towards the small neighborhood park. My arm was really starting to swell up so I had to stop at around Mile 2.6 and adjust my nano sports band. It was a nice 15-20 second break and it really helped me get my heart rate under control. I met one other sweaty runner around this point. I ran through the park and then started up a .4 mile climb. It was into the sun and SO hot. When I made it to the top I stopped and let my HR drop for another 15-20 seconds. I saw a friend drive by and thought about giving up and flagging her down for a ride but I'm too headstrong for that. I started back up and picked up some speed heading home. I made the 6.4 mile loop in an avg pace of 8:40. Not bad! In the cooler temps I've done the same route in about 8:25-8:35, so I guess that's still good. I was sweating like a DOG when I got home. I was absolutely drenched, and I drained all 3 bottles during my run. I think that's how much water I drank during the whole half M a few weeks ago! I was a little dizzy so I crashed on the couch for a few before we started making dinner. Brent's foot was hurting him a little so he's out running right now. It's a nice 84 degrees, ugh!! Hopefully we can get a nice cool front before Country Music in a week and a half.

Here's what makes me mad - there was horse $hit all over the sidewalk! Last weekend we saw two people riding horses ON THE SIDEWALK! WTF?? Where did they come from and why do they think they belong on a sidewalk? We're smack in the middle of suburbia, not horseville. I can't believe how rude they are. There's no telling how many kids have horse crap on their shoes, bicycle wheels, everywhere. Not to mention how badly it smells under this hot sun.

In other work news I have now hidden the godforsaken candy bowl. One particular person at work has taken it upon himself to try to make my already overweight coworkers even more so. For EIGHT straight days now he has brought in a fresh bag of candy. Choc eggs, M&Ms, etc. Today it was snack mix because we've complained about the chocolate. It's on a table in the hallway, right across from my cube. So this afternoon (once the bowl was empty, which only takes until noon) I took the bowl and put it inside one of the drawers of the table. We'll see how long it takes for it to be found! Some of us have also thought about entering a maintenance ticket to have the table moved! It's really going WAY overboard.

Here are some pics from last weekend!

Pippin's purple party pool is now open for the summer season! Doggie beach party at our house!












Some pics from a walk at the park:









Have a great night everybody!

Mojo returned - safe and sound

Hey guys! I hope you all had an awesome Easter weekend. We did, and it sucks that it's nearly over.

Friday night we headed to a fairly close little Italian joint - Uncle Gio's Italian Restaurant on Nolensville Rd. We had been there once before and liked the food but hated the service. This time was totally the same - except my food was just mediocre and the bread hurt my teeth. This place is always packed with 5 million poorly behaved kids and we always end up with a terrible waiter. A family of four that came in after us was already leaving with doggie bags before we got our food. Seriously. We waited over 20 minutes just for the salad portion of our meal. Anyway, after that we ran some errands and came home and relaxed on the deck for a while. It was a beautiful night, we had had a high temp of 88 degrees Friday - breaking all sorts of records.

It's great that it's warm and all - but it's seriously tough to go straight from 40-50 degree runs into 70-80 degree runs! There's a big gap in there!!! Sat am we set the alarm and headed out for Percy Warner park to put the last nail in the coffin of our hill training. I didn't have a good run there last Saturday and I was determined not to repeat history. The sun was shining and it was bright!! When we started running it was 73 degrees with 65% humidity. There were tons of people out running and cycling and TNT as well as some other charity group were out finishing their run. For some reason they don't run through the park, just the straight flat roads outside the park. I know the park course is tough, but come on! Life's not easy. We started out on the 11.2 trail and it already felt much easier (but hotter) than last week! We dodged a lot of walkers and made our way. It felt nice, we chatted and enjoyed the pretty park. Around mile 4.7 we added on an extra mile out and back so we'd end up with 14 miles when we were done. The bad part about the add on was that it was NOT in the shade, and by then the temps had climbed up to 80. My ideal running temp is 60-65, Brent's is closer to 50-60. As a result I can deal with the heat a little better than him and I could tell the heat was taking a lot out of both of us. We were finally back in the shade around mile 6 and we ate some Sports Beans. I think they taste a lot better than Clif Bloks, but you do have to eat quite a few of them. They're easy to down since they don't have a Gu taste to them, but I get sick of eating when I'm trying to focus on running. Beans down it was time to start climbing some hills. Based on some discussions on the local running boards the overall grade of the course is 2%, including the sharp downhills. The two toughest parts of the course have a grade of 10-15%! Ugh! Brent was starting to fall behind a bit on the hills, so I'd make it to the top and then wait on him and cheer him on. When we finally made it to the top of the toughest one (usually mile 9 but for us mile 11) I knew we had it. The rest is mostly downhill and I was feeling great. With a mile to go I went ahead and kicked it in, I knew Brent would be fine. I finished 14 miles in 2:11, which is OK. It was already 82 degrees when we finished running! They're actually planning a marathon in this park this fall, which will be so awesome! It's going to be limited to 100 people so when registration opens I am IN! I think it would be a great and super-challenging marathon course. Course elevation is here.

Even though we were super stinky we stopped by Fleet Feet for some goodies on our way home. We both got some new running clothes from the clearance rack and stocked up on more Sports Beans and Clif Bloks. We are ready for some long races!! Last night we headed out for dinner at our fave Indian restaurant only to see it's now going to be stupid Sprint store!! WTF?? We stared in disbelief for a few minutes before we walked back to the car. We ended up trying a different Indian restaurant, Taste of India, over on Church Street. Their food was AWESOME, so it's now our new fave. Sitar is our second fave, then Shalimar.

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We took some pics but we haven't uploaded them yet so I'll post them tomorrow!

Rae

Exercise-

Friday - 1 mile am walk with Pips
Sat - 14 mile run with Brent
Sun - 4 mile run, 2.1 mile walk with Brent and Pips at the park

And there was much rejoicing

So, we haven't seen our little bird "friend" in over 24 hours now. After work yesterday we may (or may not) have gone to Walmart, where a store associate may (or may not) have shown us what they use to get birds who somehow end up in the SuperCenter and can't find their way back out. When we got home our little friend was hard at work flying into our back windows. So Brent may (or may not) have suited up. This may (or may not) be the last time this little bird sat in a tree. He did sit there for quite a while and we waited for some incredibly slow neighbors to finish dinner on their deck and go inside. And Brent may (or may not) be an INCREDIBLE shot. Remind me not to piss him off. But I definitely did Windex all the reachable windows of our house last night, and there was much rejoicing. So, I'm not going to tell you what happened, and you can choose to believe what you want. Because some people do tend to exagerate on their blogs, use fake names, stage fake pictures, etc. And I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not I'm one of those people. But we've all been much more "chipper" the past 24 hours INSIDE our house!!










I had a totally miserable run tonight. I've totally lost my mojo this past week. I've felt exhausted all the time and just want to sleep. I didn't want to run tonight but I thought I might feel better if I did get out there. Well....not tonight. We ran two miles out and back instead of our normal Thurs night 6. Around mile 2 I had major side stitches so I stopped to walk for a couple of minutes and then started back up. We ran the first two around an 8:30 and when I started running again I ran 9:00s, which felt much more comfortable. We ran at 6pm and it was still 81 degrees! It's really starting to be warm and I don't think I'm adjusted to that yet. We've got 14 miles planned for Saturday morning, so I hope to get some rest before then. We were thinking about doing a big 5K here on Saturday, but decided to focus on our distance instead. There's a 5K here somewhere every weekend, so we'll have plenty of time to do them all summer. I really enjoy distance more than speed anyway.

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend, especially everyone running Boston! I am proud of you and SO incredibly jealous!!! I'll see you there in 2008 (hopefully!)! So, good luck racers! I know Elizabeth is going to kick butt in Boston! Good luck wishes to Angie, Running Jayhawk, TriSaraTops & everyone else racing this weekend!

Rachel

Exercise-
Wed - 1 mile am walk with Pips, 2 mile evening walk
Thurs - 1 mile am walk with Pips, 4.44 mile run

Things you don't know....

So....there's something we haven't told you. No, nothing crazy or insane like THAT. We have this problem. And it's a big problem, but also rather small. Annoying, really. There's this bird. A robin (Brent called him Robby, I call him Bob). And he likes our house. A LOT. And he won't leave. Ever. It started last Tuesday. We came home for lunch and hear this banging, pecking really, coming from the front of our house. We creep around the corner and this robin is pecking at an octagonal window offset from our front door. He flys at it and pecks, over and over and over. At first it's amusing. We take pictures, videos, laugh at it. But he never stops, and that gets old. So we put some shoes on the inside of the window, and that works during lunch. But when we get home that night he's back at it, over and over again. By 6:30 am the next morning he was back. So we hung a trash bag over the window and left for work. When we came for lunch....he was attacking our front door - and pooping all over the porch. Huh??? Over and over and over. He's rather bold. He'll fly to the roof while I'm out with Pippin and while we're in the yard he returns to attacking the windows until we go back in. He even pooped on a package that we got Friday. Nice. I was hoping Friday's hail would kill him, but nope, he was back on Saturday. By Sunday morning I had had it. I Googled "what to do if a bird won't stop pecking at your house" and found this article. Basically this idiot sees a competitor in our window (himself) and isn't going to stop until mating season is over. Fantastic. I papered our entire front door in white paper. Not 15 minutes later the m-fer was now flying at our sidelights. I hate him. We got CDs and a windchime, strung them up and hung them in front of the sidelights, on the outside. I refuse to paper the sidelights. Pippin pushes back the curtains to watch for us, and I'm not taking his window away. These distractions momentarily stopped him, but he would sit on the railing of our porch - and continue to poop. We wrapped packing tape all along the railings so it would be too sticky for him to land. SUCCESS! We were feeling pretty happy about all this.....until yesterday. We came home for lunch and instantly saw it. All the marks and scuffs on our BACK door. Our front door and porch is totally ghetto-ed out, and now this a-hole has moved to the back of our house. He's now attacking our 3 back windows and back door. Sun up to sun down. He has no fear of us, he just sits in our window sill, pecking and pooping. I talked to a neighbor tonight as I walked back to our house after my run and he is having the SAME problem. We can't decided if it's the same bird or not. Our bird never seems to leave, though. Anyway, Brent and I have a plan for this bird. He's had fair warning, and Pippin is about ready to lose his mind - he has to listen to this crap ALL day. I'm not sharing my plan, but if you understand my frustration I'm thinking you'll see what direction we're headed in. After all, what kind of father leaves his nest all day for retarded house pecking. He should be feeding them and building a posh nest.

Oh yeah, I ran today. A normal 6 miles. Annoying people blocking the sidewalk, 8:45 pace for 6 miles. I was lonely because Brent didn't feel good so I had to run alone. It would have been fun to have him help me run into some old hags that wouldn't get out the way. So I had to elbow them by myself and that's not nearly as fun.

Anyway, talk to you later!! Make sure you check out Running Jayhawk's crazy dream! HA!

Rachel

Exercise-
Monday - 1 mile am walk with Pips, 50 minutes toning/stretching (abs & thighs)
Tues - 1 mile am walk with Pips, 6 mile evening run

Storms and the Tough Runs that Follow them

Hey guys!! Thanks to all the people who have emailed and left comments wondering if we're OK following all the storms that came through here Friday. It was quite the active weather day! All week the weatherpeople had been saying to expect strong storms on Friday. How do they know so many days ahead?? Anyway, on Friday they were saying the storms would start in the evening and run through the night and clear by Saturday morning. That's really all I care about since we do our long runs on Saturday am! They were also calling them supercells - saying that it was comprised of lots of small bands of storms, versus large, long bands of rain, meaning that the likelihood of some of them combining to create big ass storms was pretty likely. Friday morning came and so did the clouds. By afternoon everyone at work was already talking about the radar and how the storms were starting to develop. To further complete things Brent's department was moving around within the office, and since they're the only group staying in the same spot they were rebuilding their area. His whole department got to leave at noon on Thursday and didn't have to come in until 9 on Friday. Long story short, the idiot contractors screwed something up and wired things backwards. So when they "flipped the switch" a bunch of computer blew, in several departments. One group was immediately sent home. These people don't do much to begin with so it was no great loss to the company. Around 2:30 Brent's department was also sent home. All the ripples of "no fair" immediately swept through the company. My department had plenty of power, but people were immediately whining to go home. Huh?? Then our crack Sales and Marketing department decided they deserved to go home. Why not? They're overpaid and aren't required to do anything, so screw the fact that a customer might call with a question. It started to get cloudy and our computers were flickering on and off all afternoon. It really didn't look too bad. Then, right at 4:30 when it was time for me to go home, it was raining in buckets!! By this point several tornadoes had already swept across the northern part of Nashville, and Brent had pointed out to me that it was the front story on Cnn.com. I had the radar up and a we were right in the middle of a bright section of the radar. I had just IM-ed Brent that it really only looked like heavy rain and I was ready to GO and he "yelled" back at me not to go anywhere, that it was hailing. Blah, I headed into my boss's office to look out a window and as soon as I walked in there the rain was blowing parallel to the ground (thanks to straight line winds) and it started hailing. So, I waited around a minute or two until the rain slowed down, showed my boss how to pull up the radar (seriously, I thought everyone knew how to do that) and when I returned to my desk my IM was flashing wildly and Brent was calling me on my cell. We were right in-between storms and he told me to leave NOW. It was perfect timing - the interstate was crawling at 25 mph and right when I pulled into the garage heavy rain #2 started and more hail was right behind it. All told I think we had 4 episodes of hail that evening, and it was still thundering and lightening when we went to bed at 11pm. The weather people had broadcasting interrupted from somewhere around 2 pm until 8 pm! It's very exhausting to watch one storm after another approach, and to know that junk is going to happen all night. We ended up staying home and cooking dinner, so it was a "nice" night in. We were really lucky on the south side of town. Quite a few people died on the north side and some of the photos in the press are really amazing (some of the hail in those pics are ENORMOUS!). Last week was NOT a good weather week in Tennessee. Hopefully this week will be much better!

Saturday am we ran over at Percy Warner Park. This is a great park, def the best in the city. The main problem is that it's completely on the opposite side of town, and takes us about 30-40 minutes to get to. By the time you go and come back you really could've already done your run. But, this is the king of hilly places and beautiful scenery so it is worth it if you have the time. We got up around 8:30 and headed out the door an hour later. The thermometer SAID 57 but it felt much cooler. It was cloudy, dreary, and still misting rain. I wore a short sleeve tech shirt and shorts, and grabbed a light jacket for post run on my way out the door. Thank goodness!! We got out of the car and the wind was icy and brutal. I decided to run with my jacket! The park was crowded, this is a local fave place to run, walk, and be seen in general. It's in a GORGEOUS part of town with beautiful old home, and beautiful new homes. We call this the "old money" part of town. These people are just plain rich. A lot of them have fabulous old cars, the really cool old Mercedes and other things that just scream class. When we pulled in an old lady was walking her little frou-frou dog who was wearing a little raincoat and matching hat!

We started out and instantly started up a hill. Everything was so beautiful. All the leaves are just starting to bud and everything looked so clean and spring-like following the rain. My Garmin lasted 150 feet and then never could figure out where we were! Thank goodness Brent has a foot-pod! It's nice to be able to average the length of your run using both technologies. One of us should surely be right! There were tons of other runners and walkers on the path. We had talked about also running on the trails, but since we only have 1 pair of shoes we didn't want to get them completely muddy! We ended up following some signs for Team Excel. We weren't sure how long their group run was that day, but we hoped it wasn't a 20-miler! After about 3 miles their signs disappeared so we started following the signs for our local running club. Then the massive hills started. We'd curve up and curve up and curve up. Then you'd finally get some downhill but it was usually so steep you couldn't exactly relax and enjoy it. Right around 7 miles we spotted some wild turkeys so we stopped to take some pics and I took my jacket off. The wind was brutal, but when it wasn't blowing I was burning up! As soon as I took my jacket off the wind picked up again. I was so miserable. Between the cold, dreary weather and a really terrible week at work I was so dead. I really wanted to enjoy myself, especially since we don't make it there often. We weren't even running with our music, we were enjoying nature and each other. Brent was the best training partner ever that day. He was really upbeat and constantly cracking jokes. In the middle of one massive uphill we met some walkers coming down and he asked them how much further til a downhill! He'd shout out other funny things to bikers who passed us and then curse them as being lazy or on wheels once they were gone. Hopefully I can be such a good motivator for him on his next "off" day. I would've never survived if it wasn't for him! Around mile 9 we started up an incline so steep that someone had named the hill after someone else and written it in chalk on the pavement! You know it's bad if it has a name! The views from the top were beautiful, and there was usually a wooden bench at the top, too. A wooden bench has never looked so good! We knew the main loop was 11.2 miles, so after the last hill at Mile 9 we knew we'd be coming back down. There were still some other small ups but we knew we almost had it! I've never been so happy to see the giant stairs! We were able to pick up some more steam towards the end and finished twelve miles in 1:49. Not bad considering the uphills were brutal and the downhills were too (at times). We were SO glad to have survived! Afterwards we took some silly photos on the stairs and of course I had to do my impression of stupid JoDee Messina and her photo shoot for Runners World. It was SO cold! By the end of our run the temp had dropped to 47. I had no idea it was one of those dropping temp days!









We did some errands afterwards and then headed home to clean up! All in all it was a great run and I'm really glad we did it. This Saturday we plan to run there again, for 14 miles. The next week we'll be doing 8, the following weekend is the Country Music Half and then the Flying Pig Half. So, if we plan to get some more kick butt hills in next week (this Sat) is it!

Hope you all had great weekends!!!

Rachel

Exercise-
Fri - 1 mile am walk with Pippin
Sat - 12 mile run with Brent
Sun - 3 mile recovery run, 20 mins yoga focus:abs, lots of yardwork (raking for about 3 hours!!!)

Almost Friday!!

Hey guys! We are SO close to Friday. This week has actually gone by pretty quickly. I've been slammed at work with month-end, quarterly forecasts and monthly sales commissions. Of course my boss has been ZERO help and we've gotten into a row several times this week. The jerk called in sick on Tues (a GOOD thing), but called me continually throughout the day. So I quit answering my phone. The first time he called I did answer and he droned on forever and ever and at the end said if I got lonely to give him a call. Seriously, he'd probably be about #1,763, 264 on my list of people to call if I was lonely. I would be googling ALL of you guys' phone numbers before I called him. UGH!

We've had pretty great spring weather this week. Most days our temps have been in the mid to upper 70's. Meeting Dean K on Monday really inspired us to get re-focused on our training. Tues night we set out for our regular run and it felt SO nice to wear tanks and shorts. My right foot felt weird, I've become completely obsessive compulsive with the way I lace my shoes. I have REALLY got to move on. Anyway, it took a couple of miles before it felt comfortable. We ended up doing our 6.3 mile loop where we start at our house, on to the hospital, one mile loop around, up to the neighborhood park, up the 1 mile out and back to visit the suburban cows and then back to our house. Right around the park I started feeling good so I picked up the pace. I ended the run with a strong sprint up our street and was able to manage an 8:30 pace for the run! Yeah! None on my miles were over 9 min, but none were under 8. I'd really like to start getting some 7-somethings in there. I ended up cutting two minutes of this path from the last time I had done it (last Thurs). I could've done even better if I hadn't been obsessing over my foot & shoe lacing.

Wed was Killer Butt day. That woman is just evil. With all the miles these legs see it amazes me how she can still turn them into jello! The point where we add in weights is what really starts to exhaust me. The mat work is awesome, too. I have progressed to the point where my legs are just tired the next day and not sore, so that's an accomplishment! I've gone through some of my fitness mags for some killer abs DVDs to order so I've going to do that. I'd like to have some kick ass abs this summer, esp the obliques and love-handles.

Tonight was another great run night. It was 72 when we headed out at 5.30 for our run! We did a different route through the neighborhood where we head through a slightly hilly subdivision, then through a new and flat subdivision (with horses at the entrance), back through the park and up and back to see the cows, then back to our house. It ended up being 6.5 miles. I had an exhausting and frustrating day at work, so my goal was to keep it easy and just enjoy the day. We started out just under 9 min miles, which felt comfortable. I've forgotten how much more water I drink when it's warm! I now drink 2.25 Fuel Belt bottles on a 6.5 mile run! In the winter I can go probably about 9-10 miles with the same amount of water! We've also thrown some bottles in the freezer to start having some cooler water. Brent's stomach starting hurting him around 3.5 miles so he ducked into the bathrooms at the park and I headed on. I had added some new music onto my ipod (Pink's new CD) so I was ready to groove. I was feeling better so I started picking up the pace and it felt great. I managed NOT to obsess about my lacing techniques tonight so that really helped, my form felt comfortable the whole time. I ended the run at an avg 8:43 pace, which was fine with me. I ran back in, grabbed Pippin and ran back out to meet Brent. When we found him we ran back with him, Pippin going as fast as his little legs would carry him! Another neighborhood dog tried to get his attention (by jumping on him and trying to play) but Pippin was more interested in running with Daddy so we kept on. It was fun.

This weekend we'll do a 12 mile training run at Percy Warner Park, the mother of all places to work on hills! It's also the place JoDee Messina is standing on the back page of this month's Runners World. As if. I don't like that celebrities can do Boston just because they're famous. I really don't think that's fair. Not that life is fair, but Boston is about accomplishment! Anyway, she's not famous and Brent kicked her ass at the Fleet Feet 4-miler.

Good luck to everyone running this weekend! I am 80 posts behind, so I'm not sure who is racing. CJ is running a marathon this weekend, and she is WICKED fast so I know she'll do great! Danny is also doing a 4-miler in NYC and will also be wicked fast! Have a great weekend!

Rachel

Exercise-
Tues - 1 mile am walk with Pips, 6.3 mile run with Brent
Wed - 1 mile am walk with Pips, 2 mile evening walk with Brent & Pips, Killer Butt DVD + QuickStart Killer Abs (1 hr)
Thurs - 1 mile am walk with Pips, 6.5 mile run with Brent

Pippin, Da Baller

Although he hasn't technically been a baller since he was six months old (oh happy day!), Pippin has now earned the title of "Honorary Baller". It's official, our dog Pippin won our NCAA tournament brackets. I have no idea how he did it. I had little to no faith when he picked Florida as the winner of the tournament that they would ACTUALLY win. When he picked LSU to beat Duke I asked him if he was sure. Sure, he picked Monmouth to win a few games, but he had TWO of the final four teams right, and I had one. In the end his score was nearly DOUBLE mine. Overall in the Yahoo leagues he ended up ranked 7,205. SEVEN FREAKIN' thousand!! He was in the 99th percentile!!! For perspective, I ended up 380,000-something and in the 60-something percentile, and I was third in my league! I'm not exactly sure how many people played overall in Yahoo, Good Morning America said 4 million but my math would estimate closer to 1 million. Either way, I'm asking Pippin what numbers to play in Powerball on Wednesday. He's already earned a lot more respect around here. I ask him what to wear for work, what we should cook for dinner, whether or not we should change long distance plans. He's not only our dog now he's our personal advisor.

Here's some video of how he made his picks. I told Brent the two teams matched up, in no particular order and shuffled about. Brent had a treat in each hand and randomly assigned a team to each hand. Pippin picked a hand and thus a team. I realize this video is shot sideways, I forgot to turn the camera (duh!) but you can still see Pippin's intense concentration and selection process. Each game took a while, so be glad we didn't film the whole thing! Pippin took this very seriously! Next year I'm going to have Brent hold a Thin Mint and Reese's Cup in his hands so I can do a better job picking MY teams.

Enjoy!

Meeting Dean!

Hey guys! I hope you all had great Mondays. My boss took today off as a vacation day so I didn't really mind going to work (for a change!) Yesterday afternoon's storms lead to really nice evening so we took Pippin out for a 3 mile walk. It was really nice to head out well after 6 and still have daylight! Tons of people were out walking and enjoying the cool evening. Of course everything flipped around during the midnight hours. We went to bed around the usual 10.30-11.00 pm. As I was falling asleep I was dreaming I was on the beach, laying out in the nice sun (must be my sunburn talking!). I kept stretching and kicking my feet around which was annoying the crap out of Brent so he woke me up. When I told him we were sunning in the Caribbean he was a little more understanding. The next thing I knew massive rolls of thunder and lightning along with a ton of wind woke me up at around 12.30. Brent was awake, too and suggested I let Pippin in our room (he snores so bad we don't usually let him sleep with us.). We let him in and the storms were so strong we turned on the TV to enjoy the overkill of weather broadcasting our major networks provide. All 3 major stations always bring in two weatherpeople during storm situations and they tag team back and forth between all the various radar views and zooms. We were on the front edge of 3 strong storms. We turned off the computers, made sure our closet was ready in case we needed to "take shelter" and watched the broadcast for a while. Around 1.30 we got our strongest of the 3 which included tons of hail slamming across our windows. I hate that sound, it always sounds like our front windows are about to come crashing in. It moved on quickly and we tried to get some sleep but around 2.00 another strong surge came through and knocked our power out, right as I was trying to return to my beach vacation. I reset my alarm clock and the power immediately clipped back off. GRRR! We were so pissed and sleepy we got scrounged up a backup battery for alarm and then tried to go back to sleep. Then my alarm went off twice for no apparent reason!! Finally around 2.30 we went back to sleep. Needless to say Pippin and I did NOT walk this morning! We were lucky to have no damage, quite a few people in the Western part of the state died as a result of the tornadoes (I believe they said 19 people this morning on the news). The weather guy this morning called it a "clash of the seasons".

On a MUCH more fun note tonight we got to meet Dean Karnazes, UltraMarathon man! We read his book over a year ago, and Brent re-read it not too long ago. He was at Davis Kidd, an awesome local bookseller that has TONS of booksignings. This was his 30th stop on a 30 stop city tour, so we were very lucky to meet him! Friday he ran a marathon, Saturday a 50 mile race, and Sunday the Vancouver marathon. He took the red-eye to Nashville and wasn't a BIT sore. Good grief!! He gave a great speech about his book, his running, and just a lot of info about himself and his upcoming plans. He's planning to run 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. Geez! Some of them will coincide with official races (like Chicago and NYC), others he will run the official race courses with police escorts, just not on race day. He'll be running the Memphis marathon course (that Brent and I did the half last December). He was a really great guy, very nice to answer any and all questions and even showed us some shoes he has been working on with North Face. He's really just your normal runner who can run for a very, very, very long time. Brent and I got him to autograph our book and also have a picture made. (OF COURSE!) It was a blast, what beats talking about running??? (except for running). Afterwards we headed to La Paz for dinner. They have THE best cheese dip in all of Nashville. We don't normally order cheese dip, but this stuff is completely worth it. The food is really good too, but nothing beats their cheese dip!










Anyway, back to watching the game! I'm pretty sure Pippin is going to win our league, which totally blows my mind. Yesterday he was in the 97% percentile on Yahoo!!! He was ranked 38,000-something - I am ranked 350,000-something!!!! It's totally amazing. We've been trying to ask him about Powerball numbers to see what he thinks. He's obviously a little Buddha.

See ya!

Exercise-
Fri - 1 mile am walk with Pippin
Sat - 10.3 mile run
Sun - 3 mile run, 3 mile walk with Pippin
Mon - Rest day for everyone!!!!!!!!!!!