St George Marathon Number VIII

Jill and I left our children in the care of their grandparents and we went to St. George for a really fun couples weekend.  So many of our friends and neighbors also went to run the marathon.  If I counted correctly we had 11 Mindi Meadows (or former MM) neighbors all running the race.  I took Friday off work so Jill and I could drive down and enjoy sunny St. George.  We arrived in the early afternoon and picked up my packet at the expo.  While we were there we ran into the Vickers.  It's always fun to run into friends at the expo.  

The Yeagers were so kind.  They hosted everyone and their families at Kevin's parents' condo.  The Yeagers provided lasagna and everyone else brought bread, salad, fruit, and dessert.  It was so much fun to visit and relax with everyone before the race.  We learned that it was Gwen Smith's birthday.  We improvised and Kevin put a rather large candle on a brownie while everyone sang to her.  It was especially fun to visit with the Smiths, who had come up from Phoenix.

Jill and I stayed at La Quinta Inn which is really close to Kevin's parents' condo.  The hotel was really nice.  They had a terrific breakfast in the morning that we both got to enjoy on Sunday.  On Saturday, I got up dark and early and picked up Kevin and Ron, and then we picked up Ben Sutton on our way to the start of the race.  Later Holly picked up Jill, so the ladies didn't have to wake up so early and drive us into town to catch the bus.  The lines for the bus were really long, but they moved crazy fast.  Most of us were able to meet up and ride together to the start.  Here is a picture of us at the starting line.

Pictured here left to right, Ben Sutton, Cade Bryant, Kent Candrian, Kevin Palmer, Randall Vickers, Norm Stevens, Nate Smith, Amy Stevens (the only girl from our group) Nate's brother in law, Ron Hada, and Kevin Yeager.  Missing from the picture were Doug Burton and Brandon Moncur.

We all met up at the last fire pit, like we do every year.  We patiently waited and then with about thirty minutes to go, we walked up to the starting line to toss our bags of clothes into the moving truck.  Then we got in line to run.  The weather was perfect and just a bit cold.  Doug and I were close together, but quickly he got up ahead of me and I never saw him again.  I feel like more than any other race, this was about as perfect as I could have ran.  I started fast, but not too fast.  I ran hard and pushed myself the entire time. With the exception of one small bathroom break I pushed it every minute of this race.  

My goal was to finish in about 3 hours and 20 minutes.  That's probably what I would need to qualify for the Boston Marathon.  There was a small outside chance I could come in at 3:15, but I could also run too fast and then bonk.  I was well ahead of the 3:15 pace runner most of the time.  I couldn't understand how I was so far ahead.  Watching my time, I felt like I was on track for 3:15 but the pace runner was well behind me.  Sure enough, I did slow down the last five miles of the race, but unlike other races, this year I still ran (not walked). The 3:15 pace runner passed me, but I kept pushing and giving the marathon everything I had.  It became obvious that I was going to come in closer to 3:25, which is still five minutes faster than I have ever ran it before.  Technically I could still tell everyone I qualified for Boston, however my likelihood of actually running was zero.  As I came into the final mile, I was so tired and beat.  But I had a nice pep talk with myself and I said, "Every other marathon I slow down and walk much of the last mile, but not today!  Today is my day to leave it all on the battlefield!  I may never train this hard in my life and the rest of my life I'm going to remember today is the day I gave EVERYTHING to finish this St. George marathon as strong as I possibly can.  I can rest all I want when I'm finished, but I need to push through the pain and finish this race strong!" 

Jill and some of the neighbors met up at the finish line and she captured this fun picture of everyone trying to figure out the St. George Marathon app (Kenneth Smith, Holly Yeager, Gwen Smith, and Lorilyn Vickers).  It has an athlete tracker that works really well.  It was really nice for them to see where the runners were at and have an idea of when we would be crossing the finish line.

Jill had a great eye and saw me from a distance.  I'm in the blue shirt. 

I was in so much pain.  But only a hundred yards more!

I finished in 3:25:45!  It's a time I am very proud of.  Doug and I trained for almost a year doing hills, speedwork, and tempo runs.  It took a lot of early mornings, long Saturday runs, and diet to try and prepare myself for my best race.  It was my best race by five minutes and if you go back to my first marathon in 2001, this was better by an hour!

Doug did qualify for Boston and our other friends all had great races.  Most importantly, though, we had such an amazing time together.  What a fantastic group of friends.

My feet were hurting pretty badly toward the end, but I kept pushing through the pain. I hadn't noticed, but when I took my shoes off, I got a good stare at this gnarly blister!

This was the obvious one, and I went to the medical tent to have it lanced.  The medic who helped me told me she hadn't seen any blisters worse than mine yet for the day.  On my other foot, the entire ball of my foot had a really deep blister underneath the skin.  A couple of days later I finally used a razor knife to cut deep through the callous of my foot to lance it too.  It was only then that I could walk normally. 

Check out my times for the last three years.  I keep getting better with age.  Now at age 44, I finished with my best time ever.  

Last year I took third place in my division.  This year, I thought that taking five minutes off the time should get me at least second place, right?  Wrong.  I couldn't believe I slipped to 6th!  I was able to still get a nice small plaque, but that was devastating to slip from 3rd to 6th even while taking five minutes off of my time.

It was past noon by the time we left the awards ceremony.  The Men's Clydesdale division is always last, but it's worth it for me to get a cool plaque. Here is my haul from the race. 

After lunch at Five Guys, Jill went out poolside to read a book while I took a short nap in the hotel.  Then, we drove up to Enterprise to visit with Michelle and James Gardner.  It was really fun to drive the course and see how much the organizers had already cleaned up.  Jill couldn't believe how long the 26 miles felt while driving it.  We met up with my dear cousin and saw the new beautiful addition to her home.   It looked really nice.

After visiting we decided to stop by and see Pine Valley.  It's a small community in the mountains between Enterprise and St. George.  The historic chapel really stands out in the town.  The man who was commissioned to build the church was a ship builder and didn't know how to build churches.  So he built it like an upside down ship.  Here is the beautiful chapel. People still meet here every Sunday even through it's over 100 years old.  They also provide scheduled tours.  We missed a tour, but there was another family checking out the church like we were.

Here is Jill from the top looking down.

Special thanks to Jill's parents who watched the children so Jill and I could enjoy the weekend.  Not only did they entertain them, but they shuttled them to practices and games.  Jill and I had such an amazing time.  It was one of our best marathon trips.

Pinewood Derby and General Conference

The Pinewood Derby is a cultural phenomenon.  It is so popular there is even a low budget movie based on the concept. Every boy loves the Pinewood Derby and the chance to build an awesome race car with his dad.  In the end, boys usually lose patience after a couple of minutes and dads end up doing the best they can, just hoping that the boy doesn't come in last place. This year's derby was special for us, because Logan has already finished Cub Scouts, and this will be Landon's last year.  After this, there will be no more derbys for me.  It was sure nice to work on just one car rather than having the pressure of building two cars.  It let me allow Landon to get more involved.  He chose the design and wanted to paint it Broncos colors. 

We weighted the car and did all the little tricks to make the car go fast.  

When it came time to race, Landon held his own.  He didn't win, but was right in the thick of things.  I believe he came in 4th place.  He was proud of his car and so was I.  He did much of the work (with some fatherly guidance) and it was something he can be proud of. 

This year General Conference was on Saturday, September 30th and Sunday, October 1st.  The St. George marathon wasn't held until Saturday, October 7th, so I got to watch all of conference.  It was nice to be with family and also nice not to have to rush back from St. George like I have the last couple of years.

Logan and I joined Grandpa and Uncle Brandon for the  General Priesthood session.  I didn't get any pictures of the traditional dinner at the Bunkall's before the meeting, but we enjoyed that, too.  We love how the meetings lately have been closer to 1.5 hours, rather than the traditional 2 hours. 

Sunday we met at Grandma's for a huge breakfast and watched conference together.

Later we watched the afternoon session at our house and did a puzzle.  The kids also played their favorite conference bingo.

Jill got in some coloring time.

 October is fun because for the boys' football, it's all about the color pink.  They have pink socks and wear cool pink accessories.  This year, I got a cool pink accessory, too.  I may just leave it up for longer than the month of October.

Obviously breast cancer hits close to home for us.  I asked Jill about what she thinks of all of the pomp and circumstance surrounding October and breast cancer.  Her answer was insightful.  She said, "breast cancer was a big part of my life and I am grateful for all of the help I received and answers to prayers we benefited from, but I don't want breast cancer to define me."  Some people go "all in" on a cause that affects them, which is fine to have that as an outlet.  I appreciate Jill's perspective about how this was a really big deal in her life, but she isn't going to have it be what defines her.  Insightful.

Fall Harvest Fair

The boys really love Lego Ninjago.  It's a TV show with Lego characters that do ninja moves.  They've watched the series for years and this year, a feature film was made.  Of course, the children all wanted to see it.  For some reason Jill was busy, so I took the children to see the movie. We had a lot of fun and I was able to get in a bit of a nap! 

One of my favorite harvests from our garden each year is the jack-be-little's.  I yielded over 100 little pumpkins this year!  I took most of them to work and gave them to coworkers as desk ornaments. We also grew some tomatoes and peppers this year, but the little pumpkins are my favorite thing to harvest.

Our stake holds a Harvest Fair each year and we always look forward to attending.  This year, I submitted our blog books as part of the family history feature. Alyssa was also involved and performed with her new tumbling teacher and all of his students.  They had a lot of fun doing somersaults and back handsprings (with his help).

For a Young Men's and Young Women's combined activity the youth in our ward ran a mini-Ragnar relay race by the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.  The temple was the finish line.  The youth were divided into groups and Logan got to be with Ethan Stout, Emily Burton, and his cousin Taylor.  They did really well and Logan had fun.

Our family does a lot of running at the end of September and the beginning of October.  Riverton Elementary held their annual Fun Run fund raiser. Alyssa and Landon ran laps and raised money for the school.  They both did so well.  Alyssa is pictured here before the running started.

Recovery is always tough! She did great and ran 17 laps!

Landon pushed it and finished with 22 laps!

Home Improvements

At the end of August, my friend Ron Hada, invited a bunch of friends over to watch fight night.  Floyd Mayweather is a big-time boxer who came out of retirement because a loud mouth MMA fighter, Conor McGregor, kept calling him out.  Finally, the money got big enough they had a pay-per-view fight and it was unbelievable how big this event became.  Our families joined together at Ron's house and had a blast.  We ate amazing food and visited while watching some of the under card fights.  Nobody in the room knew anything about boxing, but it was really fun to be together and watch some great boxing matches.  Mostly, the women visited upstairs and didn't come down for the fight, but the men and children all had lots of fun.  I wish we could get together like this more often because it was so much fun to be together.  In the end Mayweather (the boxer) beat McGregor (the MMA fighter), which is what most people thought would happen.  The fight was boxing rules and sure enough the boxer won. 

Clearly I've been affected by all of the home improvement shows that I attend.  We have been wanting to put a new roof on our home for a couple of years and we finally pulled the trigger.  The company that did the job seems to have done well, but what do I know about roofs?  It looks nice from the street, though.

A random selfie while at the dentist, getting a root canal.

This is the Steed family.  They are a really nice family here in our neighborhood who have lived in this house for 23 years.  They built the home and raised their children in this house.

Buying this home as an investment property almost consumed me for several months as I prepared the financing, closed on the house, and then did some improvements.  The Steeds are very clean and they took really good care of the home, but some things needed to be brought up to date.

I was able to recruit the Ludlows and Jill to help me paint.  Our kids even joined in and helped a bit.  We spent Labor Day working on painting the entire home (except the basement).  It actually took a lot longer than Labor Day.  Each night, for a couple of weeks, I would come home and work on it for a couple of hours.

We had a picnic lunch in the family room before getting back to work.

Along with painting we had the professionals at RC Willey install new carpet and wood flooring throughout the kitchen, family room, and living room.  It was a large investment of time and money.

Hopefully this project all works out.  We found a really nice family, the Taylors, who are going to move in and live there for the foreseeable future. It was all a ton of work, but I've really enjoyed being a landlord and owning rental properties.  It takes a lot of work to get the homes ready, but we've been lucky with getting good renters.  Once the homes are rented, there haven't been too many headaches. 

The first part of September, I attended a solar show in Las Vegas for work.  Here is a fun shot of some of us at the EnerBank booth. 

The St. George Marathon is in about a month so I had to keep up my training and I went on a 10 mile run around Las Vegas.  I've ran the strip a bunch and I don't really like it.  Instead, I opted to run toward UNLV and ran out and back 5 miles.  I had no water and even early in the morning it was really hot.  After about 8 miles I stopped in a McDonald's thinking I could get a small drink.  I went into the bathroom where a homeless person was taking a bath in the sink!  I turned and walked out and finished my 10 mile run without hydration.  Vegas is crazy!

First Day of School and Eclipse

August 21st was a big deal for star gazers.  A total eclipse of the sun occurred during the middle of the day and it was visible throughout much of the United States.  Utah was not in the path of totality, but the eclipse was to be about 95% visible, which seemed pretty great to me.  A lot of people drove up to Idaho, though, so they could be a part of the full total eclipse.  This was a really big deal!  I had stayed home that morning for a dentist appointment, so I was able to come home and be with the family as we watched the moon eclipse the sun.  We were even prepared with special viewing glasses.  Two weeks earlier, Jill had gone to the planetarium and stood in a huge line to get the glasses.  It was a good thing she went when she did, because they sold out the next day.  It was really great to see the eclipse through the glasses.  

It was incredible to see it get dark when the eclipse happened.  It wasn't as dark as night, of course, but it was definitely darker.  The air felt cooler, too.  Even the shadows changed.  The shadows made by the leaves on our concrete looked like fluttering birds.  It was really strange.  It was pretty incredible to see the moon cover up the sun.  It was also kind of fun to see other people out on their porches looking up at the sky. 

Logan had been to Oquirrh Hills Middle School quite a few times before school began.  He spent a week and a half at the school attending a math class, for three hours a day.  He was registered for 8th grade Honors Math and the district provided a class to help bridge the gap between what he learned in 6th grade and this 8th grade class.  He also attended an Introduction to Band class for three days.  He was able to attend with all the other beginning trumpet players and learn how to hold the trumpet and even begin to play it.  He even went to the school a couple of times to check out his classes and see where his locker is.  He made sure to practice the combination so he could do it under the pressures of middle school!

Logan began 7th grade on Tuesday, August 22nd.  Here he is on that first day.  For the first time, he is walking to and from school; it's nice that Oquirrh Hills is so close!  In this picture, he is carrying his trumpet.  Logan surprised us when he decided to sign up for band, a first for our family.  He hasn't loved the piano (even though we still make him practice and take lessons) but he seems to be interested in band.  He struggled to play the trumpet the first few days, but it didn't take him long to get the hang of it.

Wednesday the 23rd was the first day of elementary school!  Alyssa is our happy child who was so excited to go back to school and start 2nd grade.  Her teacher this year is Mrs. Shaddick.

Landon began 5th grade.  He has a male teacher for the first time, named Mr. Copier.  We don't worry too much about Landon because he seems to fit in well and makes friends easy enough.  He doesn't seem to worry about things like what other kids think about him.  He just seems to fit in and is comfortable with his place in school, scouts, and sports.  He isn't always happy, but never feels like he is left out.

We hope it will be a great year for all three of our children!