A Time to Train

The company I work for (Xactware) has this Healthy Employee Program they do every summer to get people out and exercising. They have various athletic tournaments and games on Fridays, and it's lots of fun. This year, they are sponsoring 2 teams to run in the Red Rock Relay in September. It's this big long race in which 12 people run 3 different legs totaling about 15 miles each. My brother, who also works for Xactware, wanted to do it, and somehow convinced me to run it too.

So, for the last month or so, I've known that I'm going to be doing this race, and so for this time period, I've been in "training." The quotes around the word "training" mean that my training has consisted of doing nothing different than before I was "training." I hadn't been to worried about the race. I'm still fairly young, and I'm fairly athletic, and so I figured the race wouldn't be too bad. Well, yesterday I decided to actually go for a run, and see how far I could get, so I could gauge for the race.

I decided I wanted to run up Provo Canyon because, for one, there's no need to stop for stop lights up there, and secondly, there is a bit of an incline, which would help more for the race in September. We live about a mile and half from the canyon, so the plan was to just run from home to the canyon, and then see how far up the canyon I could get. Lisa came with me on my run, except she just cruised along on her bike while I ran. I told her as we got started, that I was going to try to get to Canyon Glen, which is 2 or 3 miles into the canyon. I thought that was a realistic goal that would push me some. Boy was I wrong.

Not too long after beginning the run, I think my legs were a little shocked by this unfamiliar exertion. I get out and play sports fairly often, but I can't remember the last time I just went out and ran. So, I just trudged along and remembered why I like playing sports for exercise so much more than just running. I had gone about a mile, and I was not enjoying myself. I really did not want to run any more. But I could not give up that easily. I told myself I had to make it to next light (which wasn't too far away) before I could stop. So, I made it there (which is about 1.2 miles from home) and had to stop and recover a little. I had no desire to run anymore. So, I didn't even make it to the mouth of the canyon, and I wanted to go home.

After recuperating for a bit, I was able to convince my body to run back home. I had to stop once on the way back home, but I was able to run most of the way back. I did not enjoy it though, and it took a lot of mental strength to keep myself running. The whole time I was just thinking, "How did I get myself into this?" and "I think I need to tell them at work that I'm not doing it anymore."

I finally made it home and had to cool down for a while. Once I was done with the run, it actually felt good to have gotten out and exercised. It's so weird, because at that point I was no longer trying to think of a way to get out of the race. I just began thinking how I need to run more often, and get more in shape for it.

So, this week, I'll need to go running again. Right now I'm thinking that it'll be good. However, I'm pretty sure that soon after I begin, I'll once again be wondering what I'm doing running and how to get out of the race. Maybe some day (preferably before the race in September) I won't be hating life when I run more than 500 feet at a time.

Saturday Fun

This last Saturday was a lot of fun. First on the agenda was hiking Timpanogos Cave. The hike up to the cave isn't too long, but it is pretty steep. Since we've been married, Lisa has been doing a good job of fattening me up, so it felt good to get the exercise. There were cool views on the hike and then in the cave, there was cool stuff like all this:








For more photos of the hike and the cave, you can go here.

When we got home from the hike, my dad had DVR'ed the big soccer game between the U.S, and England. I really wanted to watch it, but we didn't have a whole lot of time. So, we ended up fast forwarding through all the boring parts where they're just kicking the ball around midfield, and then we would put it on regular speed when they got close to the goal. Man, that is the way to watch a soccer game. It wasn't nearly as boring as it usually is.

After that we had to make a quick Costco run, which is always most enjoyable because of all the great food we get there. Then it was off to the Orem Summerfest. As of late, carnival rides and I haven't gotten along too well, so the sight of all those spinning rides made me feel a little queasy. It was still a lot of fun being around it all. Lisa and I went on the Ferris Wheel, and that was a lot fun. Then we watched the parade with her family, which was lots of fun as well. Then later, we got to enjoy the fireworks from the deck of her parents' neighbors who weren't home. Good times. :) So, in all, it was a very enjoyable day indeed.

Random Tidbits

Ok, because it's been a while since Dan and I last posted, I figured I'd just post a little bit of everything that we've been up to lately.

Item number 1: Have any of ya'll ever heard of the Parade of Homes? I don't know if this is just a Utah thing or not but it's pretty cool. We've gone to 9 houses so far. Some are way too ornate, but a lot of them are really cool. There were a couple houses with theater rooms. They had surround sound and really comfortable chairs. Some of the master bedrooms were more like master suites. There was one walk in closet that was big enough to be a bedroom. One even had a little baby room in it. It was pretty cool. There was another house that had these two little kid rooms. One was a boys room and one was a girls room. Both rooms were huge and they had these lofts in them that the kids could climb up into. A lot of the houses had these little kids playhouses in the crawl spaces under the stairs. They had windows and doors...it was pretty cool.

Item number 2: SUMMERFEST!!! The Summerfest starts tomorrow!!! The Summerfest is a great way to start of the summer. It's one of the many city fairs that happen all over the county during the summer. There are carnival rides in the park, a boutique/craft fair, entertainment in the park, a parade, fireworks, and all sorts of other great activities. It's great fun. This year my nephew Kai is going to be in the baby contest. After he wins he'll get to ride on a parade in the float. :)

On Saturday, Dan and I are going to hike up to Timp Cave with his parents. I've never been there. I'm excited, it should be a lot of fun! I'll have to write more about that later...If I remember I'll actually take my camera and try to get some pictures.

Well...that's about all that I can think to write right now...right now it's time to go fold laundry!!! Oh the excitement of life. :)

Memorial Day Adventures

One of the great things about the jobs that Dan and I have is that we both get Memorial Day off so we have extra time to play. :) We started out by sleeping in and then having a late breakfast. I was so happy to sleep in...I had to be at work by 7am the Friday before, on Saturday we had to get up early to go to Logan, and on Sunday I had a presidency meeting at 7am. Sleeping in was glorious. :)

After breakfast, Dan and I went to go play tennis. Dan is very patient...I am not a good tennis player. I'm lucky if I can get the ball back over the net, though I seem to be able to get it over the fence without any problem. :) We played for about an hour, leaving sometime around 12:15pm. We got home, grabbed our bikes start out on our bike ride up to Vivian Park.

It's about a 7.5 mile bike ride that isn't too difficult at all, there are a couple steep hills but nothing too insane. So, Dan and I headed out on our adventure. It was Dan's first bike ride up that canyon and his second time riding his brand new bike that he got for his birthday. We made it up to Vivian Park without too many problems...I was super tired from attempting to play tennis so we rode up pretty slow...and I tried to shift gears too fast and too late on a hill and I knocked the chain off of the gears so I had to stop and fix that.

Anyway, we got up to Vivian and hung out there for a little bit and then headed back down the canyon. We hadn't even made it out of the marshes before I heard Dan yelling at me. I looked back and saw that he was a ways behind me and that he had stopped. I thought maybe he'd seen something cool that he wanted to show me so I headed back. There was something that he needed to show me alright, but it wasn't cool. His left pedal had fallen off of his bike. Keep in mind, we had just gotten this bike the Saturday before. We tried to screw it back in but to no avail. The threads inside were pretty stripped. Not cool.

So we started calling for help. Jesi came to our rescue and drove my Dad's big truck up the canyon and picked us up at Vivian Park. We were very grateful for the help. Now we have the oh so fun task of taking the bike back to the store and having them fix it.

The night did end well, we went to my parents house for a BBQ where we were entertained by Kai and by Sammy. Overall it was a good day.