Eugene Marathon - Race Report

As many of you know, I've been training for the Eugene Marathon since the beginning of the year. I have been trying a new training schedule that only has me running 3 days a week and cross training two days. I wasn't sure how that would work out when it came to race day. The good thing is that I was able to train injury free and I'm not burnt out on running, which has happened in the past.

We headed down to Eugene on Saturday morning. I have learned my lesson that I cannot tell Merrick what we are doing ahead of time. He came into our room at 5:45 am and started asking when we were going to see Poppa and Grammy. So we left for Eugene earlier than we had planned to. We headed to packet pickup which was pretty well organized and wandered through the exhibits. I have to admit, I stopped by the booth with the cookies twice, with the excuse that I was carb loading =) The weather on Saturday was pretty cruddy, raining and windy so I was pretty nervous about what the weather would be like for the race. Bec aka Grammy made a wonderful prerace dinner of lasagna, salad and bread, to be topped off with cake and ice cream for Merrick's birthday.

Travis and I got up early Sunday morning to head into the Eugene Hilton to catch the shuttle to the start. We arrived at 6:20 am thinking we would have plenty of time since the shuttles were running every 10 minutes. Well... when we got there we realized there was a LONG line! We didn't get on a shuttle until 6:45 am. When the race starts at 7 am, this can make you really nervous. We arrived with 5 minutes to spare and quickly separated ways to head to our pace groups. I don't know how I did it, but I was able to find Rebecca at the start, which was a life saver in many ways. Having forgotten my watch, I was nervous about how I was going to pace myself. I haven't had much luck with the pace leaders in the past and I didn't want run with one if I didn't have to. Rebecca and I quickly got into a groove and started ticking the miles off. We both agreed that it was nice to run a course that we didn't know so everything was new to us. Rebecca's husband Corey and her dad Dennis were there to cheer us on at several points during the race and Poppa, Grammy and Merrick were at mile 17 and 24. It was great to see familiar faces, especially late in the race.

The new training program worked! I ran a Personal Record (PR) of 4 hours 1 minute and 26 seconds. This is about 18 minutes faster than my previous PR. I'm feeling great and fully recovered, I'm thinking about lacing up the shoes for a run tomorrow and I'm even contemplating signing up for the Foot Traffic Marathon on July 4th weekend... I'll keep you posted if that happens.

I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to my amazing husband who has not only put up with my marathon training for 4 months, but on top of that my studying for the SPHR exam which is this Saturday. Thankfully we get to relax in Hawaii in about 10 days!

Easter & Birthdays

So my girlfriends were harassing me a little about my lack of blogging lately. So here's a brief update on what we've been doing the last few weeks. Our lives have been extremely hectic and we're hoping that things will slow down after vacation.

Easter - We headed down South to JC to see Grammy and Poppa and Aunties and Cousins. Merrick had a wonderful time getting to play with Quin, Micah, Jaley and Genna. The weekend was full of craziness, which is typical when you get that many people together and kids hyped up on sugar and presents.

Merrick & Travis' birthdays - Because we have had such a crazy schedule, we ended up celebrating Merrick's birthday on Travis' birthday. Hey... he's 3... he'll never know the difference! Travis got to pick out the cake, while we got it decorated in Merrick's favorite things... signs! When I brought the cake home to show him, he said "Oh my gosh" and then started telling me which signs were on there. He then decided that he wanted to look at the cake even more, so he pushed his little stool over to the counter and stood for at least 30 minutes staring at his cake. I also made sign and train shaped cookies for his party. The things a mom does... 3 hours of decorating cookies and a numb hand from squeezing the icing container. I can only hope that one day he'll appreciate all my hard work =) His party was a huge success, he was so excited about the cones and signs I had brought from work to decorate the yard with. The weather cooperated and the kids were able to play outside. I still can't believe he's already 3 years old. Time sure does fly!

Ft. Stevens Yurting Trip

Thanks to LaSandra Rodriguez for planning so far in advance, we had a group yurting trip planned for the past weekend to Ft. Stevens State Park. There were 4 families planning on going. Us and the Alt's arrived on Friday afternoon. We got unpacked and then went out exploring. Initially we thought we would walk all the way to the beach, but before we were even half way there, Merrick was asking to be carried, so we only made it to the lake. Once back at the yurts, we decided to start dinner. We had noticed the raccoons while unpacking, but didn't know how brave they were. We soon found out! As we were sitting around the fire, trying to keep warm and eat our dinner, one of them came right up to our picnic table and took an entire bag of hamburger buns. We quickly learned that once we were done with the food, we needed to put it in the yurt. It was pretty cold out, so we all decided to call it an early night and go back to our own yurts. Travis and I forgot our pillows, so it wasn't the most comfortable nights sleep.

The next morning, Travis, Merrick and I got up and headed to the beach. We checked out the shipwreck and followed some car tracks (one of Merrick's favorite things to do). It was still really cold out, so we decided to get in the car and drive into town to get a few things we had forgotten at the store, including pillows. While we were at the store, the Alt's called us. They had ventured into Astoria in search of the Goonies house. Being a huge fan of the movie, I told Travis that needed to be our next stop. So we headed that direction and successfully found the house, although we just drove by it. Next we headed to Ft. Columbia to check it out, which meant a drive over the huge bridge that takes you from Oregon to Washington. Merrick thought this was really cool. After exploring the fort, we headed back to the yurt to have some lunch and say goodbye to the Alts. Addie and Alyssa were sick and didn't feel up to staying another night. After lunch and naps for everyone, we headed out to the South Jetty. We got to see where the Columbia meets the ocean. Then we headed to the beach. Merrick thought it was cool to watch the cars drive on the beach and there were some people trying to do some sort of parasailing off of the dunes.

Following the tire tracks on the beach

Mmm... chocolate frosted donuts. Delicious!

Exploring Ft. Columbia

We headed back to the yurt to meet up with the Rodriguez family. We took all the boys to the park to burn off some energy and they played hard both at the park and when we returned to the yurt. I think they went non-stop until bed time. We enjoyed a nice dinner and then as I went to go grab marshmallows to roast, I discovered that the handle to our yurt was broken. Which meant we couldn't get in. As Travis tried to figure out a way to get it open, I headed to the ranger station to find help. A ranger came back to our site quickly and tried to pry the door open with a crow bar. He didn't have any luck, so then he and Travis decided to try and take the door off the hinges. This didn't work either, so he ended up having to break a piece of the door out to get the door open. Luckily we were still able to keep the door locked and the raccoons out! The Wujcik family arrive at around 8:30 pm, just in time for the rain, which caused all of us to have to retreat to our yurts.

Our broken yurt door.

Sunday morning we got up and we all met up to explore the park. We went to Russell Battery and then on to Fort Stevens. The kids had a blast exploring. We spent a few hours exploring and when it started raining, we decided it was time to head home. We had a great time and can't wait for our next trip!

Spring Fever

Merrick and I got a touch of Spring fever on Friday. We had sunny skies and comfortable temperatures, so we spent most of the afternoon playing outside. We made cookies and then went for a walk and delivered some to the Cavanagh's, then we came home and played outside with Deacon. We had some dinner and then decided to take Deacon for a walk. It was great to spend time outside, especially knowing that it was going to rain all weekend. We are hoping for more sunny, warm days very soon!