Wow, do I need to catch up. This post is mostly about some of the recent races I have done and it is a little bit backwards. Above is a pic from the Layton Half Marathon which was October 9. It was an out-and-back course and I ran it in 1:43. It was a flat course, but not too scenic. I still had fun and I even took advantage of the post race massage. I didn't find out until later that I had taken 2nd place in my age division.
The St. George Marathon was the weekend before that--Oct. 2. Hayden and I drove down to St. George the day before with the Andersons and Michelle's mom, Lisa. We hit the expo when we got there and then headed to the house...great house, btw. It was super nice inside and right on a golf course. I made a pasta dinner that night which we enjoyed outside on the patio. It was an earlier night for Justin and I since we had to get up early for the race.
The next morning Michelle drove Justin and I to the buses a somewhere after 4 in the morning. It was pretty warm...supposedly the warmest it's been for this marathon. After the bus ride to the start we had plenty of time to hangout and eventually enjoy (?) the fire. It actually felt like an inferno standing inbetween all the fires they had going--that's how warm it was. The race itself started out pretty good and I was glad to make it up the huge hill in Vejo around mile 7. Overall the course was much hillier (is that a word?) than I expected. Around mile 16 or so I started to run with the 3:30 pacer which was nice because he was pretty talkative which was a great distraction. I can't remember exactly when, but somewhere around mile 18 or 20 I did stop at the aid station and had one of the volunteers put icy hot stuff on my calves and hamstrings. This felt great at first, but then when it turned hot it wasn't the greatest feeling considering that I was already running in the heat. I expected it to be more downhill after I hit mile 20, but it wasn't. Every time I saw a water mister I ran through it just because it was so hot (I guess there were about 1000 runners who didn't finish and I am guessing it's because of the heat). I was so glad once I crossed the finish line and I immediately stretched, grabbed some water, and then rested on the ground for a bit. Eventually I met up with everyone and then got my cool shirt and medal from Wasatch Running Center for having finished all the Grand Slam marathons.
After we got back to the house, Justin and I took the kids swimming while Michelle and Lisa went and ran a few errands. That night we enjoyed some Cafe Rio and the girls watched a movie together (it was great to have some girl time, too).
The next day I made some french toast and eggs for the group, we packed up and headed to Sand Hollow before heading for home. The kids loved playing in the water and along the beach.
The week before the St. George marathon was Sojo (the South Jordan marathon). I ran the half marathon along with Lisa and Aubrey (another friend and Michelle's sister-in-law), Michelle did the marathon, and Hayden ran the Kids K. Michelle and I both got first place in our age divisions which means we have free entry into next year's race. Plus we also won some cool customized plaques.
Hayden did a great job finishing his Kids K run.
Friday, October 29 was dress-up/party day at school. Since Hayden wanted to be a pirate this year, I decided to pull out my pirate costume from my Junior year in high school (yes, I like to coordinate our costumes sometimes). Hayden decided not to wear the pirate had at school so he kind of looks like a pirate-biker (two costumes in one). Below is a pic of him in the Halloween Parade at school.
After the parade, the kids went into one of the classrooms and performed some songs for us eager, camera-happy parents.
Hayden has lots of fun friends at school...lucky kiddo!
The next morning I ran the Provo Halloween Half Marathon. Since I did it last year (the inaugural year of this race) I feel like I will have to do it every year. That works for me since it's a pretty fun race--this year there were over 2,500 runners. I decided to dress up as a running Snow White. Below is a pic that my one of my friend's took. It was fun this year because I had a few friends running...always nice to socialize and visit beforehand.
Still waiting for the race to start. We had to ride buses up the Provo Canyon past Sundance and we were fortunate enough to be able to hangout inside of a semi-heated tent.
A lot of people caught me after the race because they wanted to see what the front of my shirt said. Even though I got off to a slow start at the beginning of the race, I managed to get a new PR (1:38). I was pretty excited and surprised, too.
After the race, I got home and ready, went to a late lunch, then headed to my mom's to make mummy dogs (hot dogs wrapped in bread dough, then cooked). We had chili, rolls, and halloween cake for dessert (like we needed the exta sugar). Since the weather was not pleasant during our normal trick-or-treat start time, we hung out and read Halloween stories and played games. I decided not to pressure Hayden because he didn't want to go out right away. Eventually, some trick-or-treaters started showing up and Hayden thought it was fun to pass out candy for awhile. Around 7:30 he finally decided he wanted to go out and try it for himself (well, he let me come too). Now trick-or-treating with Hayden is different from what most kids typically do. There's no rushing from house-to-house, no complaining about what kind of candy he gets, and no lack of socializing. We took our time, admired all the Halloween decorations, and it took Hayden awhile to ring the doorbell at each house because he wanted to read the house numbers, comment on what the doorbell looked like, and check out the decor on the porches. Then after he got the candy from the candy-passer-outer (ya, that's the official title) he would ask them questions (Do you have a dog? Do you have any other pets?). I kept wondering where all this socializing was coming from, but then I realized that I did the same thing. At each house, I also felt the need to converse with people and make a cute or funny comment about something. I guess Hayden comes by it honestly. We were out for about an hour, but that's all it took to fill up Hayden's pirate bucket (some people were handing out handfuls of candy at a time). One house gave him a ton of tootsie rolls, and again, most kids might complain but not Hayden. He exclaimed in his most excited voice, "I love those!" Just a reminder of how special my little guy is and how much I love his fun and unique personality.
