This past weekend was the 30th running of the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon, and it was a GORGEOUS weekend for racing! The weekend started out on Thursday when the TCM office deployed to the RiverCentre in St. Paul. I always feel a touch of nostalgia and think of my military deployments when going in full operations mode for “marathon weekend”. My mom was kind enough to donate 8 hours of her day and help me in the Temp Office by answering phones for me while I tended to administrative support and emails from participants, vendors and sponsors. At 8pm, Thursday was a wrap and time to pick up food for staff at the Liffey. My dad gave me a ride and I got to see Kirra who wasn’t to pleased to watch me leave her again when I had to go back to my hotel room for my all staff meeting/venting session. I got curried chicken which was delicious as always and headed to bed with my roommate Andrea. Our room once again was SO HOT! This happened to me back in 2009 as well, as you can see by clicking on the words SO HOT! We turned our thermostat down to 60 and turned the fan on. It seemed slightly better, so we went to bed. We woke up on Friday not feeling much relief, but it was time to head to Expo Day #1 (Friday). Friday I had Pam helping me in the morning. She quickly learned the rules of the road (racing), and was able to answer questions quickly and efficiently! She was a total jewel to have in the office! Later that day Cindy came in to help me once again. Bless her! She is always so on top of things,and luckily has done this before so knows most answers to questions. She also gave me a ride to get dinner and bring me back to the hotel! Which was good since Cossettas put our food in 14 huge bags, and was a bit tough to carry! I had Chicken Marsala for dinner and some pasta on the side. When I got back to our room, I was still SO HOT! So I called down to the front desk at 11:30 and had the night engerier unlock our window slits, and bring us a fan.{He explained to us that he winterizes the hotel and shuts off the air conditioning, which would explain that even when I turn the air way down its not doing anything but re-circulating the air that’s already in the room!} Within 5 seconds it was total relief! 20 Minutes later I’m quite convinced I had slight food poisoning. Probably because the person taking my order at Cossetas wasn’t too excited about taking a 14 person order when there was a Wild Game, and hungry marathoners in town! I didn’t actually get sick, but if I hadn’t fallen asleep so quickly I might have… Waking up on Saturday morning, feeling totally fine I headed over to Saturday Events with prize packs in tow. I stayed for the 10K and 5K and saw my friend Katherine run the 10K. It felt kind of strange knowing that Kirra was going to be skipping out on the Toddler Trot this year due to dance, but was also needed back at the Temp Office as well,since i’m sure my volunteer Melissa probably didn’t want to be stranded alone in the temp office winging answers on the fly. Expo Day #2 (Saturday) 2pm shift change, and our Telephone rep Paul came in to finish out the Temp Office night! He’s so great at customer service, so I basically also let him answer all the phone calls! (actually come to think of it, my volunteers DID take most of the calls), which would explain why the temp office seemed so much more relaxed this year! I was also a lot busier, so I truly thank God for the help! My co-worker Colleen and I headed over to the Lake Street Bridge once everything at the Expo was packed up, closed up, and shipped up. She helped me pick up food at Señor Wong’s and bring it back to the hotel. It was a combination Mexican/Thai/Asian restaurant which was ridiculously delicious! We finished up the night around 11:30 again, and headed straight for bed! I was then off for a lovely 26.2 mile gator ride to the finish of the marathon! {except my gator was not John Deere, and not that fancy} It started out crisp and cool. I had on a T-Shirt/Tech Shirt/Warm Flece Sweatshirt/lightweight jacket/heavier softshell jacket/wind jacket and of course a hat and gloves on. Ever so often layers just peeled off and off, and by the finish line I was down to my T-Shirt rounding out the day at around 70 degrees. I yelled out to over 300 intersections for course marshals to leave up their barricades as there were an additional 25 or so vehicles behind me… and around mile 23 or 24 I started yelling out to participants who weren’t injured or sick, but needed some motivation that they weren’t going to be a quitter, and they were going to dig deep and finish! And everyone who we really motivated did! As one EMS person put it that was on a gator next to me… its like seeing your baby go to Kindergarten when they cross that finish line. I was truly so excited for them, that when I finished I parked my gator and ran to the finish chute and gave them a huge hug! About 5:30 after helping to do a FOD walkdown {except… not exactly since we weren’t all standing in a line… none-the less you have to scour the grounds of the state capitol like an F-14 depends on it for trash instead of FOD..} on the capitol grounds I was finally headed home to see my baby and my husband! I now have no voice hardly. Its very scratchy and i’m sure in the next day or two it will be completely gone! Today we had breakfast as a staff and shared in jubilation our stories from the weekend. We then picked up the marathon course trash that was left over, and headed out. Tomorrow will be checking e-mails,sorting out lost and found, and putting our real office back together! Until next year, Marathon Weekend Re-Cap

Today was my race for Women Run the Cities 10 Mile. It went really fantastic actually! I was just hoping for 10 Minute mile pace,so I lined up with the 10 Minute milers pace group and ran into a few friends from Moms on the Run, and my co-worker. We were off and about a mile into the race I was feeling pretty good so I passed up the 10 m/m group, and thought I’ll just stay in front of them! We had to go down a gynormous hill and turn around and back up it again. I think because of my small stature I’m pretty good at going up hills, so I got into position, and just flew up the hills strongly! I passed probably 80 people (but who’s counting) and before I knew it I was ahead of the 9:30 pace group! I decided I must stay in front of them the rest of the way and NOT to let the balloon people (the pace leaders) pass me! I really had to dig deep. By Mile 8 I just so badly wanted to slow down the pace, or walk, or just quit, but I kept at it, and succeeded! I officially finished in 1:32:05 for a 9:13 m/m pace. Which I was THRILLED about since my previous fasted LDR (Long distance Running) pace had been 10:30 max! Simply amazed at the power of training. (Not really, but it was so cool passing people vs. being passed) I’m going to focus on 5Ks now and really get my time down as much as possible! I’m thinking I’ll be doing this particular race again next year!

We had a GREAT weekend here! Friday was card club over at my sisters house, and since they were fairly easy cards we all finished early. I had brought credentials over to my sisters to enlist help, and when we finished over 1,000 credentials in under an hour my friend Molly and I headed to my work to get more… except that there were hardly any left to complete. Regardless, most are done, so that makes me very very happy! They all said anytime I have work like that to bring it over and they’d help me out! Who doesn’t like eager volunteers? Saturday we woke up and headed over to the YMCA for Kirra’s first dance lesson. Us parents stayed out in the hall, but the studio has windows all around it so we can look in. She did ballet first, and spent most of the time rolling around on the floor. Not because thats what they were learning, but because Kirra decided to goof off. After a little “pep” talk from dad when she came out to change into her tap shoes, she did much better! THat… or because her tap shoes are so slippery she was scared to go running around! Later on Jason went to inspect our friends Lisa & Tony’s new house which is super cool! They move in – in a couple of weeks, and i’m excited to see it when they’re moved in. Its a very open floor plan, and they have a big fenced in yard! We got home and straightened up a bit for Kirra’s first sleepover at our house with a friend. Aiden’s parents (Alisa & Kevin) were going out to a party,and wouldn’t have gotten home until late – so I said to just leave him over night. It was a lot of fun, and we had so much fun having him over. The kids tried to wake up at 4:30 a.m. but I told them they had to stay in Kirra’s room and lay in their beds… they replied, “we’re not tired.. we want to play”. I said, it’s not play time, its bed time, so you don’t have to fall asleep, but you do have to stay in your beds, and be quiet! Eventually they did fall back to sleep, and slept until 7:30 a.m. We woke up and made a big breakfast for us and the kids, and then they spent the rest of the morning playing and running around. I threw a pork roast in the slow cooker, with garlic, brown sugar, pineapple, and soy sauce. I went to church with Kirra and Theo, which was amazing as always. We went to Lino where around 3,000 people were worshiping. Afterwards we came home, watched the Vikings loose and take a nap. (did I mention how much I love the slow cooker?) Woke up to a cooked dinner with hardly any effort from me, and we’ve been playing hard ever since. Mostly with Kirra’s life size pony/horse stuffed animal, and have been playing Rodeo….We’re winding down and are ready to put Kirra to bed,and mom’s ready to watch the Emmy awards, and see all the pretty dresses, and root for my favorite shows! Until next time. TOODLES!

Well after a two day work week who isn’t ready for the weekend? Although I didn’t get caught up at all from being on vacation, it was nice to wind down from my vacation. Friday Jason, Kirra and I enjoyed Chili’s dinner, and then had some friends over for a poker game. Early the next morning I woke up and headed down to National Camera Exchange to pick up a new 55-300mm lens, and then it was off to the wedding! If you haven’t seen the wedding photos I shot, head over to my photo site at: http://laimage.wordpress.com. Sunday I attended church with Kirra in tow, where she started pre-school services, learning bible verses, stories, and how to apply the stories to her daily life! Even at the age of 3! I held a moment of silence for those lost on September 11th. I still remember where I was when the world stopped! Do you? Our church did a really cool live flash dub for the opening to the service. It was a culmination on how our church started with a vision,and where its at today! Enjoy. (Definitely worth the watch)

Don’t Stop Believin’ Opener from Eagle Brook Church on Vimeo. Came home from church and napped until dinner time! My kind of weekend.

Woke up this morning… Got on my shorts- shoes – shirts and found my arm warmers since it was a bit chilly this AM. Thought I was going to be late for race morning sign up, so when I got there at 7:30 a.m. for an 8am race, and I was the ONLY one in the parking lot I knew something was up… I got my smart phone and typed in the race name and to my strong disappointment the race said AUGUST 20th, 2011….yesterday! Dumb online race calendar had it down for August 21, 2011. Last time I TRUST that source again. I will ALWAYS check out the race website when possible. I thought – well I could just run around from here, but i was so sad, I could run in Minneapolis, but again no motivation… I drove home and slept for 6 hours. So… I slept a 10K. On the bright side I received a letter in the mail from the dermatologist which I determined just by reading the envelope meant good news, because bad news is generally delivered by telephone or in person,not in the mail. No. My report card which I found in the envelope had a little check mark by the words BENIGN. Beautiful, beautiful words! Phew. I should really up the ante on sunscreen anyways, but now I can be rest assured I don’t have melanoma!

What an absolutely PERFECT day this turned out to be? I slept in after drinking a few too many wines and White Russians last night. My good friend Annie from High School stopped by for a little bonfire and to catch up. We were up until around 11:30 and she had to get going because she had to work today… I did not. After she left I stayed outside by the fire and watched Modern Family on the laptop. So. on to today- Kirra was asked by ME to clean up her TOTAL disaster of a bedroom. When she didn’t comply, 95% of her toys came out of her bedroom and are now down in the playroom. Her rooms looks 200% better! We were then off for Bunker Beach water-park, which Kirra likes to pronounce BONKER Beach. Man what a difference a year makes! Last year she was scared to go down any of the watersides, and this year she wasn’t scared of anything, including the wave pool! I could have stayed there all night, but I had to get going to my sisters for cards! (which was fun too)