Flashback - May travels

OK so I admit I am not a very consistent blogger. I will try to improve! Since I work on the computer all day supporting Hewitt web apps, I don't often feel like signing on after hours to post to my blog, unfortunately. But I will try to get better about squeezing in blogging sessions here and there.

During one of my blogging hiatuses (hiatii?), we went on a whole bunch of weekend trips during the month of May. So I thought I'd back up a bit and post some quick pics and videos from back then.

Our first weekend trip was a visit back to the Chicago area for Jorie to help lead a Premier training session. We stayed in Deerfield at the Hyatt thanks to an awesome deal we got on Hotwire. I think it was about $50/night - at the Hyatt! Anyway, we also met up with Jason and Roxanne and Annikah for our very last Chicago visit with them. :(




The kids had a great time at the Kohl's children's museum. Silas and Annikah were, as usual, extremely cute together. After the museum, we went to JayRox's place for some hanging out at the beach and park, some Chicago pizza, a little Mario Kart Wii, and watching the kids chase each other around their condo like wild animals. It was hard to imagine that things would never quite be like that again, since JayRox are heading off to Africa. If you're not already following along with their journey on their blog, I highly recommend you check it out. Jason's got a great story about going to see the new Batman movie in Kenya in one of their recent posts too.

Funny quote from Silas during this trip: Joel and Silas met a boy at a park and Joel asked what his name was. The boy said, "Mark, M-A-R-K." Joel and Silas looked at each other with shocked expressions and then Silas looked at us and shouted, "His name is Daddy!"




After Joel bought this macaroni and was "checking out" at the little cash registers, Silas started piling Joel's macaroni back into the cart. Joel shouted, "Hey! I already paid for that!"


The next weekend, we drove down to Nashville for the Lauer cousins reunion. It was a great time of reconnecting, sharing goofy stories, swimming, and eating way too much. Jim and Rhoda graciously watched the kids all weekend so that made traveling, especially the loooong drive from Cedar Rapids to Nashville, much more manageable.



Everyone enjoying their "Five Guys" burgers

Tessa and Evan, Jorie's youngest cousins. Evan is the same age as Joel.


Then, the weekend after that, we headed to Des Moines for the Dam to Dam half marathon. I ran it, along with Jim (father-in-law), Justin (bro-in-law), and Roxanne (sis-in-law). Also, several other friends from our church ran in it as well. Although I didn't do as well as I had hoped, I think it was overall a positive experience for me and I hope to train and run in another half marathon someday and run a much steadier pace. Here's the changes I'll be making for my next run: (these are good tips for all you aspiring runners out there)

1. Sleeping pills - I was a bundle of nervous energy the night before the race. Add that to the strange bed, noise of the city outside, and snoring Silas in the same room, and I only got about 3 hours of sleep before the race. Ugh.

2. Better prep for training runs - I planned very carefully what sort of things I wanted to eat and what sort of things I should avoid eating in the days leading up to the race. I put no such thought into the days before my long training runs, and as a result, my training was not as effective as it should have been. Particularly my final training run, which I ran while in Nashville. I had spicy Jerk chicken the night before at this awesome little Caribbean restaurant. Unfortunately, my digestive system did not think it was so awesome, and it pretty much ruined my final training run. It was supposed to be a breeze of a 10-miler and it ended up being an 8 mile struggle with many pit stops throughout.

3. Train on hills - All my training runs were flat, with the exception of one time I went out and purposefully ran in a hilly area. I should have been doing that once a week. Just before I got to mile 10, I was feeling great and I felt like I could run the rest of the race at a good pace. Then I hit mile 10, and there was a steady uphill climb from mile 10 to mile 11 and it totally drained me.

4. Don't start out at your fastest training pace - Justin specifically warned me about this, but I messed it up anyway. He said, "Run the first half of the race at a very comfortable pace, then if you are feeling strong, you can pick it up and go a little faster in the second half." This is GOOD advice and I recognized at the time that it was good advice, but I still didn't follow it. I tried to run at my fastest pace I had ever gone on one of my long training runs, (about 8:40 per mile) and hold it for the whole race. With better training, and more sleep, I might have been able to do it. But on race day, all it meant was that I had a great first half of the race, and a horrible struggle for the second half. I had to take several walking breaks throughout the second half of the race and even when I ran, it was probably no faster than a 10 minute pace.

So, hopefully, I'll follow my own advice and have a much better run next time. I definitely want to run another half marathon, and I know I am NOT ready to attempt a full marathon yet until I can feel great about how I finish a half.