You better run, better run…outrun some hornets!

For those of you have haven’t heard the song “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People, I demand that you stop reading this blog post and go listen to this song in its entirety….isn’t that a “catchy ass song”? That song has been stuck in my head for several days now, and if you ask Michaela, she’s had it bouncing around in her head for a few weeks…even still, that song rocks!

Ok, now that we got that out of the way, let’s dig into recent events.

-Picture...sorry, but we've really been slacking! As you can see, most of the pics here are just random ones from around the house when I go "oh man, we haven't taken a picture in a while, I better do that...Landon, do something funny or look cute!"...

-Run on the Sly…This past Sunday Michaela and I got up at the buttcrack of dawn…yes, it was VERY VERY early. We needed to get up to Pollock Pines, CA in time for a 7:30am race start and it was a solid hour of a drive to get up there. For those of you that aren’t super familiar with the morning of a race, there’s quite a lot that goes into early morning preparation including: getting in a good meal, coffee, essential trip to the john (sorry, but it’s true), as well as getting together everything that you need for the actual run (ie. food, fluids, tunes, meds, etc.). It’s quite the production! Anyhow, all that is another solid hour to hour and a half…so let’s just say that our start was early.

The Race in question was the Run on the Sly, which offers several mileage options: 12K, half-marathon (13 miles), 20 mile, and 50K (31 miles). Michaela and I hadn’t trained that much and sort of signed up “last minute” for this race, so we elected to run the 20 miles (it ended up being about 20.5 miles). We had never run any part of this trail before, and while we knew several people that ran it, we didn’t have that much of an idea as to what we were in for. We just knew that there would be dirt, a lake, and some hills….it turned out we were right, except it was A LOT of hills, and some hornets for good measure!

Since we have other stuff to discuss, I won’t bore you all with a full race report, I’ll just say that the first few miles were a pretty steep climb, followed by some nice rolling hills and a decline to get us to the lake. Michaela and I didn’t run this race together, but we weren’t that far from each other either it turns out (although neither of us saw each other during the race). Around mile 8 I was cruising around the lake on a single track trail when the guy directly in front of me started full out sprinting and waving his arms. I looked at my Garmin and thought to myself “Wow, we’re only 8 miles in and the dude is jamming, he’s never going to make it!”…that thought lasted about 2.5 seconds, which was about the time that the first hornet made its presence known. That little sucker stung me directly in the middle of my left calf (it’s been a long time since I’ve been stung by one of them and I forgot how much they hurt, especially in your calf when you have to run 12 more miles on it). That was immediately followed by another sting to my hand while a few others swarmed around me. I let out a quick “Argh!” and hit the afterburners as well. After about 25 feet we were in the clear and assessed the damage. I luckily only got stung twice, the guy in front of me estimated he had 5 stings, ouch! We turned around and yelled to the next group of runners who were about 100 yards behind us, and we subsequently heard the screams of women a few seconds later. Apparently one lady actually froze in the middle of the swarm (which is probably the last thing you want to do in that situation). After the race was over I took a tally and it seemed like maybe 30% of all the runners I talked to got stung that day…first time for everything I guess!

The rest of the run was tough, if not nearly as eventful. We had quite a few moderate climbs in there, and as the sun rose, the uncovered patches of the trail really baked us. After the dust settled, I had logged the run in 3 hours, 40 minutes and Michaela came in just a little behind me at 3 hours, 42 minutes (we took 26th and 29th place overall). Michaela actually finished in the top 3 for her age group and got a really cool plaque, which is totally awesome! I took 7th in my age group but was bummed to realize that if I was only one month younger I would have placed 4th in the 20-29 age group...damn getting old blows!

Afterwards, we managed to hang out with our friends for a quick beer and then it was time to relieve the babysitter and head back down the mountain….it ended up being a very fun and rewarding run. As we previously mentioned, Michaela is part of the URP racing team, and she got a cool shout out on the front page of their website here. Here is a picture of her and her teammates after the race (I took the picture)...from left to right are Michaela, Scotty, Jesse, and Scott...all of whom are VERY fast and they all managed to place...great job guys!



New Job- On Monday, Michaela finally got to start her new job at Fleet Feet. So far all the reports I’ve received are excellent, that she really loves it, and is excited to go into work every day. So far she’s been learning about the mechanics of the foot, running technique, and all kinds of other interesting stuff that I’m sure we’d want to learn about even if she wasn’t getting paid for it (can you tell I’m a little jealous?). The only red flag that I’ve seen to this point is the proximity to really cool gear that Michaela now enjoys, which has already lead to some fun purchases, and I’m sure will continue to be a condition that we’ll have to work on in the future…and it’s not just her to blame, as I find myself saying things like “hey Honey, can you pick me up another pair of running socks or that cool shirt we saw last week?”….like I said, it’s a condition…we may need to seek more serious treatment soon.

Speaking of new jobs, her “other” new job working as a race director has been completely crazy (in a good way)! I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this busy, as she gets home from her day job to spend the next few hours firing off emails, coordinating volunteers, working with vendors, and learning more and more about the art of putting on a great race (anybody can put on a crap race, it’s the “great” races that people actually want to run).

As for Landon, he’s still doing great. As you can see from the pics, he found his Halloween costume a little earlier than normal this year. Costco conveniently had them sitting out right as you walk in the store, directly at the eye level of a three year old…coincidence? Hmmm…. Anyhow, Landon’s been talking about who he was going to be for Halloween for months and when we saw the Captain America costume, we knew it was time to snag one before they sold out (which they always do). He’s also doing great at his “new-old school”, where he gets to play all day with his best buddies, and we’ve been getting nothing but great reports from his teachers.

That about covers it for now. We’re looking forward to having Michaela’s Mom come visit us next week, followed by a nice long Labor Day weekend. I’ve got to start training again as I have decided to run my first ultra run in November, the Last Chance 50K…and other than that, we’re just going to keep livin’ the dream.

Much Love to you all out there and remember…

“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks better run, better run, outrun my gun”…he he he, now try getting that out of your head!