Randoms

 I'm in serious boot love with these!!

 After a flat tire 2 weeks ago turned into a morning at Les Schwabb, 4 new tires and new rear brakes...the kids have their first ever tire swing! Let me just say...that is about a $700 swing.

 Loving being back on my mountain!

 Because of the nature of the volunteer work we do, we see a lot of front porches, and a lot of random things.  This was at a house I visited this week, and I loved it!! Uncle Si.

 Saturday the kids had some friends over and we took them to the bmx track for some fun.

 This was just too good! And wrong.

My mountain this morning.  I'll have more pictures from this one up in the next few days. I want up Eagle Peak to Twin Peaks and the wild flowers are blooming up there, it was super pretty. There was some ill weather blowing in up there, so I had to ski-dadle down, but it was a nice run. First major climbing I've done in recent months and it felt good!

Picture Site

Just an fyi for those who still go to it, the picture site is updated with lots of new pictures.  The site structure has been updated, and I can't post titles for the days, so you'll have to guess what the pictures are from....but if you follow the blog, you can usually figure out what the pictures are related to.

Picture site is here.

#nofiltersIjustliveinabeautifulplace

 Seriously, folks. I haven't run in a month, and boy was I rewarded this morning.  It was one of those amazingly beautiful runs. The beauty my have shot my pace, but it was just the kind of run I needed.  The blues, my goodness...they were so blue! And the greens....stunning.  I felt like I was running from one awe inspiring moment to the next. I was feeling very grateful to be able to enjoy and see so much beautiful creation this morning!  It's a lot of pictures, but I think you'll enjoy them!  And really, I have not edited these one iota, no color enhancement or filters or anything.  Your seeing exactly what I saw this morning! This was out of Mitchell Canyon, up Back Creek Trail to Donner Trail and looped back to parking down through the grass lands...which are now emerald green : )

 

 

 

Can You Feel the Excitement??

One month ago today.  The last time I ran. One whole month.
Honestly, it has flown by.  Odd, yes?? If you know me in real life, you know how much running and the mountain and my time alone means, how much I need it to be a happy camper. 

But man, this past month there has been so much "real life" stuff going on (all good), that I found it easy to let myself completely put my own running on the back burner.  We've had some major changes (all good, and no I'm not pregnant, nor will I ever be again) that not running allowed me to give my full attention to. So what I'm saying is, life went on, and it was pretty good!

Now, what has not running done to my figure?? Well, that's a whole nother story! But again, not a big deal.  I know how I work, and once I get back in the game, I'm all in, and the weight takes care of itself.  However, my "all in" will be different than a month ago as I am now not training for anything, and my schedule has changed. It's realistic for me to be able to get 2 mid week runs in and balance our new "real life" stuff.  Possibly one on the weekends if I plan it well. 

So tomorrow I'll be back on the mountain!! I cant' wait!  Things have totally greened up over the past month, and I know there is water flowing at Mitchell Canyon, not sure about Castle Rock. The poppies are also blooming right now, which should mean the spring flowers up on Eagle Peak are either bloomed or about to.  I know it'll be a slow, walk/run combo for a bit, but exciting non the less!

WTC PIc's from NTL

Thank you, Allen, for all these great pictures!  If you guys ever want a great read of some great recaps and info on port-a-potties, written by a famous, published writer, and nice guy- his blog is where to be! I'm sure he'll poo poo (potty reference!) the famous part, but if you are around him for 5 minutes, you'd be amazed at how many people know him. Infamous may fit better now that I'm thinking about this....hmm.

 Downing a Pocketfuel pre race.

 He came back through the start area at 8 miles before heading out on a 23 mile loop.

 Myles had fun decorating my braids for a few minutes.

 Here he's withing sight of the finish. He does not know any of the people "tunneling" him, but he enjoyed it.

Way Too Cool Weekend Recap

First, congrats to Brian, who finished with an official 50k pr of 8:08!  Great job, babe!

So we headed up to Roseville, Ca on Friday night.  Got checked into the hotel, no problem. Got a call from the hotel office manager saying the computers had crashed and they lost all the booking info, needed to re-enter everything. After giving him our billing address, I realized how dumb it was to give out any info on the phone and said my husband would be right down to the office to give the info in person.  And...yeah. It was a scam.  Panic ensued.  Now some scam person had our home address and knew we were not home but at the hotel.  What to do, go home? Drive back the 2 hours the morning before the race?  Stay put and worry about it all weekend??

Well, after talking with the office at the hotel and finding out it's a problem in the Sacramento area, hotels are being targeted by a scam being run out of Africa and or Asia, targeting people's credit info, and that they are aware of the problem and the police are involved, and that nobodies homes have been broken into following one of these calls...we called our home police department, explained what had happened, and they said they'd keep a car in our neighborhood.  So, we stayed put.

Race morning, no problems other than Brian forgetting his hand held water bottle and attempting for two seconds to convince me he didn't need to carry any water (he later said he drank more water this run than normal and would have been sunk w/no water). We bought just a regular water bottle, no hand strap at all, which he carried the whole time.  He was off and running at 8:10, we saw him just before the 8 mile mark, and then 7 hours later at the finish.  I'll link to his recap when he gets one up, but for now, here's some pictures from the weekend-

Brian and NTL, Allen, before the race started.

With a record crowd, they did a wave start this year, this was wave one. You really want to get where you want to be since all these runners will funnel onto single track trails.

 

 Killing time in a field the runners would soon be running through towards the end of the first 8 mile loop.

 There's Brian in red!

 The kids and Kona got some high fives.

 We had about 7 hours to kill now.

 That's your winner, Chris Vargo, and second place Alex Varner.  This was 7 miles into 31 miles...they finished just like this, with Chris still in front by only a few seconds.

 Interviews happening everywhere.

 We had some lunch, and let Kona out of the car for walks, read, drew, wandered, and then he was done.

 Above, I guess after running 31 miles you are allowed to not recognize your son and run right past him after he's been patiently waiting for a high-five for 7 hours. : )

 Everyone except for Brian was pretty sun burned.

 Sunday morning we headed out for some exploring around Coloma, Sutter's Mill, and Placerville.

 We went back to part of the trail Brian had run on Saturday along the American River. He was really kicking himself for not carrying his camera and getting no pictures of this beautiful run, so he was able to get a few shots.

 

Courthouse in Coloma, Ca.

 Then we went to Sutters Mill, where the very first gold was found that started the Gold Rush. There's a lot to explore there, many old buildings and whatnot. The kids completed some activities and earned nice Jr. Ranger badges.

 We had a great lunch at Mel's in Placerville.

 And then headed home......to discover if we had anything left in the house, and it was fine.

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Update : Brian has his race recap up here.