Its been too long since an update; this one is short but sweet to make up for it…
For Tana’s 4th birthday we scoured craiglist for a pedal bike for her and eventually found the perfect one. Being quite excited as parents to give it to her (and wanting to give her have some practice time before her birthday party where she is sure to want to show it off), we gave it to her early. Let’s just say her sheer joy makes the small “investment” cost of the bike some of the most well spent money we’ve ever done.
Here’s a short video of part of the “unveiling” and first two ~40min sessions of riding.
A friend of ours has her own business where she makes kids clothes , accessories and other fun items. Tana always thinks the things she has are great and being that Tana is so cute, she was asked to pose for some pictures. So yep, Tana is the famous one of the family so far.
A few of the pictures can be seen here:
For those that haven’t noticed from my posts elsewhere, I’ve at least partially split where I put up my blog posts. This will stay for family posts (and yes, we are really attempting to update it more consistently!) . The training and racing posts for me at least will be on another blog I started up – Faster Daddy! I’ll probably pull some of my past training and racing posts from here over there as well.
Well – earlier this year, err… late last year, we came across a seriously great deal (<90% discount) on boots and skiis that would work for Tana to learn to ski on for this season and next season at least.
Today was our first day up and Tana had a ball – is taking to it quite quickly as well! Still working on the stopping and turning, but hey, not bad for about an hour or so if instruction.
So tonight was the reverse psychology game – Apparently Tana really really wanted some brussels sprouts the last time that she was at Sprouts Grocery store; since she’s never had them before, nor have we really even talked about them, I can only assume that since she was at Sprouts, then she should have some brussels sprouts. Why not alfalfa sprouts, radish sprouts, or any other type of sprouts, I don’t know – she wanted brussels sprouts; or at least that’s how the story goes as it was told to me. I, on the other hand, figure that Hillary planted a seed in some motherly way to get Tana to say she wanted brussels sprouts in a way to gain majority control as Hillary likes them and knows that I don’t.
However it happened – they bought brussels sprouts while I was at work today and Tana and Hill had them with their dinner. Hillary nicely told me that I didn’t have to have any as she only cooked them for herself and Tana. They had semi balanced plates as far as multiple colors of food to eat while I had a very brown and orange dinner of oven-baked chicken tenders and roasted sweet potato strips without a green thing in sight – meat and potatoes; what can I say…
Near the beginning of the meal, as I was quite enjoying what I was eating; Hillary turned on her Jedi mind waves. Before I knew it, I was putting my fork into one of her brussels sprouts! These are foul little green things that resemble mini cabbages but without any of the other yummy fillings of an egg roll or other Chinese food that makes a cabbage appealing. There was no sweet and sour or hot mustard (not to be confused with regular mustard..oye, that brings the gag reflex..), no way of smothering the taste of the brussels sprouts, just me and the brussels sprout with hardly a thing between it and my taste buds. I could tell there was some spices of sorts and they had been lightly browned by some fashion of cooking; but that’s hardly a way to disguise the taste or otherwise make it a safe food. Regardless of how they were prepared, that doesn’t really matter as I had one on the end of my fork and for some inexplicable reason, I actually voluntarily moved the fork toward my mouth! (Mind tricks I tell ya) My entire body must have been under some remote control as my mouth didn’t purse the lips as it should have, the teeth did not clench, even the last line of defense, the tongue, didn’t spit it back out – all complied with going through the process of eating this foul thing as if they had always been doing it and enjoying it. Didn’t they know that we , yes I’m talking about the entire system of the body as a we; that we do not like brussls sprouts!?
At the point that I realized what I had just done, I think I was finally able to completely connect on a personal and emotional level with the poor schmuck that Sam from Doctor Seuss’ Green eggs and ham harassed. I am Ben, I am, and I do not like green brussels sprouts, not on a plate, not slightly browned, not cut in half; I don’t like brussels sprouts! – but I did… ugh - is nothing sacred anymore?
Last weekend was the second in the Winter Distance Series races, Frosty’s Frozen 5/10 miler. Hillary and I gave each other entry to this race series for Christmas, signing up for the middle distance (5k, 5mi, 10mi). This kind of gift (and it was the only gift we actually gave each other that was purely a Christmas gift) means that we must really like running, or we really like to punish the other and see each other in pain… to add further insult, I blithely offered to push the chariot with our kids in it for the races so Hill could run sans Chariot (for some reason I’m starting to think that this may all be a part of some master plan of Hillary’s.) In reality though it was so she could really work on her training as she is wanting to get back to it after the child birth induced hiatus to training; and Hillary isn’t a fan of anything induced! I had taken full advantage of Hillary’s “condition” due to pregnancy and post birth to get as much of a running endurance gap as I could over the past year and a half, so it was only fair to let Hill run on her own. I do get the added entertainment of a kid providing a rolling theme song though, as either or both of our kids regularly do – and much to our joy, its usually a joyful sound track.
We started at the back as we usually do since we like to start out a bit slower than a full sprint. Plus we need a little more room with the Chariot and we want to start out as a family, since it is family fun. As we are getting near the first mile mark, I realized that my watch wasn’t setup correctly for what I wanted to record as far as a training record, so I had Hillary take over pushing the Chariot for a little bit. Just as I finish adjusting my watch and take the chariot pushing back over – we get an announcement from Tana that she needs to use the potty. Hillary and I say our good byes and I pull off to the side. Luckily the chariot is rather large providing a visual cover and Tana has been schooled in the art of peeing outside as she has had many pee stops while hiking, back-packing, on Mom and Dad’s training runs, and in the middle of nowhere while riding in a car. After a minute or so, Tana had taken care of business and was loaded back up next to Brenna for some more fun in the Chariot. As I got back up to speed, I was scanning the crowd of runners in front of me until I spotted Hillary. She was somewhere around a quarter of a mile in front of me and the girls. Without doing any mental math to see if I could catch Hillary or not – I decided that that was now my goal for the race. It was game on – catch Hillary.
As we got near the turn around point of the course to head back to the start, I spotted Hill and was happy to see that I was gaining on her; though a bit worried as she looked pretty determined! Once I got heading back towards the finish area, I was hoping to see Hillary fairly quickly as I thought I had run a fairly good pace – what I forgot to take into account was that the last time I saw here, I was still running uphill and she was just starting to go down hill. Then I saw the 3mile marker signifying that I only had 2 miles to catch her if I was going to do it; unfortunately, I was also approaching a long line of people that were going ~2min+ per mile slower than I wanted to go and we were on a multi-use path that gets pretty filled when two people run next to each other. Some people were very nice and moved over, others held their spot but were spaced out enough that I could zig-zag around them; others just wanted to run next to their friend, so I went cross country style around them. Nothing like trainer intervals for a while as I sped up in the gaps and then slowed down to navigate around people nicely.
With around a mile and a half to go, I realized that I could catch Hill, so I started running even harder. At around 1 mile left, I was right behind Hillary thinking that we would run in together or at least with each other for a while – I was partially correct. She saw me and even though her face was a semi grimace due to the effort she was putting into running; her body was flowing smoothly and may as well have smirked at me as she started accelerating. So much for a little side by side friendly run for a while; Hill was trying to break me and not allow me to pass! Over the next quarter mile, Hill stretched the rubber band pretty thin with me just determined not to let the gap between us open up. Right as I’m starting to play mental games to keep up the pace, she slightly relents and I start to pass her. Being the lovely husband that I am, I don’t slow down a bit – I just keep running. Don’t want her to get a second wind and pass me again! As we get closer to the finish, I could tell that Hill was still pretty close, but we were coming on to some ice patches that were causing other runners to go to the sides of the path and slow down a little bit – this is where I had the advantage. While running with the chariot is normally a disadvantage, the extra points of contact for stability pay off largely when on slick ground as I was able to run directly across the ice patches rather than around them. As we approached the finish line, both Hill and I were getting ready to fully let loose, but as we crested the final hill before the finish line we could see that there was more packed snow and some ice so neither of us had a big sprint finish. Hillary came in ~4-6 seconds behind me putting in a great race as it was the longest race she had done since Bolder Boulder ’08 and she did so with negative splits the entire way. I have a feeling that the next couple running races we do will have us dueling more and more to see who beats who – and I’m looking forward to each and every one!
I’m a picky eater – anyone that has been around me or knows me, knows this. I don’t like most condiments, I don’t like most anything squishy (texture issue), I don’t like half the food others think are great treats for various reasons. I’m not just a steak and potatoes kind of person, but I’m not too far from it either – or at least I wasn’t when I met Hillary. The one exception to the bland meals for me was Mexican food, or more correctly, New Mexican food – I love green chile and a good red chile. Not this pork stew and enchilada sauce that many pass off as chile, but real good, honest to goodness chile….but I digress, this isn’t about chile, but corruption…
See Hillary had these weird tastes for food when I met her and soon afterward – these tastes included such things as Mediterranean food, Indian curries, salmon, real seafood, and raw fish! aka sushi. I was able to successfully turn her into a chile addict without much effort; little did I know that she had started a quest of her own. Soon I would be hooked on Indian food and love some of the Mediterranean food (good thing since we went to Greece and the Greek islands for our honeymoon). Then after much coaxing, cajoling, and outright teasing – I acquiesced into trying sushi. That was either a great thing or a really bad thing as I’m now completely hooked, and not on just rolls, I actually prefer Nigiri or sashimi and will gladly eat way more than I can afford. There were a few other things here and there, but the next major prong in her attack was when we were back out in Oregon and she was raving about razor clams and how great they were. Razor clams, as in a full clam, lightly breaded and pan-fried, and that’s all you eat – not clam chowder or some other type of clam containing meal that could hide the fact that you’re eating a clam, but a meal of just the clam; well maybe some salad or something as well, but you get the idea. The first time I had some razor clams, Hill’s mom was nice enough to have made something else for me as well so I didn’t have to subsist on something that I probably wouldn’t like. The first couple tastes were ok, as I put it to Hill; I could eat it, but wouldn’t ask for it. As the meal went on, something very weird happened – these things that I knew I wouldn’t like, started to actually taste good; and not only good, but great! Now Hill, or more correctly, Hill’s mom developed a problem with me – I absolutely have to have razor clams anytime we go out to Oregon; the craving gets to be huge and while we tried a couple restaurant versions – nothing compares to the way that Hill’s mom makes them (though I bet Hill could do a pretty good version as well).
You may think that these few but major wins for Hillary would be enough to give a feeling of contentment; but no, she keeps pushing for more. Recently I let slip that some of the sushi rolls I was getting had avocado in it and that I was actually tolerating the small amount of avocado. There are so many things wrong with avocado that this was actually a bit worrisome to me; they are squishy, green, not “standard” food, and actually good for you. I figured that Hillary would take solace in my anguish and help me purge the fowl vegetable from my diet since she is a kind and supporting spouse. What she actually did was much worse that not helping me extinguish the angst of actually eating a mere spec of avocado – she actually put even larger specs of avocado in some of my food; hiding it under things such as cheese, chile, and salsa and only when confronted did she admit to it with a sly grin and twinkle in her eye (nearly the same look that our daughters give before they really get into trouble…). Now what came from the grievous act you may ask; well I’ll tell you – I got hooked! Now I can’t look at a meal with salsa and such in and not think, “hum, this may just be better with some avocado in it”, and it generally is. I can only assume that her next plans will be to have me eating actual avocados without having to mix it into a bowl or plate full of other foods and then she may move on to trying to get me to eat cottage cheese. If she is successful in those endeavors, she may get the guts to go for the real prize, the absolute triumph of my food dislikes, the quasi penultimate prize of my food aversions – she may actually try to get me to eat some tomato without it being diced into fine bits or mixed with other things into a salsa or sauce!!
These are the horrible things that happen to you when you hand over trust to someone you love; who knew she’d use the power to corrupt me in such horrible, horrible ways….
Our blog has been quiet for far too long. Ben and I did the Rudolph’s Revenge 5k on Saturday, which was also Ben’s birthday. This was my first race since early August and also my first race since my dear friend, Sonja, started helping me with my training.
My race went great! Ben and I started toward the back of the pack since we had the chariot, which Ben was in charge of. When the race started it took us a little while to get up to the start line but we finally got moving. There was a major bottle neck at the first corner but I was able to maneuver through fairly easily and finally settled into my own rhythm. Everything felt great although the day was a little warmer than I’d expected. My first mile went by in 10:11 and I was feeling good. I just tried to hold a consistent pace and at the turn around, I saw Ben and Brenna just a little way behind me. Ben caught up to me around the two mile mark and my second mile took 10:06. Ben was able to work through the crowd some and get ahead of me. I tried my hardest to go with him but it just wasn’t in me if I was going to have enough reserve to finish the race. I kept my eye on him and made sure I passed anyone who I had seen walking. A few of them tried to hang with me but I knew since they had been walking they wouldn’t be able to hang with me for long. As I neared the three mile mark, I heard a man next to me tell the two people he was with to treat the last 200 yards as an interval, and they both groaned. As soon as I hit the mark I kicked it in for the finish and passed quite a few people. I crossed the finish line and started to get my timing chip taken off when I remembered to stop my watch. My watch read 30:51 which is a great time for me! My official time is 31:14 or something like that but it doesn’t account for the lag at the start since there was no timing mat there. I don’t think I made it under 30 minutes but I came pretty darn close and I couldn’t be happier with home my race went. Oh, and my third mile was a 9:40. I can’t believe I held that pace for a mile. I guess having Ben ahead of me helped to get me moving, well that and the 9 year old girl that I just didn’t want to finish ahead of me.
Yesterday was another big day for me. I rode my bike on the rollers for the first time. I needed to do a short recovery ride after the race. We had family visiting so I decided to do it after the girls went to bed but really didn’t have any desire to ride the trainer. I asked Ben for help getting motivated and he suggested I ride the rollers. The thought of if sent chills up and down my spine. I have always wanted to ride the rollers but the thought of it makes my nerves stand on end. However, I decided there was no time like the present. Ben got the rollers set up next to a wall to help me balance. I got on and he was right there next to me, talking me through and helping me calm my nerves. As I would relax a little, I would find my balance and move away from the wall and then go right back to it. I really worked on keeping my hands loose and my upper body relaxed and as I increased my speed and cadence it became a little easier. I almost fell off once but totally going against my usual ways, instead of having a total freak out, I got back on and kept going. The longer I rode, the more comfortable I felt and the less time I spent balancing against the wall. I rode for 15 minutes and during the last five minutes was only occasionally bumping against the wall. I must admit, I am even happier about riding the rollers than I am about my race and while the thought of riding the rollers still makes me all jittery, it is a good jittery now.
And onto the final item, Sonja is giving away four boxes of Ritter Sport Chocolate on her blog and to enter, you have to tell her what you are going to do to push your boundaries in 2010. Well, my list keeps growing. I am going to finish Platte River Half in under 2:24:whatever, which is my previous time. I am going to break 30 minutes in a 5k and qualify for the Bolder Boulder. I am going to start swimming and participate in enough triathlons this summer to feel like I can actually call myself a triathlete. I want to do a long course triathlon. And finally, I want to start training for my first marathon which I plan on running in late 2010 or early 2011. On top of it all, I gonna spend a lot more time riding my bike on the rollers. Happy New Year to all of you boundary pushers!
