Ragnar!

I have more history to catch up on but I just have to post what is happening currently...
Amber and I ran our first Ragnar relay last April in Southern California. For those of you that aren't familiar with Ragnar it is a race promoter that puts on ultra-relay races. The races average 200 miles and are run by teams of 12 or 6 or as few as 2 team members. As you may well imagine it takes teams anywhere from 20 to 36 hours or more to complete such a distance. I think it is the most fun I have ever had running!
Amber and I decided we wanted to do one so we began trying to put together a team but without much success. Eventually we found a message board where other people were looking for people to complete their teams so we signed on with a bunch of people we didn't know and just jumped in with both feet.
As I said, it was a blast. We met a bunch of great people and ran our tails off.
Briefly, the race is divided into 36 legs that range from 2 to 11 miles (give or take). Each team member runs 3 legs. For example runner #1 will run the 1st, 13th and 25th legs. Runner #2 : the 2nd, 14th and 26th, etc.
So you get a rest between each of your legs but one of your legs will be run in the middle of the night. Some teams do it with one big van and they just sleep in the van. Our team did it with two vans. 6 in each van so our van did legs 7 to 12 then we had a long break until legs 19 to 24 and then 31 through 36. I think we got more sleep that way. Amber ended up running about 14 or 15 miles and I ran about 20.
It was an amazing experience. So much fun!
Since then we have worked as volunteers for the Ragnar race in Napa and we ran in the first ever Ragnar trail relay. More on that later.
I can't say enough about Ragnar. Every part of our experience with them has been great! I'll be posting a lot more because I am going to be a Ragnar Ambassador which means I'll be promoting Ragnar at other events and doing everything I can to spread the word.

Triathlon...

In 2009, sometime while we were training for the marathon, Amber and I were looking at doing some cross training and Amber found a little free introductory triathlon so we decided to try it out. It was held at Lake Natoma in Folsom, CA. It consisted of a short swim (200 or 400 yds, I can't remember), a 5 mile bike and a 1 mile run. It was a very humbling experience for me.
I had spent lots of time in the water as a child and teenager. Water skiing, surfing, body surfing, etc. at the beach. I thought I was a pretty good swimmer. I swam a mile when I was 15 or 16 in boy scouts. I thought this little swim would be no big deal. I learned I wasn't as good as I thought. Lake Natoma is below Folsom lake and is fed by water coming from the bottom of the Folsom dam so it is cold. It was probably around 56 or 57 degrees that day. Many of the people doing this triathlon had wetsuits but I didn't and didn't think I'd need one. Somewhere around 60 people started this race and less than 100 yards into the swim I realized I was dead last and not swimming well. I started doing the elementary backstroke, the breast stroke, the side stroke, doggy paddling (jk), whatever I could to just keep moving. There was a coach in a kayak that was following along. He kept asking, "Are you ok? Do you want to rest? You can hold onto the kayak." It was a very humbling (even a little humiliating) swim. I finish last by a long margin and knew I needed to learn to swim all over again.
Amber likes to tell people about how she finished ahead of me that day. Not only the swim. She swam so much faster that I couldn't even catch up on the bike and run. She still swims faster than I do but I've learned to swim a bit better since then.
After I chainsawed my leg I couldn't do anything for a while but one of the first things that I was able to do was to swim. I couldn't kick very hard but that is ok because in triathlon swimming you don't kick very hard anyway. The idea is to preserve your legs for the bike and run.
We began training with Total Body Fitness and took swim lessons as well as doing track workouts (later). Amber and I also volunteered at some of the races that TBF put on, earning ourselves credit toward race entries. Eventually we signed on as staff for TBF. This required us to committ to work a certain number of races in exhange for free training and racing. We love TBF and are going on our 3rd year working with them. So that is how we got started with triathlons.
We signed up to run our 1st Olympic distance triathlon (1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run) in October of 2010. It was in Nevada with a swim in Lake Mead, the bike from the lake up to Boulder City, NV and then the run around the streets of Boulder City. It was only 3 or 4 weeks after the St. George marathon but I thought I could recover enough. It proved to be tougher than I expected.
I lost my breakfast after +/-150 yds of the swim. The water was a little rough and I got hit in the face by a couple of waves as I tried to take breaths. I finished the swim just seconds ahead of Amber who started 10 minutes after I did.
The bike ride was pretty hilly with the last 6 miles climbing without a break. By the time I started the run I was past ready to be done. It may have been the slowest 10k I've ever run. I can't remember now but I think my overall finish time was around 4 hours.
Amber and I worked and raced with TBF throughout 2011. We did a couple more Olympic distance tris and in October of 2011 we did a non-TBF international distance tri near San Louis Obispo, CA. The international distance is very close to the Olympic distance. The swim and bike are slightly longer (1 mile swim vs .93 mi, and 26.1 mi., bike vs. 24.8). We continue to train for and participate in triathlons.

...Where to begin (again)?

...Where to begin (again)?

When last I updated this blog I had just run my first marathon. It's been a while and even though no one has missed it I decided to start my blog back up.

So... a brief recap to bring all my millions of followers up to date...

I decided to try to improve my time from the Run the River marathon and I had heard that the St. George marathon was a fast course so I entered the lottery to get a spot. I received notice on a friday morning (21 weeks before the race) that I had been selected in the lottery. I immediately began to plan my training schedule that morning.
An hour or so later I left for work on my motorcycle and less than 10 miles from home I was involved in a crash. I hit my knees pretty hard but was lucky and only suffered bruises and abrasions. I was still able to run in a relay the next day (the annual Cheese Fest run) and completed about 4 miles. I had some swelling but all in all I was very lucky.

Three weeks later I wasn't so lucky...
18 weeks from race day...
I was cutting some trees on my property with a chainsaw and ended up with the tip of my chainsaw blade embedded in my right leg just above the knee. It felt like I had been punched or kicked (not what I would have expected a deep cut to feel like) so I thought I hadn't cut myself until I looked down and saw the blood pouring from my leg. When I saw the blood I turned off the chainsaw (the motor was still running even though the chain had stopped). I laid the saw down on the ground and applied direct pressure to the cut. My son Chad was there with me and a friend and they carried me to our car. We put ice on the cut and I continued to apply pressure. I also put a belt around my thigh above the cut. Not tight enough to be a tourniquet but a little snug and off we went to the emergency room.
I had cut completely through two of my quad muscles and partly through a third. The cut was down to the femur but an x-ray confirmed that I hadn't hit the bone itself. I had severed ligaments and tissues and had cut into the IT band but not severed it. The surgeon spent over 2 1/2 hours carefully stitching each muscle and tendon back together. I was conscious and sitting up the entire time and he gave me a detailed description as he reconstructed each element of my leg. I was on some kind of pain killer so I watched as if it was someone else's leg. It was quite fascinating really.

                  The chainsaw wound (my knee was still swollen and scabbed from the motorcycle crash).

My leg had to be immobilized for 3 weeks. Then for 5 more weeks I couldn't lift my knee so I had to lead with my left leg every time I walked up stairs or up any slope. I finally was cleared to go to a physical therapist 8 weeks after accident. The PT was pleased with my range of motion at his initial exam and he gave me some exercises to help me regain the strength. I told him I was planning to run a marathon in just ten weeks and his recommendation was to forget that.

I had called the St. George marathon organizers to ask for a deferral or a refund but was informed that they don't do that so I decided I would do it even if I had to walk it. I recognized that I wasn't likely to PR.
I asked the PT for his recommendation for a training program to get me ready to run St. George. He told me to plan on 2011. I am too cheap to just walk away from an entry fee once I've paid it so I just began to combine the strength training that the PT recommended with some easy running.

I ran the St. George marathon on October 2, 2010. It was considerably slower than my first marathon. I finished in 4:44:43. Almost an hour slower but I figure it was ok considering what I had overcome. I was most happy that I didn't hit the wall like I had the first time. My last mile was one of my fastest. It was slow and steady and I felt good at the finish.

There's more to bring me up to date but that's all the time I have today...