Kate is 2

Kate turned two this week and we have loved every day that we’ve had her in our lives. She’s a unique and beautiful little girl and here are some of our favorite things about her.

Her hair is still the best.

She loves the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and when she wants to watch it, she’ll sing the “Hot Dog” song to let us know it’s time to turn it on.

Her aunt and uncle bought her a baby doll for Christmas and she loves being a momma. She even helps it go to the potty.

Her favorite song is “The Wheels on the Bus” and we have to sing it every time we see a bus, which happens every time we go anywhere in the car.

She likes salty things rather than sweet things. She would rather have potato chips for breakfast than cereal (no, we don’t let her) and her favorite foods are pepperonis and pickles.

She’s a very active little girl. She runs everywhere and has to jump off everything she can climb up on. She is in a movement class and a gymnastics class and loves both. She often tries to do gymnastics when the mood strikes, which includes the floors of restaurants, the back seat of the car, church etc. She also wants to run up and down our basement in the evening before bed. She’s gone back and forth for more than a mile on multiple occasions (I have a vivofit so I know) and she makes mom and dad run with her.

She loves putting pennies into her piggy bank. She doesn’t really know what money is, she just likes watching it fall and hearing the clink when they land.

She loves books.

Kate really is the best.

Kate's First Year

The time has just flown since Kate came into our lives. She turned one last week and we're so proud her. Here are some of our favorite things about the little girl who completely changed our lives.

She's a great traveler. We've taken her to Boston, Chicago, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Maui, not to mention the many car trips to southern Utah to visit family and she handles it like a champ.

She's got the sweetest smile and the greatest laugh.

She's an active little girl. She started walking and moving around so early and hasn't let up at all since. It's been so fun to take her to swim lessons, to the park, and even just to play outside. She was in her first race before she turned one, and was definitely the cutest runner there (it was a kids 1K, untimed and completely laid back which was nice because I had to carry her most of the way, but they still gave her a medal).

She growls.

She loves to be held and cuddled. From the first day that we met her, we have been able to enjoy her sweet little self in our arms and she enjoys it as much as we do, maybe even more so since she still wakes us up in the middle of the night for some mommy and daddy time.

She laughs in her sleep, a lot.

She doesn't mind having her picture taken. This is a big one since we've had to send pictures to her birth mom every month. She will often look right into the camera so I can get the best shot and she loves to see the camera when I'm done so she can see the picture. And she's incredibly photogenic.

Her hair is just the best.

She loves books. She will sit and let me read one or two to her and she loves Pat the Bunny. She has already destroyed one copy from overuse and is working on her second copy. We think she will be a reader.

She squeals with delight whenever she's close to a dog or a cat.

She is very happy and smiley when she wakes up from a nap. She doesn't need time to wake up completely, she just opens her eyes and smiles like she's happy to see us.

She bites her upper lip.

She loves pulling things out of the cupboards in the kitchen even though she knows she's not supposed to and when I walk over to stop her, she grabs something from the cupboard and laughs and runs away like it's a game.

These are just a few of the wonderful things about our daughter. We are so lucky to have her.

Kate Is Walking

Kate started walking at 8 months and 5 days.  We don't know when babies are supposed to start walking, but this seemed a little early to us.

I'm Boring Now, But I Like It

Last year at this time I was working at a college helping the faculty get settled into a new school year, Chris and I were traveling to different cities to see baseball games or to visit friends, we going out every weekend to see movies or concerts, or to run races or to see things we hadn't seen before. It wasn't always the most exciting life to lead, but it kept us entertained and it felt like we were more interesting people for it. Now we spend our time closer to home, not wanting to disrupt Kate's routine or to haul her many necessary things around unless it's for something really worth it. We still get out occasionally, taking Kate to a football game or to the bowling alley or shopping so that people can tell us how adorable she is and can admire her almost as much as we do, but for the most part, we're much more homecentric than we used to be. And this is just fine. It's oddly compelling to see the progress she's making in small things, like picking up objects and putting them into her mouth, or sitting up for long stretches without falling over, or laughing her beautiful body shaking laugh when I make funny faces at her. Who knew that she would be so entertaining (besides every other mother out there on the planet)? I'm absolutely certain that no one else, except possibly Chris, finds her behavior as interesting as I do, so I have very little to talk about when we actually do make it out of the house to where the people are congregating these days. But that's okay, I was never much of a talker anyway.

Life Has Changed

My world had undergone a huge change over the last three and a half months and it's all Kate's fault. It's a great change, but change nevertheless. I've had to work on putting together a new daily routine because I'm a creature of habit and I need some continuity in my life. So Kate and I have worked really hard on her napping and eating to get her to the point where I can predict what she's going to be doing for the day and work around it. I'm not getting much done, but I feel a lot better about myself when I can say that at least I knew that I wouldn't be getting anything done because I planned it that way. And she too seems to be benefiting from the organization I've added to our lives. She now gets to sleep during my runs on the treadmill instead of getting angry that she has to sit in her bouncy chair, crying and making me stop my workout to calm her down. She now knows that we will be having an afternoon nap on the couch and seems to have a favorite position, me teetering on the edge enough that I could fall off at any moment (but of course I have to be that close to the edge so that she can stretch out her arm if need be without waking up). All in all, we're doing well learning how to adjust to this new life that we both have. I should probably mention that she's so cute that this whole schedule was thought up and approved by her without my input at all.

Boston

I realized that I never posted about running the Boston Marathon, which is kind of a huge oversight because I had been posting about it for so long. So here goes. It was an incredible weekend! I think that a lot of what made it so special was that I got to share a lot of it with my family who came along to cheer me along during the run. Chris and Kate and my parents and two sisters and brother in-law and Chris' parents were all there. My family had never been to Boston before so we took them to do all the touristy things which was so much fun. We went to Lexington and Concord and did the Freedom Trail and took them to the North Side to get cannoli from Mike's Pastry Shop and saw a game at Fenway. They also came with Mary and me when we went to the Marathon Expo to pick up our packets and numbers. It was so fun to be a part of the group of people who had all worked for the same thing I had. We walked around with our Marathon gear and noticed all the other people in the city who were doing the same thing and I felt a sense of kinship with them. The actual marathon was an experience. Mary and I got up early to catch the bus out to the Athletes Village where the runners waited until it was their turn to line up and start running. When it was our turn, we joined a huge group of people and walked for about a mile from the village to the start line, and there were already a ton of spectators lined up cheering us on, before we had even started running. The actual course was a little more challenging than the one I had used to qualify, so we ran a bit slower and Mary slowed down around mile 15 and told me to leave her, so I ran the last 11 miles by myself, but it was still great to just run along that historic course, to see all the people who came out to cheer on the runners, even if they didn't have anyone in particular to cheer on. A lot of the athletes put their name on their shirts so that strangers can cheer for them. Mary and I didn't do that, but people still found a way to cheer for us, calling us the pink ladies or calling out the last few digits of my number. And I got to see my family twice along the course. I stopped to kiss my daughter and it energized me to see them. And there was no greater feeling than crossing the finish line. I was pretty exhausted after that run, more so than many of the other marathons I had run, so it felt really good to stop, to collect my medal and go to find my family. And even after the race, I had that exhilarating feeling that I had done something great. My family wanted me to wear my medal around, which many of the runners do. I don't like to draw attention to myself that way, but I did it at the airport because they were letting people who had finished the race skip to the front of the security line and not wait and also board the plane first. That was a nice little perk. I may never run that race again, so I'm so happy that I was able to do it at least once, to have that experience.

My Daughter

My daughter. These are words that give me a secret thrill every time I say them. After our long wait, there’s almost a relief, a release at being able to use them, as though all the uncertainty, misery and hopelessness we felt as we struggled with our infertility are washed away a little every time we refer to Kate. And we use them all the time. My daughter came into our lives on March 17th. My daughter is one of the most beautiful babies I’ve ever seen. My daughter isn’t sleeping at night but the happiness at having her makes it a pleasure to feel sleep deprived. My daughter is dozing on my lap right now and I have been watching her thinking how lucky I am. Will I ever get tired of using those words, when she’s a teenager and thinks we’re idiots, rebels and causes us anxiety? When she makes mistakes? When she leaves us to start her own journey? No.

Kate

Meet our daughter Kate! After a long, long wait, we’ve finally had an addition to our family. Two weeks ago Chris and I made the trip to West Point Mississippi where we adopted Kate. She’s a sweet little girl and has brought a lot of happiness to us and to our home.

Road to Boston

My quest to run the Boston marathon began in November, 2011. I ran my first marathon, the Mesquite Tri States Marathon in 3:50:02 and thought that maybe qualifying was within reach. It seems silly now, looking back that I thought that cutting 15 minutes off my time would be easy, but the Mesquite Marathon is a pretty difficult course. The first 13 miles are a lovely downhill stretch of road that isn’t too steep, but just the right decline in elevation that you don’t realize how fast you are going. The last 13 miles, however, are brutal. There are some pretty steep inclines for long stretches and then some flat areas, but very little downhill that allows one to catch one’s breath. For the first 13 miles of my first marathon, I was on pace to qualify for Boston, but the last 13 slowed me down enough that I was averaging more than a minute per mile slower than I needed to go. But I thought if I could find a nice downhill course that didn’t have any monster hills at the end, I might just be able to qualify. So the training began. I was deterred for about 6 months with some injuries, which I’ve already written about, but got back up on the horse and in April of 2013 ran my second marathon. The Salt Lake Marathon doesn’t qualify as a nice downhill course and I wanted to run with Chris the whole time, and at that point he was quite a bit slower than I, so we finished in a time of 4:00:36. It was a practice marathon and I actually felt pretty good at the end of it, even though it had rained on us for 13 miles and I was soaked and freezing when we finally hit the finish line. I planned to make the Utah Valley Marathon my first actual attempt at qualifying for Boston, but I also signed up for the Big Cottonwood Marathon as a backup just in case I didn’t make it. The Utah Valley runs down Provo canyon and ends in the heart of Provo, the course is nice and downhill until the last 5 miles when it flattens out and goes uphill just slightly. I thought it would be the race, and I felt good up until I got out of the canyon and hit the flat and slightly uphill portion and then I faded quite a bit. My time ended up being 3:35:16, just 17 seconds slower than I needed to be, less than one second per mile too slow. I finished and saw my time and wanted to cry. It’s hard to work that hard for something and then miss out on it by so little (my blog post at the time was a bit melodramatic, I only quoted a poem and let it go at that). I felt that I had done all I could do and I didn’t know if I would ever be able to run that fast again, let alone shave any amount of time off. But I was still signed up for the Big Cottonwood and I had a little more than 3 months to try to get faster. I trained, but not as hard as I should have because of other commitments, vacations, heat. I wasn’t feeling confident going into the Marathon in September. Besides that, I was going to have to cut off more than 16 seconds if I wanted to get into Boston, so many people want to run Boston in 2014 because of the bombings last year, not to mention that registration opened for the fastest runners before the Big Cottonwood marathon was even run. I was going to have to cut off quite a bit of time and if by some miracle I was able to beat the qualifying time by more than 5 minutes, I was going to have to leave the finish line and go home and register immediately. So the odds were not looking good for me. Somehow, the combination of rest between marathons, the course, which was a lovely steep downhill for the first 17 miles with flat stretches and a few uphills for the last nine, the temperature and the really nice people I met on the course who talked to me and encouraged me including Chris’ dad all combined to help me to run my fastest marathon ever, 3:28:33 which is 6 ½ minutes faster than I needed to run. I was ecstatic! I was able to go home and register right away, though I didn’t know if I was accepted for another week. So after 4 marathons, 3 years of training, some setbacks and disappointments, I am running the Boston Marathon in April. It promises to be quite an experience.

Tri Man

Chris has recently been interested in doing triathlons. His mother is a great inspiration to everyone she comes in contact with and she was able to inspire Chris to work hard at more than just running. Chris has been getting up early to swim and staying out late to ride his bike and after all his training he was finally able to participate in his first Olympic triathlon. He had done a couple of sprints earlier this year, but the Olympic was his real goal. He had been planning to do the Pumpkin Man Triathlon down at Lake Mead and had been working towards that goal for a long time and that goal was put into the jeopardy when the government decided to shut down and close all the national parks. They sent out an email to everyone who had signed up saying that if the parks were still closed that they could still come down and do the run portion of the tri, but that would have been a waste of time. We didn’t want to drive 6 or 7 hours both ways so that Chris could run a 10k. Luckily, the government ended their childishness a couple of days before the race and we were able to drive down so that Chris could do the whole race. He did pretty well, his transitions could use a little work, but he looked strong throughout the whole race and his run portion was amazingly fast. Good Job Babe!

Hoping to Adopt

There has never been a doubt in my mind that Chris and I would eventually have kids. Whenever I would talk about the future, it would be “when we have kids…” not “if we have kids…”. I knew when I married Chris that it would be a little while before we started, he wanted to finish law school before trying and I agreed with him for the most part. I’ve always felt that I’m a bit immature for my age and I’m never quite ready to move on to the next step in my life at the same time as my peers. I wanted to get used to being married to Chris before starting our family, I think that I needed a strong marriage and a strong relationship with my husband before involving children. In addition to that, I wanted the decision to have kids to be a mutual thing, I didn’t want to force or cajole or bully Chris into starting a family when he wasn’t ready any more than I wanted him to do the same to me. So we decided to wait. When Chris finished law school and we moved back to Salt Lake I felt like it was finally time to start our family and I began to talk about it with Chris more and more. Chris is the kind of person who needs to think things through and get used to an idea over time, so I was okay with the delay at first, but my patience did wear thin. After a while, he finally agreed that it was time to start trying. I just knew that we would be able to have kids right away, I come from a huge family and his is rather large, so clearly fertility wouldn’t be a problem for us. However, after the first couple of months, I began to wonder. I started reading articles and books about infertility and began to get worried. I tend to overanalyze things and it was something that was constantly on my mind. I was starting to drive myself crazy when Mary handed me a training schedule for a half marathon. I had been doing a little running, but never more than a 5k and the idea of running a longer race was intriguing. I decided to give it a shot and if I should get pregnant, than I would just stop the training and be happy. I started thinking about the amount of running I was doing, what type of shoes I was running in, going for a run with Mary, who is a much better runner and I didn’t want to slow her down, etc. I honestly believe that if I hadn’t started running, I would have been a miserable person. I needed something to take my mind off the fact that I wasn’t getting pregnant and running was exactly what I needed. After my first half marathon, I kept going and I made Chris go with me. We did several half marathons together, Ragnar, and we started our first marathon together (Chris couldn’t finish due to a knee problem, but we had trained for the whole thing and made it about 17 miles in together). After that first marathon, I developed shin splints and then a knee problem and couldn’t run for about 6 months. I did not handle it well, I’m afraid. I had been so concentrated on running that I didn’t have much time to think about infertility, but when I couldn’t run, our infertility came crashing down around my head compounded by the fact that my distraction was just another problem to deal with. I felt pretty useless and shed many more tears than I’d like to admit. I had to face my problem head on and it was one of the toughest times of my life. Looking back now, I know that my injuries were the catalyst that finally sent us to the infertility doctor. If I had been able to run, I would have been able to push that particular problem to the back of my mind indefinitely and we still might be biding our time. However, in facing my problem, I made an appointment with an infertility specialist and we discovered what our problem is. We tried a few different treatments, all to no avail and eventually our choices were narrowed down to adoption or invetrofertiliztion. We fasted and prayed and made lists of pros and cons and talked to family who also fasted for us and did research on both options and after a while decided that adoption was the option for us. Through all the research I had done, I thought that LDS Family Services would be the best option for us and Chris agreed, so several months ago, we met with a counselor, went through orientations, interviews, home-studies, questionnaires and eventually made it to where we are now, with a profile up on It’s About Love, hoping that someone will pick us as the right family for their child. I continue to run to keep my mind off waiting and Chris continues to be his usual calm and serene self as we play the waiting game, but I realize that we’ve been married for 8 wonderful years, and a few more months is do able. I do hope that we are chosen soon, I’m eager to have an addition to our family, to share the amazing life I’ve been able to have with one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. I know we’d do a great job.

Big Cottonwood Marathon 2013

I did it!!! I qualified for the Boston Marathon with 6 ½ minutes to spare! This post will be longer than usual, so bear with me. We got up at 4:00 in the morning to get ready and drove down to get on the bus that was to take us to the start line. It wasn’t as cold as I thought it might be and it wasn’t raining, which was good because it had been raining all week and I was worried that I would have to go slower because I would slip and fall if I wasn’t careful. We were on our way up the course when we stopped because a bus had gotten stuck on one of the turns and we couldn’t get up the mountain. So we all had to get off the bus and walk around it to get up to where another bus was shuttling people back and forth. Of course after we had all been standing around for 15 minutes they got the stuck bus out of the way and we all got back on the busses who were now able to make it up to us. So the race actually started around 30 minutes later than it was supposed to. It was fine though. It was nice and cool all day, the temperature was perfect. Chris and I didn’t run together, I didn’t want him to slow me down and he didn’t want me to pressure him into running faster, but it turns out that he finished only about a minute behind me, so we probably could have run together after all. Anyway, I started off pretty fast. I knew that I was going to have to start off pretty fast and keep it up all the way through the canyon, it was my only chance of making it. For the first 19 miles, I ran sub 8:00 miles, which is amazing. I tried to be very mindful of my body, I was worried that since I had to start off so fast, I was going to burn out at the end, and I didn’t want that to happen so I kept close tabs on my breathing and the way my legs, feet and back felt to make sure I wasn’t in any pain. Things were going along great, so I kept it up and actually had my fastest mile at mile 13. Between mile 11 and 12, some really nice lady started talking to me. It was distracting, and nice to vent some of my feelings about wanting to qualify for Boston and she was very talkative herself, which was nice. She left me in the dust after about mile 14 though. At mile 17 we got out the canyon and the course started to flatten out. I was okay with that for a couple of miles and then I started to slow down. At about mile 19 or 20, I was hanging with the pacer who was going to finish at 3:25 but after mile 20 I had to slow down. I didn’t slow down a whole lot at mile twenty, but it was enough for me to lose him. I really started to get tired at mile 23. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. Luckily, Chris’ dad had agreed to support me through the race and I knew that I was going to see him at each mile and I didn’t want to disappoint him by walking so I kept going and only stopped at the water stations. At mile 23 I could feel my calves starting to get really tight and I knew that if I didn’t stop and stretch, I was going to start cramping up, so I stopped and stretched my legs for just a few seconds and then started right back up again. Luckily it was enough and I didn’t cramp up at all. The last mile and was able to go just a tiny bit faster. Mile 24 and 25 I was running over 9 minute miles but I was able to bring it back down for mile 26 even though it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The last .2 miles was really exciting for me. I had been keeping an eye on my watch and knew that I had a good buffer of time so that I could slow down at the end and still qualify and for those last .2 miles I could see the clock and see that I was going to finish with more than 5 minutes to spare. When I finished, Mary found me and gave me a huge hug and let me know that Chris was just a minute or two behind me. I got to see him finish, his time was a minute slower than mine, so I still have bragging rights for a little while. I probably won’t be faster than him for very much longer. Then we found Chris’ dad and I got to thank him for helping me finish and accomplish my goal. It was the best feeling in the world and even now I can’t help but smile when I think about it.

Georgia and Florida

Chris and I just returned from an amazing trip to Georgia and Florida. We continued our quest to see all the baseball parks in the country be seeing three more, the Braves, the Rays, and the Marlins. We also went to Disney World, Universal Studios, Gater Land, went parasailing, and did a hop-on hop-off tour of Savannah. It would take too long to recount the whole trip, so below are some pictures that hopefully will do the trick.

Weekend Craziness

One Van Plan was a successful venture! We weren't sure if we were going to get enough sleep, if the smell of twelve sweaty runners in one van was going to be overwhelming, and if we were going to be sick of one another after 30 hours together. But it turned out to be really fun. We were a pretty fast team and we passed quite a few other teams and everyone in our van was pretty pleasant.

The day after Ragnar, Chris and I were both feeling surprisingly good, so we decided to go for a hike up the Big Cottonwood Canyon with my sister and her family. It was beautiful and the weather was lovely and the company was good. So overall, it was a great weekend.

3:35:16

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?/ Or fester like a sore--/ and then run?/ Does it stink like rotten meat?/ Or crust and sugar over--/ like a syrupy sweet?/ Maybe it just sags/ like a heavy load./ Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes

Salt Lake Marathon

Chris and I ran the Salt Lake marathon on Saturday. It was the second marathon for both of us and we trained really hard for it, so we both thought we were going to do well. The goal was to finish in under 4 hours and to finish together because we had never done that before, he couldn't finish my first marathon because his knees gave out on him and I couldn't finish his first marathon because I was injured at the time. So we prepared as best we could. We couldn't have predicted that it would rain pretty hard on us for the first 13 miles or so, but that was only a slight deterrent and we were feeling pretty good as we ran. We saw several friends along the way, both running and supporting along the sidelines. We ended up running the race in just over 4 hours, 4:00:36 to be precise, but that's so close that I don't feel like we failed in our mission. One of the better things about this race as opposed to the other marathon I did was the fact that I'm not nearly as sore as I was after finishing the other race. I could actually make it up and down the stairs afterward with minimal pain. So all in all I feel good about my second marathon and am actually looking forward to the next one.

Boston

This past Monday was the Boston Marathon. Chris' mom qualified a while ago, so we all decided to go to Boston to cheer her on. So we made a weekend of it. We went to a Red Sox game and walked the freedom trail, and drove down the coast to Plymouth Rock, which is much smaller than it sounds by the way. Then on Monday we watched the marathon. It was one of the coolest things ever and I really, really want to run it one day. Anyway, Mary finished running the marathon in a time of 3 hours and 56 minutes which was amazing. So we walked over to the area where families wait for their runners. As we were walking over, we heard two loud booms. We didn't know what it was, so we called Chris' brothers who were at the hotel and asked them to turn on the tv to find out what was going on. They told us that two bombs had been set off at the finish line of the race. We frantically searched for Mary, wondering if she was okay. We found her and went back to our hotel, which was only a block away from where the bombs had gone off and watched the news. Since our hotel was so close to the bombs, the police had locked down our hotel and wouldn't let anyone in or out. So we sat in our hotel room and watched the news unfold, saw how many people had been hurt and saw that three people had been killed and we realized that we were really lucky to all be safe and we felt for the families who were suffering. We also watched out our window and saw tons of cops with bomb sniffing dogs go all over the streets. They called in the National Guard and the next day they let us out of the hotel, but there were soldiers outside every hotel with guns. It was actually really scary, but thankfully we were all safe. As we went through security at the airport, a cop came up to us and asked us if we had been at the marathon, if we had taken any pictures and if he could see them. We showed him our pictures and then he asked if we would email them to him because we were right across the street from where one of the bombs had gone off about 10 minutes before they exploded. It was crazy and kind of surreal. Our hearts go out to all those families who were not as lucky as us.

San Francisco

Chris and one of my younger brothers have been die-hard Raiders fans for as long as I can remember. I suppose you would have to be die-hard to continue to be a fan, since they haven’t been good for a really long time. Yet, fans they remain. There’s been a little bonding between the two of them over their team, which is great because misery loves company. Recently they decided that it would be fun to go see a game, so we made plans for Jason and his wife to go with me and Chris to see the Raiders play the Chiefs in one of the last games of the year. We figured that we should go to a game where the Raiders at least had a chance of winning, and the Chiefs were horrible this year as well. And since the team has been terrible, tickets were really inexpensive, so we were able to sit on row 5 on the 50 yard line with a great view. Jason and Jen had never been to San Francisco before, so we decided to make a weekend of it and visited all the touristy spots in addition to seeing the game, which the raiders won, by the way. So I suppose that being a Raiders fan does have some perks, they play near San Francisco, which is a really cool city, they were able to beat an even worse team than themselves, and they were the cause of some serious family bonding over the weekend we visited. Go Raiders!

Running

I’ve spent a lot of time blogging about running in the past. There’s a very good reason for this that goes a lot deeper than might be expected. Over the past few years, I’ve been struggling with something that has caused me to evaluate what’s important in my life. I’ve spent a lot of time agonizing over this problem and I’m ashamed to say I haven’t always handled the stress well. In fact, I’m sure I was unbearable to be around. However, about two years ago, my sweet mother-in-law handed me a training schedule for the Salt Lake half marathon. I dived head first into the schedule and found that I was thinking more and more about running and concentrating less on my problem. My problem never went away, of course, but I was able to move it to the back of my mind while I thought about minutes per mile, lactic acid and Asics shoes. It made me a happier and more relaxed person, something I needed in order to cope with all I had been dealing with and I didn’t realize how much running had done to distract me until I got shin splints and had to stop running. I had been training pretty hard to increase my speed in order to accomplish a running goal I had set for myself and all of a sudden, I was sidelined, unable to run even a mile. All at once, I couldn’t do anything to accomplish my running goals, I had more time than ever to sit and think, and not only did my problem come crashing down around me again, it seemed to intensify because my distraction had now been added to the problem. The 6 months I was unable to run due to shin splints and then a knee problem were torturous to my mental well-being. I was forced to look my problem straight on and I’ve come to terms a bit with it, though I’m still not happy about it. And now I am slowly getting back to running and I’ve regained my equilibrium and I have some peace back in my life. And I was able to run my first big race since healing (I did run a half marathon while I was working through my knee problem, which probably wasn’t the best idea because it set me back a bit). I ran Ragnar Las Vegas with Chris, my sister, some friends and some people I’d never met but who quickly became friends. It was a relief to be back and I feel more equipped to handle things that come my way.

Walden Pond

When Chris and I went on our trip to the east coast to see baseball parks, we wanted to include a few other non-basebally things as well, so we asked our friends and co-workers what we should see and do. Chris’ boss suggested that we go to Walden Pond which was only a few miles outside of Boston (I should mention that Chris’ boss is a brilliant lawyer who went to Harvard and thus knew all about the area including Walden Pond). I had read the book by Henry David Thoreau in high school and knew the history of the place. Mr. Thoreau had decided that he wanted to see if he could be totally self-sufficient so he built himself a tiny cabin near the pond and thought deep thoughts for two years as he relied on no one but himself. Over all, I thought that it was somewhat pretentious and stuffy, but it was an interesting idea and you can’t help but admire him a little for giving it a shot. So when we were in Boston, we decided to rent a car and drive out there to see where the fellow had spent his solitary two years. As we neared the pond, we found that cars were backed up along the road at least a half a mile from the pond. We were really confused because, honestly, how many people really read Walden these day and out of those people, who really wants to take the time to visit the pond (I suppose Chris and I are a little silly). As we sat in traffic, we noticed that people were walking around with picnic baskets and in their bathing suits. We couldn’t figure out what was going on until we arrived at the pond. It turns out that it is no longer a place for intellectuals to sit and contemplate. The whole place is more like a beach party. We had to pay $5 to park our car in a giant parking lot, we walked past a gift shop to get to the pond, and people were swimming and playing in the pond, with proper lifeguard supervision, of course. And the only contemplating I saw going on was from me, thinking about how Thoreau would be rolling in his grave if he knew what was going on. Much as he would have hated it, Chris and I couldn’t help but laugh. And when Chris got back to his office and told his boss that we had gone there on his suggestion, he said “wasn’t it awesome! ”

This is what we were expecting.

This is what we saw.