Monday, November 23, 2009

Linds on one of her brutal hils...

Gotta love the van art...

Shower anyone?


Well, we made it! We completed the 202 mile race in about 31 hours. There were a total of 112 teams who signed up for the race. What a group of people... The runner's/volunteer's spirits made the race a memory we will never forget. Here are some of my favorite team names...
  • We're probably cheating...(our team name)
  • We Thought This Was A 10k
  • Team Rx
  • 120 Dead Toenails
  • The Faster We Run, The Faster We Drink
  • 3 Dudes and 18 Boobs
  • Huff-n-Puffs
  • intrigued by fatigue
  • Spandex Sprinters
I am proud to say that no one walked during the race legs either. What a brutal day and a half it was. The most challening part of the race was trying to fit in sleep. Our vans first leg started at around 2 p.m on Friday and we ran until around 7 that evening. We then had about 5 hours to get to our next starting point (about 30 miles ahead), grab some food, and try to catch a few winks of sleep. We were back running again just after midnight and continued until about 5 a.m. We then had about 4 more hours until our next stint. We caught a little sleep and some food and started running again around 10:30 a.m on Saturday morning. Needless to say it was a long and rough 36 hours.
Lindsey 8 mile leg was probably the most difficult leg of the entire race. We all were under the impression that Florida is flat... We found out that Zephryhills is not flat like the rest of the state. Linds had about 4 killer hills that were about .5-1.0 miles long each from start to finish. She was a trooper and made the 8 miles like a champ. The bloody sock pictures are the result of her eight mile leg. I made it also! My last 8 mile leg (after running 6.6 and 6.8 miles) was especially brutal. With about 1 mile left to go, I got passed up by a guy dressed as a Ninja. He was in all black and both long sleeve shirt and pants... Maybe that is why he was running so fast!
This race definitely made us question our sanity. Who pays money to have the trash kicked out of them like this? Umm... I guess we do. I think everyone on our teams will put the running shoes up for a little while... Now we just gotta start looking for our next adventure.



Nate


Lindsey's feet after her brutal 8 mile leg


Each tick mark represented a runner we passed during our legs
(we didn't subtract from those who passed us)

Sleep? Who needs it?


Just about to start our second leg of runs at just past midnight... (Above)
Me just before my 2 a.m 6.6 mile leg (Below)


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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Sorry for the excessive time between posts... Life has been crazy! We bought a house, I am in school working on my MBA and training has made life very full lately.


Well tomorrow and Saturday are the big days! We have had our legs assigned and Lindsey will be running a total of 14.7 miles on Friday/Saturday. Her legs are:


Leg 1: 8 miles

Leg 2: 3.7 miles

Leg 3: 3.0 miles


I am not so lucky. I will be running 21.4 miles total. My legs are:


Leg 1: 6.8 miles
Leg 2: 6.6 miles
Leg 3: 8 miles


Needless to say we are both a little bit nervous about the 36 hours of racing. Who knows how our body will respond to the punishment of the distance, lack of sleep, and cramped quarters of the vehicle we will be traveling in. It should be interesting.
Nate

Monday, September 21, 2009

Just about two months until race day and we have kicked the training up a notch. I ran 11 miles over the weekend (5 on Friday and 6 on Sunday) and ran 4 times during an 8 day span. Man I totally can identify with all the problems serious runners experience from the aches and pains in the knees and feet, to the chafing, blistering, and soreness of random parts of your body. We still are averaging about a 10 minute mile pace over our runs. We will have to continue to push the distance up over the next 6 weeks or so. It seems that we are running at a better pace but then a few weeks ago but our times haven't improved all that much. I am so proud of Lindsey as she has become a champ on these runs and has been pushing me. She will tell anyone how much she hates to run yet is killing all of our training runs. Here is a picture of Andy Bernard from the office. This is from the Office's fourth season premier where the gang does the "Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run For The Cure." I can totally identify with the problem he faced while running. I got a kick while thinking back on the episode during a 6 mile run and experiencing some discomfort that Andy was fearful of. I will leave you with this quote from the episode... "Why run for rabies? Because it's "the foaming, barking killer," that's why."

Nate



Friday, September 11, 2009




Time to dust off the old keyboard and document our latest adventure... We are in the process of training for the Ragnar Relay. Call us crazy but we thought it would be fun to run across the state of Florida with 10 other people in about 36 hours. We start in Tarpon Springs (West Coast of Florida) and end up in Daytona Beach (East Coast of Florida). The total distance traveled will be 191 miles. Each of the 12 runners will alternate running and do 3 legs. Each leg will be from 3-9 miles. For those of you who are not the best at math... we will each do 9-27 miles over 36 hours.Here is the link for the Florida race in case your curiousity gets the best of you. Ragnar Relay Florida
I though I would start blogging again to document the painful training journey leading up to the race on November 20-21. We have just over 2 more months to get ready and I am already hearing frequently from Lindsey about how bad her toes are hurting from blisters. It should be an adventure. Here are some pics from a previous relay to give you a taste of what the race should be like... Enjoy!





Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A little diddy I put together

Here is a compilation from our 08 & 09 trips to Colorado

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The summer has come to a close and we are back in the swing of things again. The summer was great but went by way to quickly. We were able to spend quality time with both sides of the family and enjoy our new niece and our nephew (all the rest of our family). It was after spending a week with our then 6 week old niece Sophia that we both realized that kids were still far off for us. Summer was also the time when we were introduced to a great game called "dingle balls" or for the pg version "ladder golf". We were able to hone our dingle tossing skills with many games up in Michigan. We able to enjoy some time on the lake with Lindsey's extended family and some time on the beach with my family. On of the highlights of the summer was experiencing Uncle Rick's famous soft serve machine at their lake house. I felt a little sick after downing 3 or maybe 4 ice cream Sundays in a relatively short period of time. Good thing the machine was only fired up one day while we were up there, otherwise I would have put on 15 instead of the slimming 5 pounds I added while on vacation. Oh yeah... I also learned to ride a motorcycle this summer thanks to my brother-in-law Pat. Man what a rush!


Nate


Thursday, June 05, 2008

Josh, A pink helmet just for you!

Nine Seconds... The amount of time it takes to recite the alphabet up to the letter S, the amount of time I can comfortably hold my breath underwater (Just kidding I am more in the 15 second range), or just under 1/3 of a normal TV commercial. Nine seconds, not a whole lot of time. This past Sunday, race day for the Madeira Beach Triathlon, 9 seconds is all that separated a man and his wife. Luckily I emerged on top, the victor of my household with a little piece of my ego intact. That is until I think back and remember the part of the race where a 70 year old man whizzed by me on the bike after starting minutes behind me, or I look at the race results and see that I was thoroughly smoked by 10 plus minutes by a 13 year old boy and also beaten by more than 3 minutes by a 10 year old girl. Yes I said that right... She was 10, and a girl (nothing against the female gender for all you feminists out there)! Lindsey can vouch for how amazing this little girl was as she was passed up by the mere child during the run.

Well the race has come and gone and we have both survived. The race; .5 mile swim, 15 mile bike, and 3.2 mile run completed. Our respective times were:

Nate: 1 hour 46 minutes and 30 seconds
Lindsey: 1 hour 46 minutes and 39 seconds

The funny thing about the race is neither of us knew how close we were to each others times as our start time was staggered by 8 minutes. The experience was a great one. We were both wide-eyed throughout the experience as we watched in amazement as 1000 people competed in the triathlon, then we realized we were in it as well and it was time to get moving once again. We both accomplished the only goal we had going in; to finish the race. When asked if I enjoyed the triathlon my respond is always the same; "Yes I enjoyed it, but just not when I was actually doing it". Now it is time pick up training for the next one... And next time I am gonna blaze by that 10 year old so fast that she will wish she never entered the race! Enjoy the pictures.


Nate