Duh Doy!

Swim
1 x 200- Warm-up
5 x 200- 3:00
3 x 100- 1, 2, 3, Swim
1 x 50- Cool down

I think I figured out part of my problem when it comes to swim workouts- I haven't gone in with a plan. I would go to the pool and then come up with an idea. I don't function well like that. I need a plan. Then when I'm tired and dragging ass I can look at the set list and talk myself into just two more to get to the end of the set and move on. Going without it gives me too much freedom.
I didn't write a workout down last night, but I did come up with a plan to stick to. 200yd sets are a staple of my triathlon training. They are long enough to build some endurance but short enough to allow me to knock out repeats without spending all kinds of time.
I made all of them with twelve to fifteen seconds rest, so I didn't swim as badly as I was expecting. Was still kind of blown by the end. I was going to do more of the one, two, three, swim 100s but time was ticking away and I wanted to get in to school a little early.
Which brings me to my Duh Doy moment of the morning. Like I've said, we are staying in Ewa right now. I'm a creature of habit so I have been going to the Mililani 24 Hour Fitness to swim. You know what I have to pass to get to the Mililani 24? The exit right next to the Pearl City 24. I could have saved myself fifteen minutes easy if I had paid just the tiniest bit of attention to where I was on the island. And I would be closer to school after the swim. I will have so much more time to swim once I  remember this at 5am.
And now, two YouTube clips so you can properly visualize an Duh Doy moment. If you aren't watching the show these come from you should. Now.

Trot

Run Day

time- 24:00
distance- 2.33mi

I haven't been running since the Honu. For a few weeks my tendon would stop me after a few steps. I've been careful, rehabing, and taking my time. I have no interest in getting heavily into training only to hurt myself again. There is nothing on the race calendar so there is no reason to push. Better to take it easy.
I figured I would take this run easy. First one back, especially with the kind of shoes I rock, needs to be easy. I can injure myself way too easily. So I left the house thinking it would be a fifteen or twenty minute run. At an easy pace, which is normally 10min/mi, that's a mile and a half or two. Sounds perfect.
I started tentatively. Would my tendon act right up? Would my feet protest? Is something else going to complain?
Nope. I felt fine. Not great. I pretty immediately felt the lack of running over the last weeks. But no pain. So I ran right past the seven and a half minute turn-around without barely noticing. I realize that compared to what I was running, seven and half minutes is nothing, but it isn't nothing. It's something. It's better than I've been able to do for a frustrating amount of time. Running again felt good enough that I kept right on going. The ten minute turn-around came and I was about to turn, but wait, what's that? An intersection? Well everyone knows you can't just turn around in the middle of the sidewalk if there is a traffic light pole you can wrap your arm around and swing around. So I ran a tiny bit further than I planned.
I hope I don't pay for it tomorrow. Right now I feel fine. Stretched after the run. Tomorrow I have a physical therapy appointment I made a month ago when the leg hurt. So even if there is pain at least I'm going somewhere they can deal with it.
This run was a success for more than just a first run back from an injury reason. Today was the first day of school. Do you have any idea how much you do not want to workout after the first day back teaching? Its a lot of much. You want to sit and not talk and relax. You want NAP. On top of that we had a visit to the midwife after school. So it was teach, midwife, drive home in traffic, run. That's a lot of barriers to run. I'm really happy I got out there and did it. Now the challenge is to stay consistent.
Also, I want to have Missy Franklin's fish babies. If you don't know what I'm talking about you're an awful American and you aren't watching enough Olympics.

Earning Dinner

Ride
time- approx. 1:16*
distance- approx. 16.5mi*

*everything approximate because, though I have my Garmin, the ANT+ unit which transfers all the information from the watch to the computer has been misplaced in the second move. I'm hoping to find it eventually. I'm trying not to tear random boxes apart searching for it.

I enjoy eating. But I really enjoy eating when I feel like I've earned it. That righteous hungry that I feel after a good workout is one of my favorite things. That yes, a second helping might be ok because I kicked ass this afternoon.
This doesn't mean that I eat everything I can see. I'm conscious of the amount of calories I shove in my face. Still, I eat more than I maybe should much of the time, but it's ok because I'm putting in 10, 12, 15+ hours of workouts this week.
Except I haven't been recently. These past few weeks workouts have been few and not terribly intense. But my eating habits haven't changed all that much.
At least I earned dinner yesterday. Still living in Ewa Beach, land of the flat roads, I ventured out to Kapolei (Cap-O-Lay), because I'd noticed a big hill over the freeway past the new Walmart. Yes, If I paid attention to street names I would be telling you the street, but anyone who lives here and has been over there knows what I'm talking about. The rest of you picture a road going uphill into a residential area.
I like to climb on the bike. Well, I like how I feel after climbing. Climbing makes Dirtbag legs strong. Climbing can make you a better sprinter, better at racing into the wind, better at getting a powerful start, better at surging past another cyclist (this last is a supposition, since this rarely happens to me). So up I go as often as possible.
This road in Kapolei is more up than I anticipated. It's not as long as my favorite climb, Pineapple, but I believe sections of it, most of it, is nearly as steep as my friend, Pupukea. If I could find my ANT+ I'd know for sure. I see this road being part of my regular rides while I'm in Ewa. It's not far from the house Super Awesome Wife and I are staying at, the roads there are as safe as you can get on Oahu (mostly), and it's the best chance at up I have without throwing the bike in the truck and driving to somewhere better. 
On some race notes, I skipped the third North Shore Swim last weekend because I didn't feel like dropping $50 on a race I didn't feel prepared for. I'm probably going to skip the final one too, though I can be talked into doing it. I am on a relay team for this Sunday's Tinman Triathlon. I hadn't planned on doing it but Tri Cook sent me an email a few days ago saying his relay team's swimmer had to drop out due to a work conflict and would I mind terribly sweeping in a saving the day? Of course I wouldn't mind, so I'll be at Queen's Beach this Sunday at Oh-Dark Hundred shaking it out for a 750yd sprint. I assume we are going to win it all. How could we not, with two fitness bloggers on one team? Their (our) team name- Counterfeit Pajama Insurgents. I don't know what it means but I love it.
I also still owe you a very out-of-date race report about my last open water swim. Maybe this weekend.
On the moving front, I didn't get the last job I interviewed for, so I assumed we are staying and school starts Monday. But yesterday I got a call for another interview on Tuesday. So once again my feet are off the ground and I don't know what is happening. Not my favorite way to work. To butcher Joe Strummer- Will we stay or will we go?

Flat, Frustrated, Forced

Recap of the last few weeks:
I am alive.
I am still kind of injured a little.
I have not been blogging regularly.
I have been working out.
I have not been happy with how that has been going.

We've gone over the tendon in my leg already. I've been doing as much foam roller-ing as I can and that seems to be helping. Obi-Tri Kenobi suggested drinking some tea after I roll, as rolling released the built up stuff in the tendon and tea, being warm, gets into the blood volume better and quicker, which will then help carry they junk the roller released out of the problem area and into my kidney, where it can be, er, evacuated. So I've been drinking tea, which I never ever do because I hadn't found a tea I like. Tazo Zen green tea, however, isn't bad and is growing on me. I'd still rather a cup of Hawaiian coffee, but this will do. I don't know if the roller/tea combo is what is making me feel better but something is. I still feel tight after a ride, but there isn't pain during activity anymore. Big step.

Ohm

 I haven't been running at all because of the injury. I figured I would give that a few more days yet. Don't want to irritate the healing. The only foam roller issue I'm having is finding a place to do it. The place we are house-sitting/staying at has a dog. I'm allergic to dogs. She sheds all over the place. This makes activities on the floor tricky.

She can't help being so adorable though, can she?

As for swimming...I have been doing it. I have had exactly one workout since the 70.3 that I've been happy with. A lazy 3 x 200 on the 3:00 which turned into a semi-good, "Let's see how many 200s I can do before I'm faded past 3:00," which turned in to a good strong, "I'm going for 10 x 200." But that was it. Since then I haven't put more than 2,000 in, and what I do put in is low energy and crappy feeling. There is no intensity, no motivation. I mean, the North Shore Swim Series races are happening but I don't know if I'm going to be doing those. I don't think the 1.6 Chun's to Waimea this weekend will be. I could do it, even out of shape as I am. But the late registration fee is $50, and paying that much for a race I don't feel like doing is a dumb waste of money.
To motivate a longer ride this weekend I used the Grey. He and I met at Dillingham Airfield and we rode up Pineapple, though the Helemano Base neighborhood, and back down, about 35 miles in all over 2.5 hours. I knew that if I was meeting a friend I would ride. But right now Super Awesome Wife and I are staying at a friend's house in Ewa Beach, and I'm not impressed with the riding options down here. It's flat and residential. Meh.
You're thinking, "Dirtbag, register for a race. That will motivate you." And you are right. But I can't. You see, and I think this is the first time I'm mentioning this in this space, Super Awesome Wife and I are looking to move. I've applied all over Oregon in hopes of grabbing a teaching job. Rent is amazing there, and we could live on one teacher income. Which is good, because Super Awesome Wife wants to be Super Awesome Stay-At-Home Mom come December, and that just ain't happening here in Hawai'i. This unsureness is probably the major factor is all my fitness woes. I have no home, simply a place to stay until I know what will come of this school year. School here starts next week. I am waiting to hear back from an interview I had last week some time this week. I have no solid footing. I actually think that's why I haven't written in a while too. I need to write a race report for the last open water swim. I have an active.com article sitting and waiting for one more once over before I submit it. And a bunch of workouts just got condensed into three paragraphs. But I have no Writing Space. That is more important that I imagined. Upheaval isn't great for Dirtbag creativity and output.
One way or another things are going to be figured out soon and then I'll be able to move forward again, either towards moving to another state and school or towards a good, strong season and school year here in a new place.

XTerra Race Report- Special Guest Post by Diesel

 

Continuing the Guest Post-stravaganza which has been happening here recently, I present an XTerra Freedom Fest Race Report by the one, the one, Diesel. 
 
This weekend marked my first XTerra triathlon. This is really quite amusing to me when I think about it, because I am primarily a trail runner, I’ll take mountain biking over road biking any day of the week and I would rather swim in the ocean vs. the pool. Yet it has taken me over 10 years to get around to doing an off-road triathlon. I am apparently a slow learner.

This race was held at Kualoa Ranch, which is located on the Northeast shore of Oahu. The ranch was originally ground zero for beef cattle farming on Oahu, but that was years and years ago. These days, the primary income is tourists. And what do the tourists come for you ask? Why, they come to see the movie sets! Kualoa Ranch is host to almost every movie filmed in Hawaii. If you have ever watched the TV show “Lost”, or seen the movies “Jurassic Park”, “Tropic Thunder”, “Godzilla”, “50 First Dates”, and many others, then you have seen the scenery. Towering cliff walls, lush foliage. It’s a beautiful spot of paradise so when they open it up to off road racing events I try to fit them into my racing schedule. Many of the movie sets are still in place so it’s amusing to run past…say…a Mayan temple…in the middle of nowhere.

Since this was my first XTerra race I noted a lot of differences from a traditional road triathlon. The first item of note is that it started at 10AM. Now, that might not be a big deal to those of you on the mainland, because I understand a lot of races start later there, but here in Hawaii…everything starts early. Road races start at 1^st light, like 0530-0600. 0700 is a late start. Even the Ocean swim races start no later than 0900. A lot of this has to do with the heat, while the other big part is the traffic and the road closures. So to have a race start at 1000 hours? I wasn’t quite sure what to do with all the extra time.

I slept in until 0600 (I would have gotten up at 0300 for a normal race), had breakfast, got in the car at 0700, did the hour drive to Kualoa Ranch (way out in the middle of nowhere on the North Shore of Oahu) and parked in the big grassy field next to the other hundred or so cars. Yeh, this was not a big race. I think there was about a 120 people doing the tri, and a few other doing just the swim or run portion. I wandered up to the registration area, picked up my packet; got body marked and chatted with some friends. There was a curious lack of direction at this race. There were maps of the course posted up, but no instructions pertaining to T1 and T2. I had seen some bike racks being set up at the entrance to the ranch, so that was obviously T1, but there was no mention of T2, or where the finish would be. No one seemed to know. Eventually I found a race official, and they confirmed that T1 and T2 were the same and the finish line would be up by the registration. They admitted they needed to put up some signs and shortly afterwards there were some announcements made over the PA system. Gotta love the laid back Hawaiian attitude toward things.

At about 0930 I rode my bike down to T1/T2 with the other athletes to set up my gear. Racks were unnumbered, so you dropped your bike wherever you wanted. I choose the rack with the least amount of duct tape on it (seriously, most were held up with crisscrossed loops of duct tape at the joints and I had suspicions that they were going to fold over when a few bikes got loaded onto them), dropped my shoes and towel and waited around for the race briefing. The briefing was short and to the point. The swim would be 2 laps around the buoys. The bike/run was on the jeep roads and single-track on the ranch grounds. We were strongly advised to give way to the ranch tour buses, let the ATV tours go by and told not to hassle the cows. I’m not sure why they needed to mention the last item but for some reason they felt it necessary. Makes me wonder…

The swim was right off the highway. Literally. The highway is 2 lanes wide in this section of the island and if you toss something out of your car window, it would land in the ocean. There is a very narrow strip of sand, and then you have the water. We crossed the road in one large group (they held traffic for us) and walked down to the sand. The first thing I noted was the swim was going to be rough. It was windy, with a lot of breakers rolling in. So tons of white water and–you guessed it—small white buoys. Yeh. Not the normal bright pink or red ones and no buoy that was bigger than about 2’ wide. Your basic invisible swim course when you’re in the ocean. I did a quick warm up swim to assess the visibility and it was as expected. Couldn’t see the buoys and couldn’t see the ocean floor because of the churned up conditions. It was going to be fun!

The gun went off; we sprinted down the beach, around the flag, and into the water. It was at this point that I started to really appreciate the smaller number of racers. I’m used to Ironman races, where there are 2000 people and the swims are like piranha feedings and it’s more like a full contact ultimate fighting match than a swim. However, for this swim, while there was the usual jostling going on in the first 30 seconds--it thinned out amazingly fast. I suspect the conditions had a bit to do with it also because it was by no means a smooth swim. It was a 2 loop rectangular course, so we swam along the shoreline in the breaker line, around the buoy directly into the oncoming swells, around the next buoy (which gave the waves a chance to slap you on the other side of your face), and then back to the beach with a following sea. And interestingly, in spite of all my initial fears, I had no trouble seeing the buoys. I just sighted off the crest of each wave and was easily able to see the next buoy in line. The 2^nd loop was much like the first, but with less people. Sadly…I did not lap anyone, but then, neither did I get lapped. Silver lining. I have no real idea of my placing on the swim as there were no timing chips and the final results did not score each leg of the race individually. My overall place in the race was 25^th and since I lost a few spots (more than a few, actually) on the bike I’m guessing I came out of the water 12^th or 13^th. My time was 18:38 but I have no idea where that time was recorded at. It could have been when I entered T1, exited T1 or somewhere in between. But all in all, the swim was amazingly fun—if you were used to open ocean swimming. If you were primarily a pool swimmer you would not have enjoyed it.

T1 was long. Not long as in far away, but long as in—I spent a long time there. It was a hundred feet from the beach, right across the road, but the ground was covered in that wonderful small sharp gravel. So I did the “ouch ouch” dance across the road. I’m used to grass or outdoor carpeting lining the way but nope…none of that here. I also made a bad choice in towel size. I brought a small sized towel to wipe sand off my feet, but I had planned on sitting on the ground to do that. I changed that plan up because I did not want to embed all that gravel in my ass and then sit on a bike for 12 miles. So I balanced on each leg (badly), toweled off the sand, put on a sock and managed to get the shoe on. I never wear socks with my road biking shoes, but my mountain bike shoes fit differently and rub my feet raw if I go sockless. I had forgotten how hard it was to get dry socks onto wet feet. Not an easy task! I also wear biking gloves when I mountain bike. I never wear them road biking but I find them a nice addition for mountain biking to save your hands when you whack bushes and trees and on the occasional crash. (Not that I ever crash of course) Again, putting gloves on over wet hands is a time consuming chore. I have no idea of my overall T1 time but I saw quite a few people come in behind me on the swim and exit T1 well ahead of me. Not a big deal since this was not a big competitive event for me but if I ever want to “race” an XTerra I know what I need to work on.

Now, the bike ride was interesting. And by that I mean…it could have been better. Or it could have sucked less. Something like that. I had somewhat of an idea of what to expect on the course, having run sections of it on other races and having looked at the course profile, but long story short…it was much harder than I had anticipated. I basically got my ass handed to me on the bike course. See, here’s a little lesson. If you want to be good at something, you have to practice this thing called specificity. Want to be a good swimmer? Get in the pool. Fast road runner? Hit the track. Good marathon runner? Put in the road mileage. Be a good Mountain Biker? Mountain Bike!! Now, I’m a decent biker, and I used to do a lot of mountain biking. But in the past 18 months, I’ve been training specifically for road triathlons so I only get on the mountain bike once a month or so, if I’m lucky. And being a decent road biker means crap all when you’re in a mountain bike race. Here’s an interesting tidbit. A good friend of mine (Steve V) was doing this race also. Steve lives on the North shore, right across from some awesome MTB trails and he mountain bikes 3-4 days a week. I used to bike with him a lot and while he is a much better technical biker, I am stronger. I can kill him on hills and flats but he would just drop me on the twisty narrow trails and the downhills. Our strengths and weaknesses cancel each other out so we’re fairly evenly matched. So on this race, with an advertised 550’ of elevation gain, I was anticipating holding my own for a while and then figured he would catch me near the end of the bike course. What really happened was….I got out of the water 4 minutes ahead of him, and he then preceded to finish the bike course 10 minutes ahead of me. That’s right. Do the math. He wiped the course with me.

What’s interesting—to me, anyway—is that this is in no way the hardest bike ride I have ever done. We used to ride regularly up at Peacock Flats, with 2-3000’ of elevation change over 30+ miles. And that was an easy day. But back then I was trained for it. Not so much for this ride. 500+ feet of elevation does not SOUND like a lot, and if you’re doing a road triathlon, it’s pretty easy. Road biking is all about keeping a steady cadence going. Hit a hill? Drop the gears, pedal smoothly. Hit the flats? Up the gears, pedal smoothly. Going downhill? Pedal/coast. See a pattern here? Rarely does your ass get out of the seat and rarely do you burn any matches on hills. But mountain biking is like doing sprints, because when you hit the hills, it’s not smooth easy going. It’s either a slick grassy slope, a rooty, rocky ridge or a gravel covered road. You’re crawling up the hill, applying careful power to the pedals, trying not to spin out. It’s as much technical skill as it is power. It is, in a word, exhausting. And I was just not trained properly for it. I burned out my leg muscles pretty early on, and could not sustain forward motion on some of the later hills. When that happens, it’s “hike a bike” time. Steve passed me somewhere in the 1^st half of the race (not sure exactly where, as there were no mileage markers) and I mentally gave up after that. I was in granny gear, struggling up a hill and he rode past me like I was standing still. (We hates him, we hates him). I struggled through the rest of the course, without getting much of a chance to rest. See, the other part of mountain biking is…the downhill’s. You’re either good at them, or you’re not. There is no in-between. Going downhill SEEMS simple, but in reality it’s a very technical skill. There are rocks, roots, divots, gaping holes and dips, gravel and numerous other hazards to contend with. In short, it’s not a restful “let go of the brakes and let gravity rule” type of situation. Not for me, anyway. Some people can certainly bomb the downhills, but I am not one of them. I watched more than one biker pass me at 90 miles an hour on a downhill. At one point I remember carefully navigating down a gravel covered jeep road, trying not to slide while eyeing up the sharp turn at the bottom, and someone went by me at high speed. The guy unclipped his inside foot from his pedal on the way down, extended it to the side and did a 3 point slide right around the turn in a cloud of dust. I was impressed. But not enough to attempt it myself. I was very happy to see the end of the bike course and I wish there had been some mileage markers along the way (seriously Mr. Race Director, how hard would that have been?) so I could pace a little better. My time was 1:23 for the 20K bike course. (I DID see some cows along the way. They were the big black beef cattle cows. They looked very imposing and at no time was I tempted to “hassle” them. )

T2 was very quick and uneventful. Rack bike, swap shoes, take off helmet and trot off down (actually, up) the road. The run course was essentially a shortened version of the bike course. Same hills, same single track. The only difference was that it was much easier for me. I was hot, tired and thirsty but that was a case of “been there, done that”. Nothing new there. As I stated earlier, I am primarily a trail runner so this was familiar ground to me. The hills that seemed so insurmountable on the bike were easy to jog/power hike up and the flat sections were fast and easy. I had been anticipating a slow run, as I have been nursing an Achilles injury, but everything felt fine so the miles went by fairly quickly. I should point out that I was amazed at how thirsty I was. I realized that I had only taken in about 6 (yes, six!) ounces of water on the entire bike ride. Yeh, 90 minutes of sustained effort in the heat and I was silly enough not to take in any fluids. If the bike course had been longer I would have been in serious trouble. They were handing out 20oz bottles of Gatorade on the run course and I grabbed one at each aid station and ran with it. I finished 3 bottles (!) on the 10K course and was still thirsty at the finish. Just goes to show no matter how much training or racing you do, you can still do foolish things. I ended up finishing the run in 1:02 for a 10:06 pace. Not too bad for a trail run with a lot of hills and single track. I made up a lot of time on Steve V, and ended up about 3 minutes behind him. I really can’t take a lot of credit for that as he had not been doing a lot running because of a broken toe. Generally we’re pretty evenly matched on the run.

It was blazing hot at the finish but I made use of the shower (hose attached to a shower head. Wonderful idea, that…) before the line got long. Walking around dripping wet cooled me down pretty quickly. I grabbed some food--they had burgers, hot dogs, salad and the usual complement of salty carbs—and polished off some more electrolyte drinks. All in all, it was a fun day and I will definitely do another one of these events. The race was much smaller than a typical IM event, much cheaper and in general, just more fun overall. I got a medal (pretty small, cheesy one actually but…whatever), a dri-fit T-shirt (covered with ads, so I’m unlikely to wear it) and…that’s it. Not much swag, but that seems to be the norm these days. It was well staffed and there were many volunteers and I think the money went to charity.

Finisher Medal

Relay for Life- American Cancer Society

This is a post from a friend's blog about her mom and their efforts to raise money towards cancer research using the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life. Their particular relay will be July 13-14 and details are in the post. If you are interested in donating to help them, and cancer research out, I am linking to their team's donation page below, at the bottom of the post, and on the Dirtbag Supports page. Thanks for reading and helping.
Support Team Forever Young Here
This text's original page is here

Hi everyone,

An update on my mom's progress:
She had her 5 month CT scan (5 months after last treatment) and the Dr. said she is in complete remission from her cancer! She is part of a Clinical Study, so will have scans every 3 months for the next 3 years and things are certainly looking great for her. She is getting her strength back still, but we couldn't have been more blessed throughout this whole ordeal.
On July 13-14, the American Cancer Society is holding a fundraiser called "Relay for Life" at San Juan College at the Health and Human Performance Center. The theme is “Disney - The Magic of Relay”. Since cancer never sleeps, the relay is all night, starting Friday, July 13 @ 6pm, ending Saturday, July 14 @ 6 am.
During the night there will be games, snacks sold (fundraising) and a huge variety of things to do. I will be selling toddler ties for the "Prince Charming" in your life, and my mom got some cupcakes donated from a local bakery that she will sell. If you would like to support our team "Forever Young" you can do it in several ways.
Join our Team! Participants will walk on the track for our team at the SJC Performance Center during the all night relay. You can call me to sign up for a 30 minute period, or an hour, or longer. Our team is expected to have a person on the track for the 12 hours. Not the same person, just a person. We plan to do this by scheduling the timing of who is on the track so no one has to be walking for a long period of time.
We do need help in this area, so if you can spare an hour sometime between 6pm and 6 am, please let me know. My dad has a roster, so we can write down who will be walking at a given time during the night. Hopefully, we will have enough support that we can have at least two people walking at the same time, so you will have someone to walk and talk with.
You can also show up the night of!
Or, make a donation or solicit donations for our team. The donations are tax deductible (make check to American Cancer Society).
Every $10 donation allows you to have a luminaria with the name of a cancer survivor, victim or caregiver. You can provide the name for the luminaria or have our team select a name for you, from someone we know who suffered from Cancer.
Every $100 donation allows you to have an 18"x24" sign honoring someone impacted by cancer (survivor, victim or caregiver). These signs will be posted at the fundraiser and you can also display the sign starting now at your home or other appropriate place, until July 13th. We would then like to have the sign back so we can display it during the all night relay.
It sure would be nice to see you sometime during the night. My dad, niece and I will be there all night. My mom wants to be there all night, but does not have the stamina… yet. To visit her, please drop by before 9pm. I do not know if she will last longer than that, but maybe, she surprises us all the time !
Please call me and let me know if you can help our team “Forever Young”!
Some of the fun activities during the night are:

· 6 pm Opening ceremony. The first lap will be a Cancer survivor/Caregiver lap honoring those impacted by cancer.

· 9 pm Luminaria Ceremony

· The rest of the night …

o DJ, Crazy Hair contest

o Pajama party

o Silent auction

o Cancer is a drag (come dressed as a drag queen)

o Crazy Hat lap

o Bingo

o Dedicate a song to someone

o Backwards lap

o 5 people tied together lap

o BYOB (Bring your own boxers, bra or briefs for a team member to wear lap)

o Best spirited team

o Buddy lap

o Etc.

To learn more about this fundraiser you can go to the website www.relayforlife.com/farmingtonnm
Please call me. We would love to see you.
After the event we will post pictures! Event though this will be our first time, Jill already went to the relay in her community and said it was so much fun, they didn't want it to end!
If you're not doing anything on July 13, come spend some time with us! Thanks!

Again, the page to donate and help out Team Forever Young is here. Fitness comes in many forms.

Special Guest Race Report- Ryan's Run

**This race report brought to you by the Grey**

I ran in a new race Saturday, Ryan's Run, Run/Walk for a Cure. It was put on by CureSearch National Childhood Cancer Foundation, whose mission is to raise funds and awareness for conquering childhood cancer. They held both 5k and 10k races starting at Mokuleia Beach Park. Aside with some problems with the aid stations, it was very well organized, had chip timing, plenty of post race fluids, and awards for 10 year age-groups. The start time was a bit late (7:30), nice for sleeping in [Ed. Note- This is the most important factor when the Grey chooses a race.], but resulting in a very hot race. Normally, I don't ever use the aid stations during a short race, but because of the heat, I did find I needed some water on the course. Problem was, the aid stations workers were not actively handing out water. Worse, one of the aid stations had bottles of water rather than cups. The bottles were not even opened up for the runners, so I guess they expected us to just grab and carry them through the race.  

As I said, it was a SMALL race, with only a 75 finishers in the 10K and 107 in the 5K. The courses both followed out and backs on Farrington Hwy, but in opposite directions. The 5K headed out towards the end of the road by Kaena Point, while the 10K headed out towards Waialua. I guess they figured this would keep the crowd thinner, which was probably an important consideration since it was an open course, with the only traffic control happening at the turnaround point where the runners had to cross the road for the return legs. The problem with this approach was that as the runners came into the finish line, they were practically running into each other as they crossed the timing mat from both sides!  The race director had explained to the race crowd at the start that it shouldn't be a problem since most of the 5K runners would be finished before the 10K runners. However, if you were at the head of the pack on the 10K [Ed. Note- add after that, "like I always am, of course"], you were finishing the 10K while more than half the 5K field was still on the course. Adding to the finish line confusion was the fact that many runners had parked on the road shoulder by the finish, and some of the 5k runners and spectators were crossing in front of the 10K finishers.

All in all, despite the few minor glitches, for a first time event, I'd say it was definitely worth the entry fee, and even if you live in town, worth the long drive!  I thought it was pretty well organized with few if any glitches in registration, packet pickup and race day organization, much better than what I saw a couple of years ago at the Gecko Gallop 10K! The course was also flat and fast, as well as scenic. However, I hope they consider sending the 10k runners out towards Kaena Point also, which would make the run much more scenic, and maybe a little cooler (but hillier!). All in all, I look forward to doing it again next year.

[Ed Note- Somehow the Grey forgot to mention his 10k finishing time of 43:21. He came in 5th overall and first in 55-64 age group. So all you older people out there who think you can't do this kind of stuff, get out on the road. Dirtbag thanks and applauds the Grey for his race and race report. If any one else has a race they want to share, I take guest posts.]