Guilty Pleasures

I was reading some comments on a "running website" that brought an instant smile to my face. They were talking about guilty pleasures - the things we love to eat even though we really know we shouldn't. My guilty pleasures are:

• Peanut butter cookies from Maverik.
• Hostess crumb donuts.
• Diet Mountain Dew
• Pumpkin pie
• Sugar Puffs / Frosted Flakes / Cocoa Pebbles

Usually I have a moderate degree of self-control. But if I had my choice, these are the only foods that would be on the food guide pyramid. Fruits and vegetables are for hippies.

The other comments I read were so funny. Jeff said: "Easter may not be good for the waist line. Fortunately Peeps are mostly air, right?"

Then Amy said "They are air....stick them in the microwave and watch 'em!! Not air = chocolate bars, pb/chocolate eggs" etc.



And Mike said "Had to have my wife talk me down from getting a Big Mac, and extra large fries on the way home from work tonight. I really, really, really, really(not enough really's here) wanted those fries."

Mike may be my long-lost twin.

I Am Very Attractive

I believe I am VERY, VERY attractive. Not the kind of attractive where people of the opposite gender find me visually appealing. Not the kind of attractive where girls showed even a sliver of interest in middle school. Not the kind of attractive where women wonder if I enjoy candle-lit dinners and long walks on the beach. In fact, with my looks, it is possible that my wife had glaucoma while we were dating.

Nope, not physically attractive. I am very attractive to MOSQUITOES.

It is the one thing I dread about summer. I inevitably have numerous mosquito bites, which I may be allergic to, because they all swell up to the size of a 50 cent piece.

Yesterday on my arm I found 7 bites within a one-inch radius. SEVEN! This is completely unacceptable. My flesh does not appreciate this. I have no idea when this could have happened. Other than the marathon a week ago, I haven't really been outside. And I think even mosquitoes would have the decency to not bite someone who is in the middle of running 26 miles.

Wo is me. Such is the life of someone who is so attractive.

An Unexpected Hood Ornament

Through the darkness I saw a pair of glowing yellow eyes on the side of the road. I was driving down the freeway at night on my way to Cedar City many years ago. A few minutes passed and then I saw another set of glowing eyes ahead. And then, a split second later a deer decided that he wanted to stand in front of my truck.

Sadly, for the deer, this was not the wisest place to stand. I don't understand the cognitive reasoning of deciding that it is a good idea to jump in front of a vehicle that is traveling 75 miles per hour. The deer was obviously a teenager to think it was a good idea to do something that is so obviously dumb.

This deer didn't have too long to think about his foolish decision though. Because pretty quickly he was splattered all over the front of my truck. I'm hoping this doesn't come as a complete surprise, but a deer carcass splattered all over the road and your car is not a pretty sight. In fact it's just downright disgusting.

It is frustrating that this deer decided to run in front of my truck. I've seen office furniture that has more intelligence than this deer. I would have appreciated if he had avoided becoming my hood ornament.

We Ran A Marathon

Yesterday we ran the Park City Marathon, finishing in 6 hours and 1 minute. Even though it sounds crazy to me that we ran 26.2 miles, it seems just as crazy that we were running for 6 HOURS. Considering my body (with its terrible knees and frequent consumption of Mountain Dew and Hostess), this is truly a miracle.

To see all the pictures and read the marathon story, visit fastcory.blogspot.com.

"It's not like somebody else can run a marathon for you. It's all you out there. Finishing means you can say 'There's not a lot I can't do.'"
~ Kenneth Feld, Owner of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus

My Wife Went Crazy

I can't tell you exactly what made my wife go crazy. But for some reason all common sense went out the window.

There was a precise moment when I realized that she had lost her marbles. It was when she said to me "I think maybe I'd like to do a marathon."

You see, a few years ago I started running with a goal to complete a marathon. She thought I was positively crazy. She was very clear about the fact that she had absolutely no interest in that insanity. But then one night I walked in the bedroom and she was reading one of my Runner's World magazines. Hmmm. Peculiar.

Then, without an ounce of peer pressure, she said "Maybe I'll start running a little. But I will NEVER run a marathon. Never. I have absolutely no desire."

Somewhere along the line, her brain cells stopped functioning because she abandoned her strict anti-marathon point of view. I told her that if she really wanted to do one, I would run the whole thing with her and we could help each other make it through.

So after many miles and many months of preparation, Mel's first marathon is almost upon us. In 4 days we will be running the Park City Marathon, rumored to be the hardest marathon in Utah. To follow our journey with all the guts and glory, CLICK HERE.

Don't Mess With Me

A unique situation happened recently which I mentioned on my running blog. I'm deeply grateful I lived to tell about it.

One night Mel and I went on a casual bike ride. I was going down a hill on the side of the road minding my own business when a car pulled up behind me and laid on the horn. I thought it must be one of my friends being obnoxious. But after 10 seconds of honking I turned around to see this punk kid who then sped past me.

I was slightly irritated. Then I saw him pull into the gas station a block ahead. I decided to pull in too and let him know that wasn't very cool. Well it just so happens that as he was pulling into the gas station, he honked at someone else because their door was opened and he couldn't get by (FYI: he could get by.) Thankfully some other patrons saw him being a punk too.

So I pulled my sissy bike up behind his car and waited for him to get out. But when he did, a significant amount of my bravery evaporated. I realized maybe I bit off more than I could chew. It was a punk teenager with six earrings and an attitude. He looked grumpy and mean. I said "Why were you honking at me?" He said in a mega-sassy voice "Cause you were in the middle of the road!" (FYI: I wasn't in the middle of the road.)

So then I said "Oh yea? Why don't you say that to my face! I'm about to give you a five-knuckle introduction. I'll put a bump on your head big enough to have an umbilical cord!"

Disclaimer: I did say the previous sentence to him. In my head.

The other people who saw him honking chimed in, nearly matching the punk's sassy voice and said to him "The world doesn't revolve around you!" Then a bunch of 4-letter words started flying and I figured that was my cue to leave.

I'm sure he was scared to death when he saw me. My enormous muscles intimidate most people. I'm guessing this will be the last time he messes with someone who looks this terrifying:

I Hate Alarm Clocks

If there's one thing I hate it's the alarm clock. And getting my blood drawn. Okay, if there are two things I hate, they are alarm clocks and getting my blood drawn. Well, and cats. And slow drivers in the fast lane. And seafood. And Fran Drescher's laugh. I hate all of those things too. But I digress.

I hate alarm clocks. Alarm clocks are so, what's the word, inhumaine. I desperately wish that the rising sun could be my alarm clock instead of my current alarm clock which sounds like a car horn honking in my ear canal. Actually it sounds like the horn of a semi truck. Grrr, it really bothers me when semi trucks drive in the fast lane. But I digress.

The only possible way that an alarm clock could be more obnoxious was if the alarm sounded like Fran Drescher's laugh. Have you ever watched her show The Nanny? Me neither. 30 seconds of listening to her is all it takes before you start looking for a knife to cut your ears off. But I digress.

Woman Behind The Wheel

We have semi-frequent automobile "incidents" at my house.

We have a two-car garage. But with our storage boxes, kids bikes, yard tools, and other useless stuff we'll use someday never, our two-car garage has held two cars exactly zero times. In a show of respect for the female gender, my car has held the permanent parking spot in the garage exactly.....zero times. My sweet wife's vehicle is always there.

But, instead of parking in the street, sometimes I park in the driveway. I only park there when I expect that I will be leaving before Mel. But this decision has proven costly. Literally. You see, my sweet wife has somehow managed to back her car into my car. Not once! Not twice!

But THREE TIMES!!!!!

I ain't kidding you. My wife has backed into my car....three times. For the life of me, I still don't comprehend how she missed the fact that my car was parked right behind hers.

I know what all you females are going to say. "Well, why did you park your car there?" And my response is "Isn't that what the rear view mirror is for? It is my driveway just as much as it's hers." Really, how can you miss a half ton piece of metal on wheels? (Disclaimer: I have no idea what the actual weight of my car is.) And never once did I say "If you would just let me park in the garage, this would have never happened." Surely my compassion deserves at least one pat on the back.

The hood of my car has a peculiar little hump on it. So everytime I struggle to open or shut the hood which has been deformed due to this abuse, I smile and think of my sweet (and sometimes oblivious) wife.

The Life Of A Dad

This is easily the funniest video I've seen in a while. It perfectly describes what it's like to be a dad. Trust me: this is three minutes well-spent. This. Is. My. Life.

Don't Look In The Medicine Cabinet

This past weekend we went to a family reunion high in the Uinta mountains. My father-in-law has friends who owns a cabin there and they were gracious enough to let lots of people stay there for three days.

There are many things to fear being secluded in the mountains. For example:

• Crazy drunkards shooting firecrackers (or pistols?) at midnight

• Angry cows (click HERE to read about my frightening cow encounter)

• Roasted marshmallow smothering your daughter's hair

• Children so grumpy that they make bears look friendly

We encountered each of these. But none of these terrors were as frightening as what we found in the medicine cabinet of the cabin. One unsuspecting family member opened the cabinet and found THIS!

Yep. A set of pearly white dentures sitting inside a mayonnaise bottle. I have no further commentary. I will be in the bathroom trying to keep myself from throwing up.

The Ice Cream Man Incident

It was HOT in Salt Lake City this past weekend. Which makes it perfectly understandable for the ice cream man to be driving around. I have thought to myself that being an ice cream man would easily be the worst job in the world. I could only take the obnoxious music for a short period of time before I would jab screwdrivers in my ears to make the sound stop.

But something peculiar happened this weekend with the ice cream man. This story is completely true. It's way to strange to make up. As the ice cream man drove by, the song playing from it's loud speaker was "Oh Come All Ye Faithful"! But it's July. Not December.

There was no mistaking it. I've heard "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" countless times around the holidays. I recorded the song on my Christmas piano CD. I paid special attention when I recognized the music. Without a doubt, the song the ice cream man was playing was "Oh Come All Ye Faithful".

Now this is disturbing that an ice cream man would be playing a Christmas carol. But I don't think it's nearly as disturbing as the realization that someone actually went to the effort of converting "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" into a wordless format that could be played by an ice cream man.

Who, in their right mind, thought to themselves one day "I have a brilliant idea! When it is steaming hot in the middle of summer, I know the perfect song that will compel kids to run out of their houses with money in hand to buy some ice cream! Oh Come All Ye Faithful!" I pity the man who came up with the idea. And also the man who listens to it blaring from a speaker for nine straight hours while he tries to sell ice cream.

The Agony Of Defeat

Yesterday I did my civic duty of taking two overflowing containers of garbage to the recycling bin and recruited the kids to come along for the job.

I could see that my son Jackson was excited to be in charge of the glass jars. As any male will do, he jumped at the opportunity to break things.

Jackson didn't know I was watching as this little incident took place. He grabbed a spaghetti jar and I could just see the wheels cranking in his head. He was planning to launch the jar into the recycling bin, grateful for the opportunity to shatter something without getting in trouble.

The hole on the recycling bin is about the size of a coffee can. So Jackson pulls his arm back with jar in hand like a baseball pitcher preparing to make his throw to home plate. Suddenly.....the wind up.......and the pitch!

Unfortunately his throw wasn't a strike.

The jar banged against the side of the bin, bounced off, and hit Jackson right in the head!

I had to turn away so he wouldn't see me laughing. I wasn't sure if his tears were from the agony of defeat or from the large goose egg sprouting on his head.

Naughty Dog

Our dog is ancient. If there were a Senior Citizen Center for dogs, Rupert would be there. When he is with other dogs, I'm sure he says in a crotchety-old-man-voice "You kids these days....back in my day, when we ran away, we had to come back home through the snow. Uphill. Both ways."

My wife credits his long life with the fact that our family has provided him with so much love. I credit his long life with a too-stubborn-to-die attitude. And a hefty supply of table food the kids have snuck him over the years.


Rupert really is the perfect dog. He doesn't bark. He doesn't bite. He doesn't go to the bathroom in the house. And he doesn't jump on people (likely due to his morbid obesity). He's perfect. Except for one thing: Rupert likes to rumage through garbage.

This minor character flaw drives me CRAZY. At least a time or two each day, we walk into a bathroom to be greeted by a tipped over garbage can with trash all over. This is pretty gross. We have the (dis)pleasure of cleaning up Kleenex. And floss. And kid's gum. And fuzz after I clean out my electric razor. And Q-Tips. And apple cores. And bananna peels. And any other variety of things commonly found in a bathroom garbage can.


We thought we could solve the problem by buying the fancy garbage cans where you have to step on a little pedal to open the lid. But alas, cranky old Rupert still manages to tip over the garbage cans to see what he can find.

When my wife finds a garbage mess, her usual response is to yell "Ruuuuuuuuupert!" My usual response is to groan and mutter to myself that we could cut off his feet and make them into key chains.

Bryce Canyon Half Marathon Review

HALF MARATHON RECORD: 1 Hour & 51 Minutes

We drove to Bryce Canyon with our friends Darin & Shelly Thomas. I have an incredible amount of respect for Shelly who somehow manages to put up with someone as obnoxious colorful as Darin on a daily basis.


On Friday we drove the race course from the start at Ruby's Inn to Cannonville. The scenery along the road is amazing. With views like this, it's no wonder that the race sells out.




The night before the race we met up with the entire neighborhood who was also up at Bryce Canyon for the race. We had a big spaghetti dinner with French bread, fruit, Dutch oven potatoes, peanut butter bars, salad, and Rice Krispy treats. I ate so much that I made myself sick. This is classic Darin as we were preparing dinner:


At the Ruby's Inn campground there was a raised water drain that I jumped off a few times to get a mid-air photo. This was my favorite:


Our friend Liz came up with the idea to make a pyramid for the group shot. Fortunately no spines were snapped during the production of this photograph.


I love the whole process of racing. I have absolutely no expectation of winning anything, but I love the excitement of pinning my race number on my shirt and feeling the anxiousness of wondering what is going to happen during the race.

The ONLY thing I DON'T like about racing is the lack of sleep on the night before the race. We went to bed at 10:15pm and I woke up at 1:50am. I'm usually too excited and anxious to sleep. Racing on 3.5 hours of sleep adds to the challenge. Why does this photo at the starting line make me look like I'm half asleep? Because I am.


The Bryce Canyon Half Marathon is a runner's dream. It's fast and beautiful. I wasn't able to find a Bryce Canyon Half Marathon elevation chart before the race. So....here's my own elevation chart from the race:


The mega downhill starting at mile 2 is so fun, but also dangerous because it's easy to push hard going down the hill and then the gas tank is empty later in the race. I felt like I did a good job of pushing down the hill but not overdoing it. My times for each mile were:

Mile 1: 8:35
Mile 2: 8:30
Mile 3: 7:11 (which included a quick bathroom break)
Mile 4: 8:17
Mile 5: 8:33
Mile 6: 8:09
Mile 7: 8:18
Mile 8: 8:47
Mile 9: 8:31
Mile 10: 8:43
Mile 11: 8:57
Mile 12: 9:19
Mile 13: 9:11

Starting at mile 4 I started doing a walk break every half mile. Sometimes I walked for 30 seconds and sometimes a minute. Before the race I was really nervous about the pain I've been feeling in my foot. I usually use the male approach to medical issues: If You Ignore It, It Will Probably Go Away. I am so happy it didn't bother me too much during the race. My calves did start to cramp up in the last mile. They become really tight and get shooting pains like a German Shepherd just took a bite of flesh. Fortunately I was close to the finish line.

I was reminded about the importance of the mental aspect of racing. While I'm running, it's easy to get overwhelmed with all the physical stuff that is going on:

• Sweet mother of all things holy, my knees are going to buckle.
• It's so hot that my body might run out of water and start sweating blood.
• Hmm, I don't remember stepping on an ice pick. Why does it feel like one went through my shoe?
• This blister growing on my foot is going to be big enough to need a birth certificate.
• Oh boy, it's going to be embarrassing if I throw up Gatorade all over the road.
  

The fascinating thing is that these thoughts and many others are constant and come all at the same time. So mentally, it is critical to learn how to tune out these thoughts and focus on something different. Sometimes I can do that well, but I still have a lot of room for improvement.

In both of the marathons I have run, I reached a low point where I realized that I wasn't going to meet my time goal. So during this race, it was such a good feeling to be at mile 8 and realize that I could run 10 minute miles for the rest of the race and still beat my record.

I was ecstatic to cross the finish line in 1 Hour & 51 Minutes to set my half marathon PR (personal record), beating my previous PR by 5 minutes:


I ended up finishing #289 out of 1141 who ran the half marathon. My crazy fast friend Tom finished 16th in the whole race, and our friend Ty finished 22nd. Incredible! This is a picture of Ty - I wondered if it was her gold shoes that made her so fast.


The best part about this race was spending time with so many good friends. Here is a picture with Liz, Renee, Mel, and Cherie.


Mel did awesome finishing in 2 hours 24 minutes - without any injuries. This was way faster than her time last year.


The Bryce Canyon Half Marathon was a great experience and I loved the feeling of accomplishment after working hard to progress toward a goal. Next on the list: Park City Marathon in about a month. Bring it!


"People can't understand why a man runs. They don't see any sport in it. Argue it lacks the sight and thrill of body contact. Yet, the conflict is there, more raw and challenging than any man versus man competition. For in running it is man against himself, the cruelest of opponents. The other runners are not the real enemies. His adversary lies within him, in his ability, with brain and heart to master himself and his emotions."
~ Glenn Cunningham, Olympic Games medalist

Face Painting Fiesta

I am bad at many things (such as sleeping, controlling my sweet tooth, and avoiding the many gray hairs that are starting to pop out on my head). But arguably the thing I am worst at is drawing. Or painting. Or anything that involves sketching with a pencil or crayon or writing object. It's a fact that an aardvark with a pencil duct taped to it's paw could draw better than me.

I was ready to tackle a challenge and fight to improve my poor drawing skills. The perfect opportunity arrived a few days ago at the kid's birthday party when I volunteered to be the expert face painter.


I asked the kids what they wanted me to paint. And I made a conscious effort to not deny any request. Which led to some interesting creations. Behold......
A CAT!


A BIRD! (Which became a pink bald eagle)


A BUTTERFLY!


A TURTLE!


Picasso....I'm not. I don't plan to quit my day job anytime soon to become a famous artist. I will not be waiting by my phone for the Smithsonian Museum to request my latest art piece. But you better believe I'm going to jump at the next opportunity I have to paint a pink bald eagle.