Audrey's Birthday Weekend

Don't have tons of time, but wanted to post a little about Audrey's birthday weekend. We went down to Salt Lake City on Friday because one of the big items on the birthday list was the Iron & Wine Concert on Friday night. We got in line for the concert around 6:00 p.m. when the doors opened, and after about 20 minutes made our way inside. The venue was really cool with a pretty big stage, standing room in front of the stage, and then they had a balcony that wrapped around the top that was open air.
We headed for the balcony because we saw that there were some cushioned benches that we could sit on. The concert itself was amazing. The opening band was "The Head and The Heart" from Seattle Washington. They were really surprisingly good. Usually you just want the opening bands to finish so you can get to the main act, but not this time. I will be buying their cd for sure.
After about a 45 minute set it was time for Iron & Wine. One of the coolest parts was that he (the lead singer & main man) had 10 other people on stage for his band. A barry sax, trumpet, normal sax, drums, another guy who played some drums and other instruments, another guitarist, bass guitar, and two back up singers. And they did work! They played for 2 hours, and did some amazing jamming in the middle of different songs. It was really awesome to watch and listen to.
After the concert we crashed at our motel. The next morning we went for a short run, breakfast at Jamba Juice and coffee at Starbucks, hang out time, showered and cleaned up, lunch at Sage's Cafe, then to the Gateway Mall, then got some groceries, and headed home. It was a fun trip & birthday! At least it was for me anyway and it wasn't even my birthday!
I'll post pictures when blogger decides to let me.

Memorial Day 5k Fun Run in Park City

Audrey and I signed up for another race on Memorial Day, so that made 2 races in 3 days; which is pretty fun. The only bad news was that we woke up on Monday morning to 30 degree weather and snow flurries. The trip down to Park City was a little more eventful than I would have wished trying to navigate on the snowy roads. I thought winter was supposed to be over by the end of May?

We ended up making fine, just in time for the race. Because of the nasty weather there weren't as many runners there as they were hoping for. Audrey and I lined up at the start line and she said, "I think we can win this one." So when the director said go we took off. There was only 1 high school aged boy in front of us, and after about a mile he slowed down and we cruised on by. The race course was on part paved trail and part hard packed rock trail, with two loops. After we had finished up the second loop and were headed back towards the finish I knew that there was no way anyone was going to catch us. So we just eased on into the finish, crossing the line together in first place.

It was a lot of fun. I also won a Rossignol dress shirt and hat at the raffle afterwards too. Here are some pictures of race day.

Western States Movie

Draper Trail Challenge

 On the Saturday of the Memorial Day Weekend, Audrey and I traveled down to Draper Utah to run in a trail race. The Draper Trail Challenge had a choice of a 4 mile, 6.3 mile, 10 mile, or 15 mile option. It is my goal to run a 50 mile race this September; the Grand Teton 50 Mile Race. So I chose the 15 mile race to start some of my training towards the 50 miler this fall. Audrey chose the 6.3 mile race because she has been coming back from a small but nagging injury, not letting her get in all the miles that she would like.
All the races started together so you really didn't have any idea who was running what race until much later on. But the good thing was that Audrey and I got to run together for the first 4 miles or so. The course was really really pretty and also really tough. Lots of up and down. 3,000 ft of total elevation gain and loss throughout the entire 15 mile race. I know by some ultra standards that's not much, but it was enough for me.
The weather started to warm up, and I think eventually it got to around 60 degrees. I felt pretty decent the entire run. At about the 11 mile mark there were 4 of us all kind of running together. I was made a few calculated moves on some hills and passed everyone hoping to put some distance between me and them.
Unfortunately I started to hit the wall about mile 13, which was all uphill. Got passed by 2 guys, and then I just settled into a nice steady pace to finish. I rolled across the line in 2 hours and 22 minutes. I felt good about the whole day, finished 6th overall and 4th in my age division. My Brooks gave me one blister on my right big toe. After the awards (Audrey got 2nd place by the way) I put on my recovery tights, and we went to eat lunch at Chili's. I totally believe in recovery tights in helping with DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). They totally helped because we ran a race only 2 days later on Memorial Day in Park City.... but that is for another post. Here are some pictures.

Running up the trail towards the start of the race.

Felt pretty good at this point in the race.

It was a beautiful race course.

Coming into the finish.

Just a little bit farther.

I was pretty sore by this point.

As soon as I stopped running my legs started to cramp.

Scanning my bib number for my time.

Back To The Land Of Oz & Catching Up On Blogging

 It has been quite a while since I have had the time to blog. And since it has been so long, you will just have to get the shortened version of everything that has been happening. Hopefully life will be less busy so that I can actually write about it.
Audrey and I were fortunate enough to be able to take a vacation to my homeland of Kansas. One of the main purposes was to visit my new niece and nephew Malachi & Isaac. They were born prematurely and they were in the NICU for quite a while before they got to come home. They are miracle babies! And we got to hold them!
First on the agenda was visiting Haviland: my family, Audrey's family and everything in between. I surprised Audrey with a brand new road bike for her birthday since she is going to try her hand at a triathlon this summer. We had a great time in Haviland and then went to Wichita to see the babies and Patrick, Janeen, and Micah. It was so great to see these little babies that we had prayed for for so long. Before heading back to Wyoming we ran a 5k race with Patrick. The Step Up For SIDS 5k. It was a good time. Here's a couple of pictures from the trip.

IWD District Conference & Cookie Chaser 5k

Life has been busy!!!! I am playing catch up on my blog posts, and because it seems like 3 months have been crammed into three weeks there is a lot that I want to post about. In my last "real" post, I was running on fumes... I was heading into Easter Sunday with no gas left in the tank; physically, emotionally, spiritually. I was done. Drained.

But Sunday went really well, and I had a couple of days to try and recuperate before the Intermountain West District Conference on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The IWD Conference was held in Sandy, UT at the Beacon Bible Church this year. They worked with the Hyatt Summerfield Suites and got us some sweet rooms at a great price.

This was the first Conference since the IWD was disenfranchised from the EFCA, so the banner that the IWD now flies under is the Evangelical Fellowship of Free Churches or the EFFC. This is a brand new endeavor, and the basics are for any Church that agrees with the Statement of Faith they can be a part of the EFFC. This bigger gathering of Churches allows for relationships and helping one another out. More can be done with a bigger group, and if you are a small Church you don't feel like you are alone.

Cal Hanson was the speaker for the Conference (The first Evangelical Free Missionary to Japan). The rest of the Conference went well. We also got to do some thrift store shopping and came away with some great deals. Let me tell you, thrift stores in Utah are the way to go to buy any type of clothing. I would have never thought that I could have found good running clothes from a thrift store, but this trip proved me extremely wrong. You just have to know where to look. Everything from Under Armour to Ambercrombie and Fitch to Patagonia to The North Face to REI. It was the motherload of Thrift Store trips!

It has become a habit or tradition or maybe just something that we always do now; is to look for races wherever we travel. So we were in Sandy UT for the Conference and decided to see if there was a race down there. So we found the Cookie Chaser 2k and 5k in Riverton, UT about 10 minutes from our hotel. PERFECT! We signed up and were ready to run on Saturday morning. We would be done with the race just in time to get back to the motel to shower and pack up our stuff and then head to the final meeting of the Conference.

During the night it snowed about 1/2 inch on the Valley floor. But the sun was coming up and no snow had stuck to the roads. Looked like it was going to be a very picturesque morning to run. By the time we ran the sun was up and the temp. was about perfect. They had the option of running both the 2k and the 5k so we opted for both; why not race twice in one day??? The 2k was first with a lot of little kids running it, so I had to dodge all of them at the start line. Audrey and I ran it together taking it fairly easily. It was over pretty quick, in about 8:05 to be exact. Audrey came in 2nd female and I was 3rd male. 

The 5k had more adults and more competition. I felt that I could set a PR for my 5k, so I took off and chased down a few of the leaders. I felt pretty good the entire race, and I was pushing it pretty good. After the halfway turnaround the few of us in the lead were pretty spread out and I guess that I was already in the place that I was going to finish. I ended up finishing 3rd overall with a new PR time of 19:29. Audrey was the first female and won a 75.00 dollar gift certificate to some fancy restaurant in SLC. All in all it ended up being just about perfect and we made it back in time for the end of the conference.

"Love Wins" By Rob Bell

I just finished up reading "Love Wins - A book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived" by Rob Bell. At first I wasn't going to read the book just because there has been so much controversy over the ideas that Bell has written about. But then Audrey found it at our local library (which was a complete shocker to me that they would have it), and she checked it out for me.
So I read it. I guess for me, just as any other book that I read, I take the things that I agree with and agree with them, and then the things that I don't agree with I say, "That's not true." And then continue on with life. There are parts of this book that I don't believe are truth, but there are other parts that I totally agree with, and I really like the way that Bell writes about them. He is a good author.
Maybe the real importance of books like these that question things within Christianity is that it causes you to look at your beliefs about the Bible, it makes you search out what is exactly said in the Scriptures, and it makes you stand up for what you believe in.
I'd say go ahead and read the book, because it will at least make you firm in what you do believe.