Happy Easter!

Mountain Home puts on a good Easter (see videos after the pictures).

Spring Break 2014: Seattle, WA

One of the perks of being a teacher is getting a week off for Spring Break every year.  This year, we drove to my parents’ house to spend the week in Seattle, WA. (technically Lake Stevens, but pretty close!)  We all had so much fun.  We got to spend an entire week with my parents and we crammed as much fun into one week as possible.  We also got to see my cousins and some of Michelle's extended family, what more could we have asked for?

The Ducky Tour:

The Space Needle:

Mason monkeying around at the Children's Museum:

The Troll:

Hiking with beautiful scenery (this whole area is so alive!  green everywhere):

Going out to eat with cousins:

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop and other fun at the pier:

Michelle visiting with TFA friends:

Mason riding a train!  Actually it was a monorail but he still loved it.

I did a half marathon trail run, what an unforgettable experience!

Half Marathon Trail Run ("Dash Point Trail Run")

I did my first ever trail run over Spring Break in Seattle – it was a half marathon.  No moderate escalation of miles on a trail or mountainside, I just went straight to the half marathon.   If I would have thought about beforehand, I would have been able to realize that a trail run is going to be significantly more difficult than a regular run on the street or a path, but somehow this never crossed my mind.  Even mere minutes before the race I was telling Michelle “I should for sure finish before two hours because that would be like doing a 4 hour marathon pace and this is only half of that distance.”

Trail running is easily 1.5 times as hard as regular road running.  In my case, in the half marathon I did in Seattle, the entire course was pure sloppy thick mud.  It was also raining basically the entire time.  Also, I didn’t really bring all of my running gear/clothes on vacation so I was wearing cotton sweatpants (that got soaking wet pretty quickly) that with no drawstring and that weighted me down quite a bit.  The entire 13 miles consisted of leaping over puddles and mud, trying to maintain balance and not fall down the mountain (it was a pretty narrow course).  I actually managed to ‘run’ basically the entire time and yet I came in at just under 3 hours, averaging around 12 minute miles.  I really was running pretty much the entire time, so you can understand how much more difficult the course was if it made me go about three minutes per mile slower than I would have been running on a street.    

  

Having said all of this, it was an amazing experience!  I am super glad I signed up for the race.  The trail was beautiful, extremely green and very full of plant life – as is this entire part of the country.  I would totally do another trail run, and knowing what I am getting myself into will help a lot for the next time I do one of these races.