Brown bagging it

This fall I am a part of a Home Community that is focusing on Service.  We are spending our meeting time every other week doing service projects.  Last night we assembled brown bag lunches for the Union Gospel Mission.  It's amazing how little it takes to do something positive.  We all brought different ingredients: peanut butter, jam, bread, granola bars, fruit, cookies, etc.  It only took a little more than a half hour to make 40 brown bag lunches.

During the assembly of the sandwiches we talked about a number of topic ranging from how our weeks were going to our favorite kinds of granola bars to how many of us are only a matter of a couple paychecks away from a similar situation that many people needing the Union Gospel Mission's help find themselves in.  We all talked about how blessed we were to have a strong support system of friends and family. 

What struck me was the fact that it didn't take very much for us to do something.  I don't know how many people were fed; I hope 40, but I don't know.  I don't know if they liked the food, I don't know who got the bags of food.  What I do know is with only around 45 minutes of our time and small contributions by each of us, we did something.

Tonight I'm grateful for a roof over my head, food in my cupboard (and my belly!) and a great support system of family and friends. 

13.1 miles

It's not that far really....13.1 miles.  Sure, it's longer than my commute, but not impossible to run. 

We did it successfully last Sunday in the Redwoods.  The HUGE trees were beautiful and I can genuinely say it was a really fun run.  I would have considered myself crazy a few years ago if I would have heard myself say running a half marathon was fun.....but it's true, it is.

Okay, so I'll start at the beginning, or at least the beginning of this particular running event.  Last Friday morning (after coming home from a work trip Thursday night), I jumped on a small plane to Medford.  We almost didn't get to land in Medford thanks the the crazy thick fog that likes to sock in right around the airport.  The first time we went in to land (that's right....there was more than one landing attempt) we were in the clouds/fog and all of a sudden we hear the engines fire back on and instead of still heading down, we are propelling upwards.  The landing gear was brought back up and the pilot came on to tell us we needed 1/2 mile visibility to land and we only had 1/4 mile at the moment.  So we took a 25 minute tour of Southern Oregon and went in for landing attempt #2.  When we were about to head in the flight attendant was so kind to remind us that if we weren't able to land this time, we would have to return to Portland. Not good.  Thankfully we were able to land the second time and of course the fog burned off in the next 30 minutes.

The rest of the day Friday my mom and I took care of some errands for the weekend, went for a nice long walk out in the hills where she trains, and had a nice dinner at one of our family's local favorites.  Saturday morning we took off for the drive over to the Redwoods and picked up two friends along the way.  Whenever I'm heading towards the coast I think, "Oh, it's not that far....no big deal."  And then we start driving and I remember it actually is quite a ways.  The first half of the drive was beautiful.  However once we got to Crescent City.....pouring down rain.  It felt like we drove forever.  And while it is really pretty on the Northern California coast, there is absolutely nothing out there.  Eureka is the big town in those parts.  They have a population of about 26,000. 

We got down to the race site late in the afternoon to pick up our bibs and then we headed back to the motel.

Back at the hotel we made ourselves some dinner.  We had to improvise a little on the assembly...

 

 

We went to bed really early.  I know it's shocking that there wasn't a crazy night life in the town of Rio Dell, CA....or maybe we missed it thanks to falling asleep at 9pm.  We were up and ready to go early the next morning.  Here's a picture of the three runners as we were leaving the motel.

(Mom/Sally, Kayla and Lacey...yes, it was still dark when we left for the race)

We got to the starting line, found a good parking spot and then spent some time warming up. 

 

 

Soon it was time to line up at the starting line and wait for the gun.  It's always funny at the starting line at races because of the large group of people all at the same spot trying to move forward.  Definitely a traffic jam.  Here we are right before the race started...

The course was beautiful; it went through the Redwoods on the Avenue of Giants.  Those trees really are huge.  There were aid stations every couple of miles with Boy Scouts providing water and some substance called "Urg".  I opted for the water.  My mom and I were pretty excited when we passed the 10 mile mark because when they called out the split time we were a good 12 minutes faster than our Pear Blossom 10-mile time. 

One of my favorite moments of the race was at about mile 12 when my mom was telling me we would take a walk break in just a moment.  She said to me, "Let's take a walk break when we get to that big tree."  Umm.....big tree?  They were all big trees!  We were in the Redwoods!

While that moment made me laugh, probably the best moment was crossing the finish line, with my mom.  It was pretty cool.  Her goal had been to complete a half marathon before she turned 50.  Goal accomplished.  The only thing that would have made it better would have been having Brooke and my Dad there at the finish line too.

This is my mom and me coming over the bridge to the finish line.  It was at this point that the finish line adrenaline kicks in and you take off.

 

 

We finished the race just a couple minutes before the first person in the marathon finished.  It is crazy to think he effectively ran twice as fast as us.  He's crazy.  Not because he ran the marathon, but because of how fast he ran it.

Here we are right after finishing...

After the race we headed back to the motel to shower and then we headed up to Eureka for a big meal and then traveled the rest of the way home.  Monday we just vegged out and I my flight back home Monday evening was pretty much uneventful (besides leaving a little late).  I had a great time and am looking forward to the next half marathon.....wherever and whenever it might be!

And.....we're always looking for others who want to join in on the running fun....

New shoes and old friends

So I was trying really hard to keep up with my posts....and then life got really busy.  Not with anything in particular, just a lot of little things that added up to craziness!

Right now I'm on a work-trip and tomorrow evening I will drive back to Portland and then fly out the next morning to Southern Oregon so that I can go run a half marathon in the Redwoods. 

I was down in Medford a couple weekends ago to do a long training run.  That weekend I bought new running shoes.  I had waited too long to replace my previous running shoes and was then informed that I really needed to replace every 300 miles or so.  It was more than a little weird to realize that I had probably run more like 600 miles on the first pair.  Oops...

Tonight, after catching up with a Pepperdine friend and meeting her one month old baby boy, I stopped by my favorite shoe store DSW.  I found really cute yellow wedge shoes that are totally impractical for fall/winter (and probably most of spring) in Portland, but they are oh so cute.  And summer will be back in 8 1/2 short months...right?

While on my quick work-trip I've gotten to catch up with a couple Pepperdine friends.  I love getting to see good friends from college!  And both of these friends were ones I was in Germany with my Sophomore year.  I got to hold my friend's one month old baby boy tonight which was a special treat and last night I got to see very dear friends at their home.  It is always refreshing to catch up with friends and it's been a special treat to meet up with friends rather than sit in my hotel alone!

I'll update with pictures from the half-marathon weekend adventure once I return, I promise!