Guaranteed to Make You Smile

And how was your day?

Happy Thanksgiving

Hard Work

Fall

By Kiah Vik

Age10

Dad wants us to work

And rake the yard.

But who wants to rake,

The works too hard.

But if he should say

Go out and play

We rake and rake

and "work" all day.

You must rake for quite awhile

To get the perfect jumping pile.

Happy 11-11-11

Such a fun date, especially since I'm so fond of odd numbers. 

It's also the 111111 Grandest Meeting of the Corduroy Appreciation Club in New York City. (Get it - corduroy has lines and 111111 looks like corduroy lines)

I also wanted to share a totally unrelated fun cartoon from Google images.

Christmas Card Blues

Problem: So-so family picture this year. We were only all together at Easter and it's hard to get a good picture that time of year with our winter white faces and not-yet-thawed scenery.

People mostly looked okay but the pose shows no creativity, Lani's bleached out, and I appear to be either asleep while standing up or in pain. 


Problem Solved: Yay! Shutterfly to the rescue. Forget pasty white Easter pictures. Say Hello to a collage from tanner times. It doesn't matter if we can't get together for a suitable family photo or if I'm not smart enough to figure out how to photoshop absent family members into a picture.

These are so much better.

Maybe this 4 x 8 Photo card

Or this one

or a 5 x 5 square flat stationery card

or these 5 x 7 Flat Stationery Cards

With over 900 flat or folded cards to choose from, I'm not sure how I'll ever decide. Shutterfly also sells photo cards for all occasions year round. Click here to view their other greeting cards.We used this card last year for Valentines Day.

If I can rip myself away from picking out cards, Shutterfly has many other cool items for me to spend my husband's hard-earned money on. My personal favorites are their photo books. I've shared some of our albums before like the one I made for my son's wedding. Shutterfly's quality is hard to beat and if I keep an eye out for their sales, I can usually get a good deal.

Shutterfly also has an amazing assortment of photo gifts. Click here to see their line-up of everything from magnets, mouse pads, photo mugs, address labels, to photo wall decals.

* * * * * * * * * *

I need to be upfront and confess that Shutterfly is giving me 25 free cards in exchange for my review, which is easy to do. I love Shutterfly products so it's no hardship to say nice things about them. But I promise I wouldn't say nice things if I didn't mean them.

If you haven't picked out your Christmas cards yet, go to Shutterfly.com and check them out.

Two Tortoises and No Hares

Kiah shared in the last post about her desire to run the Whistlestop Marathon. She continues sharing about the journey.

After all the summer fun and vacations were over I hit the pavement hard in mid August with the only friend that that could be roped into doing it with me - Kathy of the skunk, skydiving, and garbage can fame.    

With nine weeks until the marathon, we depended heavily on weekend “long-runs.”  A long run is several miles longer than you’re used to running, and it’s ran at a slightly slower pace.  

August 20 - 8 miles 

The first long run rolled around bright and early. Kathy and I ran separately. Super tired at 7.5 miles I thought, “How in the world can I run 18 more of these!?”  To my surprise I wasn’t sore at all the next morning.

August 27 - 10.5 miles   

Kathy and I set out from the coffee shop in Washburn to Pikes Bay Marina in Bayfield. It took us 1:39 minutes.  Beautiful weather, great company, and a satisfying finish.  Conquering a distance I had never run before gave me new found courage to continue to aspire to run a distance I wasn’t quite yet sure I could run. Again, I was hardly sore the next day.

  

September 3 - 12 miles

Guest runner?!  I jokingly asked our friend Nathan if he wanted to run 12 miles with Kathy and I.  Being athletic, and game for just about anything he agreed without any hesitation.  We rode the bus to Washburn and ran back to Ashland.  At the beginning I felt really good, but by the end I felt dizzy and chilled.  Being chilled when it’s really hot and humid is never a good sign, so again I wondered if I was physically able to run 26 miles.  Still I was hardly sore the next day.

  

 Nathan, our adopted Canadian college student is 
smiling in this BEFORE picture. He wasn't so happy 
afterwards and limped for a few days.

I couldn't have asked for a better marathon buddy! 

September 3rd bus ride to Washburn

 

September 9 - 14 miles 

Kathy and I ran separately again.  I took a super pretty route that looped around in the country northwest of Washburn.  In order to avoid heat exhaustion again I had purchased a hydration belt.  Drinking during the run made all of the difference in the world and I finished feeling on top of the world.  The half marathon was no longer an option because I knew I could run that far.  I still wasn’t 100% that I could run a full marathon.  I was a little more creaky the next day, but by the second day was back to normal.

September 17 - 15 miles

I meant to run 16 miles.  I extended my loop from the previous week a few more miles because I had liked that route so well.  My good time made me suspicious that the route might not have been as long as I thought it was.  I hopped in my car and to my dismay found that I’d only ran 15!  I was mortified because I’d been extremely tired, and didn’t think I could’ve made it 16 miles...let alone tack on 10 more miles for a nice even 26!  

September 23. 18 miles

After the discouragement of coming up a mile short on the last run, I was determined to make 18 miles if it killed me.  I mapped out an exact there-and-back route.  After almost 3 hours of running I ran back into Washburn, high off the fact that I had just ran 18 miles!!  I had felt really great on the run, and had logged a really great time.  After this run I knew I could do the marathon. Now it was just a matter of how well I could do the marathon.

October 1 - 22 miles

30 degrees. Brrr!!! With the sun just starting to come up Kathy and I began our final training long run of 22 miles. We ran from Ashland to Bayfield and averaged a 9:45 minute/mile pace. With over 3 1/2 hours of running BEFORE noon we felt pretty accomplished and TIRED afterwards!

Carb loading the night before our 22 mile long-run.

Kathy resurrected a childhood backpack to carry Gatorade

Oct. 1 - Stretching at 6:45 am for our 22 mile run.

Again smiling BEFORE the run!

Preventative measures

A hydration belt takes all the credit for 
keeping me alive during these grueling long-runs

Starting off

Two weeks until the real deal of the Whistlestop marathon!! 
WOOOO HOOOO!!

Red Rover, Red Rover, Let Kiah Come Over

Kiah, at age four, would stop, get a determined look on her face, ball her hands into fists, take a runner’s stance, and say, “I'm gonna do Rover.  Mark, Set, Go!” Then she’d zip off.

Rover? We were mystified. Who or what was Rover? Her explanations didn't make sense. She did this for years and we didn't know why.

At age 16, she saw me showing an Amazing Bible video to my Sunday School class. Her face brightened, and she said with nostalgia, “Rover.”

 

At long last, a clue. She said the mouse in the movie was named Rover and ran everywhere.

Ah ha! The mouse named Revver liked to run and she liked to run. Her four-year-old brain had heard Rover, hence the years of confusion.

Mystery solved. Case closed.

She still runs, mostly alone since the rest of us don't want to, and often at night, which worries her parents, but she’s 22 so what can we do?

Last year she set her sights on running the local fall Whistlestop Marathon. I tried talking sense to her.

         

“Honey, that’s so far.” (Duh!)

“You’ve never done one before.” (Double Duh!) 
“Why don’t you start out with something shorter? Like a 5k or a 10k?”

Not to be dissuaded, she found a running partner, and forged ahead.

I’ll let her finish the post. 

Rover signing in here.

I was 12 the first time I realized that I could run.  Being homeschooled we didn’t have a fancy gym at our disposal for PE class, so Mom frequently took us outdoors for afternoon walks.  Our rural roads were straight and graveled.  Most of Iowa’s roads are on a mile grid system so each country block has a four mile circumference. 

Rather than go around the four mile block, we usually walked south on a there-and-back route.  Landmarks along the way marked certain distances.  When we got to the creek, I knew we had walked a half mile.  One day I wanted to see if I could run home from the creek. 

To my great surprise I actually did it!?  The excitement and astonishment left me breathing hard at the end of our driveway, waiting for the rest of the family to catch up, and it also started me on a decade of running that I don’t think anyone expected. 

I ran year round all through junior high and high school.  Freshman year of track was a lot of fun, and by the end of the season I had reached my goal time for the 800 meter. 

400 Meter Hurdles (I'm in the black and red)

My sophomore year I decided to log 300 miles before track season started because I was determined to better my 800 time.  I made my 300 mile quota, and in my first track meet, I bested my fastest 800 time from the previous year by ten seconds!  I will never forget how good it felt to be told after my race how much I’d improved.  Again, I did it.  I actually did it!  The hard work of running in subzero January and February weather had actually paid off.  This realization of cause and effect helped set the stage for bigger and better things to come.

I took a “break” from running after high school.  I played volleyball at a community college, but after the season didn’t make an effort to stay in shape.  A year went by without running and I felt...fat, sluggish, and unhealthy so I decided to start running again. 

To my dismay I was winded by a quarter mile, and ready to stop by a half a mile. I determined to stick with it, but two weeks later my right knee started to hurt when I ran.  I hoped a break from running would help but it didn’t.  For a year I tried different knee braces and strengthening exercises to let me get back into running. 

In July of 2010 I worked at a church camp for six weeks in Southwestern, Minnesota.  I determined to lose weight and start running again, and I did.  Unlike the first time when I had tried to pick up running after being dormant for a while, I started out slow. It was frustrating to be so slow at something I used to be good at, but I figured it was better than the alternative of being a “blob.”

I moved back home with the family in Wisconsin in August 2010.  I attended the local community college, and got a part-time job as a barista at a coffee shop.  Being new to the area I didn’t have many friends, the transition of moving back home wasn’t going so hot, school and work weren’t enough of a time spender, so the most logical thing to do with my extra time was run!  To my delight, slow and steady had worked and I was now able to run 4 miles before feeling tired. 

I was working at the coffee shop on a Saturday morning in mid-October.  My boss popped in for a few minutes and in passing said, “It might be a little busier this afternoon because of the WhistleStop going on over in Ashland.” 

To this I replied, “What’s the WhistleStop?” 

“It’s just the marathon that’s run from Iron River to Ashland every year”  she said absentmindedly, looking for something on a high shelf.  The seed was planted and I determined in my heart right then and there that, Lord willing, come next year I would run the WhistleStop Marathon.

To be continued...