Winter Sport-O-Rama

I can't believe how time is flying by. Over the next 12 weeks, I will run the longest run of my life, pack up my life in DC, move back across the country, get married, and start my second new job of 2008. I know that there are stressful days looming ahead, but I'm also so excited about all these big changes! And somehow, despite all the impending chaos, we are managing to have fun.

Last month, we headed out to Colorado for some quality family time with Pat's aunt and uncle as well as his sister. We went skiing...

And we went snowshoeing, but unfortunately I haven't downloaded the pics from that day yet. Except for the ones of Pat's sister and me stomping around the night before, getting a "feel for the snowshoes." Really, we were just acting like Yetis. (Is that the plural of Bigfoot? Bigfeet? Or maybe the plural of Yeti is also Yeti? Anyway, it was fun at the time but very embarassing in the video footage. Yes, we have video. I will not be sharing.) I DO have pictures of the ice sculpture contest in Breckenridge that we checked out one day. Very exciting this year - power tools (read: chainsaws) were banned, so all the work was done by hand. Surprisingly impressive - much more so than the ice swans that we will NOT be featuring at our wedding.

It's kind of hard to tell from the picture what the sculpture is of, but trust me when I tell you it's a Chinese warrior on horseback. And it was REALLY cool.

Anyway, we had a great vacation, and we followed it up with a fun Presidents' Day weekend in West Virginia (always promising to be "Wild and Wonderful") for East Coast skiing with our friends M&M. They're not actually candy coated chocolates, but they also aren't really blogging people, so they get a nickname. Anyway, the four of us met up last weekend in Snowshoe, WV, which is the best skiing you're going to find in the Mid-Atlantic region, but which we found somewhat lacking. Whatever - the snow could have been worse despite warm temps, rain and fog, Pat and I each got ability-appropriate ski partners, and the company couldn't have been better.

And now we're suddenly in the home stretch. I'm keeping up my running, and it's... not nearly as bad as it used to be. I'm about halfway there - last week's long run was 5 miles, which I managed to do with no walk breaks and at a pace about 1:00/mile faster than my usual. Which is embarassingly slow, but since we're all friends here, I'll spill. I'm usually about a 11:30/mile runner. If you can call that running. But during my long run last week, I held 10:30s until the last mile where I head uphill (big mental block for me there), and even that I kept to sub 11:30s. It helps that I've been running hilly routes at least once a week, I think, even if I only started tru hill repeats last week. Today I ran a hill interval set, and paced a bike up the hill. I didn't quite pass him, but I could have. (I just didn't want to have him pass me back when I hit the end of my interval!) So anyway, I'm still nowhere near respectably speedy, but I'm improving.

I will most definitely post a race report after the Cherry Blossom, but it might be a bit delayed. My goals for the race are wholly modest: to run the whole distance (no walk breaks), to feel good and enjoy myself, and to stay below 14:00 miles to avoid being kicked off the course.

And lastly, a possibility for the future. Pat found this race recently. It just so happens to take place the morning of our wedding, conveniently close to our wedding site. Would we be nuts? I told him that we could run the 5K wearing shirts that say "I'm marrying Pat/Sarah today" probably with classy decorated bride/groom hats. If we did that we'd be SURE to get in the paper, right? Right? And since it's for a good cause, I'm sure that the whole bad-luck-to-see-the-bride-before-the-wedding wouldn't count. It's not like I'd be IN my wedding dress or anything. Feedback, please - good idea or totally bonkers? I must know.