Time to celebrate!

Just want to give a shout out to two of my favourite young people in my life, Emily and Nyles. First, Emily last week competed in her first cross country meet and finished 37 out of a 100 girls, which helped her team of girls to finish third. Her school came in first over all.






Way to go Emily!!!












My next props goes to Nyles. He competed in a special dance at the fies this weekend where all kids from novice and open skill level competed in a soft shoe dance. Fifty kids ranging from eight to sixteen competed and Nyles won!






Way to go Nyles!!!

Random

What a week! Finally finished a long week at work. Total hours this week, 57 hours. It was a good week though, next week management is unveiling a bathroom break policy, should be some disgruntled people next week.

Pinky, Emily's guinea pig, died this week. I know it was only a rodent, but it really upset the whole family. Emily was very upset for a few days. I miss you Pink!

The kids danced in Burlington this weekend and both did very well. Emily placed seventh out of 19 for her competition and Nyles placed second in two dances and first in an other. Nyles also got a chance to dance in a special competition with all age groups of the same level and he placed first! The trophy is almost bigger than him. Way to go guys.

Al and I will be finishing off the book of Matthew this week. Next we are tackling The Celebration of Discipline next. Should be a gooder.

Dancing

Hey everyone, two of my favourite poeple in the whole wide world or going to be dancing in Burlington this Saturday. Emily and Nyles are going to be dancing at Notre Dame Highschool, Burlington (up Walkers Line to Upper Middle turn left go on to Headon Forest turn right and continue north to school). This is a feis (pronounced "fesh") where about 400- 800 kids compete for top honours. It is a crazy, confusing, exciting, exhausting day. There will be many stages set up in the gym and the main stage in the auditorium. Emily will be dancing solo on the main stage at some point through the day and Nyles will be dancing solos on a variety of stages in the gym. We don't have a stage schedule (which is really just a guide line) yet, but will let you know if we can. They are both competing with teams first thing in the morning. Which brings me to another point of interest about feisanna (plural), they usually start at 8:30 in the morning and can go till 7:00 at night until the last kids dance and get their results (we are generally done before 5:00). As I said, an exhausting day. This is a very important day because it is a warm up for the Oireachtas (pronounced "oh-rock-tus) the Canadian national competition Nov 10-12. Next weekend we have a feis in the Syracuse area, (yes I drive four hours each way just for my children to have a great competition) the next weekend is the big event. This will be Nyles' first nationals, and we have had a bright pink dress shirt made for him so that he can catch the judges' attention, and this is Emily's chance to qualify for World's in Ireland. We are all very excited, we get to spend four days in Ottawa, enjoying our Nation's capital and the best dancing this country has seen. If you have some spare time this Saturday, come and check them out.

Podcasts

Have you ever just wanted to listen to someone's blog instead of taking the time to read it, or having a blog that is portable that you can take it with you and listen to it in your car or while you are doing the dishes. Well you are in luck! Podcasts are like blogs combined with talk radio on a specific topic or idea. If you are already aware of pod casts, you can move on to the next blog in your bloglines, but if you haven't read on.

Wikipedia defines a podcast as "a multimedia file distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers." The cool things about podcasts are that are usually done by an average Joe like you or me on a topic that they are passionate about. I have often thought that podcasts are like indie music where the artist does not have to answer to a producer or record label. As a result, the true art of the artist comes through and is not censored or changed. Most good podcasts are commercial free and produced weekly.

O.k. so you are probably asking how do I get one of these podcasts and what are the topics they talk about? The best search engine for podcasts that I have found is called podcast alley. At podcast alley you can search out podcasts by genre and also by how popular they are. Another way to find a podcast is to go to iTunes and search their store under podcasts. No worries about the cost, all podcast are free to subscribe to.

So which podcast do I listen to on a regular basis? My top four are:

Pheddipidations - A PodCast for, and by runners: Thoughts, opinions, observations and rambling diatribes composed during distance long runs. Steve Runner is a mild mannered middle-of-the-pack distance runner who shares the output of his oxygen starved cranial stimulation with his audience while training for his next marathon. Phedippidations is a RunCast named after the legendary Greek messenger: Phedippides. A modern day messenger of sorts; Steve runs near his home in Central Massachusetts. Each show is dedicated to an aspect of running, covering topics such as: training, injury, gadgets, nutrition, strategies and Steve's pathetic attempts at breaking four hours in the marathon. Subscribe to Phedippidations at SteveRunner.com. [Running Time: approx. 30 minutes; Produced: Weekly]

Burning twenty - 20 Minutes, 20 Weeks, 20 Pounds... A humorous account from podcaster Adam Tinkoff, host of TINKOFF RADIO keeping his 2006 resolution to burn 20 pounds in 20 weeks. (If you are going to check this one out, start at week one and go through them in order)

Daily Breakfast - Daily Breakfast - a breakfast show with fr. Roderick. The perfect way to start your day, with a 20-minute mix of music, news, movies, tv-series, videogames, history, health tips, inspiration, science fiction and more. Hosted by the Dutch catholic podcasting priest fr. Roderick. (I think this one is the Catholic church's attemp at being like a post modern church and is produced daily)

Dump Runners Club - A weekly info-tainment talk about my running. Each show includes a look at my week in running. Running news around the country and locally here in Denver. Some workouts, suggestions and tips based on my 20 years of running. Check me out!

If you are into podcasts please let me know what you listen to, I would love to add to the ones I already listen to.

Toronto Marathon

Yes, I did it! What a great time it was too.
Before I begin to tell you about the whole experience, let me begin by thanking my family for the sacrifice they made so that I could run in a marathon. I missed many evenings of dance practice, passed on helping with homework to Laura and just wasn't around some nights so that I could do hill repeats or tempo runs. For sixteen weeks in a row I was not home Sunday morning so that I could do a long run, that would sometimes last as long as four hours. Thank you Emily, Nyles and Laura for the sacrifices you made.
Lets see, the training went well with a total of three, 33 km long runs before the race and a three week taper. The taper part was really hard, I kept thinking I could run more, but all the books said not to. I also started getting weird pains in spots that I never had pains before like the front of my shins during the taper. After 16 weeks of training, the race weekend finally showed up at the same time as my tenth wedding anniversary, bad timing. I guess I should have realized that when I signed up for the race, however we made the best of it on the Friday when I picked up my race kit and went out for dinner while in Toronto. Everything went well the day before the race, I just stayed home and rested. The morning of the race we showed up an hour early, got parked, warmed up and stretched. Laura got a subway pass for her and the kids and they were able to ride the Young street subway during the race. They would pop up every other stop just in time to see me and then hop on the subway again and go down another couple of stops, pop and see me and , well you get the idea.
17 km mark.
Finally the marathon, I was bit nervous about what to wear so, I dressed in layers with an old cotton long sleeve shirt and old gloves for my outer layer. After a few kms, I threw away the shirt and the gloves and felt comfortable for the rest of the race. It was a great day for weather! During the first 21 kms, I felt like a chatter box, I talked to everyone. First, there was a couple of women who could not get their GPS watch to work and wanted to know what pace they were running. After five minutes of talking with them and telling what pace my watch said, I started talking to a guy who I bumped into while watching a police officer direct traffic. I found out that this was his first marathon and his goal was just to finish. Well after five or six conversation ranging from the around the bay road race to cell phones I made it to the 21.1 km mark or the half way mark at a time of 1:58. I was pretty happy about that considering I just went out light. I figured I was a minute ahead of my four hour goal. The next ten km I decide to try to make up some time by picking up the effort a little. This was probably a good idea because I did not gain any time on my goal, but I did not loose any time. At the 32 km mark I was feeling a bit tired and my only thought was I just have to run a ten km race to finish. I dug a little deeper and went I little harder only to keep on pace. At the 39 km mark I was a minute ahead of my goal. It was also at this time I think I hit the wall. The next three kms are completely a blur, I have no idea how I did it other than at the 42 km mark I was still ahead of my goal. I did my best at what I would have called sprinting the last 200 meters, I'm not sure what it looked like, but I am sure it looked funny. I crossed the finish line with both arms tingling from lack of oxygen at a time of 3:58:28. I did it under my goal time.
finish line
After getting my medal I headed straight to the massage tent.
yesss, message!!!
Well there you have it, my first marathon in a nut shell. Thanks for letting me spill it all out to you. Hopefully we can plan to do one together in the future?

Happy Anniversary

Well, I guess its been a while since I last posted, bad me. I have to be honest for a moment I have been going through a time in my life where my eyes have been opened to how much of a selfish and prideful person I can be, so I took some time off from blogging. It seemed wrong for me to write about myself when all I wanted was more of everyone else and more of God in my life. So how do I write a blog about me and not have it all about me? Easy, write the people in my life and how God is in my life and my relationships.

So, on with the post and my title "Happy Anniversary". This past Friday Laura and I have been married for ten years. If you don't know Laura let me take the time to tell you a little bit about her. She is my best friend, the best cook I know, an amazing baker, a great mom, an awesome scappbooker and someone who has put up with me twenty years, (did I mention that she's cute too). You see, we met in grade nine history class. The very first day of high school, in Mrs. Silver's class, I noticed this hot green or was it purple haired girl sitting in front of me. For the next month this hottie pursued me and I had no clue that she even liked me. Fifteen years old and hormones running through my body like a freight train, I was only thinking how much I liked her and did not really get the hint until she dropped a phone number on my desk one day and told me if I ever wanted to study to give her a call. I went home that night and asked my older brother if he thought this girl likes me or not? He thought I was the stupidest fifteen year old alive. Needless to say I gave the number a call and the rest is history.

Back to our anniversary. On Friday I had a big bouquet of flowers delivered in the morning and I had arranged someone else to take the kids to dance class, so that we could spend an evening in Toronto. After work we raced to Burlington and hopped on the Go train so that we could spend some time together and not worry about traffic and parking. For the next hour on the train we just looked at each other and talked with no worries of the outside world. Once in Toronto we cabbed it to the theatre district where we picked up my race packet for a race on Sunday. We walked along King street looking at all the restaurants and settled on a little place called KitKat . It was a cool place that served southern italian food. Dinner was great and after a walk in dowtown Toronto we ended up back at KitKat for coffee and dessert. One of the coolest things about the place is a tree that grows right through the building. You can see it in the picture behind Laura and me. They call it the lucky tree. Lucky I guess that they did not cut it down.


Thanks for putting up with me for all these years and I pray that God continues to bless our marriage together.

Hi-jacked

I have hi-jacked my husband's blog to say- I love you.
That's all. Laura