Jeremy

A Good Day

I’ve been meaning to write about a good day I had a while back…

Every now and then I like to take a couple hours to relax with something other than video games or books.  I put on some good music and make a treat. It’s usually bread, hot chocolate, or… some other chocolate treat (and in case you were wondering, yes, a good loaf of homemade bread is definitely a treat).

Now, I really enjoy a good novel or video game, but there’s something more satisfying about taking my time to make a good treat while listening to some Beethoven. It sounds cheesy, but to me it is something that “feeds the soul” (or at least, that’s how I think of it, and everyone should take some time out every so often and do something that feeds their soul).

A little while ago, I was making a treat while listening to a new CD I had recently purchased. It was nice, relaxing music (the album name is Porcelain by Helen Jane Long, FYI), and I was quite enjoying myself.

Then my little daughter came in and proceeded to dance to the music (she’s been taking lessons from June on “Little Einsteins”, so she awkwardly twirls round and round in place). She was so cute to watch!

I was touched by what a wonderful family I have. They are so good to me; not just a wonderful blessing, but the reason and purpose in my life. That afternoon is one of the sweet moments of my life. Far beyond just a nice relaxing afternoon, it is one of the more precious memories that I have, and I hope I always remember it. I felt that God was happy with me, and that I was beginning to realize some of the great joys of life.

Oct 2009 Conference

So General Conference just ended, and I wanted to put down a few things that I really liked.

I really liked President Uchdorf’s talk in the Priesthood session, where he talked about the importance of work–not just wanting to do good things, but actually taking the time to do them. He also emphsized the importance of Education–always learning, whether in or out of a school.

That was my favorite talk, but I also really liked Elder Holland’s talk on the truth of the Book of Mormon, and Elder Bednar’s talk on consistent effort. I can’t remember who said it, but in another talk the speaker talked about those who don’t make an effort to teach their children the gospel, using the reason that they will “let their children decide for themselves”. His point was that the children cannot decide for themselves without having a knowledge of the gospel, and that Satan will certainly not protray the temptations of the world in a fair, unbiased light.

I’m hoping that I can spend more time studying the gospel, and also doing some of the good side projects that I want to do but never seem to find the time to do.

2009 Top of Utah Marathon

tou2009marathonYeah…

One wasn’t enough… had to do more. It’s kind of funny, actually. The thrill of finishing the marathon really makes you forget the pain of training for it in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy running, but it is quite the time commitment, and I was rather eager for the marathon to be done and out of the way a couple weeks ago. Now that it’s done I’m thinking “That was so awesome! When can I do another one?”

The thing that was really neat about this one was running it with my family. I had three siblings (one brother and two sisters) run this with me, and that made it so much more enjoyable! My brother and I ran ahead of the girls at about mile 4 or 5, but the two of us stayed together for the entire marathon. It was really neat. Both of us feel like we helped the other to run a little faster at different times, and we enjoyed talking with each other (for the first half at least–the second half we didn’t talk so much).

This course was pretty nice–overall I like the Ogden better, I think, but I actually didn’t mind the last part of this track being on the streets as much as I thought it would. The nice thing about Ogden is that when you get into the city the route goes onto a river trail, and so you don’t run on a street until the very end–like the last half or three-quarters of a mile. However, the problem with the river trail is that there is a whole lot of little ups and downs that really wore me out. In this one we spent a lot more time in the town on the street, with accompanying smell of oil and tar, but the ups and downs were not nearly so severe.

My final time on this was 3:45:37, so I can be proud of the fact that I am 8 seconds faster than I was in May (Boston, here I come!). I actually am pretty pleased with that time–I didn’t use the mp3 player, and I didn’t train nearly as well. I did have the Ogden under my belt, so I had a better idea of what I was getting myself into.

Some highlights:

  • I rather like the Boston qualifying strategy offered by another marathoner, who was explaining that the older you are, the longer the qualifying time is. His strategy was as follows: “As long as I keep this pace; eventually I will qualify”
  • The sign that read: “I thought you said 2.62 miles!”
  • Oranges!
  • The stars as we reached the starting point–they were amazing (the fact that it was still pitch-black was not a highlight).
  • Having all four of us finishing the marathon.

Timp Hike 2009

Every year I try to hike Mt. Timpanogos. It’s a really pretty hike and is a lot of fun (usually). However, for various reasons I haven’t made it up very far for a few years, so this year I was really determined to get a good hike in no matter what…
View from the trailhead

View from the trail head

 We usually hike up the Aspen Grove trail (there’s another trail up on the other side of the mountain), and initially it looked like it would be a pleasant hike, with the cloud cover keeping us nicely shaded from the sun. The hike up to first and second falls was quite enjoyable.

Second Falls
Second Falls

 dsc_0467

0815091130However, a little past the second fall it started raining. Shortly after that it started hailing. Then there was a bout of lightening (that’s when my wife decided to head back).

At that point the party consisted of myself and my dad. We were soaked to the bone, and getting pretty cold. We found a space under a tree next to the trail that was dry underneath (amazingly!), and spent a while wondering if it was worth trying to go up any further. I wanted to, but wasn’t sure it would be worthwhile to go much further than the third fall (the one you can walk behind). Dad wasn’t sure whether to go on or toss in the towel and head back down. Both of us had been really looking forward to this hike; my main comment on the whole situation was: “Dang… dang dang dang dang dang dang dang.”

We decided to go ahead and push on–I still wasn’t sure we’d get very far, but we plodded on upward, passing more and more groups of hikers heading down. We were in very think clouds by this time, but at least the rain lessened somewhat. At some points the visibility was around 50 feet. Dad quoted Star Wars: “I think my eyes are getting better: instead of a big dark blur I see a big light blur.”

 

We got to third falls and the rain picked up again really hard, and then turned into snow. The driest area we could find was in the overhand behind the waterfall (Typically this is where hikers go to cool off from the spray of the waterfall). We waited out the worst of this part of the storm there and munched on some snacks, and for some reason, kept going upward (My aunt apparently calls this kind of thing “testosterone poisoning”). In doing so, we discovered that stopping had been a mistake–it took a while for us to get warmed back up by hiking (“warmed back up” is being used extremely loosely here).

dsc_0472Shortly after this, however, the storm stopped and we got above the lower levels of cloud… and wow… I have never seen scenery like that before. For one thing, the colors were extremely sharp and clear (due to the very recent rain). For another, the lower clouds hugging the cliffs was something I had never seen before like that and it was just astounding.

The movement of the clouds was very much like watching water sloshing around in a pail, only somewhat slower. It would splash up on one side of the cliff, and then go down, and then up again somewhere else. At one point we were significantly higher than the clouds, but they came rushing up the mountainside and “splahsed” right over us.

We did make it in pretty good time to the lake, and the sun actually came out for a little bit. However, we had heard that another storm was on its way, so we didn’t stay there very long–we were both still quite cold, and having got over the initial lip of the mountainside to have a good strong wind blowing on us didn’t help matters much. So we headed back down.dsc_0560

Fortunately, the second storm didn’t come. The sun gradually got stronger and stronger, and there were a couple points getting back towards the trail head where I almost felt warm. There were still a few clouds swirling about the circue, but those got smaller and smaller as we headed down. We actually didn’t spend any time in the clouds on the way down (I think we’re both grateful for that).

This was not the funnest hike I’ve been on, but it certainly was one of the most memorable and striking. I often say that once you get over the lip of the mountain and onto the high meadows you feel like you’ve stepped into a different world–something rather like Middle-Earth. In this case the other-world feeling was so much greater going up the mountainside in the clouds–it felt absolutely unreal. I’m not sure I would have been surprised to see Howl’s castle come lumbering out of the mist.

I took tons of pictures–I’ll try to add some more later, but these are some of the best I took.

2009 Ogden Marathon

 

2009 Ogden Marathon

2009 Ogden Marathon

I did it!!

I can’t believe I actually did it! I was getting quite nervous leading up to the marathon, but it turned out to be really neat, and a lot of fun (yes, fun!).

The last 3 miles were really hard, but in all honesty it wasn’t nearly as bad as I have heard it could be.

I do think I had some extra help doing it. As the marathon started I prayed that my legs and back would be strong enough for the marathon and that everything would go well, and I really think that God gave me extra strength to be able to have it be as enjoyable as it was, and to have a really quick recovery.

So here’s the long story:

The race started at 7:00 am, and in order to get the 2000 half-marathoners and 2000 marathoners up to the starting points on time, we had to get on the busses at 4:30 am. That was a little annoying, but honestly I wasn’t sleeping anyway…

The ride up was fairly uneventful, except when a couple busses (including the one I was in) took a wrong trun and had to turn around… Ever been in a bus doing a 10-point turn? On the first back-up the back of the bus started grinding on the (higher) ground, and then the engine quit. That was a little interesting, but the bus driver merely muttered to himself and restarted the engine and we continued on our way.

The next part was waiting at the starting area for about an hour while everyone was carted up. It was really cold up there, but there were lots of fire-barrels  set out, and volunteers kept the fires going, so we kept pretty warm. I had a chance to talk to several others up there–there were a lot of first-timers like myself, and lots of really experienced runners–one person had been running for 12 years and this was his 39th marathon!

When the race was ready to start, they had us get in according to our estimated time–the area right behind the starting point was for those running a 6 minute mile or better, and then there were sections for 7, 8, 9 and 10+. I was in the 8 minute mile section.

The race itself really was a lot of fun! The first few miles was quite easy and it was really cool to see the mass of people stretching on for such a long distance–it reminded me of the army of Helaman, as our group was about that large…

Another thing that was kind of funny while the runners were still packed was hearing all the garmin watches go off at 2 miles. I had mine set to give an alert ever two miles, and apparently I wasn’t the only one to have done that…

For a lot of the race I had to be careful to not try to run too fast. I tried to concentrate very much on taking it easy and just enjoying it. However, I do tend to get rather competitive and it sometimes took a fair amount of effort to not be bugged by someone passing me.

The course is really nice–virtually the entire race is at a pretty easy downhill grade. You head down towards a lake, and run around it. Somewhere in there is the halfway point, where the half-marthoners started. There was a live band playing the “SpyHunter” theme, which I thought was pretty funny.

After the lake there is an uphill stretch to get you into Parley’s canyon (I think that’s what it is called). Then it’s downhill again through the canyon, and into Ogden. Even most of the course in Ogden is rather nice–it is on a riverside trail. Finally you turn onto the last stretch (about 3/4 mile or so), and it’s straight down the street to the finish.

A couple things that helped me with the marathon: One was definitely my mp3 player. I do want to get to the point where I don’t need it, but for this first marathon it was really helpful to have some music playing while I ran.

Another was when there was steep downhill (to the point where you are more trying to control your run and/or slow down), I would try to run just to the side of the road rather than on it. That way I would be on gravel or sand, which was obviously much nicer on my feet and knees than the asphalt.

The third was a hint from someone I chatted with on the marathon, and that was to walk a little at the aid stations rather than run straight through them. This did help a lot, although I worried a little about walking through the last couple aid stations–I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to start running again…

This marathon was really well organized–there were lots of aid stations along the whole course. For most of it the aid stations were about 2 miles apart, which at the very beginning seemed almost too much. By the end of the race, however, they had them about every mile, and that just wasn’t nearly close enough together.

The very best part had to be coming out of the canyon. At that point you have about 3 miles left, and the race is getting really, really hard. But right there was my family cheering me on (thanks a TON Em for getting that put together–it was sooooo encouraging!). And then at the finish they were there again, cheering me on! That helps out so much, it’s hard to believe.

I actually finished the race relatively strong, although when I stopped running after the finish line I realized just how tired I was. They had a separate area for the runners to rest/stretch in after finishing before going back into the crowd. That was actually quite nice. They herd you into this blocked off area, and someone hands you a water bottle, and then someone else hands you a bag of ice. There were 3 or 4 stands there that gave out some snacks to eat (Jamba Juice was handing out small smoothies, which was exceptionally nice).

My official finishing time was 3:45:45.90.

My rankings are as follows:
Division (30-39 male): 58 / 136
Gender: 295 / 933
Overall: 401 / 1693

For a first marathon, that really is pretty good (if I do say so myself). My pace was about an 8.5 minute mile. As I said earlier, I do think God gave me some extra help, and I also had a ton of encouragement/excitement from Emily and Rosanne especially–thanks a ton!

I’m definitely going to do that again. Emily and I are now planning to work towards qualifying and running the Boston Marathon (In order to qualify, I’ll have to do a marathon in less than 3:10, which is about a 7 minute mile pace).

Marathon Mis-step

Well, I’m afraid my back has been hurting bad enough that I haven’t been able to run. Ever since the 18-miler, my back and butt have been very sore and stiff, and when I try to run there is a severe jab of pain on each left step. Eeven stuffed full of ibuprofen I could only manage a few miles and felt like I was doing more damage than good.
 
I saw the doctor yesterday and he said I had SI joint dysfunction, which was causing my right leg to be longer than the left. I’m doing physical therapy starting Monday to correct it (doctor said that would take about a week). Also, a coworker who runs a lot pointed me to an article about some core strengthening exercises that seem to be helping as well–it’s at http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-263-266-13030-0,00.html
 
So, I won’t be doing a 20 miler before the marathon, but the doctor was pretty sure that with the physical therapy I would be able to still run the marathon. I’m walking and biking instead of running in the meantime (I pull my daughter along in a cart on the bike, which makes it a pretty good exercise). Obviously missing the 20 miler (and associated runs) won’t help my training, but if I can get in some small runs and one half-marathon before the actual race (with rest time before the actual marathon), I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine.
 
Not necessarily good news, but it could be a lot worse…

LDS General Conference

The 179th General Conference just ended, so I wanted to put down my thoughts on it while I still have it in my head…

For me, there were a few things that really stood out. One was attending the temple regularly. There were a number of talks on this, actually. My wife and I try to get to the temple regularly, but each month it is a struggle to accomplish, and we miss more months than we should…

Another was a talk on living within your means by Elder Hales. My wife and I agreed that we tend to buy a lot more things than we really need. Part of it is that we encourage each other to get the things that the other wants, but in his talk Elder Hales told a couple stories, one about wanting to buy something for his wife when they couldn’t really afford it, and another about when he wanted to buy something for her when they could afford it. The basic idea wasn’t to never buy anything, but to live within your means, and to not buy things to try to impress others, and to save money for rainy days.

Elder Perry talked about the need for members to be major part of the missionary effort. It just struck me that I need to do more to share my feelings about the gospel to others and see if they want to know more.

Finally, Elder Scott, President Monson, and a few others talked about facing adversity–looking forward with faith. Elder Scott especially told a few very tender stories about some severe trials he has gone through in his life.

April Fools!

So on April Fools thinkgeek.com offered a number of fake items, including this awesome item: The TaunTaun sleeping bag!

tauntaun sleeping bag

Note that the inside pattern of the bag is entrails. My favorite part is that the zipper is shaped like a lightsaber.

What’s even better is that ThinkGeek claims that they got enough positive comments about it that they are going to see if they can get the rights to build and market it (see the original ad here).

While you’re there, you should check out the miniature trebuchet that they sell (throws small objects up to 20 feet)…

Marathon Training Progress

This last week of running has been rather interesting, so thought I’d put all of my unique and amazing epiphanies here…

Wednesday:
On Wednesday, I ran 6 miles. A couple of interesting notes on this–the first is that I found “my pace.” I’ve always enjoyed long strides, walking kind of fast, etc. It’s rather silly, but I feel like I’m accomplishing more, and it makes me think of President Kimball’s saying to “Lengthen your stride” (He actually meant in just about every way except in your actual pace, but oh well). Anyway, about halfway through my run I started taking longer strides, and found that I could hold that pace (at least for the remaining three miles of that run). I don’t think I’m going to be able to run that for the duration of the marathon, but I really enjoyed it, and am trying to run that pace as much as I can (It’s about a 7 minute-mile pace, where I normally ran about 8.5).

At the same time, I realized how much of a mental exercise running is. When I ran those three miles, I could tell that my legs were getting very tired, and it didn’t really matter. I decided that was how I was going to run, and I did, and it was incredibly fun!

Thursday:
Thursday’s run was almost the opposite. My earbuds wouldn’t stay in, and so I gave up sticking them back in every few steps at about 2.5 miles. It was really frustrating. That frustration, on top of not having the music to run to, made the rest of the run very difficult (and it was only four miles). I knew that I depended on the music a lot, but I hadn’t realized how large that dependency was (It actually bugs me; perhaps more than it should). During that run, I realized a couple things:

First, I realized that to really be able to run without the music, I would need to work hard at focusing (“Focus, Danielson!”). I would need to be able to ignore the “you’re getting tired” voice and concentrate on other things.

Second, I realized that I do want to get to that point. I don’t think that’s going to happen for this marathon, but I think I can get there for a later marathon. I may start doing my shorter runs without music for a while and see how that goes.

Saturday:
Saturday’s run was noteworthy in that it was the first run with a distance greater than a half-marathon. I ran a half-marathon last year, so up to this point every run I’ve done, I could tell myself “This is something you’ve done before.” Saturday’s run was 15 miles, and I started having a pretty hard time as I was getting close to mile 13. But then it came and went, and I realized that I really could do it–I could go the 15 miles for that day. When the 18 miler comes up, I’ll be able to do that, as well as the 20 miler, and the marathon itself. It was a rather neat experience.