It Was HOT!

Christmas in California

I have been living and working in West Virginia for just over two years now.  You would think that in that amount of time, and the amount of questions that my co-workers have asked me about home, they would have a clear idea of the place I call home.  No, it's not beaches and margaritas.  Neither is it movie stars and glitzy night clubs.  Rather it's a small rural valley 30 minutes from the Oregon border, with a population less than 5,000.  The valley floor sits just below 3,000 ft.  Most of my classmates grew up on ranches and our high school had a rodeo team.  Yet after two more than two years of spending 40 hours a week with my co workers, as I prepared to travel to California for Christmas, I got countless comments about the warm weather, big city Christmas I was going to have.

Clay and I had a really good trip.  We hadn't seen my sister or my brother and his wife since we got married a year and a half ago.  We went out for just over a week and it was really a breath of fresh air.  Since my family lives in a such a tiny little town, you don't really spend much time running around.  We got to visit with some old friends (Clay's buddy from high school who is married to my old youth pastor and their four children), I got to go for a run with a high school classmate, sat around and worked jigsaw puzzles, took some sewing lessons from my mom, went on numerous runs with Clay and my sister-in-law Lindsay, and ate some really great food.

Returning home to West Virginia felt good after being away, especially away from our two doggies!  Though almost a week later and we are still having a hard time switching back to East Coast time.  I am not one for New Years Resolutions, I guess I know I am bound to fail at them.  But I am always trying to better myself.  There are a couple things that I want to work on this winter however....

1.  Running - I would like to run a 50k in 2012.  Earlier I had been hoping that this would be at Promised Land 50k in the end of April.  However my IT band has flared up again and I have not been able to run more than 6 miles without pain.  So I know I need to hold off on really gearing up for any longer mileage runs until I get it under control.  I bought one of those Pro-Tec support band things, but haven't noticed much of a difference. 

2.  Non-running activities - since I will not be running as much, that means more time for swimming (which I have barely done since this summer) and biking on the trainer.  Also I am planning on doing more yoga.  When I was going to Yoga consistently, I noticed such a difference in my flexibility.  I got a Yoga DVD off of amazon so that I have no excuses when I can't make the Wednesday night class.

3.  House - The attic in our house is finished (basically a large room with some closets and a bathroom).  However we don't really use it, mainly because it is on a separate heating system.  I really want to make it into a functional room to keep clutter out of our downstairs living room and spare bedroom.  We recently had our cable turned off and our TV (which was actually Clay's dads) taken back.  So I have been re-arranging our living room and painting, and want to make the upstairs a sewing/office/workout room.  Putting it into words it sounds simple, but figuring it all out and getting it all organized without spending a lot of money is gonna take some thought.  And I am sure that as I start to spend more time upstairs, which has that awful vinyl wood paneling, I will want to hide those walls somehow...and yet another project.

Clay got his Dutch Bros Coffee! (Only available in Oregon, and Redding, CA)

Me running

Clay and I have spent quite a few weekends traveling lately, and I am getting really excited about the few weekends ahead where we get to stay close to home.  This last weekend we headed down to Asheville, NC where his sister and her husband were in town visiting and had rented a house.  Clay's parents also came down.  It was a short trip but I was very glad to see Asheville, what a cool town!  We went to a farmers market Saturday morning (it was spitting snow!) and got some unpasteurized apple cider.  Yum! So excited to drink it.  Clay also got some lamb sausage which he is quite excited about.  We also visited a bike shop, the outdoor store, and went for a run on the Mountains to Sea Trail.  Here is a picture I took from my run.

I had a nice run by myself.  Clay ran with Jimmy and Kara ran with their parents.  It was a great to visit with them though it was a short trip. 

Last weekend we went down to the Amish close to where Clay's grandma lives, and bought a bushel of apples.  I love homemade applesauce so I figured I would make some.  I also like to use applesauce in my baking.  I needed to get a new foodmill since the one I have seems to drip a black liquid in the sauce..ewww.  We ordered one on amazon and it just came today, so I will make lots of applesauce this weekend.  I may also try making some apple pie filing and freezing it.  Clay and I are always the ones in charge of making desserts for the holidays with his family.

My running is coming along nicely, today I ran the fastest I ever have a a short 4+ mile trail near the house that we run most weekdays.  Clay was pretty excited for me :).  I am thinking about Promised Land 50k this spring, which is a tough one, but I think I will be up for the challenge.  I definitely don't want my first 50k to be easy and flat!  Just hope that my feel and IT band stay healthy!

Happy Fall Everyone!

Here We Go

So... No race report from the Boulder Marathon except ran well for not having a long run at all leading up to the race. Also fought some tightness and work issues which took a big bite out of training time/schedule. God is good though, He blessed me and the family time and I managed to run a 3:08 and a few seconds which somehow got me into Boston this year!

Now all my running is centered on long runs and getting ready for Lookout Mtn 50 mile. Ran 3.5 hrs on the 8th and this past Saturday had the opportunity to travel up to Beverly, WV and go for a solid 5hr run at Spruce Knob with Adam Casseday. This weekend looks like a long run on the AT and then a 4 mile night trail race in Roanoke, VA with Caitlin on Saturday, followed up with another long run on Sunday.

Happy Trails!

The falls on Seneca Creek.

Fall

Fall has begun in West Virginia, despite my pleading for several more weeks of warm sunshine filled mornings.  We have already had temps dip down into the forties, and I turned the heat on a few nights ago.  There is an oak tree outside my office at work and everyday I see more and more leaves turn.  The trail near our house that we normally run during the week has more and more leaves on it each day, which drives me crazy cause I trip on the rocks and roots hiding beneath them.  I have a love hate relationship with the fall.  After living in the eternal summer town of San Luis Obispo for five years its hard to when the reality that winter is coming which means being cooped up indoors sets in.  Sure, we will go run/snowshoe/hike etc, but you can't enjoy a lazy afternoon in a lounge chair, or a cool evening watching the fireflies.   But the cool weather and the crisp breezes remind me of the Falls in the mountains of northern California that made Fall my favorite season as a kid.

Clay ran the Boulder marathon over Labor Day, and did really well for not having a lot of training him.  He is still working on a race report.

Our life has had some curves in it the last month or so.  Clay's dad went to the doctor about a month ago with some chest pain.  We thought it was maybe a cracked rib or pulled muscle.  It turned out he had a mass in his lung.  After several appts. with the world class facility at University of Virginia in Charlottesville, they decided that everything in his lymph nodes was ok, but they thought the mass was probably cancer, and needed to take out the middle lobe of his lung.  They did the procedure on Friday, Clay went with his mom to wait with her, and to our answered prayers, once they got the mass under a microscope, it appeared as just an abscess, not cancer.   He still has a long road to recovery will be at UVA until at least Tuesday, but he did sign up to run the Boston marathon again this year so having that to look forward and work toward will keep him going, he really is a very talented and motivated runner.

After Clay's long day waiting at the hospital with his mom, he drove him, getting home at 10:30.  We woke up the next morning to drive down to Kingsport, TN for a 15 mile trail race.  I have not been running much lately so I did not run.  I have been battling some plantar faciaitis for nearly a year now, but hope and think I am recovering and starting to talk with Clay about hopefully doing my first 50k next fall (2012).  (I want to run a 50k before we have kids).  Anyways Clay ran a really great race for having a long and emotional week.  He got 2nd place, getting beat by a mere ten seconds or so.  He held first place for quite awhile but got passed in the last mile.  The race was held at Bays Mountain Park which is a sort of nature park with wildlife exhibits (wolves, deer, bobcat, river otters, owls, etc).  They have lots of great trails and a lake.  I just hiked around and sat and read while Clay ran.  Below are some pictures.  Also, on our way back up to Beckley we stopped and ate at our new favorite restaurant! The Harvest Table, is located in Meadowview, VA and is associated with Barbara Kingsolver and her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  They specialize in serving food produced locally.

Clay finishing the race

A lilly pond

Rhode Island and Learning about Families

Jenna as she dropped me off at the airport to fly back to WV. We had quite an adventure on the way to the airport with the mattress tied to the top of her car. Her dad tied it on there in a hurry so that I would not be late to my flight, and we didn't make it 50 yards down the road before I knew we it needed to be fixed. The result was us pulling over multiple times to tighten the rope, and going 40 mph on the freeway with everyone staring at us :)

Quahoging - clamming for little necks. Of course we forgot the bag so were do we put them? In our bathing suit of course!

Jenna's dad and her nephew Aiden on her dad's boat

Jenna and her niece Lilly out on her dad's boat.

I never did get around to posting any pictures from my trip to Rhode Island, so here we go. The purpose of my trip was to spend some last minute freedom from my good friend Jenna who was about to start Medical School in Vermont. Her parents hosted us at their lovely home in Briston, RI where they live right on the water. We had such a blast going out on her dad's boat with her little nephew, eating and cooking amazing food, going quahoging (Rhode Islandese for clamming for little necks), going out on her neighbors big fancy boat and tubing, visiting the amazing Christmas Tree Store, seeing Newport, and eating more amazing food.

Her parents threw a party for her in celebration of this next phase of her life and her brother was a gigantic pot of chowder, it was sooo good and there was sooo much leftover! So I decided to freeze 5 quart size bags and put them in my carry on and check my carry on. I figured that much home made chowder was worth the twenty dollars. I was nervous that it wouldn't stay frozen since I flew home on such a hot day, but when I got in that evening they were still solid....yea!

It is always a new experience when you spend time with another person's family. Seeing the way that the family members relate to one another, communicate with each other, and how their actions/moods affect everyone else. When Clay and I were dating and I was getting to know his family there were things that I thought were absolutely crazy, just because I hadn't been exposed to it in my family (like how they talk more about their dogs than anything else!) Now as Clay and I are starting our own family which will hopefully grow down the road, I realize how important it is to set a precedence on what our family dynamics will be like. Will we be quiet and reserved and not overly affectionate? Or will we be loud and touchy and not afraid to yell at each other? Will we tell our family every day that we love them, or will be just assume they already know that? Clay and I both come from pretty similar families as far as how our parents treated us, communicated with us, and expected of us. Being around Jenna's family, I saw people that truly love each other, but express it much differently. They don't hesitate to get involved in each others business or yell at each other to let it be known that they are upset. I myself being raised in a much more quiet/non confrontational household, it felt someone unsettling/akward at times, until I realized that this was how they function as a family. And while there may be more or less constructive ways for families to operate, I think it is all in how you were raised, are familiar with, and what you want your own family to be. So I guess the whole point of my rambling is to realize that there may not be any one right way for a family to work, and probably no one has it perfectly figured out. But as we start our own families, we need to set a standard (as parents) for how we want our family members to interact.

I returned Sunday from a wonderful long weekend in Rhode Island with my wonderful friend Jenna Arruda who was a roommate of mine at Cal Poly in SLO.   I will post more about that trip later as I have been sick since my return and just have a couple of photos I wanted to share.  Clay is out in Illinois doing bat surveys.  I never know how long he is going to be gone for, because if they happen to catch an Indiana Bat they have to radio tag it and follow it to its roost due to it being an endangered species.  Monday night was their first night out and of course they caught several.  So now their return has been pushed back from this Saturday to next Thursday....that is of course assuming they don't catch any more before they finish the rest of the survey.

While I was gone Clay worked more on the bathroom floor...

And last week I made a yummy pizza with veggies from the garden (red onion, broccoli, zucchini)