Fayetteville 10k

On Sat Aug 18th I ran a 10k race in Fayetteville, and had a blast. Here's the photo essay of our experience:

We drove into town Friday evening after a full week of orientation and crashed at the HOJO after a big pasta dinner.

Sarah had been training for the 5k, but decided not to run because her foot had been seriously bothering her during the weeks leading up to the race.

Can you spot me at the starting line?

Here I am after the race. I've never been a fast runner, so my goal of doing it under 1 hour was quite modest. It was still a stretch for me, but that's what I was shooting for during my training the last 2 1/2 months. There are a few reasons I stopped caring about that goal and readjusted to make my goal simply finishing comfortably: 1) since my big toe injury I missed a large stretch of training, not running for an entire 10 day period, and then not running more than 2-3 times per week. 2) I didn't run as much because of the transition and work associated with moving and being on vaction 3) when I arrived in NC it was freaking hot! The first week we were here it reached 120 degrees with the humidity factored in! You should try running in that, especially when you live towards the bottom of the hill. My final time was 1:06 and change, which is so much slower than when I trained in Ottawa, but oh well. I'm still proud that I did it and have the shirt to prove it!

Left Leg prob #2

As you might have seen from my recent post, I had a serious problem with my toe after dropping a piece of wood on it while moving last month. For the record, the nail fail off last night, one full month after the incident! During my orientation 2 weeks ago I tripped and fell and scraped up my leg pretty badly, giving me my second problem on my left leg in 3 weeks. I wish I had a more dramatic story for how it happened, but it was honestly while playing a game of tag on a grass field. I know it doesn't make much sense, but it's the truth.

the iRack

As my wife said, "oui, c'est drole, mais c'est trop vrai!" Or, "sure it's funny, but it's too true!"

My big screen debut

If you're new to my blog then I invite you to go through the June 2005 archives to read my posts about being an extra in my church's movie about Joseph Smith. It was a great experience to get paid to be in a movie of such an interesting and historically important person. I first saw myself up on the big screen during the summer of 2006 when I was in Salt Lake City, but since the movie isn't out on DVD yet I've had no way to prove to others that I really was in it. Well, when Sarah and I were in DC a couple weeks ago we stopped at the Temple visitor's center and watched the movie together. I knew when my scene was coming up (more than 30 minutes into the movie) so I pulled out our camera and bootlegged my scene! Now I have proof! If you were able to zoom in on the four people unloading the barge on the other side of the river as the scene opens, then you'll notice that I'm the second from the left. It's movie magic that I am on both sides of the canal at the same time! Without further ado, here's the video clip:

21 years in a row

While Sarah and I were in NYC recently, my dad took us to a great Yankees game. I was relieved the Yanks played well and that Sarah had a good time, because her first Yankees game was really boring! This was a special game as ARod was one home run short of 500. Each pitch he faced brought electricity to the crowd (literally, as you can see there were tons of camera flashing during each pitch). Unfortunately he didn't get #500 that day, but when he did a few games later, he became the youngest player in baseball history to reach that milestone. I think there's only something like 26 other people who have ever reached 500.



Having grown up 25 minutes from Yankee stadium I've been to many games, including one season when I went to as many as 26! While this will most likely be my only game this year, it's special because it keeps our streak alive of having gone to a Yankees game together for 21 straight summers. As far as we can remember, we've been to a game every season since 1987 when I was 6 years old. My favorite part of any Yankee game is singing New York, New York along with Sinatra at the end.

Big Toe

Here's a picture of my big toe as it was starting to heal. Unfortunately this is a photo of how much better the toe looked compared to when I first dropped a piece of wood on it. I can't complain since it was the only casualty from my long distance move.

Immigrant Museum

While we were in NYC I couldn't help but be amused by the image of Sarah standing next to the sign for the immigration museum at Ellis Island. We know a thing or two about the anxiety of immigrating to the US!