Lake Hardy 2010

This is Adam, I was reading older posts and they got a little confusing when I posted without letting myself know it was me.

So, a few years ago a friend, Kevin Arrington, and I went to Lake Hardy. It is on the mountain above Alpine UT. It is a pretty good trip. We hiked about 11 miles and climbed about 5000. I have wanted to go back since. I haven't made time etc, etc. I knew if I didn't go soon it would be too late in the year to make a trip.

I have been doing a little trail running lately and had the great idea that a run to Hardy would be a great way to kill 2 birds with one stone. I could get in a trail run and get back to Hardy. There happened to be a full moon. Everything looked great: get in a trail run, see Hardy again, and not miss out on the "daytime" activities of life: work, family, work, kids, work. Now came the easy part, finding someone else who wants to go with me. I started listing names and sending texts and emails and phone calls. I was sure there would be tons of people who wanted the chance to hang out with me. The trip to Hardy would just be icing on the cake. Of the 15 or so people I invited, my Bro, Jarod, was the only one who felt like I was good enough company to put himself through the meat grinder I was cooking up. Big thumbs up to brotherly love. I am sure Rhett, my other bro, would have gone too, but he is in St George. The three of us seem to be willing to do all kinds of torturous things to/for each other.

I knew it would be a bit of torture and would require plenty of extra calories. So, I spent the day packing away extra food. We had some Half and Half left over from when I was eating Peaches and Cream. I figured the stuff would go bad soon and had lots of calories. I poured me a glass of half and half, mixed in about 3 tablespoons of chocolate milk mix and put it down. I am not sure how many calories I picked up from my little drink but I'm sure it was lots. I don't know that I will try that again. I have always teased my Mom-in-law for using half and half on her cereal and now I am drinking the stuff. Funny how life changes.

I picked Jarod around 7 and we hit the trailhead at 7:30 pm. There were some guys there getting their horses loaded to head up the mountain so they could kill Bambie. One of them looked at my pack and said it was sure a small pack. I told him we were just going up and back. He shook his head and said we were crazy. I thought he was the crazy one, he is going to spend the morning trying to kill a deer with 4000 other people throwing lead around the mountain. We wanted to be off the mountain by 2 am or so. (good luck to them, cuz I saw more deer in the American Fork grocery store parking lot on my way home than I saw on the mountain)
I thought we would be able to get to the lake in about 2.5 hours and back to the truck in about 1.5 hours. As you will see, my estimate of a 4 hour trip was slightly optimistic.

We took off at a pretty good lope for about the first half mile, then the trail went skyward. We were going about as good as we could the whole way to lake. We had one mile that it took us almost an hour to cover. The trail is one steep sucker. The trip up was much more like a hike than a run, and a slow hike at that. We passed a group of deer hunters in a meadow up there and their horses eyes were glowing out in the trees at us. At least we think it was the horses, if not, they were most docile moose I have ever seen.

We got to the lake in about 3 hours and 17 min. My belly had not been cooperating for several minutes and I was getting really concerned because I didn't have any TP with me. About a mile from the truck I realized I had forgotten it, but was not about to go back down and up again. Luckily, I had my first aid kit with me. I found out last night, the santizer wipes I have had in the kit for 10 years, had dried out. I had my thermometer with me and the temp was mid 30's. I'll tell you what, no britches, temps that cool, sweaty, and a breeze coming down the canyon will suck every bit of body heat right out of you.

By the time I was able to get moving again I was shivering so bad I couldn't control it. I had some running tights that I hadn't put on yet and managed to wobble myself into them and they helped a bunch. I was amazed how something so thin could help retain so much heat.
Jarod and I looked at the lake for about 15 seconds, ate some frozen Snickers bars and headed back down again. The trail for about 1.5 miles below the lake is really hard to follow so it was slow going for that bit, then we were able to kick it up and run most the way back to the truck. I was able to ditch my long sleeved shirt and just work a short sleeve the rest of the way down.
We made it back to the truck in 2 hours 44 min. There were a few times we tripped and stumbled but didn't have any major falls. The moon was so bright we rarely needed our headlamps the whole way back. It was super pretty so be going through the trails with the oak leaves piled up and rustling in the breeze.

At some point on the way down I kicked a rock hard enough that it really hurt. When I got home and took my shoe off the end of my sock looked like it had a chunk of chocolate squished in it. I had kicked the rock hard enough it split my big toenail right down the center and it bled quite a bit.

I got home about 3 am, knocked out for a few hours and have really enjoyed hanging out with the fam. The quads hurt some today and the toe is sore but other than that I am feeling pretty good. I am so grateful to be able to do things like this. I am grateful for a wife who encourages me to go, for the health to be able to go, and the great places to go that are so close to home.

A few random things....

I made this wreath all with things from Dollar Tree. It looks even better in really life.

Tori making pumpkin cookies.

Mick and Kade taking a ride down the slide together.

Kade is playing with Mick's first garbage truck. Anyone that knows Mick well knows how much he used to love garbage trucks. He was obsessed with them. I have been very excited to pass this special toy onto his brother.

Halloween 2006

Mick kept saying, " I'm Mick the Builder." This was probably his favorite costume to date.

Our teeny tiny witch.

Carving pumpkins.....

We spent a day at Harward Farms that year. Tori was terrified of the teenagers who were dressed up handing out candy. She hid behind her daddy's legs the whole time.

Halloween 2005

This was Tori's first Halloween and our first in Utah County in our Payson house. We traveled back down to our old ward's Halloween party in Hurricane. The kids were roasting in their hot costumes.

Victoria was the cutest little turtle because she was really crawling around at the time. Kade is going to wear it this year. I hope he is crawling for it, but it's not looking likely.

Such fun!

Halloween Past

I ran onto these old pics and decided to share. These are from 2004-6 years ago! Mick was only 2 and I was 7 months prego with Victoria and we lived in Hurricane at the time.

We are carving pumpkins with our old friends. Sadly, we ran into the husband a while ago up here in Utah County and they are no longer married. It made me so eternally thankful that after 10 years of marriage, I feel like Adam and I are still going strong.

These were shot at Staheli farm where there was a lot of activities and the corn maze.

Such easy care-free days we were enjoying and had no idea that we were. It's funny now to look back and see how much more complicated our lives have become. Now the question is: How do we get that back and make it less complicated? Anyone?

TOU 2010

Here are a couple pictures before the FUN RUN began.Here I am coming up to mile 24 (in the pink hat,) where my family cheered me on. Here I am so close to the finish. That big smile was for my kids and because I knew it was almost over. Post Race Picture
Lily is a superstar and did 3:09! I am so proud of her.

The Top Of Utah Marathon time has arrived yet again. This year Adam had a stress fracture and couldn't participate and I was not pregnant and could so he was the spectator and I was the participant. It was a wierd change of events, but hopefully, both of us are out there kicking trash next year.

My friend, Lily, could not find a room to rent in Logan. She bunked up with me, Adam, our 20 kids (it felt like) and my super supportive MIL. We had a great trip up with lots of visiting and excitement. We had a delish dinner and was in bed fairly early.

I slept pretty good from 10:30-3:30 when I woke up ready to RUN!

Lily and I went and ate breakfast at the motel where we met and talked to a guy who travels the country doing a different marathon every weekend. Kinda cool, but at the same time, kinda sad and lonely. He was not married and had no kids. Who is there to cheer him on or care? It made me ultra glad I have my friends and family.

On the bus ride up, Lily and I kept thinking this is a long bus ride and we have to run all this way back. That's a wake up call right there now!

We got there and hit the port-a-pots quick like. We made our way down the hill to the tents where we went inside to a super crowded, dark and hot space. I briefly wondered if a concentration camp was anything like this. I could almost feel the disease and germs spreading like wildfire. I grabbed onto Lily's arm so we wouldn't get seperated and tried to find Allie. Lily called out," Allie, where are you?" The girl in front of us turned around and it was Allie. Great, that was easy enough.

We warmed up too much, decided to hit the toilets again before the race started. The line was huge long now, so Lily and I went over the hill. I did my biz, but Lily had stagefright about some young men, so I had to hold my emergency blanket out for her.

We went back down, had our pre race shot blocks and gatorade, and lined up. Lily got to the front of the pack and I stayed back a little so I wouldn't get mowed down by the ultra super fast people.

In line, I was thinking what in the hell have I got myself into? but before I knew it the cannons fired and it was too late to do anything but run.

I quickly latched on to a girl who looked my age wearing a 2010 BOSTON MARATHON QUALIFIER shirt. She seemed to be keeping the pace I wanted to qualify for Boston which was about 7:40 minute miles. I followed her to mile 3 where I had to do a quick pee. I came out and caught up to her again by mile 4. I followed her to mile 10, where I lost her briefly. I will come back to that.

Meanwhile, I was just starting to warm up and feel my lips and nose and fingers. I was feeling so good and the view was spectacular. I continued on this way to mile 10.

At mile 10, I felt a snap of pain across the top of my left foot. Shooting screaming pains continued through to mile 11. I could not believe my luck. At mile 10? I was barely into this race and already something like this happened? I briefly wondered whether I would be one of those poor saps who have to ride back down the canyon on a shuttle. I sucked it up along with some ibuprofen and continued on. The pain became a little less intense by mile 13, where I could see my time was still on par for a Boston qualifying time of 3:40 but I needed to keep it going with no mistakes to do it.

After this, my pace slowed to around 8:30 minute miles. The pain in my foot was so intense, that I could only run about a half mile and then had to walk a few feet, run another half mile, walk again. etc.

I gave myself a good pep talk and picked up the pace again around mile 16. I caught back up to 2010 BOSTON QUALIFIER LADY and stayed there until about mile 20.

I had been so good to stay fueled and hydrated so I never hit that "wall" of tiredness. I didn't feel tired, out of breath, or sick. Just hurt. I continued on the rest of the race this way. Run until the pain was bringing tears to my eyes, then walk a bit, run again. My time slowed to the point that I knew I was not going to make Boston, but I could still do a sub 4 hour if I kept going.

Around mile 21, a cute girl name Tiffany asked if she could run with me. I replied, "Oh would you please?"

She had hit a mental wall and just needed someone to talk her through, I just needed someone to take my mind off my throbbbing foot. We hobbled on through the next five miles.

We turned the corner to the finish and poor Tiffany broke down into tears. I broke into a smile to see my family there and that I had made it under 4 hours with a time of 3:55. I wanted that 3:40 but considering that I had to run 16 miles with a super hurt foot, I thought it wasn't bad.

We did the obligatory after race pictures and visiting and got in the suburban to head home. I took my shoe off. My foot was swollen and black and blue. I couldn't get my shoe back on again.

Sunday, I could barely put weight on it to walk around the house.

Monday, I am not even sore anywhere else, not my quads, calves, bottoms of my feets, nothing. Just this foot. It may be broken. I now feel a huge need to run another marathon soon without the broken foot to see what my time could have been. I must have been pretty prepared for it considering that the rest of my body is not sore. NEXT time, Boston will be mine.

Come "shop" our garage

Our garage is full full. Last night we got home a plastic sandbox with a lid, home decor, an airmore, a dresser, a side table, washer and dryer, etc.
Tonight Adam will be bringing home some more furniture and bins and bins full of home decor and toys. So just come by and browse anytime today and tomorrow. I'll be here.........I am without a car for the weekend so I got nothing better to do.