Memorial Day 2012

Katy and I had this last Memorial Day weekend off.  It gave us the chance to get a few things done around the house.

I worked Friday night but we got right to checking things off the list on Saturday morning.  We hit the gym and afterwards on our way to pick up some Breugger's we got caught in the pouring rain!  It was the hardest I've seen it rain in a long time!  Once we got home we enjoyed some breakfast and coffee and saw Josh as he was dropping Libby off for us to watch for the weekend.  

At noon we set out to clean the basement with it looking like this.  

Once we broke down all of the cardboard and took it out along with the garbage we found we had started to see some progress.  

We ventured to Costco for some shelving because of the slight leakage in our basement.  I wanted to keep the plastic bins off the floor and not near the wall in jeopardy of a little bit of water when it pours hard for a while.

So, we picked up these shelving units.  

It's no where near as exciting as a flight and a quick few days to Chicago but it was a huge thing that has probably been weighing me down for a long time.  I knew the basement needed to be cleaned up for so long but it was so hard to get down there.  But we did!

And despite it looking great we can still do more.  But this was step one in the successful accomplishment during the rainy and cloudy day Saturday.

Saturday night we went to Green Mill with Paul.

Sunday we went to church, Costco again for some grilling ingredients and enjoyed the warm weather by going to the Mall of America with our friend Emily.  We hit a bunch of stores, enjoyed the wandering and made an afternoon of it.  After the mall we grilled out; hamburgers, asparagus, fruit, mojitos and a fantastic strawberry shortcake Emily made!

We also watched True Grit.  It was a decent, entertaining movie.

"You're no bigger than a corn nugget!"  That seemed to be our favorite line of the movie when True Grit was talking to the 14 year old girl as she was trying to hire him to find who killed her father.

Monday we went running at Como.  I ran twice around the lake and the second time I brought Libby with me.  She ran a 6:40 mile with me however started out much too strong for finishing in a 6:40.  Although she did poop twice causing a stoppage in pace.  I didn't get too many looks at my Garmin to see how fast we were going but at one point early on we were at 5:56  pace.

Our Memorial Day activity took us to Bob & Deb's too.  We grilled out again with them, Bopa and Bob's mom.  Again it was burgers and brats with some wild rice in them.  We also ate potato salad with bacon in it, cole slaw, fruit salad, chips, ice cream and cookies washed down by iced tea or lemonade.

The other activity going on for Memorial Day was once again with my favorite Twin Cities tie company, Pierrepont Hicks, was holding a little challenge to wear their goods and show them off.  So, that is what this outfit resulted in.  Sunday night Emily, Katy and I picked this outfit out.  And I liked it enough to add a khaki blazer and wear it all day to Bob & Deb's!

Pierrepont Hicks bow tie (a sample; meaning I might be the only one who has one, if not I'm one of a very select few who have one)

Pierrepont Hicks Buzzy Pocket Square

J. Crew woven & shorts

Banana Republic belt

Cole Haan shoes

So, I emailed her this picture and I got on the website, just as her challenge stated!

The link to this shot at Pierrepont Hicks.

The link to this shot at Pierrepont Hicks.  Any opinion on who did it best?

These were the looks that didn't pass the test to Pierrepont Hicks.  

And one shot of our new shoes...Katy's J. Crew Soludos and my Cole Haan Franklin Wingtips.  

U2

I went to U2 with Katy, Paul, Nick & Becca, Josh & Laura and Laura's sister, Christen. Bob & Deb were also there but in a different section.

I still haven't been to many concerts in my life but this one was phenomenal. U2 played for about 2 hours and 15 minutes, well worth my two $65 tickets. In fact, why didn't we pay more and sit closer?

Twin Cities 10 Mile v. 2010

Well, Twin Cities 10 Mile v. 2010 went off without a hitch Sunday morning.

Katy and I were up and heading to Minneapolis at 6:00am with the start time coming at 7:09am. It was chilly, about 40 degrees, but clear with a high of about 60 degrees expected. We arrived downtown and I just sat in the car near the start line for a half hour or so before heading into the dome, using the bathroom before running a half-mile warm up before the start. By the start of the race it was getting lighter and I was ready to race in my tights, sleeveless shirt, arm sleeves, gloves, watch and hat; and of course a pair of socks, my silicone or rubber toe caps and a new pair of Nike Lunarglide +2's.














As always the first couple miles of competition requires some mental fortitude to hold back and be sure you're not breaking the bank so mile one and two were 6:09 and 6:14.

I must have been concerned about pace at that point as I slowed to a 6:28 for mile three, though there was a small hill at that point. I regained some pace and tempo going through four miles in 25:03, running 6:14.

Now, miles five, six and seven; I wish I could have those back. I do remember feeling a bit tired but more so, I think I wondered about my ability there. I thought to myself "this is only half way, I'm kind of tired, let's stay consistent and be conservative." Well, I sure was tired and too conservative. On the flip side I was pretty consistent as those miles were 6:32, 6:38 and 6:29. Sheesh. That was coming off of Cretin Avenue and onto Summit Avenue where there is a long gradual hill; but I should have kept moving better.

At that point, I knew I had three miles left, processed that as just at 5K race and thought about how short that really was. I clicked off a 6:12 and 6:19 while maintaining some contact with a couple people who were moving pretty well. I pushed but I didn't over exert myself. Maybe I should have pushed just a little bit more in those two miles. I went through eight miles in 50:53, was at nine miles at 57:12.

Mile 10 was 5:39 and my best mile of the morning though I didn't go crazy at any one point during that mile. I kept accelerating as steadily as I could, clicking off each tenth of a mile while waiting for the Cathedral so I could see Katy, Bob and Deb and Laura.

So, Twin Cities 10 Mile v. 2010 had me finish in 1:03:16.

That's good for 90th out of 7017 runners. I was 32nd of 458 in the 22-29 age group and 86th out of 2708 males.

I was satisfied, but as always thought there could have been more in the tank with a drop in time. I am happy with staying consistent in time for the last two years and always hope for more next year.





































This is me going by the Cathedral with a quarter mile left.














Josh finished in 1:24:33, 8:28 pace for the TC 10. Good job Josh! (We were both just a few seconds slower this year vs. last year. Darn. We'll do better next year.)













Just us. :) Too bad this was the best shot of us. We must improve on that.













And Segways!! I really wanted to see who brought these to the course so I could go ride up and down the course. Right Eric, Dad and Katy? That would be awesome!

Twin Cities 10 Mile v. 2010

TWIN CITIES IN MOTION

Twin Cities Marathon

Well, tomorrow morning is the Twin Cities 10 Mile. And I'm finally nervous. I would like to do sub-60 minutes but that's not going to happen judging my mileage and workouts.

*It appears that you can follow me run online now too via the website or texting. This link will take you there...

I've put in a decent amount of miles over the summer without getting a great deal ahead with workouts. So, decent mileage but a lack of workouts and even lack of mileage lately, doesn't give me too much confidence with the morning run. Not that I ever really have a huge amount of confidence. (Can't get a job, not a great (fast) decision maker, never really stand for what I believe or want...)

So, tomorrow morning might be a challenge. I'm putting alot of pressure on myself to get back to 1:02:54 like I did last year but at the same time I'm not sure that's going to happen. I'd love for it to happen though. Somehow, I've got to find a spot in my mind, maybe just for a few hours where I'm confident and feel good for the run.

I'm aiming for 1:05:00 this year with the chances of hitting that. Last year I had 1:08:00 in my head so we will see how that matters. I'm not sure that I'll be able to do 1:03 this year but I didn't think I would do that last year.

Anyway, last year I ran 63 minutes on a goal of 68 minutes. This year I'd like to hit 65 minutes on a goal of 65 minutes. I'll have to feel it out as they miles come, it's just that I haven't been all that confident with sub 6:45 pace nor has my stomach been cooperating with me for quite some time on longer or more workout type days.

Who else do I know that's running...

Josh, Nick, Rachel Karel in the 10 mile.

Dan Greeno, Brian Anderson, Amanda Ericson all in the marathon.

We'll see how it goes...this sappy blog is over. Maybe I will call this blog just "for my records." (Right Em?)

Christmas 2009

Our Christmas Eve picture.

Merry Christmas!

Yesterday I had to work 12-6:30 and close down the store. Oh what fun, to be there when business was slow and the only customers who were in the store were the ones who just wanted to prevent you from doing something that evening.

Katy and I finally got to Bob and Deb's having some fun driving in the snow on the way there. I got all the way there, through slippery roads, snow up to our bumper and ended up getting stuck right in front of there house as I was turning around trying to stay completely out of the middle of the road.

We hung out for a little bit before dinner. We skyped Grant and Chris with Katy's parents in Palm Springs as well as Rick and Joy and their kids in San Francisco. It was fun, for a little bit, skyping with them as we all listened to Bopa read the Christmas story and pray.

Dinner was delicious! We ate the korv we made last weekend, as well as meatballs, rice pudding, lingonberries, green beans, red mashed potatoes, crescent rolls, jell-o and cheesecake for dessert.

We opened presents and that was about all for the evening since we didn't get there until 7pm.

This morning, Katy and I, made cinnamon rolls for breakfast and I made coffee. We got ready and then we opened a few more presents-mostly from my family. We did that in our tradition-each of us going one at a time until they were all gone. Last night, we all just ripped into them at once.

We watched a little tv and relaxed before we went to Sherlock Holmes. My oh my, the movies were packed! I never even knew people went to movies on Christmas Day. I guess that's what happens when absolutely nothing else is open.

I thought Sherlock Holmes was okay, not extremely good though. I said 7 out of 10, just average. It was a good story that made you think a little bit and did a good job of revealing and filling in clues as the movie progressed but all in all it was a dark movie-literally-and the story was based on a guy who practiced magic.

We came home and Katy made ham, peas and cranberry's and we ate leftover red mashed potatoes. That was good too and I was glad to get in some ham.

Otherwise, I've just been watching basketball and football and Katy put our spices in their jars on a new magnetic thing on the wall and used our new Kitchen Aid mixer to make more banana bread.

Oh yeah, this weather. I'm sure you think it's worse here than it really is. Yeah, we got alot of snow and there were watches and warnings all over Minnesota but it was supposed to snow all night last night and all day today. Well, what happened? Yeah, I'm asking the same thing. It was really disappointing to me to have just about none of it happen! I got up last night at 3:30am to use the bathroom and looked like a little kid expecting snow on Christmas but didn't see anything falling. I got up at 8:30 and looked out the window again and I only saw a little drizzle! It was on an off for the morning and part of the afternoon-heavy snow in big flakes, rain and drizzle-but when we went to the movie and left it was all slush and rain. It was much too warm today for snow and I'm really annoyed that it didn't snow! I really wanted to have it be 25 degrees and get us a ton more snow. We probably had 10-12 inches on the ground before last night but I'd say that alot of it is melting now with the rain that's coming down now. They compared this storm to the storm of 1991, which was apparently something to talk about. But it was a major disappointment! I think this might have been one of the top three snowfalls I've seen here. I don't think this is any different or worse than what happens in New England for a nor'easter though. New England just melts faster or melts due to 38 degrees or rainy slush coming down. Here sticks because it's so cold-except not this time!

Merry Christmas again!



The new Kitchen Aid mixer in action! Thank you Mom and Dad!

U2 Tickets!

We're going to U2!

In a pretty random occurrence of events Katy and I bought u2 concert tickets for June 27th at TCF Bank Stadium.

I went to lunch with Nick who was on the internet looking at trying to buy U2 tickets. We ate a nice lunch in the Bethel dining center and I went to Turn Style to turn over some watches and old photo coasters from our wedding. I had to register in the home part of Turn Style and while I was registering a U2 song was playing on the radio. She said that they had been playing U2 all day and there must be a concert going on or something. For some reason she explained to me that she was a Gophers season ticket holder and they got an email so they could pre-sale the tickets. I said that the tickets were hard to come by as Nick was just looking for them and the website wouldn't let him buy any yet. Then she volunteered to forward me the special email that she got to pre-sale the tickets-which she did!

Later on in the evening Katy was talking about U2 and I remembered the email which we then opened and hit the link.

We ended up checking out with 4 U2 tickets! So, we're going with Nick and Becca, and I emailed it to Paul-who ordered to and Lance will come. I also emailed it to Josh who got tickets for himself and Laura! It's going to be fun!

Katy can't wait! We figured it was a semi-once in a lifetime shot at getting tickets and for a concert, for being U2 they weren't really that outrageous. It was $55 a pop with all of the fees and extras and ticketmaster garbage.

But we're excited to go to U2!


Also on the news front. Katy sliced her finger a couple weeks ago but it's getting better, though she lost some feeling in her left pointer finger. Also, her pickup cost us a little money last week, her starter decided to stop doing its' job. So we fired it and replaced it with a new one for the fair cost of $600! Are you kidding me!

Twin Cities 10 Mile Pictures

Abdi Abdirahman









Abdi again in a record run for the Twin Cities 10 Mile-46:35



Josh Moen-"ran against" this guy in college. I was far behind, he ran for Wartburg College in Iowa. He was second in 46:38, he and Abdi ran a great surging race from what I read and hear.



Here I come, a little ahead of schedule.



























I was pumped. I was well ahead of schedule and cooking the last half mile. I was also glad to see everyone in front of the Cathedral.