Labor Day Weekend

Brig has been running a fever yesterday and last night - in fact it got pretty high last night and he was a really hot little boy. The medicine seemed to help out so we weren't worried, but this morning he seemed a little delirius, or at least he was jabbering about all kind of funny things. Angela looked at me and laughed, asking if I gave him a shot during the night to make him crazy. He heard the word shot, and as all young boys should, immediately knew we were talking about basketball. He said something about not being able to shoot the two big balls in the basket yet, because "I need to get tall like Jesus".

As I wrote in Thursday's blog post, it really felt like a Friday yesterday. If it felt like Friday yesterday, you can imagine how work's going today. So the Labor Day weekend is starting a little early, at least mentally if not physically. We don't have any big plans for the weekend, but it doesn't matter, it should be fun.

I've been frustrated with my running this week. I've been having a painful knee problem a few miles into my runs, that is quite persistent and hard to shake (for you runners, think IT band). I think it's somewhat related to tight and sore muscles throughout my right leg (pulled hamstring, etc.), but I can't figure out the right stretches to make it go away. So I decided to take the rest of the week off and hopefully a little rest will make it better by next week.

Have a great and safe weekend.

Clear the DVR!

Gone are all the old Hannah Montana episodes, the Disney Channel original marketing events ... I mean movies, the two-month old recordings that we still "might watch", and of course the hallowed full season of So You Think You Can Dance. There's not a spare megabyte, kilobyte, or even byte availalbe on the old DVR, because starting in a couple of hours, it's football season baby!

Here's a helpful link to find the TV listings for every televised game (the next few weeks are up to date, but after that you'll want to keep checking back as they add/change games): http://cfn.scout.com/2/557860.html

On the homefront, Micah made it onto Dance team at her school again this year. She was somewhat nervous, but more than anything she was really anxious for her best friend's tryout. It is her friend's first year at the school, and with somewhat limited recent dance experience, they just weren't sure. Good news is that they both made it, and now will be able to spend 87% of their time together instead of just 73%.

Brig's getting a little better on the potty-training front. Angela actually took him to some school meetings today with no diaper - very brave I thought, but no accidents. He appears to have about a 4 second window from the time he realizes he needs to go, to actually going. We're trying to work on that.

After a full summer of belly-aching about having to read, Kennan and Morgan all of a sudden realized this week that they love to read. They're plowing through books and, with surprise in their voices, saying things like, "can I read instead of watching TV?" (very rough paraphrase...) Alright, who are they, and what have they done with our daughters!

Today feels like Friday. Today is also very hot.

Aussie slang

There's a saying in Australia that I won't exactly repeat here because my mom periodically reads the blog. It's common in the Northern Territory where during the wet season the monsoon rains are unbelievably intense. The phrase to describe these horrendous downpours is, "it's p_ssing", that rhymes with "it's missing"...sorry mom. The reason I bring this up is to combine it with another common phrase - a cliche really - "when it rains, it pours." I'm sure you know what this means, but basically it seems like when one thing goes badly, everything else seems to go badly at the same time. Well, there are times when the "rain" starts, and then it just blows right past "pouring" and redlines all the way into "p_ssing". Christine, Cameron, you know what I mean?

So I guess it would be unfair and slightly self indulgent to say that things are beyond bad for us, but we do have some stressful things going on in our lives that require more resources to resolve than we sometimes have. But you know what, it's been amazing how, despite the frustration of thing after thing going wrong in some areas, we are still able to get peaceful feelings that things will be ok. We don't have any answers beyond that, but we still get these unexplainable and somewhat mystifying feelings that things will work out. I guess that's better than having feelings that it won't work out.

Brig's latest boy thing, plus other junk

Brig told Angela yesterday that he wanted to go to the bathroom on the front lawn (it's enclosed by a fairly tall hedge so not as bad as it sounds), so she pulled his pants down for him and let him do his thing. Thing is, she sort of got distracted and wasn't paying attention to him. Next thing she hears is "Mom!" and she looks over, Brig's standing there grinning, and pointing down proudly to a steaming pile of ... well, you get the picture. I guess we need to be more clear about what it means to "go to the bathroom" on the front lawn. Predictably, I thought it was pretty funny.

Very happy to have the weekend here almost. We're looking forward to making more progress on the house and remaining boxes, catching some anticipated Olympic events like the men's marathon and the men's basketball gold medal game, going to our ward luau, maybe even hosting a BBQ at our house.

As of this morning, I've run 612 miles this year. I've also enjoyed riding my bike (today I rode in to work after my 8 mile run), playing basketball, tennis, and working out at the gym periodically. Man, I think I'll have another donut!

8 more days til Game Day!

Thursday and still rolling

For Dan's benefit, I'm going to post what I ate for lunch today. It's going to sound like a lot, but I was careful with portion control, so I was able to savor just the right amount of each item. Here it is: Memphis style ribs, southern BBQ brisket sandwich, grilled red snapper, BBQ flavored french fries (oops), fried rice, and fresh fruit. Funnily they were all out of vegetables...



Had an awesome experience yesterday. Dean Karnazes, ultra-marathoner and psycho runner came and spoke to Google as part of the Authors @ Google series (search for authors @ google on YouTube for past speakers). This guy is incredible! Some of his most amazing accomplishments are:

• He ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days (one of which was St. George, where he ran by me towards the end of the race. I remember seeing him because I knew who he was and that he was going to be there)


• He has run 350 miles - without stopping - in 81 hours and 44 minutes


• He has run the Badlands Ultramarathon, 130 miles in Death Valley in the middle of the summer, 7 or 8 times (can't remember which) - he says to run on the white lines so your shoes don't melt ... good to know.


• He routinely runs regular marathons, but with a twist - he'll run 20 miles through the night to the start of the race, run a fast race, and then run home afterwards. Clearly something wrong with this guy

He was very funny and engaging, and I really like how humble and unassuming he was. He readily admits that he's a little crazy ... a "little"? Some interesting facts:

1. He starts to sweat and gets his first hint of being tired right around the 26-30 mile mark of his runs, so basically he can run a marathon without getting tired or sweating (he told a story about showing up for a 60 Minutes interview having run 30 miles to get there and they couldn't believe he'd run that far and didn't even look tired or sweaty).


2. He takes a cell phone and credit card on his "long" training runs, and he'll call up pizza places to deliver along the route somewhere. He says he orders Hawaiian style, unsliced, thin crust; and then when he gets it he just takes it out of the box, rolls it up, and eats it like a pizza burrito - very messy but delicious.


3. He worked with The North Face to create his own running shoes that don't have laces so he can adjust the tightness of his shoes while his feet expand and contract as he runs.


4. His favorite family outing is to put his wife and kids to bed, and then head out on a 75 mile run to a destination where they will meet him for breakfast after they sleep.


5. He has trained his body to rely on only four hours of very deep sleep a night. He said it was pure torture for the first month as he set his alarm to wake up after four hours and forced himself to get up, but after a while his body adapted.


6. During some of his longest runs (262 miles, 350 miles, etc.) he has actually fallen asleep and awakened out in the middle of the road, realizing he's been sleep running. Not surprising given that he runs straight through three consecutive nights.

I think I'm going to buy his book (pictured above).

First day of school

There was an audible buzz around our house this morning as the kids anticipated and prepared for their first day of school today. That buzz, however, was nothing compared to the screeching smoke alarm that went off a few times last night, waking up our whole family and scaring the tar out of Kennan and Brig (well, Kennan scared Brig by being so scared). You know how you are jolted out of sleep by a noise like that and you have no idea what it is? I was up walking around for a 1/2 hour trying to figure out where the intermittent noise came from - it was so loud it was very hard to isolate its source. I finally found it, and put it out of commission. Problem was, my adrenaline was through the roof, and with Brig now squirming in our bed, I could kiss a good night's sleep goodbye.

But back to the school day. It was fun to see the kids all dressed in their new shoes and new clothes, sporting their new or only slightly used backpacks, and up earlier than they have been all summer. It's a fun time for them.

My running is really struggling. I'm fighting off some aches and pains, and it just seems very hard for me lately to put together any good consistent efforts. It's hard to get up for running in the morning when your feet/legs hurt just to walk to the bathroom, you're running alone, and you haven't felt good running recently. I just need to put together a few more good weeks and then I can hopefully feel good about at least finishing St. George. The marathon this year is not going to be a fast one - just hoping I can stay under 4 hours!

Still digging the Olympics...

12 days...

I'm a countdown sort of guy. I like to think ahead to an event for which I'm excited, and then my mind just automatically starts generating how many days, or hours, or whatevers until the event. So as any of you who know me well can guess, it's 12 days until the college football season kicks off. That's 12 days until all the practice reports, the prognostication, the anticipation, and hype, the guessing, and the waiting all end. I'll talk more about my teams next week as we get closer.

Today and tomorrow are the last two days of "summer" for the kids. Wednesday is the first day of the new school year, and the kids are somewhat excited. I think they'll love getting back to seeing their friends, and if their new teachers do a good job, they'll have fun getting back to learning. I think what they're not looking forward to is getting up early and homework. It will be nice to get the piles of school supplies off our kitchen counter.

We continue to make slow progress toward getting the house organized and things put away. I know it's been almost 2 months since we moved, but with our trip and other things going on, we haven't been the best at making everything perfect at home yet. The last couple of weekends have been productive though, and by this time next year we should be good to go.