Seattle Half

The Seattle Half Marathon that is. Some of you know that I have been training for this for a few months (some of you may not). Today was the auspicious day of the big event. I had been anticipating this day with a certain amount of excitement and dread. What if I couldn't finish? What if I was so pathetic I finished last? These top two photos where taken at the finish at Memorial Stadium at the Seattle Center and as you can see from the photo on the left, I didn't finish last. In fact I did quite respectable for myself. My goal was to finish in two hours and thirty minutes. My actual time was 2:27:37:9! It was an amazing thing to participate in. There are over 14000 participants in all the different races. You can either walk or run the Half or walk or run the whole Marathon. The runners of the Half Marathon started from the Seattle Center at 7:30am. My friend Peg and I were somewhere in the middle of the pack (I think) when the horn sounded. It was kind of anti-climatic because we didn't move for a minute or two. It was exciting when we started off though. You run down 5th Avenue which is a major street in downtown Seattle until you come to the I-90 Express Lanes. At one point 5th Ave starts to rise and it was incredible to see just how many people were in front of us. You run on I-90 until just before it starts to cross Lake Washington. (The Marathoners actually run all the way across the Lake and back as part of their route.) You get off and start running on Lake Washington Boulevard which is right along the lake and home to amazing houses (not that you really notice them). I was still running with Peg which was pretty amazing considering how much taller she is than me. That all changed though when we were confronted with the first slight hill. Peg "loves hills" and I really didn't do much pre-training on them. That is where I started to fall behind her. Not that I minded. I really didn't think we would be together as long as we were. Just to digress for a moment to tell you about Peg, she was my elementary school auction co-chair two years ago. After a series of "escapades", we decided that we were a bit like Lucy & Ethel. It varied who was Lucy and who was Ethel (it depended on who had the hair-brained idea.) She is fun, full of life, caring, kind, and many other wonderful things AND she loves to play Scrabble! How can you not love a person who loves to play Scrabble! She is the one who when she found out that running a marathon was on my "list" said "Maybe you should try running a half-marathon first" and then said she would do one with me. That's the kind of friend she is. We even purchased matching tops when we picked up our packets before the race. The picture on the right is just after I finished the race (that's why my mouth is hanging open I guess). She was waiting there to give me a big hug!

Back to the race. Once you reach the end of Lake Washington Boulevard the course starts to climb. Which seems rather unfair because at this point you are somewhere between 5 to 8 miles into the race. At one point there is this long uphill stretch. I had to walk. It was just too tiring to run. Once I got to the top though I started running again and managed to run most of the rest of the way. You run through the Arboretum which is a beautiful natural area and then onto this road that is winds along the side of a hill. Then it's pretty much a downhill 3 mile jaunt from there. But right about that time I thought I wasn't going to make it because I could feel myself running out of gas and my feet hurt. Thank goodness for jelly bellies made from power drinks! They kind of tasted like aspirin to me but they got me through. Just when you think you have seen your last hill, they throw you a last one about 2/10s of a mile before the finish! I had to walk that one too. But again once I got to the top I was able to run the last bit into Memorial Stadium (adrenaline I think). You can see from the top picture that there are people along the side and sitting the stadium cheering on (as they are all along the course). I almost cried I was so excited! It is an amazing thing to think you did something like this especially at the age of 45! There was Peg to greet me and right behind her came Dennis. This last picture is one Dennis took at home. He took another one first which I will save but not publish. It's not particularly attractive but it really captures how I felt at that point--tired.

Not too tired to do it again though. Peg and I (and maybe Dennis this time) will be running the Whidbey Island half-marathon in April. This time I get to be Ethel because I promised Peg if she ran the Seattle with me that I would run the Whidbey with her. Lucy & Ethel all over again!

Do two half-marathons in the course of 6 months equal a full marathon?? I think so and I will get to cross another thing off my "list"!

Confessions of a Soccer Mom

The regular soccer season finished last weekend. The season lasts 8-9 weekends in the Fall. This year we got lucky and never has super bad, cold weather. We did have some rain but who can't live with that in Seattle!? Cooper's team, the Cougars (yes, a hard name to bear in a Husky household) are still pretty much playing at the "herd" stage of soccer, which is all the players on the field cluster around the ball. Once in awhile some one will break away from the herd with the ball and depending on how alert the goalie is will score a goal. This year you did see an occasional attempt at passing. Cooper loved playing goalie (as did most of the boys) and was alert most of the time. His team finished pretty well--although at this age they still don't "officially" keep score but you know every boy on both teams knows who won the game in the end.
Spencer had a new coach and alot of players were new this year. The new coach continued the great groundwork laid by the previous coach and the team continued to play as a team and are fun to watch. Spencer isn't the most agressive kid on the field but towards the end of the season did start to use his superior height (compared to almost all other kids his age) to his advantage. (I love the picture on the right because it looks like he is about ready to sit down.) He was generally the tallest kid on the field (but not necessarily the biggest) all season long. He's not much into sports but seems to enjoy soccer. His team is in the city tournament which starts after Thanksgiving and is double elimination. You want them to do well in the tournament but there is a secret part of you that wants it all to end well before Christmas!
Tucker loves soccer almost as much as he loves sleeping. His team got lucky and won two games this year. They actually have some pretty good raw talent on their team but it has never been harnessed to work together as a team. Being on the high school team really helped Tucker improve his game. The team scored about 10 goals all season long and Tucker scored 5 of them (and he played defense on the high school team so didn't score one goal all season long). He was the "Corner Kick" guy. Any time there was a corner kick no matter where he was on the field, he was the guy who kicked it. His team is also in the city tournament but we don't have to worry about even coming close to Christmas. If they win even one game it will be a miracle.
So you might wonder what are my "confessions"? I have to admit that I don't totally understand the game. Like when are they "offsides" and why? It seems to me that being in front of the defenders is a good thing but apparently not always.
I have a hard time just sitting and watching--my feet have been known to involuntarily kick the ball. Sometimes I spend more time socializing with the grown-ups than watching the game.
I'm secretly glad when the season is over because the longer it goes, the colder it gets. That's why it doesn't make me so sad that Tucker's team won't do so well in the city tournament. Spencer's team however gives me cause for concern.
I think the trophies they give to the kids at end of the season are stupid--trophies are so meaningless now because everyone gets them regardless of a winning or losing season. (I'm sure the trophy making business loves it though.) One of my favorite lines from "The Incredibles" is "I'm going to make it so that everyone is special because when everyone is special then no is." (something like that). Luckily the trophy thing goes away as the kids get older and Cooper is the only one still getting trophies.
I like being the "bad mom" who brings twinkies, ding dongs or other bad stuff as snacks for after the game. Everyone wants to be so PC with the healthy snacks that I love going against the grain. Although I do have to admit that I tried to buy healthy stuff for Cooper's team this year.
I completely forgot the weekend I had snacks for Spencer's soccer team. When the game was over I just left the field and went to the car before the boys walked off. Luckily there was another boy missing that week so all the boys thought it was his mom who forgot. (I told Spencer he could them at practice the next week that it was me who was the lame mom.)
Soccer is a fun sport to watch and a great sport to play for most kids regardless of their athletic ability. It is fun to watch my boys play.
This year we stepped into a new arena--basketball for the first time. Cooper is trying it this year. It is the most hilarious thing to watch! The nice thing? The games are indoors and only last about 30 minutes. Gotta love that. I will post some pictures later on.

Captain Jack and a Play on Words

As requested Aunt C, here are the pictures from Halloween. As you can see, Cooper took on a little Jack Sparrow persona. Getting him to agree to the "eye liner" (washable Crayola marker) was quite a task but I think it really completes the outfit. The fencing sword was some promotional thing that Dennis got from work. (How it goes with AAA is a mystery at this point) The shirt is one of Dennis' and the jacket is one of mine with 3/4 length sleeves. The hat with attached hair is of course what makes the whole ensemble work. I suppose he could be Captain Hook (if we had a hook) but that's a different generation and I don't recall that he wore eyeliner, but I could be mistaken there. (I may not have been paying close attention to a detail like that as a kid.) He and I were the only ones to go trick-or-treating together as both Tucker and Spencer wanted to go with friends. I guess that is what happens when you start getting teens & pre-teens. We only went down the street two blocks on both sides and up one block past the house. That is as much as he wanted to do. Which is certainly fine by me as it was plenty of candy. But had I lived in a neighborhood this size I would have been out till that pillow case was full! (Pillowcases being the preferred trick-or-treat bag of children all ages). We did take a little neighbor boy with us who had a skeleton costume with a rubber skeleton head. He was quite comical as he went up and down the steps to the houses. I am not quite sure he could see all that well. After a while I had to carry his bag. (He had been out before we started so his was half full when we began). I was sure he was going to take a tumble down one of the longer sets of stairs, skewer himself on the fencing sword and well...But, luckily we got him home in one piece with his bag full (not a pillowcase--he's not yet wise in the ways of maximizing candy capacity). I will let you figure out the costumes of the other two boys for yourselves. Both boys came up with the ideas themselves--although Spencer may have gotten the suggestion from a girl at school. Spencer went trick-or-treating with three girls from his school. His only complaint was his mask got sweaty. I'm not exactly sure how full his pillowcase was when he got home because he squirreled it away into his room immediately. He is very protective of his candy hoard. He did not wear his costume to school (no masks allowed) but he did have fun wearing it out in the neighborhood. Although the net result of the plastic mask for this pubescent boy (not pre-pubesecent because his puberty is in full swing) was a serious rash around the nose. His skin is SO sensitive. Tucker's costume inspiration came while he and I were at JoAnn Fabrics looking for foam for a shark head (ala SNLs land shark) he was imagining he could construct. Since the foam was a bit spendy and I wasn't exactly sure on how he was planning to construct the shark head, he came up with this idea. I think it speaks for itself. The ego of a teenaged boy (at least mine) knows no bounds. He did say it garnered extra candy when it was explained, but I think that was probably only when the person handing out the candy was a guy. He came home sans candy because he gave it all to one of his friends he was out with. I guess he figured he could mooch off his brothers or eat the mounds of candy that I purchased forgetting that we never really get that many trick-or-treaters. That would be 4 according to Dennis who was manning the door while Cooper and I were out. He could have given each kid a full bag of bite-sized candy and still had one left over. As it is the giant tupperware bowl is still half-full of candy. Ah don't you just love Halloween!