How come I don't have a job where I need a shotgun?

Right now my brother is working up on the North slope (that's Alaskan terminology for way, way up north on the coast of the Arctic Ocean). He has to take a helicopter to the job site each day. They got fogged in two days ago and were told by radio to camp overnight out on the tundra. With visibility of only 200 feet they used a GPS unit to guide them four miles to a truck. Armed with a shotgun to ward off grizzly and polar bears, they made it back to the truck safely, even after crossing raging thigh deep glacial run off. Man, Scott gets to have all the fun. All I did this weekend was go hiking. Lame!

Run Forrest Run!!

Well, the marathon is done! Woo hoo! The weather was perfect; about 60 degrees and cloudy. I finished in about 4 hours and 15 minutes.

As the race started I made some friends quickly so I'd have some people to run with therefore distracting me from the fact I was running farther than I've ever run before. As I chatted with Jim and Veronica in the first couple miles, I learned that Jim had run about 15 marathons, including 2 or 3 Boston marathons and that Veronica was in fact an ultramarathoner. Gre-e-e-eat. Of all the people I could run with!! We ran a 9 minute mile pace for the first 16 miles. At that point I told Jim and Veronica to keep going, that I was going to slow down a bit. Miles 16-19 were the hardest. But then I got some sort of second wind and the final 7 miles weren't too bad.

The funniest part about this race was the vast difference from the half-marathon I ran in Indianapolis back in May. That race had 35,000 runners. This one had 2 or 3 hundred. The half marathon course ran through downtown Indy, and even onto the track of the Indy 500. This race was only 1 mile of road and the rest was on trails. Unfortunately there were no moose sightings.

But at any rate, I've caught the marathon bug and am already considering when and where I'll do the next one!

I am my own worst enemy

Last Tuesday my brother called me at work and asked if I wanted to go for a mountain bike ride when I got home. Of course I said yes. So I got home, went running, and then we left to go ride. We planned to ride Powerline Pass; which is a 6 mile uphill and then a fantastic 6 mile return downhill. After skirting some moose on the trail, we were 3 miles into the ride when I had to quit. I had worked all day, gone running, skipped dinner, and then just bonked on this ride.

We got home and I was expressing my surprise at having to cut our ride short due to having no more gas in the tank. My brother asked, "Do you think maybe you've overtrained for your marathon and this is your body telling you to slow down?" I said no. He gave me a look that said you-aren't-the-brightest-crayon-in-the-box and replied, "You really don't think so? Because the day before your 20 mile run you hiked 18 miles. And the day after your 15 mile run we hiked all day. All the extra hiking and bike rides and stuff seems like overtraining to me." I sat there stunned. The more I thought about it, obviously my brother was right (as usual).

So at that point I had 2 weeks until my marathon. So I decided to cut out all activity except for my training runs. Ri-i-i-ight. That was last Tuesday night. So Wednesday night we went for a short hike. Thursday night we went for a longer hike. Friday night I climbed a mountain. Saturday was a long run. And Sunday started out innocently enough but turned into a 6 1/2 hour death march off the trail through chest-high undergrowth and climbing the same mountain twice.

So much for taking it easy. This would explain why I've lost 20 pounds this summer.