June 12 - Bridal Veil 10k and Palestinian Feast

I decided I better run the 6.2 miles that are requisite for an olympic tri.  Until the 12th of June, I had not run more than 4 miles without stopping.  So I found a local race... The Bridal Veil 10k.  We were taken by bus to some obscure point up the canyon.  They dropped us off, and we soon began our run.   A couple things made this race unique.  

1. The route was gorgeous!  We ran on a river trail through a tunnel of trees and passing a beautiful waterfall.
2. The T-shirt!  James Christiansen had some affiliation with the sponsor of this race, so our free T's had artwork by a famous artist!
3. The weather was unusually cold that morning, which was a total blessing for me, as I hate the heat! 
4. This was the most disorganized race I've done. I won't use this space to complain, but  the pre and post run were a little chaotic.
5. We were on the same route as a marathon, sponsored by another organization!  This was just indicative of the disorganization.  It did make the run unique though because we passed big crowds cheering for the marathoners.  It also provided motivation!  If all these guys can run 26.2 miles, surely I can run 6.2!

Dawn & I
I met Dawn at a 5k in May.  We ended up at this race, and laughed through all the chaos!
She's talked me into doing a half-marathon.

The run was easier than I thought, and I kept my 5k pace! 

That night, I had one of Alan's amazing Palestinian dinners.  He lived in Israel for 3 years and mastered some great dishes.  A typical meal includes a lentil dish, hummus, pita bread, kefir, tomato salad and fresh olives!  The food was delicious, fresh and vegetarian!!

June 5, 2010 Little Red Riding Hood

She's hardcore...

... and I'm hardcore.
You can't tell, but I'm stepping on a wolf. ;)

Little Red is a woman only bike ride through Cache Valley in Northern Utah and raises money for cancer research.  I was actually interviewed by a local paper to be a featured rider because I'm a cancer survivor.  However, I couldn't make their photo shoot (middle of the day in SLC... does anyone have jobs?), so they didn't run my story.  If you go HERE, you can read the gist of the article.

Andi, Casey, Katy and I in slurpee heaven! 

This ride was a prep ride for my upcoming Olympic triathlon.  It was the longest I had ridden to date.  Katy and I drove up to Northern Utah the night before and met up with some of her friends Casey and Andi.  Casey is a cute mom who tells it like it is.  I loved her taboo-free spirit.  Andi works for the Foreign Service and has lived in crazy places like Afghanistan... she's basically a G-man (or G-woman?).  My new friends somehow talked me into getting a slurpee that night.  BAD IDEA! I hadn't had a slurpee in years... it's basically a few liters of liquid sugar. Liz the insomniac was totally wired and probably got 3 hours of sleep! We woke up early and headed to the starting line.

The beginning... 

There were 3000 participants in this ride!  

You can choose from a variety of distances in this race - 15 to 100 miles.  The four of us chose the 58 mi course. I kind of wish I would have chosen the 80 mi, but it was more important to ride with friends.  

The scenery was so gorgeous!  The weather was perfect!  The fact that it was non-competitive was great!  I am totally hooked on road biking!  

World's best photo!
Katy took this over her head, while clipped in!

Can you see me? This was the ride... 
blue skies and green fields.

Katy was fun to ride with because she is an ornithologist.  The whole day she was spotting cool birds. The ride was mostly beautiful farmland. We passed a few ponds and reservoirs.  The land was very green and quiet. I totally get why people are attractive to the rural life.  My least favorite stretch was a dairy farm.  It simply reeked!  

Liz, Shelly, Lindsay, Paige, Amy... The Tingeys!  
Check out the mom/daughter matching jerseys!

Although there were a few hills here and there, there was one major climb worth mentioning.  It was a few miles long, and I am proud to say that I powered through it and passed a lot of struggling cyclist.  I am admittedly a wimp going down. I rode my break on the the steepest descent because Shelly told me about the major crash last year on that stretch of rode.  I had a lot of sister friends doing this ride.  Besides my posse, I met Julia Ashworth, my cycling guru, at the finish line.  She did the 80 mi. I also ran into my Aunt and cousins during our lunch break.  They were doing the full century ride, which I am totally doing next year... watch out Mr. B.B. Wolf!

Casey, Katy, Liz & Andi

Liz, The Big Bad Wolf, Julia, & Katy

That night I attended Lena's annual "World Peace through Dessert" Party.  I felt totally justified in sampling the plethora of cakes, pies, cookies, etc.  It's remarkable how sugar makes everything feel a bit more Utopian. 

Death Shmeath... Summer of 2010 begins!

JUNE
Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine
  The Month of Marriages!  All pleasant sights
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,
  The foliage of the valleys and the heights.
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;
  The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;
I am the mother of all dear delights;
  I am the fairest daughter of the year. 
                                                         ~H.W. Longfellow

My spring 2010 ended with death - death of my dear friend Drew as well as the death of a relationship with someone I deeply loved.  I don't think I need to spell out the irony. There were no roses, marriages, pleasant sights or lovely nights in my upcoming June... The mother of all delights... ha! Yeah right!   Normally I travel in the summer. Traveling always rejuvenates me, but I postponed planning a trip because... well because I anticipated a much different summer. 


I'm reminded of my favorite musical, Elisabeth.  The operetta is a historical fiction is about the Austrian Empress Elisabeth who has a love-hate relationship with a the character 'Death'. The story begins when she is young and has a fatal accident.  Death comes to take her and falls in love.  He chooses to let her live but keeps visiting her throughout her life, struggling with his desire to take her with him and letting her live a full life. It's kind of like the movie Meet Joe Black except much, much better.  I reference this story because Elisabeth, is the perfect heroin.  She feels a great responsibility in her role as Empress. Although she can see the appeal in leaving her difficult life, she continually overcomes Death's attempts to woo her.  She is so strong!  I should mention that character of death is incredibly hot... Brad Pitt has nothing on him because this Death can sing and dance! 


Elisabeth inspires me. Instead of wallowing in self pity of my missed adventures in Africa and instead of spending a month mourning the loss of Drew and the ex, I packed my summer with local adventure.  I decided to make my June the freakin' mother of all delights.  That will show death! 


Although my summer didn't begin on a high note, I'm sad that it is coming to an end. Fall will officially arrive in a couple of days, and I would be remiss if I didn't document this great summer!

This is the scene when Death first sees Elisabeth and sings the most beautiful love song! 

rAndOm spRinG

Here are some highlights from the past few months of my life. I don't know why I don't update this more often...
One of the perks of my job is to take the kids on adventure field trips. We've gone power tumbling a few times. It is basically unsupervised gymnastics on professional equipment. Sadly I am only able to do lame things like front flips, handstands (thanks yoga), etc. I did attempt a double trampoline trick which bounces you off a padded wall, but it ended in the loss of skin from my feet. My feet, poor things, are used to losing skin, so no big deal :)

This was my first attempt to go up a mountain with clip pedals. I have the wipeout shot, but that is too much spandex and humiliation fo my comfort. I'm okay on easy trails like the one seen here, but snow patches and turns... that's a skill I'm going to master. I'm hoping to do my next race in September. That gives me enough time to train after Nepal.

I was determined to summit this mountain... it was spring! Fortunately I new the trail well enough that little snowy patches like this didn't throw me. On the way up the mountain we told each other stories about stranded hikers... the sawed off his own arm kind of stories... good times!

Amy came up for a day... my bff that's stuck in Phoenix. We shopped for fabrics and visited our old stomping ground. Love her!


Spring is my favorite.

Party Galore!

The cake is proof that my knife shot isn't as psycho as it looks.Kieren (my miracle student)
Wil being super stubborn

RockBand and Wii Party

Surprise!! Interestingly, singing on rock band isn't as easy as karaoke

The only proof I have that Alecia was in Utah for a week...
Some of my crazy students

Nordic Saturdays

If this is a true journal of the interesting bits of my life, I need to mention the highlight of my week. Actually the highlight of my Utah life. Every Saturday I drive up to this little town called Midway. There you find some quaint homes and the Olympic Cross Country Ski Venue. Every week I try a new trail. The views are of this big valley... which is different from the trails in Tahoe or Sundance even. I haven't tried skate-skiing yet... next season perhaps. I'm a classic girl - fitting isn't it? :)

I brought my Camera on one of the last decent weekends (the snow was super wet). Unfortunately it was overcast, so these pictures do not adequately show the amazing valley. Here's the trail map... :)
On the drive through the canyon you pass this big lake that is covered with people ice-fishing! I hate fish, but it is so cool to see all these people sitting on the lake with poles... such a random sight!

Holiday (cue Madonna song)

I ardently oppose glowing reindeer remaining in front lawns after MLK day. However, here it is mid-February, and I am just now posting my Christmas pics... I'm such a hypocrite :)

Happy 2008!!!

I brought in the new year with family and friends. Although we had the count-down and fireworks at 9pm (Midnight for 4yr olds), we had a serious celebration!

Dad, Em, Peter, Me, Wil and Mom (left to right clockwise) donning the requisite new year's attire

BJ, me, Alecia making noise and making a toast (with Martinelli's)

What is New Year's with out a pinata... or two.... stuffed with serious prizes... See Wil attempting to knock it down... see BJ attempting to knock dad off the ladder... jk
Mad rush for the candy, toy, cash and firework extravaganza...

BJ assessing his prizes

I took Leesh on the trails...
I took Wil & Em on the trails...

The first sunset of 2008

Guess what I gave the family for Christmas... I love that my hat isn't really on my head... We wore these skating (to live music at Northstar) and got some looks, like "look at the cheesy family in matching hats"

Dad & Wil

Mom & Wil Wil refused to wear his hat at first, because there was a piece of pink yarn in the pom-pom on the top... but I caught him trying it on... then he kept it on all week! I'm sure the fact that all of us were wearing one helped.
Rockin the Gingerbread house...

What is Christmas without the matching PJs.

Board in Tahoe

We didn't take a camera on the mountain, so here are some post - boarding shots...

It snowed 15" the day before I arrived, so the powder was nice.

I'm covered in snow because of the snowball fight shown below, not because of the serious wipeout I had on the mountain. :)

Getting pegged with a snowball...

Revenge...

Tofurky on the Beach

I spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Monterey, California with BJ and his family. The beaches were white, the weather perfect... Thursday morning we went to Pebble beach... here are a couple pics of the beauty. This pic (above) is just a little boy playing with his dog... I have serious dog envy!
I believe these are sandpipers...

BJ and I

The girls playing croquet... a tradition you could only observe in CCC (central calif coast)

Charlie (BJ's BFF) showing Eric what's up (actually what's down)

Samson (BJ's nephew)

I want a Jellyfish aquarium in my house! Friday, we went to the Aquarium... The only thing new since I was last there is the Great White Shark, which I attempted to photograph here. The GW wasn't that great (only 6 feet or so) but it did have the scary Jaws look to it.

Friday's sunset on Pebble Beach

Full moon... can you see the white Crane on the rocks?

Saturday - We went to Big Sur and hiked a little. Some random woman asked if she could take our picture in this tree, so search blogs everywhere for this same photo...

Big Sur View
After our hike, we went to a hippie crafts fair and met some bonafide hippies selling homemade treasures... including Holy Bowls

Waterfall in Big Sur

Serious tree-huggers :) BJ was annoyed that I made him take this pic...