Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Wild West Relay, 2 days after: What about energy bars on a stick?
















Scientists go to the fair!

When I realized Mark would be hanging out in Iowa for an extra day, I thought "Hmmm, what can we do? Aha! The Iowa State Fair!" I mentioned this to Mark and he seemed eager to see the Butter Cow. Teresa and Chrissy also wanted to go and Laurie was going to join us later with her husband, so we had a mini-team reunion (two days in a van with each other was apparently not enough time!)I don't remember much about the state fair, besides eating. Chrissy and I got deep fried Oreos. Teresa consumed a (veggie!) corn dog. And Mark got medieval on that turkey leg. Such healthy runners we all are!

For a much funnier analysis of the Iowa State Fair, visit my friend Finn's blog.

Mark left the next day, but not until coming to terms with my dog (Mark is not a dog person):
So, what's next? I think I told about 10 kabillion people that I was going to stop running after the relay to let my hamstring recover. The thing is, my hamstring didn't bother me the entire race. Not even after climbing the equivalent of Iowa's elevation over my three legs. At the beginning of August, I decided to cut my losses on the triathlon training for the Cyman this weekend because I didn't want to be hobbling on the run, which should theoretically be my best part. So now I feel like a wuss because the hammy only mildly bothers me occasionally.

And I feel even wussier because right now that I backed out of the tri, because I added the Toronto Half-Marathon on the calendar for October. I am not registered yet, until Lisa figures out her schedule for that weekend. Since Lisa missed the relay because of the terrorists, we needed to find another event for her to flex her new long distance running muscles on. And since the CO trip was supposed to be our once-per-year hanging out time, and Toronto is much cooler than Iowa, I decided a long weekend was in order. And anyways, I have a bone to pick with Toronto.

Well, I think I don't have anything much else to say about the relay. Oh except for this - I e-mailed the captain of the Sunflower Striders over a week ago to congratulate them and he finally got back to me. The reason it took so long? Several of their team members stayed in Colorado to run the Pikes Peak Marathon this past weekend. Now those are some ballsy Flatlanders!

8 comments:

Joe said...

those sunflower people are crazy. jeez.

ButterPeanut said...

boy, you know, I just realized that, every time we get together, disaster happens. Just imagine if I'd been in Iowa - something might have harmed the butter cow!

And that picture of mark is priceless.

Also, I think we should just keep this blog going with our running explots...till next year.

Danielle in Iowa in Ireland said...

Sounds like a plan :-)

But yeah, it is a little worrying that our reunions never go well...

Anonymous said...

Danielle here is a link to some of the pictures we took.
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2102667220&code=23795996&mode=invite&DCMP=isc-email-AlbumInvite

Danielle in Iowa in Ireland said...

I love the photos of you guys with the horses! Chrissy got chased by one as she was running.

So, which one are you? I didn't get to meet you during the relay (since you only met our Van 1), so it would be nice to put a face with the name :-)

Mark said...

It could have been worse... with the dogs and horses Chrissy had to deal with on her legs (thanks to Danielle for switching me to runner number 5 well in advance) in the end me and Lucky had come to an amicable arrangement.

John was the guy at the second exchange who had a spooky knowledge of our entire team - until he pointed out that he had been following our blog. They took some good pictures as well, probably every team has a photo of the Jackass Road sign.

Danielle in Iowa in Ireland said...

Hehe, I meant, which one in the photos is he :-)

Oh yeah, and Lucky misses you terribly! :-)

Anonymous said...

You just didn't know you were being stalked. I am the one driving the van when we were feeding the horses.