Readying for the race

On your mark, get set, GO!

Coming in from the run

Transition from run to bike

Starting the mountain bike portion

Final transition from bike to boat

Running to the put-in

Kayaking through a rapid

Pulling into the finish line

July 11, 2007

Isn’t it amazing how fast things can change? I haven’t made a blog entry for awhile for two reasons. One, because our business has been keeping us busy pretty much everyday until late in the evening. Two, because we’ve had a total change of heart and it’s hard to explain that. So here’s my feeble attempt at an explanation. Just prior to Memorial Day I went for a run and passed a lot for sale by the river park in town. I told Kirk about it and suddenly we were getting all excited talking about the possibility of building on a lot in town instead of building on our property (which is currently about 20 miles away from town). After we rode the emotional rollercoaster up the big hill and down the other side, we looked in the face of reality and talked about what just happened. We decided that we really shouldn’t be building 20 miles from town when what we really want is to live in town. We spend so much time at our office and we love walking around town during the day that it just makes sense. We talked about how our current property really did serve a purpose. It was a great thing for us while we were at the Pole because it gave us something to look forward to when we came back. It gave us a sense of having roots. It also provided us with a wonderful place to camp out in a tepee and experience life outside for 5 months last year (and 4 months so far this year). Living outside was a welcome scenario after such a long stint of being stuck inside. So I guess the final conclusion is that our property has served its purpose and now it’s time to move on. It’s hard in some ways because we felt like we had a direction, we had an approved building permit and we were days from breaking ground! It was a harsh slap in the face. Thankfully the building department refunded most of our money and we proceeded to put our property up for sale. We are now currently looking for property in town. We haven’t found anything yet, but we’re not in a huge rush knowing we can live in the tepee at least until the fall. We aren’t sure whether we will buy a lot to build on or buy a pre-owned home. We’re hoping we will figure out the right thing when it comes along. It’s probably a good thing that it worked out this way because we honestly we wouldn’t have had time to start building our house this summer due to our workload anyway.

In the meantime, we’ve still made time for the outdoor activities we love. Kirk has been kayaking as much as possible before the water dies down. He also has been mountain biking a fair amount. He participated in the Clear Creek Challenge again this year on June 6^th. It was a 5 mile run, 20 mile mountain bike and a 12 mile kayak. He took 3rd this year which was exciting (last year he took 2nd). Of course his goal was to take first place but he was competing against 2 professional athletes this time around that ended up with first and second place. Those guys were fit! I’ve been training for the Baltimore marathon (my first) that I will do in October so I've been running in a bunch of races. I don't run to win, just to finish. I participated in the Bolder Boulder for the first time on Memorial Day which was a blast. I talked my parents into walking it (6.2 miles) while I ran it with my running partner. It was by far the most entertaining running event that I've been to. My parents did really well too even though my mom suffered a bit of heat exhaustion. I was really proud of them and they're ready to sign up again next year. Cool! I never thought I would ever run this far in my life much less participate in a marathon, so it's exciting. So far the furthest I have run with my running partner is 17 miles. We're supposed to run 20 miles this Sunday. Yikes!

Well, not much else to report. Until next time.....