Give your absolute best

This was in a nutshell my pep talk to my youngest daughter after learning of her yet again bad attitude at softball practice. Keep in mind she is 7.

"You are on a team and when you don't give your very best, you not only hurt the team, you are hurting yourself. It doesn't matter if you are playing in a sport, your at school, doing your homework, or you are helping out at home, you need to always give your 100% best effort every time. I don't care if you have a headache, or your foot hurts, the ball hit you a little bit hard, or you don't feel like participating, you need to give your absolute best. Now I want to always see you giving your absolute best. Do you understand me?" mom

"Yes mama" Kayla says

Never Quit

"Go over, under, through, but never give up!"

My take on The Portland Marathon

Almost done running marathon #1
Running over the Bridge during marathon #2

Hagg Lake, the first timeForest Park injury, ultra #4. I had fallen on rocks at mile 30. Whole different story.

I remember in 2005 when I was trying to decide if I should take the plunge and run the Portland Marathon for the first time, I emailed the event coordinators a question. Keep in mind the furthest I had run was a 9 mile fluke on my treadmill. I said "if I sign up for the race, would I be able to walk?" I asked them this because I remember watching the Olympics and some lady stopped and got disqualified. If the race coordinators had said no, I would had never signed up. So I started training. I remember my first run was a 10 mile race around Hagg Lake and my 2nd event was with Team Oregon training group. We met at the Wildwood trail and I had on a pair of Nike running shoes that I bought off of craigslist for like $20 and 2 big screw off cap water bottles. Oh brother! I never breathed so hard in my life those 10 miles. Highly wouldn't suggest running on Wildwood when you've hardly ran before. So I trained with the group and every mileage was a new adventure, I also went to clinics and speed training. I was ready and I did fairly well at the Marathon, 4:27 or so. I ran the whole distance, never walked. So my line became "there's no walking or crying in marathons) But my point in writing is this. I will forever grateful to the training that I received and for actually running my first marathon, an experience that I will never forget. And, I will always tell newbies they should definitely run it. But, at the time it was $85-90 to sign up. I have since ran 2 other marathons and 5 ultra marathons with the distance of 31 miles. I have been trying to decide what to do next. Should I run Portland again, should I run a marathon at Mt. Hood? I got an email today and it said it would give me a discount off the registration fee of $135. $135 for a marathon! How and why did that jump up so much? I don't think it is even worth it. They have water stations every 2 miles, sometimes every mile, it is way to crowded. I don't know what the cut off is this year, but in the past it has been about 9000. 9000 people! That is absolutely crazy. I think they treat the runners like babies, with the aid stations, 1000's of Honey buckets. Even at the training group that I ran with in 2005-2006, a friend of mine got a blister and they told her to not run anymore and drove her back to the start. Do you know what they do at ultra's? Pop it for you, duck tape it and send you on your way. If you get a cut that is bad, uh super glue it. Hey, I would do it. When I ran my last, I was whining up a storm, nobody patted me on my head, they ignored my big baby attitude and it's a good thing. If they had treated me like a baby, I would have quit. No, at my 31 mileage races, 3 aid stations and 1 is at the start, 2 Honey Buckets (not counting the ones at the start) and you are pretty much running by yourself through the woods, your lucky to spot someone else. And guess what? It's $55! Yup for 5 more miles and the happy rights to call yourself a Ultra Marathon runner, $55.00 While I may be perfectly content right now running 31 miles, I know when the time is right, I will run my first 50 and I hope the Honey Buckets are few and far in distance, aid stations spread out by many mileage and someone duck tapes my swollen foot!

Compliments

I remember when I was a teenager and I worked in the snack bar at the movie theaters. One night this man walked right up to me and told me that I was beautiful and then walked away.

Yesterday I got a compliment from an old friend and it stuck with me all day.
I love to give compliments to strangers, a genuine compliment. I know it lifts their spirits and it lifts mine to give it.

Day 1 of The Mattos Fast Challenge

I am giving up sugar for 30 days on a challenge. I am hoping to restore my energy levels. I am going to do my best as sugar is in everything and that is scary! High fructose corn syrup is even in Costco's bagels. HFCS is even in hamburger buns, think I'll just make my own. Sugar is everywhere! No wonder why the USA has the highest amount of overweight people. I did find a tortilla that is made without sugar and I was happy. I made a brand new homemade coffee creamer yesterday and later realized that I can't have it with my morning coffee, I made it with 2 cups of sugar. The yogurt that I buy has 34 grams of sugar (that's 5.5 tablespoons), a can of Shasta soda has 38 grams (6 tablespoons). Wow! Ummm isn't yogurt supposed to be good for you? I replaced that with plain yogurt, put some berries in it and sprinkled it with Stevia. I also bought a lot of fresh fruits/veggies. Fruit is a great natural sweetener.

http://www.healingdaily.com/detoxification-diet/sugar.htm

Forest Park Ultra Marathon

It's the 30 mile trail that I have ran all of. It's the trail that I have told wild stories to my children, claiming to have seen trail warriors and they've chase me with sticks. It's the unforgiving trail of blood, sweat and tears. You step wrong, you fall. It is the trail of many many miles ran. It's the trail that I yelled out at the end of my last ultra "this is my playground" It's Wildwood!!!
So, in all seriousness. I am thinking about running the Forest Park Ultra Marathon for the 3rd time. It is my playground after all.
The first time, some jokesters thought that it was funny to move the directional markers on the course and lots of people got lost. It also had rained 1 inch while I was running it and it was a mud pit. The 2nd time around, I trained there every weekend with my map on hand. I knew where I was headed at the start of the race, I didn't get lost and had a wonderful time. Well I did badly cramp up at the end, got distracted by a little boy, bit it on rocks, cramped up even more, yelled out "help me, help me" a man helped me up, I grabbed onto a nearby fence, started walking, then jogging, followed by sprinting to the finish line. I love oil line rd, steep incline with a huggable or hold on to me tree at the end just to make it off of it.

http://www.pctrailruns.com/Forest_Park.htm

Happy 7th Birthday

Today is April 3rd. It is my daughter's 7th birthday. She is such a blessing to me. She is in the 1st grade. She is very smart, school is very easy for her. She can read as well as any 3rd grader. She is normally good and likes to please her parents. But, if she is angry it is WW3 around our house, lets just say...you'd better duck or hide. We call her bossy pants as that is what she is. We call her mini Jeannie, she loves to imitate me. She is the person in the family that likes to make peace and bring it. If her sister hits her, she will not tell on her. She loves her. She is good at sports, loves soccer. We are very proud of our daughter.
Happy Birthday~