M.C. Escher

Eli was part of a "Living Museum" in his class last week. Each child chose someone noteworthy to research and then made posters about their person. On Wednesday they dressed up and told their life story for about 8 groups who toured their class throughout the day.
Eli (on is own) chose the artist M.C. Escher. I have a big coffee-table book of his works I purchased back in high school that Eli has enjoyed looking at lately. He did a great job telling about his life and, in all humility, his was the best looking poster in the class. :)

Brandt:

I just walked into our tv room to see what the boys were watching. It sounded pretty intense for a Nickelodeon cartoon.
Me: "Hey guys, watcha watchin'?"
Eli and Brandt: "Avatar"
Me: "It looks a little scary."
Brandt: "No, it's not scary. It's FICTION."

Workouts this week

I've taken a break from posting my workouts, but it does help motivate me to do it, so I'm starting back up:
Last week (beginning the 13th) I mostly biked all week. I ran on Monday, but my left shin was giving me lots of trouble. I think it got strained from the grade on the Talladega track. This week I started back to running.
Monday I ran41 minutes at an easy pace (but did the hills of Sherman Oaks). I did a full-body weight workout, too.
Tuesday I ran 52 minutes--out to the historic area, around and back. I was in a bit of daze all day from the Dave Matthews concert the night before. To just call the performance awesome would be an understatement. Truly amazing skillful, artful, entertainment. We had so much fun hearing and watching them play a lot of old and new stuff.
Wednesday I biked 50 minutes.
Thursday I ran intervals on the treadmills. I started around 9mph and moved up to close to 10 by the end. I did a total of about 3 miles of intervals, plus a mile warmup and cooldown. I also did weights.
Today (Friday) I ran with Ashley. I think it is about a 5.8 mile route and we did it in about 48 minutes.

5 days and counting down...

Can't wait!!!

Easter

Conference Craftlies

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This post is a bit delayed, but I wanted to share it anyway. We had our church's bi-annual General Conference last weekend. This is a weekend in which members all over the world listen to and watch the prophet, apostles and other church leaders speak to us. We can watch it on BYU-TV via satellite. This is a wondrous privilege, but since it is two 2-hour sessions Saturday and Sunday, it helps for the boys to have something to keep their hands busy. Eli got this great book of crafts, and we made many fun creations over conference weekend.

TALLADEGA!!!!

The race was super--perfect weather, awesome course, well managed, and I was happy with my run. I figured a couple of things out, too. One, drinking Gatorade at almost every aid station is not a good enough way to keep away the painful symptoms of dehydration that I'm so prone to (Pepto-Bismol became my best friend--that and the closest toilet). Secondly, I have no desire to run a full-marathon. I was sufficiently beat after a half. Stomach cramps started to plague me at about 10 miles, and my calves were cramping for the last mile. I was glad it was over when it was. I ended up finishing in 1:46:55.

Long week...

This week was one of the longer ones I've had in a while. It was a good week, but I think the anticipation of our first track meet, which was originally re-scheduled for Thursday but because of a tornado watch and rain we moved to Friday, made it kind of drag. I also had some marketing work to do, which made my time fuller, as well as my laundry baskets.

Workouts:
Tuesday I biked 50 minutes and did weights.
Wednesday I ran 52 minutes at an easy pace.
Thursday I did speed work on the treadmill: 1 mile warm-up, Three 1 mile intervals plus a couple of 1-2 minute speed bursts. I ran the miles at about 8.4 mph. I ran a total of 6 miles. I needed to do some longer speed training before the half marathon, so hopefully this will help my pace some. My pace for my long training runs has been okay, but not great (about 8:20), so I'm not sure how fast this race will be for me...
Friday I ran with Ashley for 6 miles (50 minutes). That night was the track meet. It was 90 kids, 4.5 hours of races and field events. I started about 54 races, having to yell "On your mark, Get set, Go" since I didn't have a megaphone. See my club's blog for the things I learned from this first meet. I came home feeling similarly to how I feel after a 18+ mile run, but I recovered much more quickly.
Saturday we watched General Conference. I biked downstairs while watching the second session. It was actually very nice. I probably paid better attention during that session than any of them. I biked 20 miles in 59 minutes and did upper-body weights. I'm laying off the leg weights until after the half this Saturday.