Busier Than I Know How To Be

I need more hours in this week!! I started the day with a run around the bottom of the hill. When I returned home I unplugged the computer and what seems like about 87 wires/cables/plugs and moved it from the office into the dining room so the new carpet could be laid. It looks great.

Got new carpet in the office, too.

Tuesday evening the Monthly Social Night will be at Brothers. No running required. Any time after 6:00 people will start drifting in. If you'd like to run beforehand, there will be people on the Soldier's Field track and/or hills at 5:00 or 5:30 pm.

There were 4 state records set at the Fetzer 20K on Saturday. Congratulations to: Andriette Wickstrom, Rosemary Harnly, Dick Westerlund and Sandra Dalquist. I made certificates for each of them and mailed them out today.

Peg asked me to write a story about the Fetzer for the Running Room eMagazine, which I did today. You never know whose mug will turn up in the photos. :-)

I had a dentist appointment this afternoon. I arrived at 3:40 and was told my appointment was at 2:40. I felt terrible. So I went home and checked my calendar. I'd written down 3:40, but that could have been in error. Then I checked the appointment card.

Not my bad after all. But I do have to go back to the dentist tomorrow at 3:30. So instead I went to Menards to get new register covers and then worked out in the yard.

Mederic Hall M.D. (and triathlete) is doing a study on the heel and needs participants who are runners. I'm getting an ultrasound tomorrow noon. Here's the lowdown:

Fellow runners and multisport athletes, I am in need of your help. I am conducting a study titled “Sonographic Evaluation of the Plantar Heel in Asymptomatic Endurance Runners”. I will be scanning the heels of runners with ultrasound to better understand the normal appearance of these structures in running athletes who do not have heel pain.


The procedure will take approximately 15 minutes to complete and will be painless. Ultrasound is safe and does not expose one to radiation.

If you run at least 15 miles/week on average for the past 6 months, have not had to visit a medical ...professional regarding pain in your heel and have not had surgery on your heel then you qualify for the study.

I will be using a portable ultrasound machine, which means I can scan you at the Sports Medicine Center, at your house, at my house, where ever you would be willing to meet me for a few minutes.

If you are interested please contact me via e...mail at mederic.hall@gmail.com  or hall.mederic@mayo.edu , or via Facebook. Thank you for your contributions to advancing medical knowledge and care of running athletes!

Jim Parry is doing another endurance challenge to raise funds for the Y Strong Kids Campaign. He will be running on a treadmill at the Y for 17 hours. You can sign up at the Y to run with him. You do not have to be a member of the Y to run with Jim. Please consider supporting him in whatever way you can. More info on Facebook.

Time to call it a day. Good night.

Cooking Light April 2011

A delicious, relaxing meal at Barbara's home tonight. On the menu:

Wine Mary
Black Bean Hummus
Sparking Meyer Lemon Cocktail (me)
Meyer Lemon Curd Tart
Lemon Risotto of choice
Meyer Lemon Chicken Piccata
Brussels Sprouts recipe of choice

Everything went together very well and was delicious. My favorite: probably the Brussels Spouts. I love them prepared just about any way except boiled or steamed. Barbara has such a lovely home and sets a beautiful table. Photobucket won't let me change the order of the photos (I think) so I apologize that they're kind of random. Thank you for a lovely evening Barbara. You are the hostess with the mostest!!

Where Do I Begin?

For now, I'll start with today, then tomorrow and then back up to yesterday. I started the morning at Dunn Bros on Elton Hills to run with my running buddies Laura, Jean, Kristin, Angie, Jenny and Tom.

We decided on a 10-mile route and headed out, north to HyVee,

where we met up with Mike Schmitt.

east up the l ... o ... n ... g hill, and into the wind, to Century H.S.,

down Viola Road and around the lake.

I got in 10.36 miles. Then most of us retired to Dunn Bros for breakfast, while Jenny continued running as she wanted an 18-miler today. (Thank you for volunteering yesterday Jenny!)

This afternoon ... errands. A stop at GAP as it was the last day of a 35% off everything sale. I found a cute LBD (Little Black Dress) with a deep V neckline and wrapped pleated front. Price $69.95. With the sale and rewards coupons, I paid $10.11. :-) Like. Then Aldi for 12 lemons for our Cooking Light dinner tomorrow night (big surprise ... it's got a lemon theme). Then Fleet Farm for water softener salt. 120 pounds. Ugh. It's a long haul to the basement. Then Kwik Trip for gas. $3.71/gallon, down from $3.75. It was VERY warm today. 80s.

Then to visit a friend in the hospital. Ran over there. 1.11 miles. Total for the day: 12.58. Then I trimmed some branches from a crabapple tree that are scraping the house in these terrible winds. Then moved all the furniture out of the family room and office so that new carpet can be installed in the morning. Another very full day.

Tomorrow: new carpet coming in the morning. Dentist in the afternoon to be fitted for a new bite guard. Cooking Light in the evening. Another very full day. They all are.

OK. Back to Fetzer. It went well. Really well. Thanks go solely to my awesome volunteers. And a big Thank You to the RTC Grand Prix sponsors.

For record-keeping purposed, we need 4 timing devices at the start. So it was the printer/timer and 3 watches with chronometers.

Thank you, Millie, for starting 2 of them for me! When I got out to the starting line, I asked Zack Nevala if he wanted to fire the starter's gun. He said yes!! He's SO cute. And he did a great job! Thanks, Zack!

The 20K was won by Pete Gilman in a time of 1:06:21.

The women's 20K was won by Mary Chestolowski in a time of 1:22:44.

The two-mile featured youth and adults. No one age 15-18 ran the race this year.

Back in the gym, Joel Dudgeon approached me and mentioned how much he enjoyed reading my little blog. Totally made my day. He seems like a very nice guy, and fast too. He took 2nd place in his age group running a 1:15:22.

I so appreciate those kind (of) comments. Keeps me going when I don't necessarily feel like posting. Here's a fun little photo ...

That's me on the floor. Standing are: Jen, Liz, Paul, Marni, Melissa, Pete. Thank you everyone for running and volunteering!!

And thank you, volunteers!



Andy, Trevor, Dave

Thank you Über Volunteers Wally and Jim. They set up and marked the course, set up the water stations and collected everything on the course after the race. You guys ROCK.

The last day or so, I've needed my friends. Thanks to all of you who let me talk. Thanks to all of you who have listened. I'll close this post with the lyrics from Friends by Elton John.

I hope the day will be a lighter highway
For friends are found on every road
Can you ever think of any better way
For the lost and weary travellers to go

Making friends for the world to see
Let the people know you got what you need
With a friend at hand you will see the light
If your friends are there then everything's all right

Good night, friends.

Thank You!!

I just returned from hosting (hostessing?) a Luther College (my alma mater) event at Zumbro Lutheran church. I really enjoyed it. But it's been a very full day, therefore this post will be short. I'll have much more tomorrow. Haven't downloaded any of my photos yet. These are from Nacho and Carole Pasternak.

 The Fetzer 20K and 2 mile went off without a hitch today thanks to my many, many volunteers. I arrived at Bamber Valley only to find out that they'd set us up in the cafeteria instead of the gym. After a phone call to his supervisor we got the event moved to the gym. We had everything set up by 7:00. Then I discovered that I'd left about half of the Reichel Foods snacks in my garage so went home for those. Those were pretty much the only glitches in the day. My Diet Coke kept me company. :-)

Fun was had by all at water stop #1, right Andy, Trevor and Dave?? Andy found some Silly String and funky hats (with the tags still on) at the dollar store.

Look out Dan!!

They got Jeff!

Well after being on my feet for 8 hours and then running 7.2 and then this evening's activities, I really need to call this a (very full) day.

Good night.

Only Hours Left

I have to say, everything is going very well for the Fetzer tomorrow. Thanks ESPECIALLY to all my wonderful volunteers. This years overachievers: Jim Mason (setup/course), Wally Arnold (setup/course), Jean Muray (volunteer checker-inner and course sweep). They each earn either a homemade pie of their chosing or a batch of cookies.

What I did today: Ran a lot of the course. Went to the RTC equipment shed. Twice. Loaded the starters' pistol. :-) Picked up Great Harvest race rolls. Picked up pita/hummus and apples/caramel at Reichel Foods. Got cash for the cash box. Downloaded the last of the online registrations. Created the alphabetized lists of pre-registered runners. Printed labels for the race numbers. Separated pre-registered shirts. Got registration stuff loaded on my laptop. Made a list of pre-race announcements. Sent about 10 email to Jim Mason. :-) Double-checked volunteer email list ... I forgot a few. My bad. Baked a batch of cookies for age-group awards and packaged them up. Setup for registration. Held registration from 5-8. Sent updated spreadsheet to the scorer. 9:00 ate supper (I was starving). All good. Things really are going smoothly. It's just non-stop activity.

Too lazy to download any photos from the evening. It will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm off to bed. Exhausted.

Toodles ...

A Day In The Life

A Day in the Life of a Race Director: Picked up 2 cases of bananas at Kwik Trip; dropped off printer/timers and laptops at John Resman's house; printed off labels for awards (chocolate bunnies and Running Room gift cards); downloaded more registrations from the Running Room website; got Laura's minivan for hauling "stuff" (a HUGE thank you, Laura);

sent John Resman the registration spreadsheet. I still have to separate T-shirts for pre-registered runners.

This morning, I ran 8.09 leisurely miles. I'm going to get on my soap box for a minute. I was on Salem Road and saw a McDonald's bag laying on the path along with several napkins and wrappers. It looked terrible. Really stuck out against that black path. So I stopped and picked it up and carried it home.

I just don't know what people are thinking when they toss trash out their window. I guess the best I can say is that they're not thinking. It's not going to disintegrate any time soon. It looks terrible. And now it's someone else's problem. I really wish we didn't even need to have "Adopt-A-Highway", "A Litter Bit Better", etc. I just don't get it. And to those that throw their cigarette butts out the window ... I can't tell you how many butts were along the path and especially the road last night. They've been there for a long time and are mixed in with dirt, sand, etc. and it's a REAL chore to pick them up. THROW THEM IN A TRASH CAN. End of tirade.

At 12:30, we presented Dr. Pruthi a $15,000 check for the proceeds from Lace-Up Against Breast Cancer. She updated us on the yoga study for newly-diagnosed patients. It sounds like a great program and I look forward to hearing about the results.

Me, Laura, Dr. Pruthi, John

As I mentioned yesterday, I registered for the New York City marathon based on last year's Wobegon marathon finishing time. They moved the guaranteed registration deadline up from April 30 to April 19, unbeknownst to me (thank you Tom Woo). Here's a link to the qualifying times, both marathon and half marathon times allow entry: http://www.nycmarathon.org/entrantinfo/apply.htm I'm now classified as a "veteran". :-0

I forgot to comment on Tuesday's movie with the gals, The Lincoln Lawyer. Starred Matthew McConaughey, Marissa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe, William H. Macy. It's a drama about a legal tangle and I enjoyed it. One of those where you really have to pay attention to dialogue.

This evening, I met Don Gabrielson at 5:30 for some early miles before Team R.E.D. I think we ran each other into the ground for 3 miles. :-) He said my pace was too much for him, but I say his pace was too much for me. :-) I baked some oatmeal raisin cookies for the troops.

I came home and made a salad for supper.

Now here I sit, blogging. Up for tomorrow: run part of the 20K course to check on conditions; print out labels for the race numbers; package up cookies for 20K age-group winners; separate pre-registered runners' T-shirts; get cash; pick up supplies at the shed; pick up apples/caramel, pita chips/hummus from Reichel Foods; pick up Race Rolls from Great Harvest; head over to Running Room late afternoon for registration, etc. Lots to do.

Enough for tonight. Sleep well.