Seattle Half Marathon

A couple months ago my buddy from Portland signed up for the Seattle Half Marathon and he talked me into running it with him.  So I signed up and actually started to run more and train.  I have run plenty of half marathons before, but it was been several years so I had to increase my weekly mileage. I started running more for the past 2 months and was able to run and finish the race!

It was cold, but the course was amazing!  Running through downtown Seattle with tons of spectators, then on the freeway, to Mercer Island, along Lake Washington, through the woods and then back downtown.  It was a great course.  I finished at 1 hour 48 minutes.

Staircase Rapids Hike

After a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with my family and friends we spent the next day hiking and trying to find some snow! We headed to the Olympic National Forest with the same friends that we celebrated turkey day with and explored around Lake Cushman and hiked the Staircase Rapids loop trail.  It was cold out, but the scenery was amazing!  We found some snow and ice with plenty of green moss and amazing trees as well. It was wonderful!  The river was an amazing crystal blue/green color and we had a great time hiking all around.  We had a little lunch and hot cocoa at the end.  It was a prefect way to celebrate Black Friday! 

XC Nationals

My little sister and her team qualified to run at the NCAA Cross Country Nationals this year.  We have been following her and the BYU team all season long and since we were able to watch her run several times this year we were really excited for her to run at Nationals in Kentucky!  The race went well and she finished, but she lost her shoe at mile 1!!  Seriously she did.  It got flipped off and there were so many girls around that she chose to just keep running instead of stopping to put in on, tie it up, etc......  Crazy! But stuff like that happens.  It was still a cool experience for her to run and for all of our family to cheer her on!  Now we can cheer for her at the indoor track meets all winter long!

(Photos were used from www.byu.edu)