My body doesn't heal like it used to.

I am dealing with my first knee injury. Apparently I have a small tear in my left medial meniscus. Wow, does it hurt sometimes. I saw a PT yesterday and he gave me some exercises for it. This is just going to take a lot of patience on my part.

Can't believe my baby is 9!

Time sure has gone fast. I can't believe it's been 9 years since I was pregnant, but it has been. Scott's name was a hard one to come up with. Before him we had 4 boys and since I had picked out several girl names (thinking that I'd have all girls) I didn't have any names for this one. It took us a while to come up with his name, but then we decided on Scott Thomas Clark. He has Three last names. For some people these are three First names. For I know many people with the first name Scott, others with a  first name of Thomas and I know a guy named Clark. Anyway Scott was named after Richard G. Scott, Thomas S. Monson and Clark because that just makes sense.  Scott we are so glad to have you in our family.  Your three last names mean that you are the last Clark child to be in our family.  It's very special to be the baby!

Here is a very current picture of Scott taken this past Sunday before church.

Another picture.  I asked him to smile naturally, this is what I got!

Scott asked for a Strawberry cake with vanilla icing with strawberries on top.  This is what I came up with.

Another picture, this time with candles.

He is thrilled to have his birthday!  For dinner the family went to Scott's pick of a restaurant, he picked Bennigans

Scott actually asked for clothes for this birthday.  He likes this shirt.

Scott asked for LOTS OF LEGOS, so I bought him a few different sets.  He was thrilled.

5th Annual Go the Distance for Crime Victims 5K Race

Saturday, April 16, 2011 in Marion, Iowa didn't turn out to have nice weather as I had hoped for.  In fact it was horrible weather for April.  Stephany and I met at 7:30a.m. in North Liberty to go to our race.  It was raining pretty steady.  When we were 15 minutes into our drive the rain looked like snow.  Sure enough what looked like snow was.  It wouldn't have been so bad without the wind. However the wind was 20-25m.p.h. and the snow became larger and larger as the minutes drew on.

We arrived at our race at 8a.m. and by then it was snowing pretty heavy.  We quickly picked up our packets (which had in them a couple pens, lip balm, granola bar, biofreeze sample, our shirt and some coupons) and then we headed for the car.  We didn't want to take our Before pictures outside because it was THAT cold.

So here in the car we are taking our before pictures and we stayed in the car until 15 minutes before the race. Only then did we exit so we could find a bathroom and line up for the race.

Stephany and I in the car waiting for the race to begin.

Another before picture in the car, this time with our race numbers.  Notice the car windows and how icy they appear.  I should have taken a picture of the outside.  There was at least 2 inches outside and the snow wasn't stopping.

After our race, sitting in the car once again.  I had worn that green ugly poncho for the entire race, it was hard to run in, but kept me dry.  I also wore an ear guard headband, a hat (shown above) and gloves.  

Stephany and I again.

Here is a picture where the race started.  This was taken a half hour after the race ended and the snow was already starting to melt fast.  There had been so much more that covered the streets and grass.

Here is a picture of the shelter we were in, since there were no walls it was so cold and people just grabbed food and left.  The race director announced before the race that it was too cold to hold awards after so he would mail them to everyone and to just get your post race food and leave.

Eventually while running I warmed up, but it took me about 2 miles before I took my gloves off.  I never took my poncho, hat, or headband off, those stayed.  I had stepped in several deep puddles so my shoes were soaked and the first mile my feet were freezing.  I was thinking that I'd never warm up, but after about a mile my feet were warm the entire time.

Because of the severe wind, everyone seemed to be slower than normal.  Both Stephany and I didn't have the greatest times, in fact my time was 4 minutes slower than last week's 5K race.  My time was 31:13 when I crossed the finish, although the race report says my time was 31:15.  Either way,  I felt lucky to finish at all.  I'm glad I did because I proved that I can run in anything now.

I was 34 out of 78 Female finishers, 83 out of 146 total finishers and 9th out of 32 in my age group.  My age group of 30-39 was the largest age group to show up, so I feel great about being 9th place.

Funny thing, the person who placed 1st in my age group had a time of 27:10  That was my time last week, so if only I could have done that again then I would have placed in the top 3.

My next race is in two weeks and I'm praying for better weather with no snow or wind.

Music

As I was listening to a choral piece by Eric Whitacre today at work, I was reminded of the power of music. Music has an indescribable influence on our thoughts and emotions. I have always loved music - particularly music with intricate rythms and complex harmonies. I unfortunately don't have the musicality of my sisters or the near-perfect pitch of my oldest son but I still like to sing. My classes at the gym can attest to that and are probably grateful when the vocal range of a song is too high for me because I stop singing. The piece I was listening to is called Sleep. It is a slow, classical piece that he wrote in 2000. The harmonies are beautiful and the song has a very ethereal feel to it. If art is about eliciting emotion than music is the highest form of art. What turned me on to this song was a TED talk given Eric Whitacre in which a described a social experiment that he did. He posted a video of him directing the music to each of the 8 parts. He than asked people to submit videos of themselves singing the parts. Once that was done, the audio of each video was spliced together. The resulting performance is particularly stunning in light of the fact that each performer was a stranger to the others. There were over 2000 voices from 53 countries. The music is beautiful and very peaceful. I haven't tried yet but I am sure you could find the performance I described on YouTube.

Live Healthy Linn 5K

This was a great 5K race that I recommend everyone participate in.  It was ONLY $10 to enter this race.  It was chip timed so we knew our results immediately after the race.  They had a microphone so EVERYONE could hear all announcements at all times.  The post race food was plentiful.  They had regular popcorn, carmel popcorn, fruit treats, granola bars, water, Gatorade, bagels of all kinds and bananas.  We got a shirt and then there were numerous door prizes after the race.

The course had 3 hills, a small one, then medium and then a large hill.  After you conquered the 3 hills the entire race was downhill for the last 1 1/2 miles of it and that was AWESOME because I felt that I was just being pulled to the finish.    I was running next to a man aged 70 named Ron that helped me finish.  I had run up next to him and we were next to each other for several blocks, and that was about 3/4's of a mile before the race ended.  I started to breathe heavy and weird and he asked if I was okay. I told him my stomach hurt and that I felt like I was going to throw up.  He then told me to do a body check.  He said, "Are your feet  feeling okay?"  "Are your knees feeling okay?"  "Are your hips okay?"  I told him all those things felt great.  I asked him how he was feeling and he said, "I'm okay."    Then he said, "Just push past the pain you can beat this old man."   At one point I started to walk for about 3-4 seconds and he said, "Oh no you don't, push through the pain."  So I pushed and I gave it all I had.  I pretended that someone was chasing me and because of that had my best race ever.  Thank you Ron from Cedar Rapids!

 I achieved a Personal Best time of 27:10  and this beats my last personal best by almost a whole minute.  My last personal best time was 28:02  so this new time is incredible for me.  I know it was because I was coached by Ron.

Here are all my official stats:

Time 27:10

Race pace 8:45 minute mile

I was 83 out of 191 total participants, 35 of 127 Women, and 13th place out of 63 in my age group of 30-39!

Stephany and I before our race began.  It was a little cold out,  but nice and not raining.

another after race picture

All the goodies in our packets!

More pictures of Abby.

This is one of my favorite pictures so far.

We have now had her 6 days and she is officially 7 weeks old.  She is growing a ton and soon will be a really big dog.  Last night she actually slept for 6 hours straight.  It was a miracle!

You can see the white on her belly.

Check out her left back paw, she has white fur there too.

Yes my kitchen floor needed cleaned badly.

We took a picture of ourselves!  I had just taught Zumba so I look a little worn out.  Look we both have hazel eyes.  When you enlarge the pictures you can see my contacts on my eyes, weird.

Scott said, "When you lay on the floor the dog will lick you."  I don't think he's laid on the floor since.

Princess Abby Buttercup

I would have liked to call her Buttercup, after Princess Buttercup in Princess Bride.  Not everyone agreed on that.  The name Abby came up over and over and over.  It was the only name EVERYONE thought sounded nice.  My hangup with the name is that it is my niece's name.  What we kept running into with names is Every name we picked was someone we know.  It was either an old girlfriend of Caleb's, or an old girlfriend of Jason, or a name of a girl I didn't care for in High School.  Or the name of my Dentist I just switched from because I don't like the way she does things.  I could go on and on.  Then I picked out two names I just loved which were Addaline and calling her Addi and Brindy and calling her Brin.  Jason didn't like either of them.   I pondered names of Stars in the heavens, to Queens in the Bible, to well behaved famous Women in history.  Nothing was sticking.  I did like Esther, but not everyone thought that matched her.

So here we are hours after picking up our darling puppy and no name for her.

Finally Jason says, "Let's just go with what everyone liked."  I said, "The only name everyone likes is Abby."  I just hope my beautiful niece of mine Abby isn't offended.  Here are some pictures of our beautiful new addition.

This is one of her first pictures taken.  She didn't have a name yet.

She sleeps a lot and doesn't seem to mind her kennel.  Brenden insisted that she use one of his blankets.

Love this picture of her sleeping.

Half in-Half out.

Scott has many pictures with Abby, he insists on new pictures often.

Alyssa with Abby.

I just took this picture a few minutes ago, it's one of my favorites so far.


When no one is around and it's just me and her I call her Buttercup!

L.I.S. Panther Pride 5K Race

Alyssa, Brenden and Scott being silly in the van.

 Today we had a race in Williamsburg, Iowa called the L.I.S. Panther Pride 5K.  This was a fundraiser race so this Lutheran school could get playground equipment.  My friend Tracy lives in Williamsburg and today we were going to pick up our puppy from Tracy, so running a race was a great start to the day.

It was a gorgeous day of 54 degrees, bright and sunny.  Perfect running weather.  When we raced it was around 42 degrees so I still had cold weather running clothes on.

Only Alyssa, Scott and Brenden wanted to come along.  We also picked up my friend Stephany on the way there so she could race too.

We don't have times for this race because there was a mess up with the way they did the times and no one will ever know what their time was.  However even with that messed up, it was a Super organized race with lots of volunteers that were on every corner telling us where to turn and cheering us on.  Also there was fabulous post race food and many door prizes.  Each of us won a door prize.   We do know however what place we were in, just not how fast.  I placed 6th of 13 in my age group and Jason placed 4th in his age group.

Here is Stephany and Alyssa.

Tracy, Stephany and Me before the race.

Jason and I before the race.  Jason got my lucky number 13.  I had #12.

Tracy finishing her race

Alyssa took pictures of us running, here is Jason.

I'm in the background if you look hard.  I'm running up the hill.

Me almost at the finish.

Jason, Me, Stephany and Tracy posing for a picture after our races were over.

All of us again

A great picture of Jason and I inside the gym waiting for our name to be called for door prizes.  I actually won a $25 Gift card to Theisen's!

Taking a picture of ourselves!