Ridgeline Ramble Race Re-cap

*This post is a little over-due. I wrote it once, accidentally deleted half of it, and decided to punish it by leaving it in the draft file by itself for two-weeks. Now I'm back to finish what I started.


I had this great idea about a month ago. I should have learned by now that most of my great ideas really aren't.
I saw this inaugural trail marathon advertised on a race site. I shouldn't have given it a second thought. But I did. I gave it a second thought and a third thought and a fourth thought. Then I signed myself up.
Typically, signing up for a race is pretty well within the norm of my crazy running habit. The problem with this registration was that the marathon was six days after the half marathon that I was actually training for. I didn't have time to train for a marathon, but figured my half marathon training would carry me through. I checked and re-checked the site. It said there was just over 900 feet in elevation gain. My plan was to take it easy and to run it as a "fun" sort of trail/training run, but I had no intention of actually trying to race it.
About three days before the event, the race director e-mailed the 24 of us who were brave enough, in his words, to sign up. I started thinking, "Brave? Why are we brave? Isn't this just a nice little trail run?" I continued reading the e-mail and stopped at phrases like "If it were easy, everyone would do it," and "should search and rescue need to find you..." I went back to the website trying to see what I was missing. I couldn't find any reason to worry, but nonetheless, I had a full 24 hours worth of anxiety stomach leading up to race day.
I woke up a little before 5:00 to the sound of rain. It rained on my way to Eugene. It rained on the starting line. At some point the rain stopped, but then it started again. The race started at 7:00AM. It took about three miles to realize this was not going to be a nice little joy run. In three miles, we had already made 900 feet of elevation gain, and we were still climbing. In fact, we would end up climbing over 4100ft. In addition to the climb, the trail markers were a little fuzzy. We were supposed to follow the arrows backwards as 20k racers were going point to point and we were going out and back. This also meant that we met about 100 racers on the single track trails going in the opposite direction of us. Besides a few people getting mildly lost, and all of us getting filthy dirty, it was an entertaining experience. I ran with a guy who was racing the marathon distance for the first time. His name was Dave Johnson. He's about the 4th Dave Johnson I've met. He passed me on almost every downhill, and I passed him on almost every up hill. It started to become kind of a joke. In the end, I was the 3rd female and 7th finisher. I'm glad I did it, but I don't think I'd ever do it to race it. If I sign up next year, it'll be another chance at a "fun trail run." And that's my story.

Evolution of a Backyard

This past summer Ross decided we needed to do something about our backyard to make it a little more functional, and a little less of a hole. When we initially moved into the house, the yard looked like this (post mowing, which trimmed the grass and weeds down about 8inches):



The next thing we did was to turn the former dog kennel into a garden. This basically just entailed tilling up a portion of the yard.


The grass was still lumpy and the fence was falling over. There was nowhere to plant flowers, and the dog turned the section along the house into a muddy path.

Then the fence blew over.

That motivated us to have the fence replaced. An awesome group of teens from Ross' school took care of that.

Next, I dug up a section of the yard in front of the fence and made it a flower bed. Then Ross fixed it and made it a symmetrical half circle flower bed instead of the misshapen orb I had going. Then he dug up three more and we added barrel planters in between each of them. We also put a rock border along the house to keep the mud at bay where the dog likes to run...and whine.

But something was still missing. Namely grass. Ross talked to some friends and decided to kill the whole yard and start from scratch. He put plastic down, and it looked like this for three months:



Then came my favorite part. He pulled some of the plastic up:

(Got a little muddy in the process.)

...And he made me three huge and awesome (and square) raised beds. He bordered these with pavers and rocks.



Finally, he and a friend planted the grass. It's still filling in, but it looks like this:



And I am so excited!

What's going on in this picture?

A) Ross drank something sour, and Jesse drank something sweet.
B) Ross took a drink of something sweet and just found out Jesse spiked it with something sour.
C) Jesse has a wandering right hand.
D) Jesse has gas and Ross is just finding out.
E) Both C and D.

Catching up

I'm so far behind on blogging I don't even know where to start. I'll just do a little re-cap in pictures if I can.
First, we spent Mother's Day in RR with Mama-Joe and the fam. Ross went hunting and came back with this:

Mom and I went on a couple of sweet runs. One to the top of a mountain with an incredible view...but I didn't have a camera. I did, however, take a few pictures of these beautiful tulips Mom has growing off of her deck. I was a little jealous of these.


Next we had the weekend of Iris festival races. Mom, Shae, Gigi and I all ran. I got it handed to me on a silver platter by T-Ball (see previous post). Mom and I beat him, but not even remotely by the amount of time I had given him. Consequently, I'm eating crow for lunch all week and he is getting a free lunch from me.

I really hate losing.

Most recently, I got to meet up with my big sis and sweet nephew for a little photo shoot at the Iris garden in Keizer. Here are a few photos from that excursion.

I'm not competitive...

...I just like to win.

In three weeks it will be Iris Festival weekend. Every year I have been a little more involved in the details and planning of the races scheduled to run on Saturday and Sunday of the Iris Festival. For those who might want to join me here is the link and the dates are May 21st and 22nd.
Mom ran and was the overall winner of the half marathon the first year I participated in the event. Here's a little throw back to that year:

Last year, in her absence, I had to uphold the family name and take it to all the other women on the course. It was a small sacrifice.
This year we're both back, and my little older sis will be representing in the 10K. It should be a fun family affair.
I do, however, have a little side bet going that will need to be reckoned with. See, there's this guy at work. He thinks he can beat me. I offered to give him a handicap and to lay some bets. So, the deal is, I'm giving this very confident, well intentioned individual a minute a mile. That's a very generous 13min handicap, and I just want to put it out there, that barring illness or injury, I still think I have him whipped. For the record I would like to state that my mother will also beat him. Not only will she beat him, but I would like to wager that she'll have him by a solid five minutes. Now we just need to figure out what to bet. I want to win something good...