Mt Tamalpais Trail Run

After watching (via the Internet) his brother Justin complete the 100-mile Run Rabbit Run trail race in Colorado, Damon decided it was time to train for another ultra-marathon himself. (Remember the Badger Mountain Challenge?) He signed up for the 50k Mt. Tamalpais Trail Run, and then went about inviting friends, co-workers, and family to join him. He got one taker: my brother Jed.

The race was on November 16, 2013. Damon's parents came up for the weekend. Damon's dad took him to the starting line early in the morning, and the rest of us joined them in the afternoon. We met my sister-in-law Joette at the finish line and awaited the runners.

Mid-way through the grueling (there was a ladder!) trail that went through the Marin Headlands up to Mt. Tamalpais, Jed realized that he was not going to make it the full 50 kilometers during the allotted time. He decided to shift to the 30k trail, and completed that in 5 hours and 44 minutes. We and he were all still very proud of this accomplishment. This was Jed's first long-distance running race ever.

Damon stuck it out and completed his 50 k in 7 hours 11 minutes 36 seconds. (The clock in the photo below says 7:13:02, but his official "chip time" was shorter since he was at the back of the pack at the starting line.) The kids joined him for the last 50 yards or so; that's Maggie next to him.

Here are the victorious runners. Can you tell who's been resting at the finish line longer?

Damon was exhausted. We let him relax on the grass for a bit, but then we dragged him to our niece's first birthday party before finally taking him home.

Jed declared that he NEVER needed to do anything like that again. He was glad he did it and felt proud, but had NO desire to ever do anything like it again . . . until Damon talked to him a few days later. He was already coming around to the idea of trying it again next year. 50k all the way next time!!

Leaf Olympics

We have some nice large trees in our yard. They drop lots and lots of leaves. In the fall I got my children excited to help me clean them up by enthusiastically announcing THE LEAF OLYMPICS!! I thought it was a rather clever idea.

Our first event was not captured on film and was also not very successful. We tipped our green trash bin on its side and tried to blow the leaves directly into it using the leaf blower. It didn't really work. It really just made them fly up in the air. Still, everyone got a turn clearing the driveway and the rocks by our sidewalk with the leaf blower. Once they were in the gutter we used rakes and brooms to get them in the bin.

The next event was much more fun: leaf hurdles Really, it just involved raking the leaves into long parallel piles so that the kids could run and jump over them. This was a great success.

And, with only minimal grumbling (compared to some other clean-up-the-yard attempts), everyone stuck around to help when the athletic competition was complete. We got all the leaves into the bin and had a nice clean yard.

Good thinking, Mom.

P.S. Notice the autumn wardrobe. It was the first week of November. Good thing those leaves were falling, or we might have assumed it was still summer.