Racing/Volunteering!

Lately it seems our weekends have been booked with races Brian has signed up for. And since I don't have anything exciting going on in my personal life I just follow him where ever he goes. In the last month Brian has had 3 races. 2 down in the Provo area and 1 in Salt Lake. And all of these races start bright and early in the morning so luckily for the Provo races we were able to spend the night at Brian's grandma's house.

 On May 26th Brian ran the Timp Trail Half Marathon. It was held a little ways up Provo Canyon.

This is the elevation gain and loss of the race.  

Brian took 9th place overall and 2nd in his age division. I didn't get to see him come in at the finish line because he was quicker than he estimated. So I got there right after he finished and made him take a picture by the finish line.

Here is his neat finisher medal with his time and placement card.

On June 9th Brian ran the Utah Valley Marathon. The morning of the race we woke up at 3am so Brian could eat before I drove him down to the finish line where hundreds of runners were lined up by 4:15am waiting to be shuttled to the starting line in Wallsburg, up Provo canyon. 

After I dropped him off I hung out at his grandma's house for a little while then I headed up to mile 5 of the race where I had signed up to volunteer at an aid station. I was assigned to be there at 5:45am. I needed something to do while he was running and I got a neat shirt for volunteering.

 At this aid station we had powerade, water and porta potties. One of the porta potties had fallen over the night before so one of the other volunteers took a moment to meditate before the runners arrived. :)

The race started at 6am and the first runners came through our station about 31 minutes later. They were intense and kind of intimidating.

 Brian came through a little while after that. We were so swamped with runners and trying to fill powerade cups that I didn't notice what time it was when he came through and I was barely able to snatch a photo of his backside as he rushed by. He's the one in the white shirt without long socks.

It was really neat to see him in the middle of his race. The last runner came through our station at about 7:30am so after a little clean up we were out of there by 7:45am. I think clean up was the hardest part. Bending over is getting harder and harder for me these days. :) Once we were done I headed down to the finish line and I passed Brian around mile 18. He is such a strong runner, it amazes me.

The finish line was in downtown Provo at the Marriott. I got there a little before 9am and found a pretty good spot to wait for Brian to come through. He gave me an estimate that he would finish somewhere between 9 and 9:30am. I'm not very familiar with marathon times so I didn't realize how fast he would have to run to make it in that time. After about 20 min of waiting he appeared at the end of the shoot within the time frame he had estimated. It was so fun to see him and everyone around me helped me cheer for him as he ran by. I think he was a little confused when people he didn't know were yelling out his name and cheering for him.

His end time ended up being 3 hrs 19 min. He really wanted to make the Boston-qualifying time of 3 hrs 10 min but it just didn't work this time. I reassured him that it was ok since this was his first marathon ever. Crazy boy! Here is another neat medal to add to his growing collection.

On June 16th we both volunteered for the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay. A team from our ward wanted Brian to run on their team but since he just ran the a marathon he decided it wasn't a good idea for his body to run two races so close together. So we told them we would be 2 of the volunteers they needed to provide for their team. It ended up being really fun and quite easy. We were assigned to an aid station located just outside of Coalville. Of course I didn't get a picture of the aid station we were at or the other  really cool volunteers we were with. The only thing I captured from the experience was a video of a cow mooing. Exciting right? I won't bore you with that video.

On June 23rd Brian ran another race. This one was called the Wahsatch Steeple Chase. It was a 16 1/2 mile trail race that started at Memory Grove and went up City Creek Canyon. The runners climbed about 4,000 feet in elevation. I won't go too much into the details. All you need to know is that it was a hard race. Here he is waiting for the race to begin. And Luke is standing next to him. He's probably yawning because it is 6 in the morning on a Saturday.

He fits in so well with this crowd.

And I actually got a picture of him crossing the finish line at Memory Grove with a time of 2 hrs 53 min. It's kind of hard to tell that it's the finish line because it's not marked and there are a lot of people just standing around.

I think that is the last of his races for a while. Besides a 10K with his family this weekend. I think the next big race he is planning on is the Big Cottonwood Canyon Marathon that is taking place on Sept. 22nd. We'll see how that goes.

And I'll leave you with a few more pictures.

34 weeks! August 5th is coming fast.

And yes I feel huge.

I'm not sure how to describe this photo. I'll just let you enjoy it.



29 Weeks!

We made it to 29 weeks! Can you believe it?

Our little one is moving constantly and sure packs a wallop!

And since I don't enjoy all of the attention here is a picture of some trees in our yard. Or is it just trees?

25 Weeks

I finally gave in and had Brian take a picture of my pregnant belly. I feel so awkward in most of my cloths that I don't usually like the way I look. But yesterday I was feeling pretty good besides the fact that I have a cold and an eye infection. Luckily you can't tell that in this picture.

 Here I am at 25 weeks - a little over 6 months.

  

 Please disregard the dead plant in the back ground. :)

And here is a picture of the proud father of our little girl. We can't leave him out!

Canal!

This should be my last post about Panama. Sorry it has taken me so long to get the whole trip covered. This post is about the last tour we were able to go on. It was called the Partial Transit of the Panama Canal. On this tour we were able to get a first-hand view of the Canal operation by going through 2 sets of locks, the Pedro Miguel and the Miraflores. The following graphic shows how the canal operates.

The reason they raise and lower the boats is because the lake (Gatun Lake) in the middle of the Canal is at 85 feet above sea level. So they raise the boats to the level of the lake and once you get to the other side they lower you back down to sea level. On a typical day they said it takes 8 hours to get from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and vice versa through the Canal. 

We started our trip in the middle of Gatun Lake and headed towards the Pacific Ocean.This is the lovely boat we spent the majority of the day on.

 Along the way we passed underneath this neat bridge that was built by the US. It is the only bridge that crosses over the Canal. And apparently it is a tradition to kiss someone while you are directly under the bridge. At least that is what the tour guide told us.

A little while after the bridge we came upon the first set of locks. We were headed for the lock on the left while this huge ship carrying cars was headed for the lock on the right.

As we approached the lock they opened up this huge door so we could go in.

 

This is what it looks like inside the lock. They said the locks are 1000 feet long and 110 feet wide. They try to squeeze as many boats/ships as possible in at one time to conserve water since all the water is fresh water flowing in from Gatun Lake and it is currently their dry season. 

We had to wait forever for this ship to come in behind us. If you look close there are little trains off to the sides guiding/pulling the ship into the lock. As you can see the ship barely fits width wise.  

Here is a lovely picture of us in front of the huge doors of the Pedro Miguel Lock.

Like I said there are huge doors right in front of our boat. They are the original doors from when the Canal was finished in 1914. Note the level of the water and then the next few pictures will show what it looks like as they lower the water. I think they said it takes about 2 minutes for the water to lower. 

Pretty neat huh? While they were opening up the doors we got a picture of me touching the wall next to our boat. We were told that it is good luck to do this. :)

After we got through this lock we headed for the Miraflores Lock. On the way we caught a brief glimpse of the Panama Temple.

The second lock took a lot more time to get through because we had to wait for the huge ship that was behind us at the first lock to catch up and go through the second lock with us. So while we waited we took some pictures. Here is one of the Panama Canal Visitor Center.

Here is a picture of.... Brian.

Finally the ship behind us caught up. I still can't believe how large that thing is.

Once the ship was secured behind us they lowered the water and let us through the huge doors.

This is the view looking back at the lock with a neat tug boat behind us.

We got another brief glimpse of the Panama Temple once we got out of the Canal. It is a really pretty temple.

It was at this point that we thought our tour would be over. Nope, we had to ride another hour to the dock where our bus was waiting for us. Mind you we had already been on this boat for about 6 hours and it was hot and humid. Let's just say the tour was awesome but we were exhausted. Brian found ways to entertain himself by taking pictures.

We are so exciting aren't we?

Well I have one more cool picture to show you of the Panama City skyline. We couldn't believe how many huge buildings they have. It was impressive.  

Well that is the end of our trip to Panama! I hope it wasn't too boring for everyone. :)