Balloon-a-Thon

Our ballon is the Touchstone Energy balloon with the white stripe.

This weekend marked the 37th annual Balloon Stampede in Walla Walla.  I'd never really been to this event before, and didn't get much of a chance to partake this year since two of the three days were totally rained out (we are drenched over here in Walla).  Instead of checking out the balloons launching, I actually got to (sort of) participate!  My friend Stacey asked me if I'd take her place in running the 1st annual Balloon-a-thon.  I love this kind of thing, have always loved organized races in general, so I jumped at the chance.  

Instead of your traditional triathalon (swim / bike / run) this balloon-a-thon was first a hot air balloon leg, then a 15 mile bike and a 5.8 mile run.  Due to the lack of professional hot air balloon pilots, there were only six teams, but it was a ton of fun.  Our balloon came in first by a long shot, but then our bike was just a touch slower than the rest of teams (in his defense, the other teams had somehow recruited world class road bike racers - these guys were decked out ala Lance Armstrong and our poor guy was out for a Sunday ride).  I started and finished the running leg in 4th place with a biker dude on a Harley Davidson escorting me the whole way (since they couldn't close down all the intersections for the course, they got each team their own Harley escort).  Overall we took 4th, but with our fundraising effort we tied for 2nd.  Andy brought the kids to the finish line and it was so great to run straight to the kids and scoop them up after the run.  What a fun event to be a part of!

Not to toot my own horn, but since I'm so excited to be getting back into shape after what amounts to nearly three years of pregnancy & nursing, I am thrilled to report that I finished the 5.8 mile course in 45:24 (a pace of 7:49/mile).  An improvement over my Bloomsday pace and a definite step toward the half marathon goal I have in mind!

Can't wait to run in this next year!

Above is our balloon during the race.  Sherri White, the pilot, is on the left.

Mama's Day

I can't believe this was my 3rd Mother's Day.  This year more than any other, I certainly feel like I earned it :-)  Reflecting on this year...man it has not been easy.  But it has also been full of many blessings and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel so-to-speak.  I feel like we've turned a corner with the kids becoming easier, I almost want to pinch myself!  We had a wonderful day, took a long walk and ended up at breakfast where the kids were total angels in the restaurant, which is turning into a trend -- dare I say it?  Restaurants with the kids have never been our forte but somehow lately it's our favorite thing to do.

Jameson's cheese face.

We picked flowers and enjoyed the sun.

Impossible to get a shot of all of us these days.

Went grocery shopping (ah the life of a mom)

 

Andy picked this card out for me, thinking it said "we love our mama" :-). 
Yeah he won't live that one down for a while!

And last but certainly not least -- Happy Mother's Day to Grandmas Joyce, Vicki, Allison & JoAnn and Great Grandma's Joyce, Alva May & Linda -- We are ALL so lucky to have you!

"Frama" = Hadley's version of Grandma

The Luckiest

This picture make me want to have like 10 more kids, right this minute.

Eight Hundred and Eleven

Eight hundred and eleven.  That's the number of days that we've been parents. 

Somewhere north of a hundred.  That's the number of meals we've eaten out at restaurants with the kids. 

(Eat is probably not a proper term in our case.  Shoveling half a plate of food into our mouths and pounding our beers like we were freshman in college in hopes that one of us might actually finish our food & beverage before a plate goes flying, someone gets sporked in the eye, or a spontaneous bongo drum session breaks out on the table). 

Two.  The number of compliments we've received telling us that our children are 'the most well behaved kids anyone has seen in a restaurant'. 

Yep, we're confused too. 

We'll take it!

Bloomsday

I have been wanting to run Bloomsday for years.  It's a race my mom has done a number of times and somehow I just never made it over to Spokane to do it.  So, since I'm signed up for the Seattle Rock n Roll Half Marathon in June (uh oh I've now said it publicly, I'm going to have to pony up), May 1st seemed like the perfect time to run a 12k race.  The Staceys are also training for the half so we made a girls weekend of it and left the husbands with all the kids and drove over Saturday.

At the starting line



Spokane was chilly (42 degrees at the starting line) but during the race the sun came out and the atmosphere was so festive.  There were even guys camped out on the "doomsday hill" handing out beer to those runners who decided to quit part way up the 3/4 mile long 11% grade hill.  It was a doozie!! 

Despite the hills, the course was a lot of fun and it seemed every resident of Spokane was out cheering, there were bands playing every quarter of a mile or so -- it was a ton of fun.  Andy asked me how many people ran it and I said "oh I don't know, ten thousand?"  He totally didn't believe me.  So this morning I looked it up, and sure enough I was wrong.  There weren't ten thousand runners - there were fifty thousand!  So you can imagine the amount of energy that crowd was putting off.  It was a total blast.

I've been training since about January and though I may not be as fast as I once was, I managed to cross the finish line in 1:04:09 -- a pace of 8:35 minutes per mile.  I was really proud of myself for getting there after two pregnancies in three years and limited time to train.  No where to go but up, but this is a start and I am feeling great.

The Stacey's also totally rocked it -- Botimer crossed in 1:11 and Lewis pulled off an AMAZING 1:16 after literally training for like two weeks to get ready for it.  Something tells me that girl is going to rock Seattle's world at the half marathon!

Here were my stats (I love how they put all these stats together and have them ready the following morning):

Shannon M Block
Finish Time: 1:04:09

Overall Place: 4,089 out of 50,611
Ran with a pace of 8:35 per mile
The average pace for 29-year-olds was 13:52
Placed 127th among 926 people the same age
Placed 29th among 325 people from Walla Walla, WA
Placed 3,050th among 40,267 people from Washington
Placed 1st among 4 people with the same last name
Placed 1,042nd among 30,568 females
Placed 38th out of 613 among 29-year-old females
Placed 257th out of 4,273 people in your age group

And here we are enjoying a much deserved post-race beer.



We had an amazing weekend and all the dads did great back at home.  Although Andy definitely didn't score any points for housecleaning, I'd say daddy daycare was an overall success.  We're planning on doing this race every year and I think next year we'll take the husbands along -- hey, Grandma, want to babysit?  May 6th 2012 here we come!