More Naples Pictures

Here are a few more Naples pictures.  You can never have too many of the beach and the water.  I love it!!!

Scorpion (don't worry, he's dead, we checked!)

Wiggins Pass

Back of Jim's House

Flowers outside Jim's house

More flowers

Naples

Last Friday, Jan 14-Monday Jan 17th I went to Naples, FL for a long weekend.  I went for many reasons but the big ones were to run the Naples News Half Marathon with Mark, to see Mark, Sue and Mark's dad Jim (which is where we stayed) and to see my Godfather Brent and see his house and hang with him for a day.  So needless to say, lots of really good reasons to go to Florida in January.  Oh yeah, and because Florida is the only state without snow and here in Buffalo it's always snowing, everyday, sometimes multiple times in a day.  I didn't take my shorts off the whole trip!  It was awesome.  

I flew in early Friday morning and Brent picked me up at the airport.  One slight miss-hap getting off the plane.  A person on our plane couldn't wait 3 hours to smoke and was caught smoking in the bathroom on the plane.  So a man in a haz-mat suit had to check out the plane and the police and eventually the FBI had to have a fun visit with this man.  Federal offense.  Dumb idea.  Anyway.  Other than that the flight was great.  I highly recommend Jet Blue to fly with.  Brent and I headed to his house, I met his friend Jim and then we headed to the beach.  And oh was the beach beautiful.  White sand, lots of shells to pick, beautiful (but cold) water. 

Back of Brent's house

Barefoot Beach (Gulf of Mexico)

Shells

Barefoot Beach

Beautiful

We did a little more sightseeing and then headed to Jim's house.  Where I met this pretty lady.  Trudy.  Trudy and I became good friends over the few days I was there.  She's a sweetie.

Trudy

Saturday Mark and I went running, in shorts, and then went and picked up our packets and did a little sightseeing. After lunch we hit the beach.

Beach with Condos in the distance

More condos in a pass

Beach

Pelican

Sunday was the race.  Mark and I ran together, both with colds but we made it.  It was funny to see all the natives there with jackets and long sleeves and even some gloves and hats.  Mark and I had on sleeveless shirts and shorts.  Funny!  The race was very well run, there were about 2,000 runners and the course weaves though the "high rent district" of Naples.  Some major money where we ran.  Beautiful homes.  We even had a priest bless us, twice, on the race course.  A very nice race and one we hope to do again and hopefully feel better.  The rest of the day we just relaxed at the beach. 

Monday, Mark and I went running on the beach.  Past some beautiful beach homes.

And picked some shells.  It rained pretty much the rest of the day so we did a little shopping and hit the Naples Pier.  This pier has been rebuilt year after year when it gets knocked out from a hurricane.  We also saw some people wind surfing since there were actually waves.  Cool stuff!

Wind Surfing

Naples Pier

Naples Pier

And a great way to end the trip.  A rainbow over the lake outside Jim's house.  (On the left is a key lime tree.  Awesome key lime pie was made as well!)

Fun stuff!!

I haven't been very good about updating my blog lately, sorry to my few followers.  I seem to run out of hours in the day.  I have lots of fun posts started so I will finish them soon.  Promise.  I also have lots of really good recipes to post too, I have been doing lots of baking!  Anyway, a quick little update of what's been going on since my last post, the Turkey Trot.  Thanksgiving came and went.  Lots to be thankful for.  Did some early morning shopping with the crazies on Black Friday and went to Canada and did some more shopping at Ikea on Saturday.  The following weekend we took a long weekend, packed up the car and headed down to Harrisburg, PA.  We went to Hershey World, Yuengling Brewery and Gettysburg.  That area, and the drive down there, are really pretty.  Lots of hills and pretty much not a straight road (which Asher didn't care for) but beautiful sights.  This trip would be awesome in the fall.  It was nice being able to run down there with no snow to contend with.  Back in Buffalo, we had just gotten about 20 inches and things were a mess so this was a nice little bit of relief.  This past weekend we took a quick trip to the largest Kazoo manufacturer in North America (who knew this was in our new backyard).  And the UWGB men came to Buffalo to play against the University at Buffalo (UB) so I got to see them play.  That was cool.  I was the only one cheering.  It was kind of funny.  Then that night I got to see my first NHL game.  We had our company Christmas party on Saturday and part of that was a game in our company suite.  We are the energy provider and a big supporter of the Buffalo Sabres so we get some VIP treatment.  It was an awesome experience.  One I plan to repeat again.  Things will calm down a bit now before the big trip back to Wisconsin for Christmas.  Oh and it's snowing here....again.  I think I better get used to this. 

Long time....no update

I haven't written on here in a long time, sorry about that to my couple of readers.  Things have been going on I just haven't had a spare chance to write about them.  So I'll do my best to update you and keep you updated in the future.  First and foremost I have a new address and even a new time zone.  On October 24th Jeff, Asher and I packed up our vehicles and moved to Buffalo, NY.  I had a job transfer that I have known about since the first part of the year and this was finally the weekend to do it.  The moving truck came on Thursday and Friday, packed up all of my belongings and loaded them into this huge truck.  The guys were awesome.  Very friendly and helpful.  And best part is they packed everything and had to carry it and put it on and take it off the truck.  That's one of the worst parts of moving, in my opinion.  Jeff and I each drove our cars, Asher with me, to Cleveland on the 24th and the rest of the way to Buffalo on the 25th.  We lived on very minimal items until our stuff came on Thursday, the 28th.  I have never been so happy to see my stuff!  The movers moved everything into the apartment and storage unit in a matter of about 5 hours.  It was crazy and there was stuff everywhere!!  It was tricky getting everything put away and cleaned up.  I downsized from a house, with essentially 3 floors and a 2 car garage to a two bedroom apartment with no basement and a one stall garage.  Thank goodness for the storage unit!  It took almost two weeks but we finally got almost everything put away.  It was nice to be able to use the living room, workout room and kitchen again.  Now that we have everything moved in we have spent our time exploring the area and all there is to do here.  We don't know how long we will be here so we plan to live like tourists and see and do as much as we can.  I plan to write about as many of these as I can.  The weather has been mild so far, so that has allowed us to get in some outside activities which has been fun.  Asher and I have been having a blast finding new running routes around our apartment.  I have been biking on my trainer in our workout room and I found a great pool that is super quiet downtown that I have been swimming at.  The Y pool was hot and had too many floaters for me.  I miss my friends back home but am trying to stay in touch with them as much as possible.  I hope to get involved in some groups here to meet some people, not to replace, just in addition to the great people I have already met on my life's journey.  Apartment life is going okay so far.  I was very worried about how Asher would do with the move but he's doing great.  We have actually worn him out so much he's snoring by 9 at night.  Lots of dogs in the complex for him to check out too so we'll have to get out and meet them.  So I guess......let the journey begin....

Busy

Sorry, no blogging lately.  It's been a busy couple of weeks.  To start from the beginning, June 19th was the High Cliff Half Ironman.  Then Sunday, Jeff, Asher and I packed up our rented mini-van and started our trek to New York state.  Sunday night we drove to Cleveland, Ohio, which is about 10 hours from De Pere.  Monday we drove from Cleveland to Buffalo.  Monday night we went to Niagara Falls and took Asher and walked across the Peace Bridge into Niagara Falls, Canada.  Tuesday thru Friday I worked in our Buffalo office and Jeff and Asher hung out.  Friday we drove to Ithaca, NY and the Finger Lakes region.  We stayed in Ithaca until Tuesday morning and saw some very awesome things nature has created.  We saw about a million water falls and some of the hilliest roads this side of the Rockies.  Tuesday we started to head for home with a stop at Letchworth State Park, about an hour east of Buffalo.  It's coined as "The Grand Canyon of the East".  After Letchworth we headed to South Bend for our layover.  Wednesday we headed for home.  Wednesday night and Thursday morning I met with my new coach.  And today we ran in the third annual Fox Firecracker 5K.  It's been a very busy last two weeks.  2500 miles on the road and millions of dollars deposited in tolls but we made it safe and sound.  Lots of good stuff and lots to be thankful for.  I will post in more detail with pictures from High Cliff and our NY trip in more posts.  Hope all is well with everyone and Happy Independence Day!!

LA Pictures

While in LA for the marathon we got to do quite a bit of sightseeing.  We spent quite a bit of time in Venice and Santa Monica.  We also drove up to Malibu but couldn't even afford to look in any stores so we came back.  (The houses on the cliff over-looking the ocean are crazy!!)  Tuesday morning we ran on the beach down to Manhattan Beach.  While running we saw lots of Dolphins and Surfers in the ocean.  It was really cool.  We ate at a Pinkberry and hit the Farmers Market in Beverly Hills too.  Both very neat and nothing like we have here.  We really got to see a lot for being there for such a short period of time.  Lots to do and see there though.  Here are a few pictures from the trip:

Venice from Venice Pier

Sailboats out on the ocean

Me, doing my best Baywatch pose on Venice Beach

Malibu, CA

(From the car window)

Downtown LA

(From the car, look at all the traffic, and this is only a casual Saturday afternoon)

La Brea Tar Pits

(The pits were interesting, this was the biggest, but we didn't do the museum.  The museum has all of the fossils that they dig out of the pits)

La Brea Tar Pits

(See the bubbles in the tar, the tar isn't hot though)

Venice Beach

(I'd show up this guy's 6-pack but I didn't want him to feel bad. :)

Venice

(All the beaches we went to were very nice like this.  Well groomed, big and really nice.)

Venice Pier and Venice Beach

Venice Beach

Venice Canal

From our morning run, tanker boats unloading off the coast.  We also saw Dolphins as we were running.  Also there were a lot of surfers catching waves before work.  Really awesome!

LA Marathon March 21, 2010

26.2 miles, Los Angeles, CA, March 21st, 2010.....been there, done that.  A couple weekends ago I went to LA and ran the Los Angeles Marathon with my training partner Mark, his soon to be son-in-law Sam and Sam's roommate Laura.  This was to be Sam's first marathon and Laura's 2nd.  We were all excited.  Sam and Laura got to train in balmy LA while Mark and I gutted it out in another fun Wisconsin winter.  We were trained, tanned (well some of us) and ready to race. 

We flew to LA late on Friday night and went to the expo at Dodger Stadium on Saturday afternoon. 

Entrance to Dodger Stadium

Dodger Stadium is on the top of a hill, there is pretty much only one way in and one way out.  This resulted in some interesting traffic on Sunday morning.  The race filled to capacity, 25,000 runners.  This was the biggest marathon Mark, Sam or Laura had ever done (I did Chicago with 45,000 runners in 2008) so we were expecting big things.  We had been receiving emails everyday with important race information for us and our families and friends so we were getting lots of good information about the race.  Dodger Stadium was nice.  We got to walk about the stadium and take pictures of the field.  It's amazing how green everything was there.  Awesome to see. 

Dodger Stadium

They had a nice big expo, lots of stuff to do and see.  Picked up our packet and found out they ran out of some sizes of shirts, the shirts came in really small so everyone was sizing up.  Huh.  From there we checked out the start line and start coral. 

From Left to Right: Sam, me, Mark at the start line

Seemed really small to push 25,000 runners through.  And then we saw the porta's.....this was definitely going to be an issue race morning.  Not nearly enough.  Left Dodger Stadium and hit Hollywood for dinner and then home to rest the feet and mind for the next day.

Race day, beautiful weather, was supposed to get up to the mid 70's by the afternoon and was sunny (I guess it's always sunny in LA).  Good stuff.  We left the hotel at 5:30 and the drive was supposed to take about 20-25 minutes so we had plenty of time.  We were doing great until 2 miles from the Dodger Stadium exit and then we were in a huge traffic jam and totally stopped.  Not good.  It took us about 45 minutes to go those next 2 miles.  Again the problem, one way in and one way out for 25,000 people.  Not a good plan.  They race organizers encouraged people to park at the finish (there was not much parking at the finish) and shuttle to the start.  Well the shuttles were stuck in the same traffic we were.  Our rides were just going to go in and drop us off but it was still crazy.  People were starting to panic and were getting out of their cars on the interstate and running or walking to the race start.  We even saw people ducking behind bushes and trees doing to the bathroom alongside the freeway.  This was crazy.  Plus like I said before, Dodger Stadium is on a hill so to get there you have to climb the hill.  I didn't want to waste extra energy doing this, as did our other racers so we waited the line out and eventually got in.  The drop off was very smooth, just tough to get into the stadium for the drop off.  As soon as we got into the stadium we headed for the porta's and the line was forever.  They didn't have nearly enough porta's for all the people in the race.  People were climbing a hill and going behind bushes.  My luck is I would hurt myself doing that so I waited out the line.  45 minutes later we were all done and ready to head to the start line.  The race was supposed to start at 7:20-7:25 (I saw different times on this the weeks leading up to the race as well) but it started about 7:45, at least our portion of the race did.  This is a bit of a unique event, the women get a head start, this time it was around 18 minutes, on the men and the first individual to the finish line wins $100,000.  Last year a man won but it has traded hands between the men and the women for the last six years.  Kind of a cool thing.  Because the start chute was so small we had to wait outside the chute until the start.  Finally after almost 15 minutes of waiting (and hearing the kick off song 5 times) we crossed the start line. 

Our first mile was around Dodger Stadium, up a hill then down a hill.  We were passing people like crazy in the first few miles.  Because we started so far back we were with racers that were a bit slower than us so we passed a ton of people.  That feels good but it's also hard to get a rhythm dodging people all the time.  This race had a band at every mile, water every mile and Powerade every other mile.  The aid stations and volunteers were awesome.  Even with that amount of runners they did a great job.  They had lots of cups set up ahead but that goes quickly with 25,000 runners and they handled it well.  Mark and I carried our hand held bottle with Gatorade in it instead of using the Powerade on the course, I prefer Gatorade.  This worked out well.  We were clipping along at a nice pace, a little slower than we had planned, but with the amount of people and with us dodging people all the time this pace was suiting us just fine.  The first 6 miles are a loop around downtown and then we pass Dodger Stadium again before heading on Sunset Blvd into Hollywood, Beverly Hills and finally to Santa Monica and Ocean Ave for the finish.  The first 6 miles turned out to be pretty hilly, and not just little bumps in the road but some pretty steep things that were at least 1/4 mile long.  My heart rate was climbing with these hills and it getting warmer and I was having trouble keeping it down.  Even when we would walk through a water station it still didn't want to stay down.  I was getting worried and more concerned about it which wasn't helping to keep it down.  So far all 4 of us were staying together, chatting and Mark and I were learning about the city as we passed things from Sam and Laura.  We were having a blast.  At about the mile 10 mark, Mark and I got separated from Sam and Laura.  They were cruising along really good, my heart rate was high and we just lost them in a water station.  They were just ahead of us but we didn't push to catch up to them.  About mile 13.5 Mark and I passed Sam and Laura.  Sam was walking as he was having a calf cramp.  We were supposed to meet our support crew (Jeff, Sue, Michelle and Stephanie) at mile 14 to refill our water bottles with Gatorade and get more nutrition if needed.

Sue, Michelle and Stephanie Smith - Mile 14 Support Crew

(taken by Jeff, also in the support crew)

So we passed them and told them we would meet them just ahead.  We caught our group and waited for Sam and Laura to get there.

Mark and I at mile 14

They never showed so Michelle called Laura's cell phone, they missed them and were going to keep going.  Okay, so we headed out.  I felt good for the next few miles, before that I was not feeling real spunky to say the least.  About mile 17 I really started to fade.  My heart rate kept getting higher and higher.  I was doing okay on my nutrition (I was taking honey stingers and sucking on them, when one was done I would pop another one in and gatorade and water) but I was feeling a bit weak and my heart rate was high.  So we walked a bit, got it down and then kept going.  Mark was great, he just kept encouraging me to keep going and was okay with a few walk breaks.  We would walk through the water stations which helped.  Mentally I was doing okay but was warm and ready to be done.  We kept this up until we ran into Sam and Laura again at mile 24.  She looked great, Sam on the other hand was walking with major cramps in his legs.  Based on the fact that we had his nutrition because he didn't stop by the crew it was either nutrition or fluids or a combination of both that was getting him.  We told Laura to take off, there was a bet on the line with major money depending on how she finish, Sam was going to walk and Mark and I just wanted to get done.  The finish down Ocean Ave was long (almost 2 miles) and really played with you mentally but we did it, even picked it up in the end and finished strong.  We were happy to be done!  Our time: 4:30:19 (4:30:18 for Mark because he pushed me out of the way to beat me....not really but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!) didn't seem like a great time but now that the race is over and we saw the results we had an overall place of 5700 out of 22478 finishers.  Not bad when you look at it that way!  And a woman was first to the finish line and won the $100,000.  Super cool!!

After the race

From Left to Right: Sam, me, Laura, Mark

Final thoughts on the race.......not well organized at all.  If they are going to let 25,000 runners in, then they need to be ready for 25,000 runners, not 10,000.  The start and finish need to be more accessible to spectators and racers.  The stadium start and ocean finish are really cool but when it takes you 2 hours to get to the start and 2 hours to leave the finish it kind of takes some of the fun away from it all.  Volunteers were awesome.  Company was awesome. :)  I wish I would have felt better, but I did accomplish my goals for the day, to practice my new nutrition, run an early season marathon and finish, and just have fun.  Mark and I did get to mile 25 and Mark said to me, I like we forgot to look around for the last 25 miles like we planned, so next time I would like to make sure to focus on relaxing, having fun and enjoying the race.  Glad to get one under my belt for the year and ready to improve in Green Bay.

Here are some other random pictures from the race:

Wheelchair athlete

Mile 14 water stop - check out all those cups!!

The professional women at mile 14

The professional men at mile 14

Here is the elevation chart from the race:

Doesn't look so bad when you look at it like this but the elevation gain was 3,168 ft.