How many miles is a 10K?

I did something stupid yesterday. Well, I can’t say it was stupid in general, but it was definitely stupid for me.

I am now a proud member of a marathon relay team. Yes, I said marathon. I have only ran one distance race in my entire life, and I only did it for extra credit. Now I have to run a 10K (~6.2 miles) during the Colorado Colfax Marathon. Needless to say, I will have to do some training. Scratch that—a lot of training. Luckily, Josh has agreed to help me and is even attempting to create a relay team of his own. I’ll try to keep everyone updated on our training and (hopefully) progress.

Here's a shot from the race last year

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and Spring Break!!

It is a busy time of year. St. Patrick's Day and Easter were within a week of each other; spring break has arrived for those lucky enough to still get them; and everyone has been glued to the tv to see who will emerge victorious in their March Madness brackets. Except for getting to enjoy a spring break, I have been making the most of the holidays and March Madness. Josh and I celebrated St. Patrick's Day a few days early, but had a great time!

Happy Birthday Tim & Jen!!

We went down to Pueblo for Easter. There wasn't a huge crowd, but that was kind of nice. For dessert we had a pudding contest. The following puddings were submitted to be judged: lemon cream w/ fresh berries (Anna), mint chocolate trifle (Josh), and a dark chocolate cherry (Nicole). There wasn't an official vote, but word of mouth leads me to believe Josh won. He was pretty satisfied with his victory. I plan on letting him enjoy it for a while because he will be crushed when I win our March Madness pool. Go Kansas!!

Erick, Nicole, Abby, Anna, Erin & Josh at Easter

Trek to Pueblo: Part II The Gunslinger

The real purpose for our trip down to Pueblo this past weekend was to watch my sister, Anna’s basketball team play in the RMAC semi-final game. They were scheduled to play Fort Lewis who was ranked #9 in the nation. This turned out to be one of the best basketball games I have seen down in Pueblo. The two teams were neck-in-neck the entire game. Although the game was in the afternoon, there was still a decent crowd and they were going nuts. My favorite fans were the family in front of us from Fort Lewis. It was a very skinny man in a t-shirt that read “Fear the Hawk” and his obese wife who cheered for good plays by yelling “Woooooo!!” and pointing both hands in the air in the shape of guns. By the end of the game she was so mad she was yelling profanities in my direction. If you haven’t been to a game with me before, I am competitive and I like to cheer, but I don’t make it personal. I just call ‘em like I see ‘em. Any way—the game ended up going into overtime and my sister’s team, CSU-Pueblo, won in the final play. It was a great game. The other entertaining part of the game was watching the self-appointed Hype Man for the other team, the legendary Mr. McCanne. He usually cheers for Adams State college. On big game nights he dawns a green boxing outfit complete with lace-up boots and gloves. Since Adam's State didn't make the tournament he decided he would still go out to pump up some of the other teams participating in the tournament. I'm telling you--this guy is serious. He stretches prior to each game and always maintains his game face. He was interesting enough for me to take this picture with him.

The RMAC Championship game was held on Saturday night between CSU-Pueblo and Nebraska-Kearney. I think Nebraska was ranked 26th in the nation prior to the game. Therefore, it was a good, competitive game. At the half, CSU-Pueblo had a slight lead, so I was feeling pretty good. What happened next made me feel even better, because it was absurd. The folks in the video are Shadow Warriors from Colorado Springs. My favorite part is Josh's commentary during the video. Hopefully the sound comes through for you.

Ok, back to the main event. During the 2nd half of the women's game, CSU built up a commanding lead and ran with it to the end of the game. This is only the 2nd RMAC Women's Basketball Championship for CSU-Pueblo. The first was during my sister's sophomore year, 2006. Now, they are heading to South Dakota for the National Tournament. They were lucky enough to draw the No. 1 team in the nation, South Dakota. They are also hosting the tournament. The other funny thing is that if they win the first round game, they will have to play either Fort Lewis or Nebraska-Kearney again (the teams they had to beat in the RMAC tournament). Life is funny.

Here is a sweet pic of my sister cutting down the net after the RMAC Championship game. Each person on the team got to cut a piece. Since she is a senior this year she was one of the last people to make a cut. It is the end of an era. It will be really wierd to not watch her play anymore. I guess when she is done with basketball she can always consider becoming a Shadow Warrior. I would totally go watch her do that.

Trek to Pueblo

This past weekend Josh and I made the trek down to Pueblo for a surprise visit. Keeping (innocent) secrets is extremely hard for Josh and I, so I couldn’t call my parents or sister all week for fear I would let the cat out of the bag. We took Friday off of work so that we could make it down to Pueblo in time for my sister Anna’s RMAC tournament semi-final game at 2:00. I will discuss the game in my next blog. First I need to mention the trip down. We had a couple of interesting stops and saw something amazing.

Before we left town, we stopped at a new cupcake shop in our neighborhood called Happy Cakes. They only bake cupcakes—which I happen to love. Each day of the week they feature special flavors in addition to their staples: vanilla on vanilla, vanilla on chocolate, chocolate on chocolate, and red velvet w/ cream cheese frosting. I bought all of the staples except red velvet (probably a mistake to skip) plus the following flavors: Lemon Drop, Jack and Coke, and Cosmo. We ended up sampling them later that night with my parents and sister. All were quite tasty, excluding the cosmo cupcake. I took one bite of the cosmo cupcake and wanted to barf. With that exception, I would recommend stopping by Happy Cakes and sampling their fare. I really want to try the Chai cupcake.

We also stopped by the Big City Burrito near Monument for lunch. I am so glad this Fort Collins classic was built along my route from Denver to Pueblo. It is perfectly located for a mid-trip snack. I got a potato burrito. . . .and it was delicious.

After our delightful pit stop, we continued down I-25 towards Pueblo. I think we were near Fountain when we passed by a large, curious-looking machine in the median. It was so strange looking that both Josh and I stared out the window as we passed it and continued to watch through the mirrors down the road. As we watched through the mirrors we saw the machine devour a pine tree from top to bottom in less than 4 seconds. It was amazing. Both Josh and I were in shock. The tree that was just standing a few seconds prior was ground up into tiny pieces that were scattered around the machine. The event was over so quickly, I was unable to snap a photo. However, when I went home and googled it I found this photo. I think this is what we saw. The T-REX 500.

Just One More Stop. . . I promise

Friday night I went out downtown with some of my girlfriends. We attended the Jet Hotel / Vodka 14 Leap Year Party. Fun was had by all. . . especially after 2 free Vodka 14 cocktails and four free shots obtained through my friend Mariyah’s charms and social connections. This was in addition to the drinks I consumed while we all were getting ready at my house earlier that night.

Although I’m sure this sounds like tremendous fun, the interesting stuff didn’t happen until we left the bar to go home. Josh had already gone to bed—he was snowboarding all day so I can’t blame him for wanting to be in bed at 2:00 am. However, since he was asleep, we had to catch a cab. As the four of us poured into the cab you could tell the poor driver was dreading the trip to come. About 4 minutes into the ride, someone mentioned how hungry they were. That started a chain reaction of fast food desire that could not be stopped. Before we knew it, the cab was in the Taco Bell drive through located on Federal Blvd. The cab driver, Nassar, pulled up so we could order through the back window--smart guy. For one reason or another, the person taking our order at Taco Bell could not understand our order in English. They could only hear the words we said in Spanish. Therefore, the entire order was taken in Spanish. Luckily we had two people who were fluent in Spanish in the car.

The absurdity didn’t stop here. Two of the four decided they didn’t want Taco Bell and preferred

Burger King. Luckily, there was a Burger King located down the street, so we proceeded to run up our meter a little longer. While in the drive through at Burger King Julia asked the person at the window, "What kind of sauce is on the BK Big Fish sandwich." There was a long pause. . . . . then the attendant responded, "Big Mac sauce." We all sat there for a moment wondering if we heard her right, so Julia attempted to clarify the situation by asking, "Big Mac sauce?? Like, from McDonald's?" The was followed by a simple, "yes." I guess this proves you never know what you will learn on a $21 cab ride from downtown to Federal Blvd. to my house. Just when you think you have a small grasp on life, someone tells you there is Big Mac sauce on a Burger King fish sandwich. I feel so lost.