OREGON:
The day after I stopped working my family got in the car and started our long drive from California up to Washington. I thought that it would be a good idea a few months ago to sign up for a marathon on the way to Washington and low and behold there was a marathon in Bend, Oregon at just the right time that we could stop on our way north. I told my brother-in-law, Cody that I found a good marathon for us to run and he agreed to it so our plans were set. On the way to Bend we stopped at Crater Lake. It was absolutely beautiful! Its amazing how blue the water is and how little (3 ft.) the depth can change in a year. We continued on to Bend and went to collect our timing chip and tried to relax a little the night before the race. My only other marathon experience was in San Diego with nearly 45,000 other racers so when we showed up to the starting line to find about 150 people it was quite the shock. The Haulin' Aspen marathon is 99% on trails and the majority of those trails are single track mountain biking trails through the woods. It starts at 3500 feet of elevation and climbs to nearly 6100 feet in elevation before it starts its decent at mile 13.1. In preparation for this marathon Cody and I had run a few hills but weren't really expecting what was in store for us. The first 9 miles were very fast and actually rather enjoyable but then... THE HILL! We came out of the woods onto a service road and from that point until mile 13 was straight up. For the first 9 miles of the race we only saw a few racers but then on the hill everyone came together and it became apparent that running up the hill was not in our best interest. We tried to run as much as we could but ended up hiking the majority of the hill. Our half marathon time was 2:05 which is extremely respectable considering the fact that the entire first half was up hill. Our goal for the race was "to finish" but when we saw our first split at 2:05 I started thinking about finishing under 4:00. I think the saying "what goes up, must come down" applies to everything, except this marathon. At the 13.1 aide station they told us that it was "all down hill from there!"---They lied. We began the decent and I was feeling pretty good but then the toll that the first half took on my body caught up to me and even though they said it was "all down hill" we ran over rolling hills for pretty much the rest of the race. My legs were cramping up and I started to get light headed and I decided that my goal of "just finishing" was starting to look more likely than the sub 4:00 time I had dreamed of at the top of the hill. We ended up finishing with a time of 4:43:10 which is embarrassing to write but that was still good enough for top 40% and I was 3rd in my age group. I guess when the marathon claims that it is a challenging marathon it might be good to take note and actually train hard---lesson for later in life maybe.
After the marathon we got in the car and continued driving up to Washington. We stopped in Tacoma at one of the scariest hotels I've ever had the privilege of staying at. There were five of us in the room and being the one that's not married I always get to sleep on the floor. I decided that sticking my air mattress directly up against the door of the hotel room would be the safest because that would keep the door shut if anyone tried breaking in. It didn't help that the bottom of the door was bulging out a couple inches...
After our night in Tacoma we drove the rest of the way into Seattle and picked up C.J., Keri and Anneka and drove back south to go hiking at Mt Rainier. I had never been to Mt. Rainier so I was pretty excited to see it up close and personal but as we got closer, my hopes of seeing it began to fade due to poor weather conditions. We debated turning around but decided that it would be fun to go hiking even if we couldn't actually see the mountain. This turned out to be one of the best decisions of the trip because as soon as we got in Mt. Rainier National Park the skies opened up and we saw Mt. Rainier in all it's glory!
The following day we went on a ferry ride to Friday Harbor and convinced Cody further that my parents know somewhere everywhere they go (my Dad's cousin was on the boat right behind us).
The rest of the trip to Washington was spent at a family reunion in Mt. Vernon celebrating my grandparents 61st wedding anniversary. Yes we realize that normal families celebrate the 5s or 10s but we decided to change it up a little. It was great to see the majority of the DeGroot side of my family and was also really cool to see God's faithfulness to the 4 generations that were represented.
California-Colorado-Iowa-Colorado
As soon as we got back to California from Washington, I started packing my stuff in my car so I could move to Colorado and also go visit Jocelyn in Iowa. One of my roommates from Dordt (Devin) decided that he wanted to fly to California just to give me some company on my way to Denver. We left early on a Wednesday morning and arrived in Golden, Colorado that night. I got some sleep and got in my car again the next morning and finished driving out to Iowa. Somewhere in my mind I remembered someone telling me that Iowa was basically under water all summer but when I was driving I forgot that fact and had to take a pretty good sized detour on the way. I also had to pull my car over a few times because I was in a hail storm the I didn't think should be messed with (there were several cars that had cracked windshields or no back window). I spent a week in Iowa visiting with friends from Dordt and spending time with Jocelyn and then finally arrived back in Denver after a little car trouble this past Thursday.
I got to meet my classmates at a bbq Friday night and start orientation tomorrow morning! Its intimidating to think about the next three years of school but I think I'm ready!
I realize that was a very long winded blog but there has been a lot that has happened in the past month!
