Weekend Camping Trip

This past weekend my family headed out for our first camping trip in almost 7 years. I will say that I was a bit skeptical at first, but had a great time. This trip came about due to some friends of ours wanting to head to Camp Rudolph near Holiday World for one of their Halloweekends.

So we armed ourselves with all the necessities. New sleeping bags for everyone, old faithful tent, plenty of food, and a case of Sam Adams Winter Classics. And off we went.

We headed out on Friday and arrived a little after 1:30 pm central time to our destination. It probably only took us about an hour from arrival to beer in hand. The tents went up without a hitch. Then it was down to just relaxing and taking it easy.

As we settled in, we noticed that there were several campers around us that were participating in the site decorating contest. There was one set of campers that were actually constructing a haunted house. It was a pretty impressive site.

Friday was awesome. Just sitting around the fire hanging out with good friends. We all called it a night around 11:00 pm, I believe. I will say that I was surprised that sleeping on the ground wasn't that bad.

Saturday it seemed like everyone woke around the same time. I would say that it was around 8:00 am, but I am not exactly sure on the time. Then it was another day of hanging out by a nice fire and enjoying spending time with good friends.

That night they had Trick or Treating for the kids and the judging of the sites. Needless to say, the Haunted House took first place. There were also lots of cool costumes. I believe it was around 11:00 pm when we called it a night this time as well.

Sunday morning we had to pull up stakes and return to reality. But I will say, that we all had a great time. It was nice just hanging out with the family, without all of the distractions of TV and computers. We will definitely be doing this again.

I will leave you with a few pics. Enjoy.

Christian Academy 4 Miler

Yesterday Chris and I ran the Christian Academy 4 Miler. Chris had told me about this run a couple of weeks back and it sounded like a good run. Someone in his family goes to school there, so that is how he found out about it.

The day started off fairly early for me. I ended up waking up a little after 3:30 am and could not seem to get back to sleep. So I just watched a little tv and tried to get myself ready for running in 40 degree weather. Now I know that some hardcore runners might think that sounds warm, but it has just started to turn colder around here and we are still adjusting.

After having a bagel for breakfast, I got suited up and waited on Chris to show up around 8:00 am. He was right on time. We then headed over to Christian Academy to get signed in and pick up our swag. As we entered the campus we saw tents near the football field, so naturally we headed up there thinking it was the sign in. It was not. We were directed to the gymnasium area, which was cool with us since it was inside.

After getting signed in, we stood around for awhile looking for an old classmate who had decided to join us on this run. At almost race time we found him. Shortly after we were instructed to head to the starting line.

I had told Chris that my goal was to run the 4 miles in 32 minutes. He was a bit skeptical that he would be able to maintain the 8 minute pace the entire way. I was confident that he could.

As the run started, our classmate left us behind. He had mentioned that his goal was to run a 7:30 mile. So we let him go and settled into what felt like and 8 minute pace. At the first mile we were at 8:02 and right on track. The second mile we were at 15:30, so we had picked up the pace a bit. We realized that we needed to reign it in a bit to finish in 32. At the third mile we were at 23:40. We had managed to slow things up a bit. The course had quite a few hills in it. One being a downhill at the beginning that we knew we would have to climb before the finish. That last hill sucked. As we made it to the top of the last hill Chris had to walk for a couple of seconds. He told me he would see me at the finish. The race finished up with a lap around the track. I ended up finishing in 31:02 and in 16th place over all. Chris ended up with 31:28 and 18th place over all.

After the run we made our way to the food, which was awesome. There were chicken biscuits, bananas, muffins, and giant cinnamon rolls. NOM NOM NOM! We hung out for awhile to see some of the awards. But after cooling down, the cold got the better of us and we headed home.

It was a great run with great friends. That's what makes it enjoyable for me.

You can check out pics by heading over to Chris's blog. They are awesome.

Later

Down Syndrome of Louisville 5K

Saturday morning I ran in my second Down Syndrome of Louisville's annual 5k. This event is used to raise money and awareness for Down Syndrome. It was an awesome event.

The morning started off for me around 5:30 am. This was due to the fact that I wanted to get up early enough to try and score some University of Kentucky Big Blue Madness tickets that were going on sale at 6:00 am. I was lucky enough to get some. This event sold out in about 10 minutes. The tickets are free, but due to the fact that I had to go through ticketmaster, they cost me about $7.

After that my wife and I headed over to the event. Unfortunately due to work and other obligations, Chris was not able to run in this event. That kinda sucked. I would have to say that next to my kids, he is my favorite running partner. Once I arrived at the waterfront I found Z, who was running, and headed to the sign in area. Shortly after I got signed in Sam showed up. I think that Sam has only ran in a couple of official runs, but he runs every day at lunch. After meeting up with everyone we made our way to the start. There were probably around 200-300 participants. Sam said that his goal was to hit 26 minutes for this run. I told him I was shooting for 24. Z just wanted to finish before Sam, who beat him last year.

At 8:15 we were off. Z stayed with me until just after the first mile. I tried to motivate him to keep up, but he just didn't have it. So I was soon on my own. I ended up finishing the run in 23:53. Which ended up being about 1 minute faster than last year. Z was up next and finished in 24:50, I think. Sam finished up with a 26:06. I think that all of the times would have been a little bit faster if the course had been different. At the start we were really bunched up due to the lack of running room on the sidewalks near the river. Still good times and everyone hit their goals.

After the run, we hung out and checked out the booths before participating with Double D and his family in the walk.

All I can say is that it was a great time.

Up next for me will be the Christian Academy 4-miler in a couple of weeks with Chris. Should be fun.

Later